(9) Remember, Pray and Worship

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Nasigram, Bardhaman, preaching programme,
13 March 2019, evening, part 9
Translated from Bengali

So, I have spoken a lot today. Our parikrama of Sri Nabadwip Dham is starting this Sunday. If anybody wants to join us, I have left some leaflets here (you can see the detail there). Everybody can come, and you do not have to pay anything – come and stay for seven days, do the parikrama. I will make arrangements for everybody. Come.

Come on Saturday. The parikrama is from Sunday to Wednesday. Many people suffer from knee pain, leg pain – they cannot stand for a long time, they cannot sit on the ground for a long time. Your lifestyles are such that you end up like this...

'Vrddha-kala aola, saba sukha bhagala, pida-vase ha-inu katara (বৃদ্ধকাল আওল, সব সুখ ভাগল, পীড়াবশে হইনু কাতর). Now old age has come and all happiness has fled – distressed by diseases, I have become miserable' (Saranagati). When old age comes, we become afflicted with all kinds of pain and suffering. That is why I pray to you all: strike while the iron is hot! Practise Krishna consciousness timely. If you want to get old first, you will not be able to do anything in the end. Your childhood passed, your teen age passed, your youth passed – all that time is gone now, but we still do not understand anything. Sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs keep telling you again and again, 'Please listen, please practise spiritual life, please think about God, please chant the glories of the Lord.' If you just ring the bell and swing some incense in front of the Diety, that is not service to the Lord. You must serve the Lord with all your heart and soul. You must feed the Lord, you must dress the Lord. You can do all this even at your homes.

You say, 'Oh, I have not time to do all this,' but you sit in the toilet to pass stool two–three times a day – you sit fifteen minutes silently during this time, but instead of that you can chant the Holy Name, 'Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.' Everybody can do it. When you sit on the toilet pan, waiting to pass stool, chant the Holy Name at this time. Mahaprabhu Himself taught this (when He was in Sri Puri Dham) – He said that it was possible to do that. The only problem is that this kind of intelligence has not come to you yet... You still do not understand anything.

জীবন অনিত্য জানহ সার,
তাহে নানাবিধ বিপদ ভার
নামাশ্রয় করি’ যতনে তুমি,
থাকহ আপন কাজে ॥

jivana anitya janaha sara
tahe nana-vidha vipada-bhara
namasraya kari’ yatane tumi,
thakaha apana kaje

‘You must know the main truth that this life is not eternal and full of various dangers. Carry on your life but try your best to take shelter in the Holy Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This life is not eternal – this life will be gone at any moment – and it is full of dangers. If we can live in the shelter of the Holy Name, then we can come to the Lord.

That is why I keep asking you: please do not forget the Lord. Wherever you are, whatever your situation is, please remember the Lord. Remember Krishna; never forget Him. He sent us to this world, but we forgot Him, and as the result we always end up suffering from the agony of the threefold miseries – getting entangled in material bondage, we keep coming and going to this material world. The only way to get out of this situation is to remember Krishna, to think about Krishna, to pray to Krishna, and so on. You must practise the nava-vidha bhakti: sravanam (listening about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deities), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet). You must worship and serve the Lord in these nine ways, then you will get supreme benefit.

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