(6/7) Unconditional Life

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kolkata—Worldwide, 31 January 2021, part 6

Question: Is it proper to make an offering with some prayer for those of us who do not have an altar in the house?

But why do you not keep an altar? You have a house or a flat – you must keep a photograph of Gurudev’s Deities and a photograph of the guru-parampara. You can keep a Tulasi tree also. Otherwise, when you offer something, it is necessary to offer it in front of somebody, but if you have no altar, who are you offering that food to? Try to understand this. Cooking and offering bhoga on the altar is part of devotional practice. You must have an altar in your house; I tell it to everyone all the time. Find a place in your house and make there an altar. It is a simple matter. You can take a photograph of Gaura-Nitai, Nabadwip Deities or the Deities at any of our temples, print it out, place a photograph of the guru-parampara below it and worship them according to your level. This is how you practise spiritual life. It is necessary to do this.

যে দিন গৃহে, ভজন দেখি’,
গৃহেতে গোলোক ভায় ।

ye dina grhe, bhajana dekhi’,
grhete goloka bhaya

‘Any day there is devotional service at home, I see Goloka manifest itself in it.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Are there any other questions from anyone?

Question: Could you please say something about forgiveness and unconditional love?

What is forgiveness? Is this the question? Vaishnavs are always forgiving, they never take any offence. We make many offences, but gurudev and Vaishnavs are merciful, they do not accept our offences – rather, they always remove them. At least that is our hope. One thing we must careful about is ‘truti-yukta seva’ (ত্রুটিযুক্ত সেবা) (faulty, or deficient, service). We must try to do our service without any faults. If we do our service wrong (making mistakes) day after day, then everything has its limit – even gurudev’s tolerance has its limit. So, try not to make any offences. It is very important. If you think that you can make the same offence day after day, and, gurudev being merciful, all your offences will be forgiven, it is not good. We must try to serve gurudev without any offence. Sometimes, offences can happen by mistake – in this case, Krishna and gurudev are merciful, they will remove such offences.

As for unconditional love, our gurudev and Vaishnavs always give us unconditional love, but what we see here in this material world is karma-misra bhakti – conditional devotion, condition love.

One time, in Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s time, one man came from Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj’s ISKCON mission and gave Srila Sridhar Maharaj very much money (four lakh [four hundred thousand] rupees). Srila Sridhar Maharaj took the money and immediately gave it to Gurudev. At that time, Gurudev wore white clothes, he was in householder life, and that man did not like that Srila Sridhar Maharaj had given the money to Srila Govinda Maharaj. Unhappy, he complained about it to somebody, and when he later again came to Srila Sridhar Maharaj to ask him for sannyas, Srila Sridhar Maharaj called our Gurudev and said, ‘Give that money back to him. He wants to buy sannyas with this money – it is impossible.’

Srila Sridhar Maharaj said that, in Srila Prabhupad’s words, we always try to turn our guru and the Lord into bribe-takers – we come to worship the Lord, and in lieu of that worship, we want to get our material problems solved. Both here in India and in the West – mostly here – people pay obeisances to the Lord and think, ‘Please give me good health!’, ‘Please give my wife good health!’, ‘Please give my son good health!’, ‘May my son find a good job!’, ‘May You send a baby to my daughter!’, and so on. People always ask the Lord for something, but it means that they turn Krishna into their menial servant – they make business with Krishna. This is what conditional love is. Unconditional love is the opposite.

Devotee: In the West, people also go to church every week and pray to be forgiven for their sins, and after that they again sin the next week.

It is one of the offences to the Holy Name (nama-aparadha). ‘Nama bale papachara (নাম বলে পাপাচার) – to sin and chant.’ It is like selling ghee mixed with dalda (adulterated with some cheap vegetable oil). You think, ‘No problem! I can sin the whole day, and in the evening I will just chant the Holy Name a bit, and all my sins will be removed!’ This is called ‘Nama bale papachara. To sin and chant.’

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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