(8/10) Learning the Ropes

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Disappearance festival, Tarakeshwar
16 April 2019, evening, part 8
Translated from Bengali

Srila Gurudev is extremely merciful!

He often said, 'I cannot chastise everybody. If I chastised everybody, nobody would stay at the temple. There is only one person whom I can chastise.' He told my name. It is true. Gurudev chastised me many times, he taught me many times, many things, and every time I accepted what he taught me. He taught me everything, from cooking to doing worship, to how we must serve devotees. He taught me every single thing.

He told me, 'Maharaj! You must distribute prasad looking at the person's face!' I asked him what he meant. It does not mean that if you see somebody who is dear to you, you should give them more prasad or better things, and if you see somebody who you do not like, then you should give them less. It is not like that. When you distribute prasad, you must see who you are giving prasad to. For example, if a small boy is sitting with his mother, you must not give the child the same amount as to his mother – children eat little. When you distribute sweets and you know that somebody has diabetes, you give them four sweets, and when you come to somebody who you know likes sweets, you give them only one sweet. This is not how it is done. That is why you must look at the face of the person whom you are giving prasad. If somebody likes sweets, give them more sweets, and if somebody has diabetes, do not give them any sweets. This is what Srila Guru Maharaj taught me.

He taught me also how to cook. He taught me how to cook without any oil. He always took care of his cholesterol. If you want to avoid a heart attack or stroke, you have to think about your cholesterol. High cholesterol comes from fried and oily food. So, Gurudev taught me how to cook without any oil. He taught me everything – how to manage the storeroom, how to manage the cooking and prasad distribution, everything. Even whenever there was a festival, especially Gaura Purnima, I have always been writing down what deficiency there was, where some problems came up so that next year I could make sure that everything went smooth. How did I learn how to make Gaura Purnima festivals? I always went behind Vaishnavs, observing what they did, and I learned everything from them. I went behind Vaishnavs during Nabadwip Dham parikrama, during Vrindavan Dham parikrama, and I learned from them what Hari-katha they spoke. I listened to them very carefully. You, too, must listen carefully what the Lord says, what your guru and Vaishnavs say.

You are actually all very fortunate. You know, there used to be a jungle in this place before. I used to come sometimes to the houses of devotees who came to the Math, I would come to this area to collect potato. You all know **, he has not had the fortune to come to this path yet, but his mother was Gurudev's disciple. One day (I had not taken sannyas yet at that time), he came to me and said, 'Prabhu, we are very poor people, is that why you never come to our house?'

'Why?' I replied. 'I never told anybody that I would not come to their house because they were poor.'

'But we live in a mud house...'

'It is not problem. I will come.'

I took the car and went there. When we arrived, the driver asked me, 'Where are you going to stay?' I told him that he could sleep in the car, and I would sleep on the veranda of the house. Then, people started coming one by one, giving ten or five kg potato each. In the end, we collected twelve sacks of potato from that area. The man who invited us suggested that we could sell that potato and get some money. I told him, 'No, what will I do with money? I can use this potato directly in the service of the Lord. It will be used during Gaura Purnima.' From those twelve sacks of potato, the collection eventually increased to five–six hundred sacks! We also collect about one hundred sacks of potato from here (Tarakeshwar). I have to sometimes even refuse from some potato because it is too much for us. The same happens with rice. Many tell me to come to Bardhaman to collect rice. I go to collect rice from mills and complete the collection in four days. We collect a hundred mound of rice (3.7 tonnes). There are also devotees in Hooghly who collect house to house, and we use that rice for Nabadwip Dham parikrama, at Ekachakra during the festival and at our other temples.

Gurudev told me, 'I will never buy rice for the parikrama.' By the mercy of the Lord, it has never come to that to this day. I never allow this – I always collect rice myself. Gurudev ordered me to collect rice, handful by handful, for the parikrama, and we still do this to this day. That is how we do not have any lack of rice and potato at the temples. I do not have to worry even about money – you have heard that there are construction works going on in seven places now...

— : • : —

{ 2001  |   2002  |   2003  |   2005  |   2009  |   2010  |   2011  |   2012 }
{ 2013  |   2014  |   2015  |   2016  |   2017  |   2018  |   2019  |   2020  |   2021 }

CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE LECTURE

Size: 46 Mb
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