A Life of Joy—Whose Joy?

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Speaking online to devotees in Italy
1 August 2015

Yesterday was the Guru Purnima day. We must always offer everything to our Guru, always think about our Guru...

Many problems will come in our spiritual life and it will give some temporary pain, but for the devotees it is actually nothing. We must continue our practising life, we must continue our preaching life—that is the most important thing. We must not only show to the people, "I am a devotee," we must behave as a devotee.

দৈন্য, দয়া, অন্যে মান, প্রতিষ্ঠা বর্জ্জন ।
চারিগুণে গুণী হই করহ কীর্ত্তন ॥

dainya, daya anye mana, pratistha-varjana
chari gune guni hai karaha kirtana

Humility, compassion, honouring others, and giving up prestige—become qualified with these four qualities and chant the Name.

This is Mahaprabhu's teachings and conception. We must not only say that we are Mahaprabhu's devotees—we must follow Mahaprabhu's teachings and conception properly, then we can progress in our spiritual life and be successful, then happiness will come to us.

ভুক্তি-মুক্তি আদি-বাঞ্ছা যদি মনে হয় ।
সাধন করিলে প্রেম উৎপন্ন না হয় ॥

bhukti-mukti adi-vancha yadi mane haya
sadhana karile prema utpanna na haya

Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 19.175

"Bhukti-, mukti-, siddhi-kami: if some kind of material desire is coming to your heart, then even if you practise Krishna consciousness, no joy, no happiness, no ananda will come in your life, in your heart." You can examine yourself and see the result yourself—what you are doing and what result is coming. You should think about it.

Practise Krishna consciousness properly and keep good association. Proper line and strongest faith are the main things for our spiritual life. Gurudev always said how important it is to have strongest faith. "শ্রদ্ধা-অনুসারী ভক্তি-অধিকারী, sraddha-anusari bhakti-adhikari: the quality of devotion depends upon faith" (Cc, 2.22.64). You can see somebody is 'earning' good devotion and somebody not—it depends upon their faith. You can see that those who have a lack of faith, have a lack of devotion also. Then you can understand easily how important it is for our spiritual life to have the strongest faith.

Those who have the strongest faith can succeed easily. You do not have to have much education or read many volumes of scriptures, you must only have the strongest faith... You heard about Kalidas: when he was in Puri, he drank the water that was used to wash Mahaprabhu's feet. No one could even touch Mahaprabhu's feet, so seeing that he was actually drinking that water, everyone rushed to stop him, but Mahaprabhu told them not to do it. He said to them, "In Bengal, he took the remnants of all Vaishnavs. You cannot stop him." This is kind of capacity, humility, tolerance, and this kind of Vaishnavism is necessary for our spiritual life.

We must understand, "How will I serve my Guru? How will I please my Guru?" It is not important that I become happy, it is important that I make my Guru happy. That is the main thing in our spiritual life.

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