(9/9) Pave Your Road to Holy Dham

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Hooghly district,
1 March 2019, part 9
Translated from Bengali

There are bogus gurus in this world. They will tell you, 'Eat whatever your soul wants!' If you come to a doctor who loves you, will he ever tell you that you have diabetes, but you can eat as many sweets as you want? That would be suicidal advice. Even if you love eating sweets, a genuine doctor will keep telling you that you must not eat it. For example, I am diabetic myself, and my doctor tells me, 'Do not eat any sweets, even by mistake! If you eat a single sweet, you must pay me a fine of one thousand rupees!' He loves me so much that he says, 'I know that you always travel everywhere, but do not let down your guard – do not eat any sweets. If you eat a single sweet, you must bring an extra thousand rupees to me.' He charges fourteen hundred rupees for his appointment, and he says, 'Do not slip up. If you do, bring one more thousand rupees if your sugar goes up.' If the doctor thought about money, he would think, 'Let him eat anything he wants, what is it to me? He does not listen to me, so let him eat anything and everything, he will keep coming back to me, and I will get my fee.'

A good doctor will never steer you down the wrong path; he will always guide you towards health. If you insist, 'I cannot live without sweets,' a good doctor will say, 'I do not want a patient like you. If you die, I will get a bad name. If you come to me, I will get money, but you will not gain anything through that. I do not want to treat a patient like you.' But a bad doctor will think, 'No problem, come again next month!' I have heard some stories that when girls get a caesarean section to deliver their babies, the surgeons can forget their tools in her abdomens and they have to be operated again! I have also heard many stories when surgeons have left their scalpels inside the body during the operation! What is this? What kind of doctors are they? They kill people.

The point is that there are also such gurus in this world. They tell you, 'Give me fifty rupees and take initiation from me. After that, you can do whatever you want – drink, smoke, take drugs, mix with women and men. Do whatever you like.' If you take initiation from such a guru, you will only invite inauspiciousness to your lives. Such gurus will go to hell, and they will not go there alone – they will take you along. Just as you must not go to bad doctors (you must see a good doctor), in the same way you must also find a good guru and go to him. Your doctor must be bona fide, so your guru must be bona fide, too; otherwise, you will keep on coming and going in this world.

I am wearing these clothes today, but tomorrow I will not wear them – I will change and wear other clothes. In the same way, we keep changing bodies. Who am I really? If I take my blood and compare it to the blood of my parents, I will see that our blood will match, so my parents produced my body, but they did not produce, or give me, that which I am. When a boy and a girl come together and produce a child, they only produce the body of the child, but the soul, that which we are, is part and parcel of the Lord. For example, if I suddenly die, my friends and family will cry, but they will cry over the body – my soul leaves the body while the body is discarded and taken to the crematorium. So, we are souls, we are not these bodies.

What happens when our bodies are burnt? They turn into ash and then get mixed with the soil, and from that soil another body is created with the help of other material elements (water, etc.). But my soul is not made of soil, water and other elements. The soul is part of the Lord, it is transcendental. The soul comes from the Lord.

The Supersoul knows what the soul wants, and the soul also knows what the Supersoul wants. But you will not get a letter directly from the Lord. If you give your letter to a guru or a Vaishnav, they will convey it to the Lord, and they can also tell you about the Lord. There is no other way to learn anything about Him. That is why it is necessary to surrender to a guru, or a Vaishnav. Surrender to the holy feet of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. If you take shelter in a bone fide guru and practise Krishna consciousness, you can get relief from this life of birth, death, old age and disease.

Everybody knows that death, old age and disease are painful, but even birth is full of suffering. We suffered hellish torments in the wombs of our mothers: you all know that babies live in their mothers' wombs lying upside down, surrounded by urine and all kinds of filth. They suffer so much before birth, but death is even worse: when the soul leaves the body, it does not want to leave. So, we keep suffering from such births and deaths again and again. If you want to get relief from this, you must take shelter at the holy feet of the guru, Vaishnav and the Lord. There is no other way.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

Come for the dhama-parikrama. Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama is coming soon. You must come for it every year.

শ্রীগৌড়মণ্ডলভূমি, যেবা জানে চিন্তামণি,
তার হয় ব্রজভূমে বাস ॥

sri-gauda-mandala-bhumi, yeba jane chintamani,
tara haya vraja-bhume vasa

‘Those who always think about Sri Gauda Mandal reside in Vraja.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Sri Nabadwip Dham is non-different from Sri Vrindavan Dham, and it is the place where the Supreme Lord, Mahaprabhu, appeared. Nabadwip is very near; not everybody can go to Vrindavan, but those who can are very fortunate. I take everyone there every year during the Kartik month – if you want to come with us, contact those who are hosting this programme and join. Come with them for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, too. The parikrama is four days, then it is Mahaprabhu's appearance day – you can stay at the temple and listen to Hari-katha on this day; and after that, it is the festival day. So, come for six days. The parikrama starts from ekadasi: ekadasi, dvadasi, trayodasi, chaturdasi, then purnima is Gaura Purnima (the holy appearance of Mahaprabhu), it is a fasting day, and on the next day is the great festival of Jagannath Misra. You must come for these six days. The festival finishes on the day after Gaura Purnima, and you can leave in the afternoon or you can stay longer if you can. Also, if any of you wants to come and stay at the temple permanently, you are welcome. We have a ladies' ashram. If anybody has a problem at home – if your families and children do not take care of you – you can come and stay at our temples. We have a special temple for ladies. So, if you want to stay, contact me and come.

You can find all the Hari-katha that I have spoken today in our books. We spend much money to print these books, but I am not asking you for a single rupee. If you want to give any money, it is better if you buy some books with that money. Read books at home. It is not about only buying books – you must actually read them. There are three volumes of the Upadesh books. Buy and read them. We do not charge much for books – the price is the printing cost, not a rupee more. You can spend all days and nights reading these books. The kirtans we sang are also there in books – you can buy small and big kirtan books. If some books are not here, you can buy them at our temples in Kolkata, Ekachakra, Krishnanagar or Tarakeswar.

I have been speaking all this time, and now it is your turn. Does anybody have any questions or doubts? If there is anything you did not understand, you can ask. Do not hesitate – if you ask questions, others can learn something too. It is necessary to ask questions. You must listen carefully and ask questions. If you want to know something, you can ask about it.

Question: I have taken shelter, and I sell vegetables for a living. If I could sell onions, I could get more profit. Can I sell it?

You can. If you can sell it and use the money to offer bhoga to the Lord and take prasad, then it is not a problem. [Note: this instruction does not apply to such things as meat, fish, etc. See, for example, 'Unchaste Faith']

Buy kirtan books. What I have told you is there in the Upadesh books. The third volume is written in hard language, you may not understand it, then buy the first two volumes. Get these books, then you will understand everything.

Chant the Holy Name of the Lord, think about the Lord. Practise Krishna consciousness. I do not have anything else to tell you. Always remember what I have told you, always speak about Krishna.

If there are no questions, I will not take more of your time. I am finishing here.

বাঞ্ছাকল্পতরুভ্যশ্চ কৃপাসিন্ধুভ্য এব চ ।
পতিতানাং পাবনেভ্যো বৈষ্ণবেভ্যো নমো নমঃ ॥

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha
patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

— : • : —

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Size: 31 Mb
Length: 64 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Self-Rectification
2) Resist Defective Lifestyle
3) Six Pillars of Devotional Life
4) Leave This World
5) Do Not Poison Your Mind
6) Once Upon a Guru
7) 'My Happiness or Your Head'
8) Price of Peace
9) Pave Your Road to Holy Dham