(5/7) Blessing In Disguise

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kolkata—Worldwide, 31 January 2021, part 5

Question: One of my friends left his body in Mayapur recently. He was doing cow seva there, and he has left behind a wife and two small children. I find it hard to understand why Krishna has taken him away…

Krishna always tests us to see how much tolerance we will have in a particular situation. You can read the description of Sudam Vipra’s life. Sudam is a pure devotee of the Lord, but how much austerity Krishna gave him! You can see my example also. How much austerity Krishna gave me after Gurudev’s disappearance! I am talking now to you here, but I was on deathbed in hospital a few years ago – I almost died. The doctors did not have much hope because there was a very big haemorrhage in my brain, followed by a severe neurological complication due to diabetes. It is too much! Do you see how much austerity Krishna has given me? I cannot tell anyone what kind of austerity Krishna has made me go through because of those people. I am sitting now in Dum Dum Park, but at some point, I did not have even one rupee to buy food outside, let alone to cook – they had taken everything from here. They had first taken everything from Nabadwip and the second time from here, too. It is so much austerity, so much headache. How many court cases they have put against me! You will think that death is better than such a life. But Krishna brought me back to life, and I understand why – there is still some service to Gurudev due, that is why Krishna gave me a new life. Krishna is like that. When Santosh Prabhu got into that car accident, he also left his wife and a young son here. They cannot understand what Krishna consciousness is, but now that they are struggling so much without Santosh Prabhu, they start thinking about it. To give you some idea, when Santosh Prabhu died, they did not even have food in their house.

There is also another example that Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur gives. One time two men went to bath in a pond early in the morning. One man was going to the mangal-arati, so he came to the pond to have a bath before the arati, and the whole night before that (it was an ekadasi), he had been chanting the Holy Name. On the way home from the pond, that man was suddenly bitten by a snake. The snake was not poisonous, and he did not die, but he was bitten. The other man went to the pond to bath, too, but on the way back from the pond, he found a small piece of gold. What kind of man was he? He had spent the whole night robbing people – while people were asleep in their houses, he went house to house stealing things. Why did Krishna send austerity to the man who had been chanting His Holy Name the whole night and reward the bad man (the thief) with gold? This question came to Yudhisthir Maharaj, and Yudhisthir Maharaj said that the man who had been bitten by the snake was supposed to die that day, but because he had been chanting the Holy Name, he got only a little punishment, whereas the thief was supposed to become a billionaire that day, but instead he remained very poor and found only a small piece of gold.

So, you can think about it – that man who did cow seva will get benefit, and his children and wife must practise Krishna consciousness now, they must think how to manage their lives without him. They have to go through this austerity, and they must tolerate it. You can say that this is a test. Austerity will always come:

জীবন অনিত্য জানহ সার,
তাহে নানাবিধ বিপদ ভার
নামাশ্রয় করি’ যতনে তুমি,
থাকহ আপন কাজে ॥

jivana anitya janaha sara
tahe nana-vidha vipada-bhara
namasraya kari’ yatane tumi,
thakaha apana kaje

‘You must know the main truth that this life is not eternal and full of various dangers. Carry on your life but try your best to take shelter in the Holy Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Krishna will give us so much austerity, but ‘sukhe duhkhe bhulo nako – in happiness or distress, never forget the Lord’! When you are sad (when you are in a bad position or in hospital), you think only about Krishna, but when you are happy (when you are in good health), you do not remember Krishna, you do not pray to Krishna. That is why Krishna always tests us in this way.

In another way, this is also some karma-phal. We will think that we have done something bad, some bad karma, and as a result of that karma, we are suffering now. My father died, my husband died, and so on – such things happen because we have done some bad karma.

Finally, you think that you are husband and wife, that you have two children, and so on – you have had some connection with each other in this life, but in your previous births, you were not husband and wife; you had no connection with each other. So, there is no need to show too much attachment to each other. You must try to understand all this.

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READ OTHER PARTS:

1) "I Want to Surrender"
2) Our Plight and Plea
3) Wealth of Nanda Maharaj's Yard
4) Pure Sambandha
5) Blessing In Disguise
6) Unconditional Life
7) Jewel of Sincerity