(6/18) Strong Desires, Wrong Desires

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Vyasa-Puja Adhivas, Tarakeswar,
Evening, 28 September 2019, part 6
Translated from Bengali

We must always have a strong desire, a strong drive in our hearts to move onward, to move forward on the path of devotion. At the same time, there are many obstacles on this path, so it is necessary to move very carefully in our spiritual lives because if we make offences, it will create such obstacles in our spiritual lives that we can easily lose our service to the Lord and our gurudev.

We tend to think, 'I want to leave the happiness of this material family life and practise my spiritual life as I think I should.' This can never be spiritual life. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur gave one very nice example to explain this point.

There was one man in Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur's time who lived in Kulia. You know that Kulia is another name of Sri Nabadwip Dham ('kuliyate pasandira atyachara kaila yara – the residents of Kulia committed many atrocities against Srila Prabhupad'). There are always many heretics living in Kulia... So, it happened so that the man was a relative of Srila Prabhupad's devotee. Srila Prabhupad's devotee tried to explain to his relative again and again, 'Srila Prabhupad is living right here, and Mahaprabhu's birthplace is right here in Mayapur. Please come there at least one time, take the darshan of this holy personality and of this holy place.' But the man refused – he was so happy with his family and life at home that he did not want to leave it and go anywhere. He said, 'I have no time to go to Mayapur to see Mahaprabhu's birthplace. I do not like all these things, so I will never go there!'

One day, there was a fair organised in the Kulia area. You can imagine what a fair is like – there is a lot of music, dancing, nice food, you can see many beautiful girls, and so on. When that man heard about the fair, he got excited, 'Oh, I must go there!' The devotee took his relative to Kulia and showed him the place. They walked at the fair, saw the dancing and other entertainment. The man was very happy. At the end of their walk, the devotee told the man, 'We have come right to the bank of the Ganges. Can you see the boat over there? If you get on that boat and cross the river, you can see Mahaprabhu's birthplace, and Srila Prabhupad is also staying there. Let us go there, I will take you there!' The man did not want to go, 'No, no, I am scared to go by boat. I cannot swim, and I will get sick on the boat. I will not go. No, no.' And then he came up with a watertight excuse, 'I will go there when the Ganges dries up and I can walk across it.'

Telling this story, Srila Prabhupad explained, 'The Ganges will never dry, and neither will you ever go to Mayapur like that.' People think, 'Oh, I will practise Krishna consciousness when I am old', 'Oh, I will practise Krishna consciousness when I arrange my daughter's and son's marriages.' When their children get married, they have children, and then these people become busy with their grandchildren. Their material bondage never ends, and when they finally reach death's doorstep, then 'Vrddha-kala aola, saba sukha bhagala, pida-vase hainu katara (বৃদ্ধকাল আওল, সব সুখ ভাগল, পীড়াবশে হইনু কাতর). Now old age has come and all happiness has fled – distressed by diseases, I have become miserable' (Saranagati). You end up never practising spiritual life...

This is the example Srila Prabhupad gave.

Another thing Srila Prabhupad told about is mano-dharma. Mano-dharma means doing whatever you want, living freely as you like – whatever your mind wants, you live following its whims. In other words, it means that you practise spiritual life according to your own ideas, not following your guru's instruction. So, Srila Prabhupad had one servitor (he did not mention his name). One day, after taking prasad, Srila Prabhupad asked him, 'I have taken prasad. Stone some hartaki and give it to me, I want to freshen my mouth.' When hartaki is taken, the seed is usually taken out and only the pulp of the fruit is taken. But what did the servitor do? When he was told to stone the fruit, he took out the stone and brought it to Srila Prabhupad, throwing away the rest of the fruit. Seeing this, Srila Prabhupad said, 'Oh, today I cannot freshen my mouth...' The next day, when Srila Prabhupad took prasad, he again asked his servitor to bring him some mouth-freshener, and this time he asked him to bring him some seeded elaichi (cardamom). The cook thought, 'Oh, I stoned the hartaki last time and Srila Prabhupad was not happy. I have learned my lesson. I will not make the same mistake again.' What do you do with elaichi? You take out the seeds and throw away the shell of the pod (the seeds are taken, not the pod). And what did the cook do? He took out the seeds and brought Srila Prabhupad the empty pod! This is what happens when you follow your mind. He should have asked Srila Prabhupad, 'How should I prepare it?' and then he would know what to do; instead, he followed his own mind and was not able to serve Srila Prabhupad.

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Length: 83 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Disciple's Dependence
2) How Does Devotion Come?
3) Indispensability of Guru's Mercy
4) Stop Threshing the Husk
5) Disciples' Hypocrisy
6) Strong Desires, Wrong Desires
7) Identifying Yourself with Kirtan
8) Patience Is a Virtue
9) Internal Hypocrisy
10) Unhappy Mind
11) Kirtan Is Not a Show
12) Cook to Perfection
13) Install Gurudev in Your Heart
14) Submission without Resistance
15) Service Is Not a Rite
16) Vaishnavs' Ornaments vs Demons' Ornaments
17) Vaikuntha Vani
18) Absolute Self-Submission