(5/8) Sacrifice to Thrive

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme, 18 April 2019, part 5
Translated from Bengali

Practise Krishna consciousness. The problem is that you cannot give up greed for some trifle things. If you want to get great things, you must give up small matters. If I get some big job (for example, a teacher's job at a college), then I have to give up my previous, smaller job (a high-school teacher's job). This is common sense. If I get a chance to start a big business, then I must give up my previous, smaller business. It is the same here – if you want to get something great, you have to give up small matters. It is difficult for Bengali people to give up fish, meat, onion, garlic, eggs or masoori dal – that is why they do not want to take initiation, even when they meet a genuine guru.

Suppose you see a doctor, and the doctor says that you have diabetes. He will prescribe some medicine and say that you must not eat potato or anything sweet and that you must eat rice or rotis only once a day. You can say, 'Doctor, I have much money. I cannot live without sweets. I am used to eating five sweets every day.' If the doctor loves you, he will say, 'I do not want to have a patient like you. If you want to see me again, you must stop eating all these things, then only come to see me.' But if the doctor loves your money, not you, then he will say, 'All right, eat a little now and then.' Your disease will never be cured like this no matter how much medication you take. You can never manage diabetes unless you give up eating sweets.

There are many gurus roaming this world. You are Hooghly district people, you live near Tarakeshwar, a place of Lord Siva. Lord Siva told Parvati Devi, 'O Devi! There are many vitta-harankari gurus in this world (those who crave your wealth, money, etc.), but there are very few santap-harankari gurus (spiritual teachers who will "rob" you of your material agony).' Vitta-harankari gurus means the gurus who are after you money – they see that you have money, so they come to you hoping to get more money from you. There are such doctors also in this world who think, 'If I lose this patient, then he will not come to see me every week; I will lose money.' But if the doctor loves you, he can never say, 'Eat sweets, eat whatever you want.' Similarly, the gurus in this world (karmi-gurus, jnani-gurus, yogi-gurus, kaulik-gurus, laukik-gurus, and so on) tell everyone, 'Do whatever you want, eat whatever your soul wants.'

The soul's duty is to serve the Supersoul (Paramatma). Do you think the soul wants to eat anything? It does not. It is your tongues that want all that.

জিহ্বার লালসে যেই ইতি-উতি ধায় ।
শিশ্নোদরপরায়ণ সে কৃষ্ণ নাহি পায় ॥

jihvara lalase yei iti-uti dhaya
sisnodara-parayana se krsna nahi paya

'One who is subservient to the tongue and who thus goes here and there, devoted to the genitals and the belly, cannot attain Krishna.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.227)

You can see children. You can feed the child, his stomach will be full, but if you go to the market with the child, he will see some snack or some sweet and he will want to eat it. His eyes are hungry for it. He sees something and gets hungry. We are like that too. We see something that we want to eat, and our mouths start watering – we start thinking, 'How many shall I get?'

জিহ্বার লালসে যেই ইতি-উতি ধায় ।
শিশ্নোদরপরায়ণ সে কৃষ্ণ নাহি পায় ॥

jihvara lalase yei iti-uti dhaya
sisnodara-parayana se krsna nahi paya

'One who is subservient to the tongue and who thus goes here and there, devoted to the genitals and the belly, cannot attain Krishna.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.227)

If we live like this, we can never get any benefit or good result. Therefore, it is necessary to take shelter of a bona fide guru and practise Krishna consciousness yourself, in your own life. You must try to come to the Lord yourself.

— : • : —

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

CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE LECTURE

Size: 20 Mb
Length: 42 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Life in Hari-Kirtan
2) Busy Lives
3) Your Responsibility
4) No Shortcuts
5) Sacrifice to Thrive
6) No Double Standards
7) Selfless Devotion
8) Serve with Heart and Soul