(2/7) Uninterrupted Service Life

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kolkata—Worldwide, 10 January 2021, part 2

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘Prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara (প্রাণ আছে যার সেই হেতু প্রচার): you have life, you are alive, then you must preach.’ As long as we have life in this body, for as long as we are alive, we must preach Krishna consciousness to people. In this Age of Kali, not so many people will come to Krishna consciousness because of maya, because of the influence of Kali, but Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that we should not be disheartened – we must do our job.

Srila Param Guru Maharaj, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, said: when you are giving a class in the nat-mandir, there may be no people listening, but you can realise that the Deities are listening, even every pillar in the nat-mandir is listening to your Hari-katha. So, we must preach – we must tell our message, tell and tell it every day, and one day people will hear it. Because the influence of Maya (illusory environment) is very strong, people cannot easily accept Mahaprabhu’s message – they are not eager to listen about such things.

‘Sithilita vidhi’ – Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur drastically reduced the rules and regulations. He even relaxed the rules of following ekadasi – he said that if you are hungry, you can take some fruit or potato, it is not necessary to fast the whole day without any water. If it is not possible for you to do a complete fast, you can take some anukalpa (non-grain prasad that is permissible on ekadasi). We all know that our temple’s rule is that we must fast until noon, but sometimes, for health reasons, some people have to take something earlier because, for example, they may suffer from acidity and if they fast, it causes a big problem; or sometimes we must take some medicine in the morning, and to take that medicine, we have to eat something first – in such cases, we can take anukalpa earlier. Other than that, we must try to follow the rules and regulations as much as we can. We must always do our best in our practising lives. All our guru-varga, all followers of Sri Rupanuga line have already accepted and established all these things. There are many rules and regulations, and we must continue our service lives properly.

I have seen also that when Gurudev travelled by aeroplane, he would even take the food from the aeroplane servant. Gurudev is not some simple, ordinary person – he is the representative of the Lord Himself! The air host could be a Muslim, a Christian or even an atheist (a person without any religious creed), but Gurudev did not feel squeamish to take food from their hand. He was never like that. Gurudev is not an ordinary person – it is not like he will take food from others and thereby lose his caste. No! When somebody comes near Gurudev (if somebody gets his mercy), they become purified. We must understand it in this way. If some nurse or an air host gives food to Gurudev because they have accumulated sufficient sukriti and have got this chance to serve Gurudev, their heart will be satisfied and they will be ultimately purified by his association. Those people received this kind of fortune to give food to Gurudev! This is how we take it.

On the other hand, some smartavadis, some other ordinary people can criticise Gurudev for taking such food. There are also people who like to criticise others for every small thing. We see that Ramachandra Puri criticised Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. There are always such people in this world, their duty will always be to criticise. What can you do? You cannot stop their mouths. There are such people whom Krishna has given a mouth not for chanting the Holy Name but for criticising. There are such people in this world, and you must be careful – always try to avoid such people’s association.

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READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Good Mind, Good Heart
2) Uninterrupted Service Life
3) Accommodating Heart
4) Material Affection
5) Coming Before Deities
6) Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur and Sri Vakreshwar Pandit
7) Best Turn In Life