(9) Doomed?

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Singur,
7 May 2019, noon, part 9
Translated from Bengali

If you hire a professional singers and get them to come to your home, they will sing kirtan for two hours charging you five hundred, a thousand or two thousand rupees. What benefit are you going to get through that?

কটি জন্ম যদি করে শ্রবণ-কীর্ত্তন ।
তবু না পায় ব্রজের নন্দের নন্দন ॥

koti janma yadi kare sravana-kirtana
tabu na paya vrajera nandanera nandana

‘Even if you practise listening and chanting for millions of lives, you will not get Krishna, the Son of King of Vraja.’

You can do this all your life, all your next life, all your next life after that, your grandchildren can carry on doing this, but such 'practice' will not bring you any result. You will not get any spiritual benefit by listening to other people's chanting! You must chant the Holy Name yourselves! That is why I always tell you to chant together with me. Chant kirtans. I tell you this again and again. Always chant kirtan.

সাধুসঙ্গে কৃষ্ণনামে—এই মাত্র চাই ।
সংসার জিনিতে আর কোন বস্তু নাই ॥

sadhu-sange krsna-nama—ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

What does it mean to 'conquer' the material world? It means to become rescued from material life. Mahaprabhu said, 'I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world. Nothing else.' Remember this. Chanting the Holy Name of the Lord in the association of pure saints is the only way how you can get out of this material world. So, always chant the Holy Name of Lord Krishna. Whether you are eating, lying down, sitting down, sleeping or doing anything else, always chant the Lord's Names. Do you know what the Lord says? He says, 'Those who genuinely listen about Me (sravan) cannot live without chanting My glories and Names (kirtan).'

Whose ears do these things never enter? Who is unable to hear about God? Many people can sit at a lecture, but their minds are elsewhere. I can easily understand this. When you go to school, the teacher tells you something at the lesson and if you are thinking about something else at this time, you will not remember what you have been taught. Some children sit at the back of the class and draw pictures on the backs of other children sitting front of them, or they start playing with their pencils. When I used to teach at college, I noticed all these things. That is why they used to swear me, and when it was my turn to give exams, the students would get horrified and say, 'That one has come! We are doomed!' They could not cheat or copy at my exams. I knew all their tricks – I knew where they hid their cheat sheets and always confiscated them. I could sit in one place and see at once who was cheating. Even at the lesson, I could sit on my chair and explain something to them and just by looking the person in the eye I could understand if they were listening to me or not.

So, those who have no attachment to the Lord will not be able to hear anything about Him. If one has no attachment to their guru and Vaishnavs, they can sit and listen the whole day, but they will not hear anything. Those who genuinely hear will chant kirtan.

For example, when I am going somewhere in a car, I always sit and think about what Gurudev said, what other gurus and Vaishnavs said. I am remembering the things that I have heard and kept in my heart. When I read something, I read attentively, even if it is just a newspaper. I read a newspaper and after that can quote from there or tell about all the news. When you listen, you must listen carefully, with all your heart. When your gurudev speaks, you must listen to him with all your heart – not only with your mind, but with all your heart.

Your soul and your mind are not one and the same thing. The mind lives in the external world. For example, you are sitting here now, but your mind can be elsewhere – you can be thinking about the house you are building and the workers, you can be wondering and thinking about whether they are working now or not. The mind lives on the external plane, but the soul lives on the internal plane – it knows what Paramatma wants and it can connect with the Lord.

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