(5) Open Your Eyes

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Siliguri, 1 May 2019, evening, part 5
Translated from Bengali

It is said in the scriptures:

চারি বর্ণাশ্রমী যদি কৃষ্ণ নাহি ভজে ।
স্বকর্ম্ম করিলেও সে রৌরবে পড়ি মজে ॥

chari varnasrami yadi krsna nahi bhaje
svakarma karileo se raurave padi maje

‘Whatever varna (a priest, fighter, manager or worker) or ashram (a celibate, householder, renouncer of the household life or monk) you belong to, if you do not worship Krishna but engage in your prescribed duties, you will have to fall into a terrible hell.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.26)

They go to Raurav, a terrible kind of hell! You vow to live as a celibrate (accept brahmacharya), you enter family life (become a grihastha, householder), you reject family life (accept vaparastha), you become a monk (accept sannyas) – whatever lifestyle you adopt, whatever vows you keep, if you do not worship Lord Krishna, if you do not join His Nama-sankirtan, if you do not serve His devotees, all your efforts will be in vain.

Look at me. Do you not learn anything from my example? I am not the kind of person who sits quietly and says nothing. Somebody can think, 'Oh, they are cooking there, I do not want to go there and cause problems or argue with anybody.' I am not like that. I must go and see carefully what is going on – what is lacking, who needs what, which place does not have what. I learned from Gurudev. When they cook, I always think and worry what they need or do not need, what needs to be arranged, what needs to be done. I do not feel at peace until prasad is prepared and served to the last person. It is always like that. Even when we do parikrama of Sri Nabadwip Dham, I chant kirtan the whole day and I still worry if everybody has got prasad or not, if everybody could get prasad nicely or not, if there was any problem or not. When we take prasad in a field, I always watch what is happening. Since the time I first came to the Math, I have been like that.

There are now nine places where construction is going on, and I personally supervise everything – I personally hire workers, I personally buy sand, I personally buy stones, I personally buy cement. Some place calls me and says that they need this or that, and I have it sent over to them. In this way, I try to take care of everything. As long as I am alive, I must serve my Gurupadpadma. We must always remember this. As long as we are in this world, I will always strive to serve my gurudev. 'What makes Gurudev happy?' – this is what we must be firmly intent on.

What did Gurudev say? What did Gurudev instruct and advised? What did Gurudev want? You all know this, you have all heard it. You all use phones now, so you know what Gurudev said. But we have so many knots inside us – we are ignorant, we live so deeply immersed into material environment. We are covered by illusion. We cannot see beautiful things with our cataract-afflicted eyes. How can we see it with material, illusory eyes? We must see with the eyes of our hearts.

অন্ধীভূত চক্ষু যার বিষয ধূলিতে ।
কিরূপে সে পাইবে পরতত্ত্ব দেখিতে ॥

andhibhuta chaksu yara visaya dhulite
ki-rupe se paibe para-tattva dekhite

‘My eyes are blind with the dust of visaya, the material world – how can I see the transcendental world?’

Our eyes are getting ruined by the dust of visaya. So, always live practising Krishna consciousness. Always come and listen to the discourses about the Lord. I have my books – read them and apply what is written in them in your lives. What does it mean to give class? I have written scriptures, so you can read them and tell others what is written in them. You will find there a lot about Srila Prabhupad, Srimad Bhagavatam, Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Sri Chaitnaya-bhagavata – I composed those books citing all these scriptures, giving examples from there. I made them for everybody's benefit and for my own purification. For my own purification, I have collected and gathered in one place the spiritual instructions of sadhus and gurus. These books are not my own words, not something that I have invented myself. These are the words of the scriptures, of Gurudev, Guru Maharaj, Srila Prabhupad and Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur. I wrote those books citing all those sources. There is Guidance 1, 2, 3, Nityananda Mahimamrita, Sri Puri Dham Mahatmya. Read all these scriptures. When you come to give class here, come and read these books. If you do this, you will see that you will be able to hear everything. Some books are written in hard language, so if you do not understand something, ask me.

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