(1/8) Your Necessity and Interest

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Hooghly District, preaching programme,
21 February 2019, evening, part 1
Translated from Bengali

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy and aspiring to serve him; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all the assembled guru-varga, all my godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees and all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet and praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

We have gathered here to speak and hear about the Lord. This is something that will bring benefit (sreyo, mangal). This is not some lila-kirtan or pala-kirtan place; I tell you every year that I do not come to do kirtan – I come to engage you in kirtan. You are the ones who should do kirtan. And it is not enough to only do kirtan one day. If you think, 'Oh, I have done kirtan today, that is sufficient,' then it is not kirtan.

You all have mobile phones at home. If you use a mobile phone, you have to charge it. In the same way, sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs come to your homes to 'charge' you.

One year has passed and you have forgotten most of the things – you forget about the Lord, forget to think about the Lord, forget about the Lord's Name, beauty, qualities, pastimes, associates and features. That is why it is necessary to chant kirtan every day at home. I come here only once a year – I chant some kirtan and go away; and as the year goes by, you forget. You must practise kirtan every day. You eat every day, you take a shower every day, you sleep every day. In the same way, you must also remember the Lord every day. You are alive in this world because of the Lord – He is the one who you have got this human birth from.

You know many things in this world, but the problem is that you do not know yourself. First and foremost, you must know who you are. Who are you? Our parents give us a body. If I take my blood and compare it to the blood of my parents, I will see that it is the same blood. And when my body dies, my parents (my wife, children, siblings, friends, whoever else is close to you) will cry for a few days. My parents give me this body, but they do not produce that which I am. Remember this. They only produce the body, but they do not produce that which we are. What am I? This is what everybody must understand.

Everybody must know atma-tattva-jnana. I tell this all the time. 'Atma-tattva-jnana' means knowing who you are. When you understand this, you will be able to understand who controls the world. We forget Him who we all should know and remember about; we only think about our bodies. 'How will I live?', 'What will I eat?', 'What will I wear?', 'Where will I sleep?', 'How will my wife and children live?' We waste our whole lives thinking about our bodies. We never, not even once think about our own benefit, our own interest. 'Our own interest' means that we must understand what is necessary for our souls. We think that we need food, clothes, medicine and other things, but this is all related to the body – we never think what is necessary for our actual selves.

কৃষ্ণ ভুলি' সেই জীব অনাদি-বহির্ম্মুখ ।
অতএব মায়া তারে দেয় সংসারাদি-দুঃখ ॥

krsna bhuli' sei jiva anadi-bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsaradi-duhkha

'Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primaeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

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Length: 43 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Your Necessity and Interest
2) My Mission
3) Hari-Kirtan Comes from Heart
4) Come Forward
5) Do Not Cheat Yourself
6) Soul's Shelter
7) Genuine Devotion Comes from Genuine Devotees
8) Leashed and Lashed Life