(4/13) Pure Preacher's Position

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Vyasa Puja of Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
Sri Nrisingha Palli, evening class
1 January 2021, part 4, translated from Bengali

[His Divine Grace notices a devotee dozing off.] You are falling asleep! You went to the gate to meet with me or greet me, but I told you all yesterday that I am neither a pranam-taking guru nor a pranami-taking guru – I do not expect any pranam (obeisances) or pranami (donation) from anyone. I was talking to somebody and after that went to rest, and you came to my door and started knocking, did you not? I heard the noise, and I could hear your voice. It is not right. If you hear what Gurudev said, you will be surprised, and probably upset. Gurudev said: you can see many devotees coming from abroad, but there are three kinds of devotees among them. There are these three kinds of devotees among you, too, even more so, I can say. Gurudev said that arriving from abroad, devotees get off the plane and bring many gifts for him, sometimes they bring thirty gifts – a whole bag full of gifts! – but not all devotees are the same, and not everything is what it seems. Some come to serve their guru (guru-sevi); some can come and show devotion, but after some time they reject their guru (guru-tyagi); and the third class are those who come to use their guru (guru-bhogi).

You can see me also wearing this jacket and other unusual or expensive things. All these things were given to me by foreign devotees. One time, somebody looked up the price of the shoes I wear in the internet, and it turned out that they cost very much – my room had been robbed and absolutely everything was stolen, including even my soap, so foreign devotees sent things for me (it may be affordable for them). I personally do not buy anything for myself – I do not even buy soap for myself. I have never even bought a toothbrush for myself with the Lord’s money – I never did it when I was a brahmachari, and I have never done it to this day. For example, somebody can give me ten rupees, but I have never ever bought toothpaste, a toothbrush or anything like that for myself with that money. My only expense is petrol because I have to go for preaching: whether people give me money or not, I must go for preaching. If somebody pays for petrol, they can do that, and if not, I take money from my pocket and spend Gurudev’s money to go for preaching. Sometimes, when I go to somebody’s house for preaching, they give us money for petrol – if they give, they give, and if they do not give, I do not mind it, I pay myself. Gurudev told me to spend money for preaching. Moreover, Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur also said that for preaching you can even take a loan because if you borrow money, it will force you to go out for collection to pay that money back because the person you have borrowed it from will keep coming to you and asking you for that money. This is the rule; this is how we must preach.

I also spend money on printing books for preaching. This time, I printed 500,000 books. I do not know how many people buy them. Sometimes, we give books for free – if you cannot pay the printing price, you can take it for free. Take it, read it and follow what is written in them, then you will get some benefit. This is how we preach. So, when it comes to petrol, I always buy it. Every month, I spend 100,000 rupees on petrol for the car because I must go to various places and temples to preach Hari-katha. This is what I am doing…

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Size: 39 Mb
Length: 80 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Know and Love the Lord
2) Develop Deepest Dedication
3) At Lord's Home
4) Pure Preacher's Position
5) Clear Vision
6) Clear Identity
7) Sustaining Yourself on Gurudev's Words
8) Internal Purity
9) Kirtan-Yajna
10) Give Up Illusory Luxuries
11) Who Will You Blame?
12) Analysis Is Paralysis
13) Western Idiosyncrasies