(4/10) Plan Your Journey

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Disappearance festival, Tarakeshwar
16 April 2019, evening, part 4
Translated from Bengali

There are thousands of trains departing from the Howrah station, but we must get on the train that goes to Vrindavan – all the other trains will not take us there. Other trains will take us to Kashi, Prayag or some other place. Another thing is that even if you take the train to Vrindavan – under whose guidance will you stay there? You can understand it yourself – you have heard what Mahaprabhu said. If you read Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, you can understand what Mahaprabhu teaches. One day, Srila Jagadananda Pandit told Mahaprabhu, 'I want to go to Vrindavan.' What did Mahaprabhu tell him? He replied, 'You can go to Vrindavan, I will not stop you. You can make a trip there, but mind one thing: when you go there, do not go here and there, always stay with Rupa and Sanatan. Rupa and Sanatan are staying in Vrindavan on My order.' Srila Jagadananda Pandit did that. When he went to Vrindavan, he stayed with Srila Sanatan Goswami. At another time, Srila Jagadananda Pandit got angry and went to Vrindavan, but he could not see or understand anything there. If you read Sri Prema-vivarta, you will see this pastime described there very nicely. We have printed this book, but it is a little expensive because it is both Bengli and English together, so not many can buy it, but you can learn a lot of things from this holy book.

We struggle and make a lot of effort to print books, but these books are your food. This is what you must sustain yourself on. I cannot come to your homes all the time, and you also cannot come to festivals all the time. Actually, all our temples observe all festivals throughout the year (Janmastami, Radhastami, various appearance and disappearance days), but I know that you like to come when I am there, you always like to listen from me, and I cannot always come personally. You should always try to join all programmes and festivals to chant the Holy Name of the Lord in the association of sadhus and to practise Krishna consciousness.

How long will you be in this world? How much time do you have? You have gone through millions of wombs, you have crossed over millions of lives and births, and this human birth is only some one hundred years. It is not even very likely that most of us will live that long – most people live for sixty–eighty years. When we grow old, we suffer from all kinds of pains (our legs pain, our backs pain, our heads pain, and so on), so there are only a handful of people who live to one hundred. During these years, we do so many things – we play in our childhood, we build a family, we enjoy so much happiness and tolerate so much distress. How much time do we have left now? Maybe, twenty or thirty years – do we have time on all these material family affairs, do we have time for material things? Suppose you will live another thirty years – you will spend fifteen of these years sleeping at night, and the other fifteen years you will worry about your food, sleep and other bodily comfort. How much time can you give to the Lord? That is my question to you. How much time can you give to chanting the Holy Names of the Lord?

Srila Raghunath Das Goswami and Srila Jiva Goswami served during twenty-two and a half hours each day! They slept only for one and a half hours. Even I sleep much more than that. I read until twelve or one o'clock at night, then I get sleepy and go to bed, and I wake up early in the morning. I am used to this. Gurudev has given me some responsibility in this life, so I cannot leave it and run away. And this is not something I do for my own interest. I have a place to stay in many countries all over the world (I could go and stay in London, America, Russia, Venezuela, Columbia). I could have left you all and stayed there comfortably – why do I need to deal with all these court cases and police? I could have left and would be living a free life, but I promised Gurudev that I will take you with me. Even if I go to hell, I will take you all with me. Remember this. If you have come to me and have taken my shelter, I will take you with me.

But I am a straightforward person – I speak directly and sometimes say not very pleasant things. Gurudev always spoke sweetly, but I am more outspoken. If you are sick and I do not give you a strong antibiotic, then your disease will not be cured. That is why I have to say certain things as they are. If you do not practise Krishna consciousness, you are the one who will be in trouble.

It is not like you come to gurudev, receive beads and pretend to have taken initiation. Initiation means serving your guru or serving the Lord in strict adherence to your guru. We must follow what our guru says. I have recently given six initiations in Ecuador (through the Internet). Right after taking initiation, these devotees sent me a message asking, 'Gurudev, what is my service? How can I serve you? How can I make you happy?' I told them what to do and how they can do service. They want to serve. If you only take the beads and only sit at home and chant the Holy Name without serving sadhus, without associating with sadhus, you cannot practise Krishna consciousness like that.

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Length: 96 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Chaste Submission Is Key
2) Busy Yourself with Service
3) Value of Chastity
4) Plan Your Journey
5) Avoid Religious Hypocrisy
6) Fight for Your Aspiration
7) Guru's Care
8) Learning the Ropes
9) Run behind the Lord
10) Gurudev's Abundant Blessing