Treading the Wrong Path

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Speaking online to Caracas
3 June 2015

A few days ago, devotees arranged the festival at Panihati, Raghunath Das Goswami's danda mahotsav, punishment festival. Punishment means artha danda, money punishment. This is the festival that happened in Panihati a few days ago, and our temple also took part in it.

You must understand the meaning of what Nityananda Prabhu told Raghunath Das Goswami. Nityananda Prabhu said to him, "Ai, chora, ai!" It means, "Come, come to Me, you thief!" Why did Nityananda Prabhu call Raghunath Das Goswami a thief? Because when Mahaprabhu took sannyas and came to Advaita Prabhu's house, Raghunath Das Goswami went to meet with Him there, but he had not got permission from Nityananda Prabhu—he had not got mercy from Nityananda Prabhu but went to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu directly. He met with Mahaprabhu many times but each time he could not stay with Mahaprabhu: he did not get His mercy because he had not received mercy from Nityananda Prabhu first.

Then you can understand that you must receive proper mercy from Nityananda Prabhu first, and Nityananda Prabhu is Guru-tattva—if you receive proper mercy from Gurudev, then you can understand everything easily.

You are all practising properly, and you have full faith. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said, "There is no difference between brahmacharis and householder people." Their practice is a little different, but if you think, "You are a brahmachari, I am a householder," or "You are a householder, and I am a brahmachari," and you discriminate like this, you will have to go to hell! Do not criticise householder devotees.

Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur himself showed how important householder devotees are for our practising life, how much householder devotees do for the temple, for Gurudev, Guru Maharaj. Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj gave so much respect to the householder devotees. Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur himself was a householder, but all the big-big sannyasis would pay obeisance to him. Mahaprabhu said,

গৃহী হউক ত্যাগী হউক ভক্তে ভেদ নাই ।

ভেদ কৈলে কুম্ভীপাক নরকেতে যাই ॥

grhi ha-uka tyagi ha-uka bhakte bheda nai
bheda kaile kumbhipaka narakete yai

"There is no difference between devotees—be they householders or renunciants. If someone makes distinctions between them, they go to the hell of boiling oil (kumbhipaka)."

Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 17.22

If you read Prema-vivarta, you can understand it easily...

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