(5) Material Killing, Spiritual Killing

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Hooghly district,
1 March 2019, evening, part 5
Translated from Bengali

There is one more thing I want you to think about.

We live in this world, and every single day we live at the expense of killing thousands and millions of living entities. We kill millions of souls every single day. How so? Try to understand this. This is also explained in the scriptures.

For example, when we breathe in, we force so many tiny living entities enter our bodies where they then die. When we drink water, we consume so many tiny living entities, too. When we eat rice, that rice comes from so many paddy plants – just to get one or two hundred grams of rice, so many paddy plants have to be cut and killed. When we eat cabbage or cauliflower, it is the same. And outside people eat fish and meat, this is even more obvious – they commit even bigger murders. Everybody can see with their own eyes that they kill goats, chickens, sheep and other animals – they understand that they kill living beings.

Sadhus also eat – they also cut spinach and other vegetables, but there is a difference between what sadhus do and what other people do. When sadhus eat something, they do not commit any sin – what they do belongs to the nirguna plane, so their actions do not incur any reaction. Why? How can it be so? Even when you plant something (potato, rice, cabbage, bitter gourd, cucumbers, etc.), you need to use some medicine to get good crops and get rid of insects. This is also killing, but if you grow all these vegetales and offer them to Govinda, or if you sell vegetables and use the money to serve Govinda, then you will not have any reaction for all this killing.

Live in Krishna's family. It does not mean that you earn some money, buy fifty kilograms of fruit with the money and offer it to Govinda. No. Serving the Lord means that whenever you eat anything – for example, you cook spinach, rice and dal – you should offer it to Govinda first and after that take His prasad. It is not necessary to cook anything elaborate – you can just cook some rice with spinach or some rice with boiled potato. The Lord knows everything, and He does not like fancy offerings consisting of so many various dishes. You can cook elaborate raja-bhoga, but if there is no loving earnestness in your offering, or if you want something in return for your offering, the Lord will not care for it.

If you make an offering to the Lord and want to get something in return, this is a business transaction, not devotion. When you come to a store, you can buy one hundred grams of mustard oil for ten rupees – you give money and get something in return. Similarly, if you come to the Lord saying, 'O Lord, I am giving You this, and I want to get that in return,' it means that you turn God into your servant.

People come to worship Durga, Kali and other gods and say, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, kavitam dehi, sundarim dehi. Make me rich, give me knowledge, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me a poet, give me a beautiful girlfriend, and so on.’ They keep coming and asking God for things – the Lord runs away from such people! The Lord thinks, 'He keeps coming and disturbing Me for all these things. I am out of here!' The Lord comes to rest in the hearts of His devotees (bhaktera hrdaye sada Govinda visrama).

Always remember this. Never forget Lord Krishna, never forget gurudev. This is what Mahaprabhu taught, too.

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