Cast Off Prejudice

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Speaking online to the devotees in Russia
10 August 2013

In India, people always look at your caste, they differentiate between brahmans, ksatriyas, vaisyas, and sudras. They are proud and criticise, "Oh, I am a sannyasi, you are just a householder." Gurudev told once a story showing that it is not good to do like this, and Jagadananda Pandit also told the same. I can tell you the story that Gurudev told.

Once, there was a fisherwoman who sold fish at the market. One day a brahman came to the market to buy some fish and he saw that the woman was using a using a salagram sila as her scale weight to measure the weight of the fish. The brahman became very angry, "Hey, a salagram sila is the Lord, and you are touching Him to the fish! You are making an offence! Give the salagram sila to me, I will take and worship it properly."

The brahman took the salagram sila to his house and kept it on his altar. Later at night time, that salagram sila, who is nondifferent from Krishna, appeared to him in a dream and said, "O brahman, why have you taken Me from there and brought Me here? I was playing, swinging on the scales—I was very happy there! Why are you keeping Me here? You are using Me for your own purpose! Take me back to that lady's house."

So, what we understand is that the lady sells the fish, but she does not eat it, and she used whatever profit she got to buy fruit, and she offered the bhog to the Lord, she worshipped the Lord, while that brahmin did not worship the deity. He kept the salagram sila and used it for his own purpose—he would show the salagram sila to people and ask them for money. So, Krishna did not want to stay with him and went to His devotee's house.

Question: How is it possible that Krishna chooses a devotee who sells fish?

Yes, that is the question! Actually, Krishna always chooses the better devotee. Krishna liked staying at the fisherwoman's house because although she sold fish she did not eat it—it is worse if you eat fish and do not do any service. Maybe that lady was a 50% devotee, not a 100% or 80% devotee, but the thing is that the brahman was a 0% devotee.

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