(2/6) Listen and Learn

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur's disappearance
Nrisingha Palli, morning, 3 January 2021, part 2
Translated from Bengali

স্থানে স্থানে কত মঠ স্থাপিয়াছ নিষ্কপট
প্রেমসেবা শিখাইতে জীবে ।
মঠের বৈষ্ণবগণ করে সদা বিতরণ
হরিগুণ-কথামৃত ভবে ॥

sthane sthane kata matha, sthapiyachha niskapata,
prema-seva sikhaite jive
mathera vaisnava-gana, kare sada vitarana,
hari-guna-kathamrta bhave

‘You have established temples in many places to teach souls sincere loving service to the Lord. The Vaishnav residents of these temples always spread the nectar of the glories of the Lord.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Why do pure Gaudiya Vaishnavs and guru-varga open temples? To give people a place to stay and eat? So that cockroaches and rats can have a place to stay? Duplicitous people like to look for holes and criticise and gossip about everything, but a temple is a place for bhakti-siddhanta-sravan-sadan: a temple is a place for practising listening to the devotional precepts. A temple is only for Hari-katha and kirtan. It is not necessary to think about anything else. There must be only Hari-katha and kirtan at the temple! There must be no gossiping, no nonsense talks, no material talks – all this turns a temple into a commode! Do not do this.

There are many services at the temple, so engage in service. You must also remember that those who cook for the Deities do a greater service than even those who serve the Deities directly. The Lord deeply loves those who cook for Him because they cook for Him with heart and soul, with all their attention, putting their entire beings into it. Those who cook are often dissed and not given proper respect, but pujaris are, on the other hand, given much respect – people even come to offer them obeisances (but nobody will come to offer obeisances to the cook). Srila Prabhupad said that those who cook do an even greater service than pujaris because those who cook serve the Lord extracting and smearing mellows of deep love from within their hearts. You can relate to it yourselves also – when will you feel happy: when somebody worships you or when somebody cooks and serves you prasad nicely?

It is necessary to cook in a very orderly, skilful way. You know, I have seen people making posto-boras (white poppy seed fritters) at home – when they make it, posto gets into their hair or gets stuck under their nails! They do not know how to make it. How do you make posto-boras? You take some posto (white poppy seeds), add some water and grind it – I think you all also do that, but this is not how it is made. Posto must be first ground dry, then you add water. Remember this. You must learn these things. I learnt this from those who know these things very well. In the same way, you must learn to speak Hari-katha from those who know how to do it well – it is necessary to listen to such persons carefully. When sannyasis come here, I also sit and listen to what they say. It is necessary to know how to listen. Once, I heard somebody say, ‘You must become a good listener (srutasrava).’ To be a good listener means to be able to listen well and to be able to remember what you hear. There is srutidhara, and there is srutasrava. Both words refer to good listeners. If you do not listen properly, how will you speak? Therefore, you must listen to gurudev’s Hari-katha with heart and soul. Otherwise what will happen? What happens when you stop going to school? You think you can go to the market, buy some books and study everything from books, but if you hear Hari-katha from gurudev’s mouth and from Vaishnavs’ mouths, you can realise everything much quicker. You can see school and college teachers – they also listened to their teachers first, after that they started teaching others.

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Length: 53 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Srila Prabhupad's Exclusivity
2) Listen and Learn
3) Live Exemplary Life
4) Srila Prabhupad: Divine Benefactor
5) Life's Purpose
6) Strings Stronger Than Steel