(5) Material and Spiritual Urges

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Bokaro, 3 December 2019, evening, part 5
Translated from Bengali

When the battle of Kuruksetra was over, Yudhisthir Maharaj came to Bhisma to hear his guidance. The advice Bhisma gave him was this:

মহাপ্রসাদে গোবিন্দে নাম-ব্রহ্মণি বৈষ্ণবে ।
স্বল্পপুণ্যবতাং রাজন্ বিশ্বাসো নৈব জায়তে ॥

mahaprasade govinde nama-brahmani vaisnave
svalpa-punya-vatam rajan visvaso naiva jayate

‘O King, one whose fortune is meagre never develops strong faith in mahaprasad, Govinda, the Holy Name or Vaishnavs.’

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur also wrote:

শরীর অবিদ্যা-জাল জড়েন্দ্রিয় তাহে কাল
জীবে ফেলে বিষয়-সাগরে,

sarira avidya-jala jadendriya tahe kala
jive phele visaya-sagare

‘This body is a net of ignorance, and the material senses are the cause of its ruin because they throw the soul into the ocean of material life.’

The urge of the tongue throws the soul into material existence. It is necessary to control it.

মায়ারে করিয়া জয় ছাড়ান না যায় ।
সাধুকৃপা বিনা আর না দেখি উপায় ॥

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya
sadhu-krpa bina ara na dekhi upaya

‘It is impossible to conquer illusory environment and break free from it. I see no other way to get relief except by sadhus’ mercy.’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Our minds are very naughty – they always run in every direction. By its nature, the mind lives in the external world, and the soul lives in the internal world. For example, I can sit here, but my mind can be elsewhere – I can be thinking about something I have seen earlier, so I will see something else in my mind. We must control our minds with intelligence. But where do you get that intelligence? If you come to a blind man and ask him how to get somewhere, how will he show it to you if the man himself is blind? You must come to those who have eyes. That is why we pray:

ওঁ অজ্ঞানতিমিরান্ধস্য জ্ঞানাঞ্জনশলাকয়া ।
চক্ষুরুন্মিলিতং যেন তস্মৈ শ্রীগুরবে নমঃ ॥

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

‘I offer my obeisance to Sri Guru, who has opened my eyes, rescuing me from the illusory darkness of ignorance, by applying the salve of knowledge upon my eyes.’

Gurudev grants us the gift of vision (he gives us divine knowledge), and when we get this gift, we can see transcendental things and the transcendental abode – all dirt goes away from our hearts and eyes.

Apart from the urge of the tongue, there is also the urge of the speech, the urge of the mind, the urge of anger, the urge of the stomach, the urge of the genitals. There are these six urges in total. You must know this. We pray to Vaishnavs, 'Chhaya vega dami. Prabhu, please subjugate the six urges raging within me. Chhaya dosa sodhi. Please free me from the six faults always residing within me. Chhaya guna deha. Grant me the six good qualities.' The main good quality is enthusiasm – enthusiasm and earnest, ardent desire to serve the Lord. When you get some service, you must feel joyful. When you do something good, when you follow ekadasi, when you observe festivals related to your gurus and Vaishnavs, you must feel enthusiastic and happy. We always want to be like that, and we always pray to our guru and Vaishnavs for such a quality.

We must always do what is good for devotion and throw away what is unfavourable to devotion from our lives. Suppose you are doing a fire sacrifice. If you put in the fire a spoon of ghee and then a spoon of water, then again ghee and again water. Does it work like that? So, if you do something good and at the same time you also do something bad – it does not work like that. You cannot do both. You drink milk to get nutrient, but at the same time you also chew tobacco – the tobacco will destroy all the vitamins that you are getting from milk. Therefore, we must always do that which is favourable to devotion, and we must give up that which is unfavourable to devotion. We must not do that which is unfavourable to spiritual life.

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