(3) Beyond Body Consciousness

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Bokaro, 3 December 2019, evening, part 3
Translated from Bengali

You must throw yourselves wholesale towards the Lord. Surrender wholesale (sad-anga saranagati). We sing in one of the kirtans:

শ্রীকৃষ্ণচৈতন্য প্রভু জীবে দয়া করি’ ।
স্বপার্ষদ স্বীয় ধাম সহ অবতরি ॥

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’
svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari

‘Bestowing mercy on jiva souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

In this Age of Kali, Supreme Lord Sri Krishna comes as Gauranga Mahaprabhu, a combined form of Sri Sri Radha-Krishna. He went house to house, begging everyone:

জীব জাগ জীব জাগ গোরাচাঁদ বলে ।
কত নিদ্রা যাও মায়া পিশাচীর কোলে ॥

jiva jaga jiva jaga gorachanda bale
kata nidra yao maya-pisachira kole

‘“Wake up, soul! Wake up, soul!” says Gorachad (Golden Moon). “How long are you going to sleep in the lap of this witch Maya?”’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This illusory world, Maya, is compared to a witch (pisachi), and we are sleeping in the lap of this witch. Have we been born only to hear somebody call us 'daddy', 'mummy', 'grandpa' or 'grandma'? No. This is not what we should cherish. This is not what we have been born for in this world, this is not what we have got this human birth for. What did you get this human birth for? This birth gives us an opportunity to come to the Lord and to serve the Lord. If a human being gets a sadhu's association, if they get some pure intelligence, then by the mercy of that pure association, they can receive service to the Lord. It is necessary to serve the Lord.

You are alive because of the Lord. You think that doctors can save you, but no matter how many doctors you see (you can go to London, America, Bangalore or anywhere else), if the Lord decides that you have to leave on this day – if you get your ticket for a certain date – you will have to go away leaving your house, family and all your life here. No doctor, no relative, no friend will be able to keep you here. They are nobody to you – they are not somebody you can call your own. If they were your own, if they were your real family, then how could your mother leave you?

Our parents – our fathers and mothers – are called our biological parents. They give us our bodies, but they did not give us that which we are. I and my body are not the same thing. Once, I asked a man, 'Are you and this body one and the same?' He replied, 'Yes, they are.' I told him then, 'What do scientists say? When we eat some food, it gets absorbed by the body. So, if you think that you are your body, it means that when you eat potato, you become a potato!'

We are not these bodies. We say, 'My hands', 'My legs', 'My eyes', 'My ears', 'My head' – all these things belong to me, but who am I? I am a soul (jivatma). The soul comes from God, and it is eventually to go back to God. If it does not, then it gets another body. As you sow, so you reap.

The Lord sent us to these human bodies because we had accumulated some sukriti in our previous births (we had done something good in our previous lives), but if, having got this human birth, we never serve the Lord, then we will have to get another birth. Just as we wear these clothes today, but tomorrow we will change our clothes and wear new ones, we also always change our bodies: today we are born as humans, but next time we can be born as cows, goats, cats and other species according to our previous actions. But if we serve the Lord, then we can go to the abode of the Lord and stay there.

— : • : —

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