---
type: Concept
bundle: bhakti-marga
bundle_version: "0.4.0"
id: seva
title: "Sevā — Selfless Service as Sādhana"
iast: "sevā"
devanagari: "सेवा"
description: "Loving service offered to the Divine, guru, and devotees as a spiritual practice. Not volunteering, not charity, not customer service, not unpaid labor."
darshana:
  - Bhakti (Vaiṣṇava Vedānta)
school_scope: "A limb of bhakti (pāda-sevana) across the Vaiṣṇava schools. Distinct from, though related to, the niṣkāma-karma of karma-yoga (reserved for the dharmic-ethics bundle)."
text_source: "Bhāgavata Purāṇa 7.5.23 (pāda-sevana); Bhagavad Gītā 9.27 (offering of action)"
tags:
  - seva
  - service
  - devotion
  - tier-2
not:
  - term: "volunteering"
    why: "volunteering is unpaid work for a cause, valued by its outcome; sevā is an offering of love to the Divine whose value is in the offering itself and the devotee's inner transformation, fruitful even when no visible good is produced"
    instead: "Render sevā as loving service or devotional service; not as volunteering."
  - term: "charity"
    why: "charity flows from giver to needy recipient and can carry the giver's pride; sevā flows from devotee to the Lord (and to all as the Lord's own), and its aim is the purification of the server, not the elevation of a benefactor"
  - term: "customer service"
    why: "customer service is transactional labor exchanged for payment or satisfaction; sevā seeks no return and is its own reward, an act of love rather than a delivered service"
  - term: "unpaid labor"
    why: "framing sevā as unpaid labor imports an economic lens of exploited or donated work-hours; sevā is a chosen spiritual discipline whose 'compensation' is the deepening of devotion, not a labor relation at all"
related:
  - /concepts/bhakti.md
  - /concepts/bhava.md
  - /concepts/guru.md
  - /concepts/prema.md
timestamp: "2026-06-25"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Sevā — सेवा

**Not:** volunteering, charity, customer service, unpaid labor

Sevā is loving service offered to the Divine, to the guru, and to devotees, undertaken as a spiritual discipline. As one of the nine limbs of bhakti (pāda-sevana, service of the Lord's feet), it is devotion enacted: love made concrete in attentive, humble action whose purpose is the transformation of the one who serves.

## Etymology

From the root √*sev* — to serve, to attend upon, to honor, to be devoted to. The same root carries "to honor / to worship" — to serve is, in this sense, already to revere. Sevā is therefore not menial work done for someone but attendance offered to someone honored; the serving and the revering are one act.

## What It Actually Means

In the navadhā structure, *pāda-sevana* (serving the feet of the Lord) is a full limb of devotion, and dāsya (the servant's mood) is one of the five primary bhāvas. Sevā can be offered directly to the Divine (tending the mūrti, maintaining the temple), to the guru (the disciple's primary practice), or to devotees and beings recognized as the Lord's own. What makes an action sevā is not its content but its inner orientation: it is done as an offering, without claim on the result, in the mood of love. The Gītā's instruction to offer all one does to the Lord (9.27) is sevā generalized to the whole of life.

## Sevā and Niṣkāma-Karma (a Distinction to Keep)

Sevā is close to, but not identical with, the *niṣkāma-karma* (desireless action) of karma-yoga. Both renounce attachment to fruits. The difference is relational: karma-yoga's selfless action is offered as discipline and duty performed without craving; bhakti's sevā is offered *to a Beloved* as an act of love and relationship. The karma-yogī acts rightly and releases the fruit; the devotee serves the Lord and delights in the serving. The full treatment of niṣkāma-karma belongs to the ethics vocabulary; here sevā is devotion's hands.

## Why the Substitutes Fail

"Volunteering" and "unpaid labor" measure service by output and by the economics of who is or is not paid, missing that sevā's fruit is inward. "Charity" introduces a benefactor-and-beneficiary hierarchy that sevā specifically dissolves, since the devotee serves the Lord in all and claims no merit. "Customer service" makes it transactional, the precise opposite of an offering that seeks no return.

## Cross-References
- [Bhakti](bhakti.md) — sevā is pāda-sevana, a limb of the ninefold path; devotion in action
- [Bhāva](bhava.md) — dāsya-bhāva, the servant's mood, is the disposition sevā expresses
- [Guru](guru.md) — service to the guru is the disciple's foremost sevā and means of learning
- [Prema](prema.md) — sevā matured by love becomes an expression of prema

## Audience Metaphor

Think of the difference between a hired nurse and a daughter caring for an ailing parent. Their physical tasks may be identical: lifting, feeding, cleaning, sitting through the night. But the nurse is performing paid labor measured by competence and hours, while the daughter is performing an act of love measured by nothing — she would not call it work, she is not owed for it, and the caring itself changes her. Sevā is the daughter's caring, turned toward the Divine and all the Divine's own. The hands look the same; the heart that moves them is the whole difference.

## Citations

1. [Bhāgavata Purāṇa](/references/bhagavata-purana.md) 7.5.23 — pāda-sevana as a limb of navadhā bhakti
2. [Bhagavad Gītā](/references/bhagavad-gita.md) 9.27 — "whatever you do, offer it to Me": action transfigured into devotional service
3. [Nārada Bhakti Sūtra](/references/narada-bhakti-sutra.md) — loving service as an expression of single-pointed devotion
