(5/15) Six Limbs of Surrender

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kolkata, preaching programme,
16 January 2021, part 5
Translated from Bengali

Among the six limbs of surrender, the first one is humility (dainyata). I must feel that ‘I am poor’, ‘I have no qualification’, ‘I do not know anything’. I must not think, ‘I am a good speaker’, ‘I am good at singing’, ‘I can sing kirtans well’, and so on. No. ‘I am very poor.’

What is my position? It is first necessary to know what your identity is.

‘কৃষ্ণ-নিত্যদাস’—জীব তাহা ভুলি’ গেল ।
এই দোষে মায়া তার গলায় বান্ধিল ॥

‘krsna-nitya-dasa’—jiva taha bhuli’ gela
ei dose maya tara galaya bandhila

‘Jiva souls forgot that they are eternal servants of Krishna. Because of this mistake, illusion threw its ropes around their necks.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.24)

We forget that the jiva soul is an eternal servant of Krishna. We are eternal servants – we are not servants for one hour, one and a half hours or only half a year. We are always servants; we are always menial workers of the Lord. We must remember this. Mahaprabhu Himself said, ‘I am not a sannyasi, I am not a brahmachari, I am not ksatriya, I am not a vaisya, I am not a sudra. Who am I? I am a servant of a servant of the Lord!’ So, we are servants of the servants of the servants of devotees.

Those of you who have been to Vrindavan know that there is a place on the bank of the Yamuna where Laksmi Devi (Maha-Laksmi) is sitting and crying because she cannot enter Vrindavan. She feels, ‘I am the wife of Narayan, I am His potency. I have so much wealth at home!’ Yes, Laksmi Devi may be very rich, but she does not have anugatya (chaste, exclusive devotion or adherence). She thinks, ‘Why does Krishna love only Radharani? I am not any less beautiful than She! What is so special about Her?’ She does not understand that Her Name is Radha because She worships (aradhana) the Lord the most. That is why it is said in the scriptures:

রাধা-ভজনে যদি মতি নাহি ভেলা ।
কৃষ্ণ ভজন তব অকারণে গেলা ॥

radha-bhajane yadi mati nahi bhela
krsna-bhajana tava akarana gela

‘If you have not become devoted to the worship of Sri Radha, your worship of Krishna has been in vain.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to worship and serve Radharani. Moreover, Gauranga Mahaprabhu is the combined form of Sri Radha and Krishna: if we do not worship Gauranga and Nityananda Prabhu, how can we ever hope to come to Radha-Krishna? We even sing in one of the kirtans: ‘Nitaiyera karuna habe Vraje Radha-Krsna pabe, dhara Nitaiyera charana duhkhani (নিতাইয়ের করুণা হবে ব্রজে রাধাকৃষ্ণ পাবে ধর নিতাইয়ের চরণ দুঃখানি). If you get Nitai’s mercy, you will come to Radha-Krishna in Vraja. O miserable soul, grasp Nitai’s holy feet!’

So, first comes humility. Then, there is self-submission (atma-nivedana). It means ‘I submit myself completely, wholesale at the lotus feet of the Lord and gurudev.’

The third limb of surrender is goptritve-varan. It means I must realise that the Lord is my maintainer. We think that our parents look after us and take care of us. Yes, they may give us some food and clothes, but neither they nor any doctors can protect or save us – only the Lord can do it. People like to say that some doctor or their parents have saved them, but everyone’s life duration is already written for them: everyone will live as long as they are destined to live. I told everybody at Gaura Purnima, when coronavirus had not come to this country yet, that no matter how many kinds of medicine people invent, no matter how many vaccines doctors invent, Yamaraj will create more and more diseases. If one disease is treated today, Yamaraj will create another hundred diseases tomorrow. Must we stop speaking and preaching about the Lord then? Will you stop chanting the Holy Name? You never stop eating – you continue eating every day even during the lockdown – so why will you give up serving the Lord?

The problem is that people cannot serve the Lord from an early age, their childhood; they cannot think about the Lord. The Lord has given us so many facilities – we have a place to stay, we can even sit in the room and chant the Holy Name, practise spiritual life, chant kirtans, read Bhagavatam. There are so many beautiful things in the scriptures and in spiritual life, but we forget about it. That is why sadhus and gurus come to this world to remind us about all these things. When you buy a mobile phone at the market, you have to charge it every day or every second day. Unless you charge it, you cannot speak on the phone. In the same way, sadhus and gurus come to this world to give us this ‘charge’ by telling us about the Lord.

So, ‘goptritve-varan’ means understanding that the Lord is our maintainer. The fourth limb of surrender is to keep a strong faith that Krishna will certainly protect me (‘avasya raksibe Krsna’ visvasa palana, ‘অবশ্য রক্ষিবে কৃষ্ণ’—বিশ্বাস পালন). Krishna is our protector. ‘Marabi rakhabi – yo ichchha tohara (মারবি রাখবি—যো ইচ্ছা তোহারা). You can kill me, You can protect and keep me alive – it is Your matter, it is up to You’ (Saranagati). If He kills, He will kill; and if He saves, He will save. If Krishna does not save you, nobody can save you. You may have heard that when there was a flood in Nabadwip, a one-year-old baby survived, but the child’s adult relative died. Therefore, it is necessary to have faith that Krishna will certainly protect us – if I surrender to the Lord, He will certainly protect me.

The fifth limb of surrender is accepting only that which is favourable to devotion (bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara, ভক্তি-অনুকূল মাত্র কার্য্যের স্বীকার), and the sixth is rejecting everything that is unfavourable to devotion (bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara, ভক্তি-প্রতিকূল ভাব-বর্জ্জনাঙ্গীকার). Suppose you make a fire sacrifice. If you put one spoon of ghee and then one spoon of water, you will not be able to do a fire sacrifice like this (the fire will go out). In the same way, if we do what is favourable and at the same time sometimes do what is unfavourable, both cannot go together. If you drink milk and alcohol, then all the vitamins that are there in the milk will be destroyed. That is why it is said that you must do what is favourable and avoid what is unfavourable. When Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur gave a lecture in Vrindavan, he also stressed this: it is necessary to accept that which is favourable (bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara) and reject that which is unfavourable (bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara).

— : • : —

{ 2001  |   2002  |   2003  |   2005  |   2009  |   2010  |   2011  |   2012 }
{ 2013  |   2014  |   2015  |   2016  |   2017  |   2018  |   2019  |   2020  |   2021 }

CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE LECTURE

Size: 58 Mb
Length: 120 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Where Does the Lord Stay?
2) Mahaprabhu's Advent and Gift
3) Coming Out of Maya
4) Make Yourself Qualified
5) Six Limbs of Surrender
6) Sincere and Deep Prayer
7) Lend Me Your Heart
8) Follow the Footsteps of Great Souls
9) Suspicion Leads to Suspension
10) Only One Question
11) We Are Neither Enjoyers, Nor Renouncers
12) False Ego's Folly
13) Be Sincere and Studious
14) Remembering Mahaprabhu's Sannyas
15) Way Out