(7/10) Meaning of Spirituality

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Siliguri, evening, 7 September 2019, part 7
Translated from Bengali

These days many people wants to wear red clothes and show their renunciation, and mayavadi renounce even that – they reject everything. But there is a vast difference between the renunciation of devotees and the renunciation of everybody else. I explain it here, in Guidance 3 (chapter '108 Questions and Answers').

26) Question: What is the difference between the renunciation of pure devotees and the renunciation of other people?

Answer: The renunciation of Mahaprabhu's devotees is renunciation of pure devotees. This is not the false renunciation that we see everywhere in this world. Some say that they are 4.6-meter-cloth renunciates; some say they are 2.3-meter-cloth-renunciates; some say that they have renounced wearing shoes and walk barefoot; some say they have given up eating and drinking – such an outward appearance of renunciates may pass as a heroic feat among enjoyers, but devotees of Mahaprabhu think such people are victim of deceit.

27) Question: What is enjoyment and what is renunciation?

Answer: Enjoyment is what does not let people see that everything actually belongs to the Lord, inasmuch as renunciation is what does not let people understand that everything is actually ingredients for the service of the Lord. The enjoyment or renunciation that brings neglect of things related to the Lord is alien to the soul. The soul's nature is service.

There are many tyagis (renunciates) who like to reject everything, but this is not right. We do not do this. You do something, there is a result, and we do not reject that result – we take that result and use it in the service to Lord Govinda. After that, we take His prasad (we reap whatever is allotted to us). Everything that exists in this world must be offered in the service of the Lord.

28) Question: What is the unparalleled gift of Sri Gaurasundar?

Answer: The unparalleled gift that Sri Gaurasundar has given to the human race is the very love of Godhead. The greatest deficiency in this world is a lack of love. That is why envy, anger, material desires, etc. always cause so much misery to all jiva souls. One more gift of Mahaprabhu is that, to rescue the conditioned souls of Kali-yuga, He went door to door distributing the Hare Krishna maha-mantra (the mantra of the Holy Name prescribed for this Age of Kali), to every jiva soul and, inspiring His associates to take up the post of a guru in this world, He made tireless efforts to save such fallen souls as ourselves.

Such is the gift of Mahaprabhu.

29) Question: What happens if one does not serve the guru?

Answer: Before one goes to serve Sri Gaurasundar, one must serve the guru. Service to the guru means service to the guru who is a close associate of the Lord – without such service one will not be able to get any eternal spiritual benefit. Because we lack sincere service to the lotus feet of Sri guru, we just repeat words in the same manner that a parrot learns some words and keeps on repeating them. We say many big-big words, long-long words, but we completely forget about Gita's 'prakrteh kriyamanani' sloka and its highest sloka 'mam ekam saranam vraja.' Unless we get transcendental feelings, we will not get any benefit, but if we say we have got transcendental feeling being situated in the material world, then such thinking is non-devotional. The realisation of one's non-devotion is called humility, and absence of such realisation of one's non-devotion is called vanity, or conceit.

30) Question: What is the real meaning of the words 'Sri-Krishna'?

Answer: In the word 'Sri-Krishna', 'Sri' means She who is attracted to Krishna. So, Krishna is He who attracts, and the attracted Sri means She who is extremely beautiful. He who can attract by His beauty the One who is the most beautiful is known as Sri Krishna.

31) Question: What is the difference between spiritual life at a temple and at home?

Answer: There is no difference between a spiritual temple and a spiritual house. The practitioners of spiritual life will always be careful that whatever they do would be for the worship of the Supreme Lord, and not for the worship of the devil or their own enjoyment.

Oftentimes, even at the temple you can see some devils living there – they consider the temple their own property and see it as facilities for enjoyment. Therefore, sometimes temples can turn into devil-houses.

What is the difference between the soul and the mind? Many times outside people say, especially sahajiya gurus, 'Eat whatever your soul fancies!' But is the mind the same as the soul?

32) Question: Is the mind the same as the soul?

Answer: The mind and the soul are not one and the same. The mind always judges about the external world. The mind can accept gross matter from the outer world, but the soul, being an eternal part and parcel of the Supreme Controller, can bring a message about the Lord. Only a pure soul knows what the Lord wants, what He likes; therefore, the religion of the soul is service to the eternal Paramatma (Supreme Soul).

33) Question: How can we protect the seed of devotional creeper?

Answer: We can see in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrta that if you do not water it, the seed of the devotional creeper (bhakti-lata bij) will dry and be destroyed. In general, if you plant some seeds and do not water them after that, they will dry up, and if you water them too much, the seeds will rot. It is the same here, too – sravan and kirtan (hearing and chanting) is the way to protect the seed of the devotional creeper, but if unqualified people listen to or discuss the highest topics found in the works by Chandi Das, Vidyapati, chapters about rasa-lila, etc. on pretext of sravan, then the tiny seed of their devotional creeper will not sprout, it will die very quickly.

If you pour too much water on the seed, it rots and dies, too. Sahajiyas pour too much water. Mayavadis claim that they are gods, and sahajiyas dress up as Radha and Krishna and do rasa-lila. They read all the things that they have no right to read and as the result their devotional seed died off.

— : • : —

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

CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE LECTURE

Size: 45 Mb
Length: 93 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Guru: Repository of Divine Love
2) Genuine Practising Life
3) Unconditional Service of Conditioned Souls
4) Be Kind
5) Fundamental Questions
6) Becoming a Devotee
7) Meaning of Spirituality
8) Solution to Internal Debates
9) Soul's Needs
10) Non-Sectarian Conception