(5) Live for God

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Evening preaching programme,
13 March 2019, part 5
Translated from Bengali

কয় বার এলি কয় বার গেলি
তবু তত্ত্ব না শিখিলি ।
নিজের মাথা নিজে খাইলি
এ দোষ দিবি কারে ভাই ?

kaya bara eli kaya bara geli
tabu tattva na sikhili
nijer matha nije khaili
e dosa dibe kare bhai?

‘Coming and going, coming and going, you never learnt anything! You have been eating your own brain – who will you blame for this, brother?’

This is what we cannot understand... Why cannot we? You know it yourselves. Because of Maya's games. How does Maya work? If I put an iron rod into fire, the rod will become red after some time. If I then touch that rod to some cloth or straw, the cloth or the straw will be burnt. If you touch it to somebody's body, the body will get burnt, too. Before that, if you touched that rod, it did not burn, so where does it get this power to burn? From fire. Getting the power to burn from fire, iron can burn everything. In the same way, Maya gets her power from the Lord and her play is such that getting that power from the Lord she removes everybody from the Lord's service and turns them into her own servants and maidservants. How so? We live following the orders of our eyes, ears, noses, tongues, skin, minds, intelligence, egos, rectum and genitals. For example, our eyes always want to see bad things. Whatever our minds want, we engage our senses in fulfilling our minds' desires. We are controlled by kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy). We are always swayed in all these directions – we are pulled by lust, anger, greed and all these other things in all the different directions.

There is a way out though. There is a solution to such a life. This solution is given by the Lord Himself.

সাধুসঙ্গে কৃষ্ণনামে—এই মাত্র চাই ।
সংসার জিনিতে আর কোন বস্তু নাই ॥

sadhu-sange krsna-nama—ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

The only way to conquer this material world, to get out of it, is to come back to our own home – to come back to the Lord. Back to God, back to home. Come back home, come back to the Lord. Therefore, we pray to you all: please always chant the Holy Name of the Lord. Say together with me:

হরে কৃষ্ণ হরে কৃষ্ণ কৃষ্ণ কৃষ্ণ হরে হরে ।
হরে রাম হরে রাম রাম রাম হরে হরে ॥

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

This is what we have come to this world for – to chant this Holy Name of Lord Krishna. Krishna-nama, Krishna-dhama, Krishna-prema, Krishna-seva – this is what we have come to this world for. When we were in our mothers' wombs for ten months and ten days, we lived with our heads down and legs up. We suffered so much at that time. Do you have any idea of the hellish suffering one undergoes in the mother's womb? We lived upside down, all twisted within that tiny space. When the child is born, it sits nicely on its mother's lap with its legs and arms spread, but in the mother's stomach it had to live all squeezed into a tiny space. It is hellish suffering to live like that. And when one dies, it is even more gruesome. When you die, Yamaduts come to take your soul away out of your body. If you have Tulasi on your neck, then Vaishnavduts come, so you will be treated with some mercy; but Yamaduts show no mercy... I am writing about it in a book (Guidance 3) – I consult the scriptures and describe it there for you.

To get relief from all this suffering, we must chant the Holy Name of Lord Krishna. When we were suffering in the wombs of our mothers, we promised the Lord, 'I will use my eyes to have the darshan of Your Deity. I will use my ears to listen about You. I will use my mouth to speak about You. I will use my legs to do the parikrama of Your holy abode. And I will use my hands to serve You.' You can do all this even at home – everybody can do it.

They are offering bhoga today – why cannot you do the same at your homes? Can you not chant kirtans? Do not think that you are alone? But even if you are alone, can you not sit at home and chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra on your beads or playing the kartals or just clapping your hands? Is that not kirtan? Can you not remember the Lord? Can you not call out to the Lord?

‘Sukhe duhkhe bhulo naka, vadane Harinama kara re (সুখে দুঃখে ভুলো নাক, বদনে হরিনাম কর রে). In happiness and in sadness, do not forget it: loudly chant the Lord’s Names’ (Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur). Do not forget the Lord when you are happy, and do not forget the Lord when you are unhappy. If you are happy, you do not think about the Lord, but when you are sad or dying, you remember and call the Lord – do you think that will get you anywhere? This is not right. You must always call out to the Lord. He is the master of your house – because you forget Him, you are now suffering from the burning agony of the threefold miseries. To get relief from such a life, the only solution is to take shelter at the holy feet of the Lord.

You are busy earning money, accumulating wealth, building houses, buying cars, but you will have to leave all this behind. Everybody has to leave this world one day. But what will become of you after you leave this world? Do you think that you will get a human birth again? Do you live like a human now to think of getting a human birth in the future? It is great fortune to get a human birth! There are sixty thousand souls standing in queue, and only one of them gets to enter a human mother's womb – the rest get births in other species.

So, stop thinking about all the other things. Think only about the Lord. Let us chant some kirtans now. The current should come back by then, otherwise you are all thinking about the current ('When will it come back?', 'When will it come back?') – you cannot concentrate on what I am saying. Once the current comes back, then you will be at peace.

[His Divine Grace chants evening kirtans.]

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