(2/5) Missing the Substance

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Basirhat, 16 December 2020, noon, part 2
Translated from Bengali

Sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs tell us to chant the Names of Radha-Madhav. Does it require spending any money to chant the Lord's Name? Do you think if you chant the Lord's Name, the Lord will take away your family?

[To a devotee who started fussing] Sit here. Sit quietly, you do not need to do anything. Do not be restless. I am your guest, I will manage everything. Give your house to me for an hour. I will take care of everything.

মায়াজালে বদ্ধ হ'য়ে, আছ মিছে কাজ ল'য়ে ।
এখনও চেতন পেয়ে, রাধামাধব-নাম বল রে ॥

maya-jale baddha ha'ye achha michhe kaja la'ye
ekhan-o chetana peye radha-madhav-nam bala re

'Bound in Maya's net, you work in vain. While you are still conscious, chant the Name of Radha-Madhav!'

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We do not understand who we work for so much. We forget Him for whom we are supposed to be doing everything. The Lord has given you a husband, children, relatives – the Lord has given them and the Lord can take them away. You do not have the power to keep anything. Then why do you forget the Lord? Sadhus come to remind you about the Lord.

Why are you forgetting the Lord? Conditioned souls living in material bondage do not remember Krishna. Wake up in the morning, offer obeisances to Gurudev, to the Lord and pray, 'My Lord, please guide me down the path of devotion. Please give me unswerving devotion to your holy feet.' If you think about the Lord, the Lord will think about you. You are all children of the Lord, children of nectar (amritasya putra). The Lord thinks, 'You are all My sons, My daughters.' It is written in the scriptures, 'Srnvantu visve amrtasya putra: you came from nectar, therefore you must dive deep into that nectar.'

You think that when a boy and a girl get married, they give birth to a child, but they only give birth to a body. When a child dies or a mother dies, everybody cries. She who you call mother falls down dead and is then burnt – but where is the thing that leaves the body, that makes the hands move, that speaks, laughs and dances? Do you ever think about it? People never think about it. That main thing is part of the Lord, so it goes to the Lord, and if it does not go to the Lord, it gets another body.

We always think about the body – 'my mother', 'my brother', 'my wife', 'my son', 'my husband', 'my daughter' – but when the real thing, the essence goes away, then we think about the soul, but before that we do not. When somebody told me, 'Oh, my mother has died,' I told them, 'What do you mean? She is there, lying in her room. She who you think is your mother is lying in the room.' You never think about the soul, the jiva that is within the body of your 'mother'.

[Clamour] Do not speak! You have got a mouth to speak, but to speak about who? About Krishna, not anything else. You must speak only when it is necessary. For example, when you go to the market, you must speak to buy vegetables, then you can speak; or when you call somebody, 'Come, take prasad!' or when you are eating and you need some salt or some vegetables, you can ask for it. Apart from that, it is not necessary to speak. You must speak little. You have got a mouth only to speak about the Lord.

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Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Beyond Material Bondage
2) Missing the Substance
3) Enthrone the Lord in Your Home
4) 'I Want Your Love'
5) Save Yourself