Deserve, Then Desire

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
22 February 2018, Kolkata, part 6

One fellow came here the day before yesterday (I cannot say 'a devotee', it would be an offence), and what he did here is not a devotee's character, what he did here disturbed me a lot. He thinks I am a child, a baby, and that I have so much vatsalya rasa [His Divine Grace laughs]...

Gurudev taught me so many lessons, and he also told me about management:

If somebody says to me, "Oh, that person is bad, he is bad, he is bad," I must first have to examine the person who is saying it—I must first see what he is like. These are Gurudev's words, I cannot forget it. First I must clarify who is speaking—I must not do anything against the person who he says is bad. Chastising somebody and saying, "Get out from here—he is saying bad things about you," is not my character. First I will listen, "OK, say it," then I will observe everything myself, then only I will give the judgement. Otherwise somebody says, "Oh, he is bad, he is bad," and I say to that person, "OK, get out," this is not my nature—you can do work under such a person, and you can never be like this.

So, that fellow came and said, "I want to be a trustee right now!" I told him, "What?! Prabhu, is it necessary to be a trustee to serve the temple?!" I was nothing—I was a servitor, a gatekeeper at Chaitanya Saraswat Math. I would lock the gate, I would keep the key with me, go to bed at 12 o'clock at night, and wake up at 4 o'clock to open the gate. This was my job, and other than this I was the manager, but I was not a manager in papers—I was in charge of the temple without any official declaration—no papers, nothing is necessary. Only in 2000 Gurudev gave me the position of a secretary—when Vrindavan Purnananda had resigned, Gurudev said, "Vinod will be the secretary." Otherwise I was a gatekeeper—locking the gate, keeping the key, etc. At that time there was no gate man outside the Math, I always kept the key with me.

So, for service, you can accept anything, and anything can happen.

— : • : —

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