Servant Consciousness

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
20 October 2018, Dum Dum Park, part 2

Once, an ISKCON devotee came to Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj and asked Srila Sridhar Maharaj to give him sannyas. Iskcon always preaches that one must become a servant of the Lord, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj said, "You have already become a servant of Krishna, but you must become a servant of Radharani, then I can give you sannyas." Read Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, read Bhaktivinod Thakur's books, try to understand what the siddhanta is, what Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur teaches, what the main conception is.

You have also heard one story from Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj's book Search for Sri Krishna. It happened during the first world war. There was one Professor Nixon, a British pilot. One day, he was in the plane with many other soldiers, and suddenly he understood that something was wrong with the engine and the aeroplane was going to fall. He thought, "The death is very near, it is knocking on my door." At that time he only remembered the Lord, praying: "O Lord, if I can survive, I will give all twenty-four hours to Your service, I will be Your servant twenty-four hours a day."

Then, his aeroplane crushed, and many soldiers died, but fortunately, or you can say accidentally, he did not die—he stayed alive. After that, he thought, "I have promised to the Lord that if I stay alive, I will give myself twenty-four hours to the Lord. I must do it now." So, he went first to a Christian church and spoke to the priest who was in charge of the church. He said, "I want to serve the Lord twenty-four hours a day." The priest replied, "It is not necessary. You can come once a week and pray for one hour, that is sufficient for you." He continued searching and had visited many holy places, many religious places, but everybody told him that it was not necessary to give twenty-four hours a day—he could not find any place where he could get twenty-four-hours-a-day service.

After that, he came to India, Kashi (Benares). There, in Benares, there was one lady, a Gaudiya Vaishnavi. He met with her, and she advised him how he could engage himself twenty-four hours a day in the Lord's service. He understood it. He took initiation and began chanting the Holy Name. In this way, he engaged himself twenty-four hours a day in the service of the Lord.

We must be servants of Radharani, servants of Nityananda Prabhu, servants of Gurudev, who is non-different from Radharani or Nityananda Prabhu. This is the main thing that we must understand in our spiritual life. It is not necessary to be a Vaishnav—it is necessary to be a servant of a Vaishnav.

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