(2/7) Emerging from Visaya

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nrisingha Palli, Sri Gaura Purnima Day
21 March 2019, evening class, part 2
Translated from Bengali

Do you think you can so easily emerge from the material world? There are ten kinds of offences. Gurudev told me, 'It is very difficult to remove the ten offences.' Even Prahlad Maharaj said that it is very difficult, very painful to remove the ten offences. 'I' and 'my' – I am this, and this is mine – will I ever be able to give up this 'me' and 'my' ego? 'My son', 'my family', 'my friend' – when will we be able to give this up? When will we say with all honesty that we have given it up? Suppose, you have a fire lit using one log. If you put ten (a thousand or ten thousand) logs, the fire will be even stronger. In the same way, the more you indulge yourself in lust (material desires), the stronger your lust will be. It is necessary to gradually decrease the power of lust (kama-sakti). Prahlad Maharaj also spoke about this: he said that lust must come for the Lord (all your hankering and longing must be towards the Lord). That is why Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur wrote in one of his kirtans:

বিষয়ে যে প্রীতি এবে আছয়ে আমার ।
সেই মত প্রীতি হউক চরণে তোমার ॥

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara
sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

'May I have the same love and attraction to Your holy feet that I now have for material things.'

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We love our material world – our family, relatives, friends – but this kind of love must come towards the Lord. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami wrote in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita:

কৃষ্ণ যদি ছুটে ভক্তে ভুক্তি মুক্তি দিয়া ।
কভু ভক্তি না দেন রাখেন লুকাইয়া ॥

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya
kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

'If devotees aspire for enjoyment or liberation, Krishna hides the knowledge about pure devotion from them and dismisses them, giving them enjoyment or liberation.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.18)

If you ask the Lord for money, a house, a car, wealth, and so on, you will get everything from the Lord, but after that, the Lord will take devotion away from you. He will give us all material things and keep us happy with them. But our mood is such that it does not matter whether we are happy or sad, we only do not want to forget the Lord. 'Sukhe duhkhe bhule nako vadane Harinam koro re (সুখে দুঃখে ভুলো নাক, বদনে হরিনাম কর রে ): in happiness or sadness, never forget it, always chant the Holy Name' (Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur). We must forget the Lord neither when we are happy nor when we are sad. 'I am suffering, so I will leave the Lord' – no! 'I am practising Krishna consciousness so much, but why is the Lord giving me so much unhappiness and pain?' We commit so many sins and we think, 'Why does the Lord make me do all these sins?' If you want to find answers to all these questions, you must read holy books.

You must think about these things and apply your intelligence. If you do not apply intelligence (if your intelligence becomes destroyed), you will lose everything. Therefore, you must think about these things. We must try to always, at every moment engage ourselves in the service to our guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord. We chant every day in kirtans, lamenting, 'When will gurudev give me his mercy? I have become habituated to bad things since childhood, and I cannot chant the Holy Name...' You cannot get anywhere without practice.

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Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Acquire Transcendental Vision
2) Emerging from Visaya
3) Future Is Now
4) Learn and Practise
5) Scriptural Evidence of Mahaprabhu's Advent
6) Mahaprabhu's Esoteric Nature
7) Attaining the Unattainable