(2) Give Up and Surrender

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Puri Dham, 3 July 2019, part 2
Translated from Bengali

You have to struggle to some extent when you come on a parikrama. It brings benefit in the end. When we do parikrama of Nabadwip, Puri or Vrindavan-Govardhan, we always go to the all the places where Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu performed His pastimes, and we speak about those pastimes.

One thing I want to tell you is that for the service of the Lord you should be prepared to even commit an offence. This is something you do not understand. If it is necessary for the service to Vaishnavs and the Lord (not for your own enjoyment!), you should be prepared even to commit an offence. I told you this example before – if you suddenly realise that you have no flowers to offer to Lord Govinda, you can steal some flowers from somebody's garden – this is not a sin. If you do something wrong for your own enjoyment or comfort (for example, if you steal flowers to make garlands for yourselves), then it will be a sin.

Many of you follow artificial rules and wrong conceptions. For example, if somebody dies in one's family, they do not go to the temple. You must serve Lord Govinda every single day – you must cook every single day and offer bhoga no matter what happens. If somebody dies, cook, offer bhoga and feed everybody that prasad. That is vaishnav-seva – you do not have to do any sraddhas, etc. Vaishnav-seva is all you need to do, nothing else.

The highest devotees (those who live on the highest plane) always engage themselves in vaishnav-seva. You can attain purification by the touch of the Ganges, everybody knows it, but you can also become pure just by seeing a Vaishnav. Vaishnavs always serve the Lord themselves and also engage everybody in the service to the Lord. Those who are devoted to Lord Vishnu called Vaishnavs. So, when they leave this world, you do not have to make any common, mundane rites for them because they have no value when it comes to them.

Srimad Bhagavad-gita says:

সর্ব্বধর্ম্মান্ পরিত্যজ্য মামেকং শরণং ব্রজ ।
অহং ত্বাং সর্ব্বপাপেভ্যো মোক্ষয়িষ্যামি মা শুচঃ ॥

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

‘Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

Lord Krishna says, 'Whatever I have told you so far, leave everything and only surrender to Me. I will liberate you from all sins. Leave all your worldly duties and only surrender to Me – you will not be making any sin. Worship only Me, meditate only on Me, serve only Me.' So, if you worship Lord Krishna, all other worship is automatically accomplished – you do not need to worship any other gods separately; just as if you pour water on the root of the tree, all branches get nourishment, and you do not need to water the branches separately.

'শ্রদ্ধা' শব্দে—বিস্বাস কহে সুদৃঢ় নিশ্চয় ।
কৃষ্ণে ভক্তি কৈলে সর্ব্বকর্ম্ম কৃত হয় ॥

‘sraddha’-sabde visvasa kahe sudrdha nischaya
krsne bhakti kaile sarva-karma krta haya

‘Sraddha is a firm, determined faith that by serving Krishna all actions are accomplished.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.62)

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