(1) Completing Parikrama

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Puri Dham, 3 July 2019, part 1
Translated from Bengali

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa-kula-churamani Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Sri Nitai-Chaitanyadev ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda Sundarjiu ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Tandiya sakha-math-samuha ki jay.
Sri Mather sevak-vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Ananta-koti Vaishnav-vrinda ki jay.
Sri Gaudiya Acharya-vrinda ki jay.
Tridandi-pad-gan ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Nityananda Prabhu ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Mahaprabhu ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna-vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar, Giriraj Govardhan ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol

Does anyone realise how the time has passed? It went so nicely! It rained a little and it was cool – it was not so hot. Your parikrama of Sri Purusottam Ksetra went very nicely, in Hari-katha. Actually, there are many places that we do not visit here because there are some anti-devotional activities happening there. We take much trouble to bring people here – we do not come here for enjoyment or eye-exercise. We come here to bring benefit to our and others' souls. We come here to show you that you are souls and to make you live the way a soul should live. If you can come and live in a spiritual way – if you can come and advance on the path of devotion by serving gurus and Vaishnavs – you can reach your own home.

We all stay in various places in West Bengal, but those places are not our real homes. We have lost our own address. Sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs come to show us the path to our own homes – this path is the path of devotion. To enable everybody to walk this path – to enable us to actually practise devotion – sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs arrange all these parikramas. Even when you go back to your homes, you must do Tulasi parikrama every day. Plant Tulasi, make a place for her and circumambulate her. It is not necessary to make any grand temples or anything like that. Serve nicely according to your capacity. If you can join and take part in the service of the Lord, the Lord will be happy with it.

গৃহে থাক, বনে থাক, সদা হরি বলে’ ডাক ।
সুখে দুঃখে ভুলো নাক, বদনে হরিনাম কর রে ॥

grhe thaka, vane thaka, sada ‘hari’ bale’ daka
sukhe duhkhe bhulo naka, vadane harinama kara re

‘Whether you live at home or in a forest, always call out to the Supreme Lord. In happiness and in sadness, do not forget it: loudly chant the Lord’s Names.’

মায়াজালে বদ্ধ হ’য়ে, আছ মিছে কাজ ল’য়ে ।
এখনও চেতন পেয়ে, রাধামাধব-নাম বল রে ॥

maya-jale baddha ha’ye, achha michhe kaja la’ye
ekhana-o chetana peye, radha-madhava-nama bala re

‘Bound in Maya’s net, you waste your time on useless work. While you are still conscious, chant Radha-Madhav’s Names!’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We pray to you all that you may not return the day after tomorrow home and forget everything, carrying on your lives. This is not real service. You must always think, 'When will I come back next year?' You must eagerly await for the next year to come to be able to come here again. Always practise Krishna consciousness – serve your guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord. Serving them means living following their instructions.

You have done this parikrama for four days, and many come and tell me, 'Maharaj, we cannot keep up with you!' I could walk on parikrama the whole day, and you can see also that I am with you the whole day, from morning till night. We have been to Alarnath, Ananta Vasudev's temple in Bhuvaneswar, Saksi-Gopal's temple, Lingaraj's temple, Bindu Sarovar. We took Ananta Vasudev's prasad. Today also the cleaning of the Gundicha Temple took place – this is the temple where the chariots will come. The day before they come, we come to clean the temple. You have also visited Srila Prabhupad's birthplace and Ray Ramananda's garden. You have visited very nice, beautiful places. A few days ago, we also visited Srila Haridas Thakur's samadhi-mandir, Tota-Gopinath, Srila Jagadananda Pandit's bhajan-sthali, Gambhira and other places. You have also visited Lord Jagannath's temple.

গৌর আমার, যে সব স্থানে,
করল ভ্রমণ রঙ্গে ।
সে সব স্থান, হেরিব আমি,
প্রণয়ি-ভকত-সঙ্গে ॥

gaura amara, ye saba sthane,
karala bhramana range
se saba sthana, heriba ami,
pranayi-bhakata-sange

‘In the company of loving devotees, I behold all the places my Gaura visited during His pastimes.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You did this parikrama in the company of devotees. Come every year. Soon will also be our parikrama of Vrindavan and Govardhan. We also have many devotees in South India now, and they make very nice arrangements for us to come there. We will be going there after Ratha-yatra. We do not have at temple in South India, but devotees will arrange a place for everybody to stay. We usually go to Vrindavan and Govardhan later in the year because it gets very hot there. Both you all and I are now getting old and it is hard to tolerate heat. Personally, if it is cold, it does not make me suffer, but I cannot tolerate heat. I will also try to make this tour less costly for you all, so that you do not have to spend too much money – I know that you do not have much money. We will do the parikrama of Govardhan, Vrindavan, and we will go to Ravel, Mahavan, Nandagram, Varsana and a few other places by buses. Actually, arranging prasad is not a problem, but the main expense is to hire buses, that is why we request you to contribute.

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