(7/14) Mixing in Adulteration

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Hooghly district,
26 February 2019, noon, part 7
Translated from Bengali

If you bring outside people and hire them to sing for the whole day (8-prahar kirtan), for three days (24-prahar kirtan) or even for the whole week (54-prahar kirtan), this is not kirtan. There is no such thing as contract kirtan. People pay ten rupees to get somebody from outside to do Deity worship at their houses – this is not worship! When you worship the Lord, you must worship with your own devotion. And when you come to worship the Lord, do not turn the Lord into your servant instead of worshipping Him. Remember this. 'O Lord, please protect me', 'O Lord, protect my husband', 'O Lord, protect my son', 'O Lord, please give me money' – we come to the Lord and always want something from Him. Is that not so? This is how we turn God into our servant.

Another thing is that you must not turn worshippable gods into bribe-takers. What does it mean? In this country, you can often get a job at a ministry if you give somebody one or two million rupees. Those officials who take bribes are called bribe-takers. Similarly, when people go to worship gods – when they do Durga-puja, Kali-puja, Laksmi-puja or any other puja – they bring the deity some rice and money and ask the deity for something in lieu of that. This is how they turn gods, who are to be worshipped by us, into bribe-takers.

All this is not worship, all this is not devotion. All this is the worship of Maya. Devotees serve the Lord selflessly. The Lord says, 'Your job is to do service. I may or may not accept your service – that is My business. It is for Me to know whose service to accept and whose service not to accept.'

The quality of devotion depends on faith. What is devotion? How can we get devotion? Devotion comes from the heart. Bhaktis tu bhagavad-bhakta-sangena parijayate (ভক্তিস্তু ভগবদ্ভক্তসঙ্গেন পরিজায়তে). Devotion comes from the association of devotees' (Brihan-naradiya Purana). If you associate with devotees, you will have devotion. Just as we are, for example, seated here listening to sadhu-sanga – such engagement is what can give us devotion. You cannot buy devotion with any amount of money. Devotion is something you must practise yourselves, in your own lives. As you practise, practise and practise, devotion will come to your hearts. Devotion means always thinking about the Lord, thinking about service to the Lord.

Always remember these things. Always keep these things tight in your hearts. Never forgot about it. This is the main thing we must know and remember.

Our main necessity is to serve the Lord, to serve Vaishnavs. Vaishnavs can give us the Lord. But the biggest problem is that we do what is favourable to devotion and at the same time we also do what is unfavourable to devotion. It does not work like this. Suppose you are making a fire sacrifice: you first put one spoon of ghee into the fire and then you put one spoon of water into the fire, then you again put a spoon of ghee and then a spoon of water – naturally, the fire sacrifice cannot be made like this because the fire will go out. This is adulteration (bhejal dhukay, ভেজাল ঢুকায়). This is what we always do in our lives – we always mix in some adulteration (we bring outside people to chant kirtan, to do puja, and so on).

When outside people come and sing kirtans, you can enjoy the pleasant poetry, and it can stir some emotions in you, it can give pleasure to your minds or hearts – but it can never bring any genuine benefit or auspiciousness to you. Never. Therefore, you must practise spiritual life yourselves. You must come to this path yourselves. Chanting Hari-kirtan, you must all come to the holy abode of the Lord.

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Length: 76 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Bound and Benumbed
2) Within and Without
3) Think about Your Actual Self
4) Pivotal Difference
5) Forget Me Not
6) Antidote to Material Life
7) Mixing in Adulteration
8) Wholesome Life
9) Devoured by Darkness
10) Spiritual Power
11) Depths of Devotion
12) Guard Your Spiritual Purity
13) Focus on Lord's Happiness
14) Pure Devotees' Pure Hankering