(7/8) On Importance of Chastity

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kolkata—Worldwide, 7 February 2021, part 7

Question: Why is chastity to the guru important?

I can give a very exact example. If a lady has many husbands, she cannot give her heart fully to any of them – she will think how to please everybody. However, if a lady has only one husband, she can give her heart to him fully – she can take care of him and serve him properly. The same applies to men. Some men have many wives, but they cannot give proper attention to each wife because they have many other women to think about. So, those who have many wives or many husbands cannot fully satisfy each of the wives or husbands.

In the same way, here in Bengal people worship Durga, Kali and many other gods. Sometimes, you come to people’s altar room and see so many demigods there – they make a museum of demigods! They put Mother Durga, Kali, Ganesh, Kartik, Siva, Parvati, Lord Krishna, Gauranga, Nitai, everybody on their altars! It is necessary to have chastity. I asked Gurudev what the word ‘chastity’ means, and Gurudev said that it means ‘satitva’ [‘chastity’ as in a ‘chaste’ wife] in Bengali.

You can see that even Krishna Himself says in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, ‘My devotees only know Me. They do not know anything or anyone else besides Me, and I, too, do not know anyone except My devotees.’ Even Krishna Himself has chastity, then why will you have none? Krishna says that He is chaste to His devotees, and if you want to be a devotee of Lord Krishna, then you must have chastity, too. If you want to please everybody, then you cannot actually please anybody.

'শ্রদ্ধা' শব্দে—বিস্বাস কহে সুদৃঢ় নিশ্চয় ।
কৃষ্ণে ভক্তি কৈলে সর্ব্বকর্ম্ম কৃত হয় ॥

‘sraddha’-sabde visvasa kahe sudrdha nischaya
krsne bhakti kaile sarva-karma krta haya

‘Sraddha is a firm, determined faith that by serving Krishna all actions are accomplished.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.62)

We sometimes want to please our parents, husbands, wives and others, but Krishna says, ‘If you please Me, you will please everybody.’ Gurudev is non-different from Krishna. Krishna Himself comes in the form of a guru, you know that. Even Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur also says:

সাক্ষাদ্ধরিত্বেন সমস্ত-শাস্ত্রৈ-
রুক্তস্তথা ভাব্যত এব সদ্ভিঃ ।
কিন্তু প্রভোর্যঃ প্রিয় এব তস্য
বন্দে গুরোঃ শ্রীচরণারবিন্দম্ ॥

saksadd-haritvena samasta-sastrair
uktas tatha bhavyata eva sadbhih
kintu prabhor yah priya eva tasya
vande guroh sri-charanaravindam

‘I offer my obeisance unto the lotus feet of Sri Guru, who is said by all scriptures to be no doubt the Supreme Lord Himself, and considered to be such by pious souls, but who is also no doubt the Lord’s dear associate.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

On the one hand, gurudev is the Lord Himself; on the other hand, gurudev is the dearmost friend of the Lord. Suppose you want to ask the Lord something. If you send a letter directly to the Lord, you will not get any reply, but if you ask your guru, he can tell Krishna about it. The guru can also tell you what Krishna eats, where Krishna stays and what Krishna likes – you cannot know these things on your own, but the guru can tell you all this. Gurudev knows what Krishna likes. So, if you want to serve the Lord, you must first go to gurudev, who can actually control Krishna. Devotees control the Lord.

মন্মনা ভব মদ্ভক্তো মদ্­যাজী মাং নমস্কুরু ।
মামেবৈষ্যসি যুক্ত্বৈবমাত্মানং মৎপরায়ণঃ ॥

man-mana bhava mad-bhakto, mad-yaji mam namaskuru
mam evaisyasi yuktvaivam, atmanam mat-parayanah

‘Always think of Me, be My devotee, always worship Me and offer obeisances to Me. Offering yourself to Me and taking refuge in Me in this way, you will come to Me.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 9.34)

You all know this sloka from Srimad Bhagavad-gita. Gurudev knows what Krishna likes, what Krishna does, where Krishna stays and where His home is. You must find the Lord’s address, and gurudev is the only one who knows it. Therefore, it is necessary to be chaste to your guru. It is very important to understand this.

Gurudev also said that if a lady has, for example, five husbands (if she has no chastity), she is called a prostitute here in Bengal. Krishna says, ‘If you think only about Me, I will also think only about you,’ so if you give your hearts, your everything to your guru, if you surrender fully to your guru (if you think about the Lord, about your Master, about your gurudev), then gurudev will also think about you.

Sometimes, I said to Gurudev, ‘I want to follow your order, but some devotees are not happy when I do it.’ Gurudev replied, ‘You do not have to make everybody happy! Your only duty is to make me happy.’

Are there any other questions?

Question: My friends and I distribute prasadam to some homeless people. How can I preach to these people who do not know what prasadam is?

You can tell them:

‘Sukhe duhkhe bhulo naka, vadane Harinama kara re. In happiness or sadness, never forget it, always chant the Holy Name!’ How did you come to this position? You created some problems before, you have some previous karma, that is why you are suffering now without a home. I am bringing some prasadam for you: you think that you are getting some food, but this is also the will, or the mercy, of Lord Krishna. You live in this world, but how is it that you are alive? How is it that you are talking? You can see a dead body – can it talk? It cannot because only the body is there. If there is no life in a body, if there is no soul in a body, the body cannot do anything on its own. Therefore, you have a soul, and you have a relationship with the Lord.

There are so many things, so many points you can tell them. And if somebody does not want to understand it, what can you do? You can only give them some prasad – their jiva souls will get some benefit through that, and you will also get some benefit. It is OK. Here in India some people also do not like prasad or do not understand what prasad is, but we distribute it to them. Tell them about it. Tell, tell and tell, and one day they will understand it.

You know, even in the case of Lord Indra, it took him time to understand these things. One time, Indra’s gurudev cursed him to be born in a pig’s body. When Brahma came to him to rescue him, Indra did not understand who Brahma was, who Indra was – he could not remember his previous life. It took him more than twelve years to understand what Brahma was telling him. Therefore, Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that if you want to turn one non-devotee who does not believe in God or anything else into a devotee, it is necessary to shed gallons of gallons of blood to do that. It is necessary to try very hard. It is not easy to make somebody a devotee. Those who have some sukriti come easily, but those who have no sukriti will not come to Krishna consciousness so easily, so it is necessary to preach to them again and again…

ব্রহ্মাণ্ড ভ্রমিতে কোন ভাগ্যবান্ জীব ।
গুরু-কৃষ্ণ-প্রসাদে পায় ভক্তিলতা-বীজ ॥

brahmanda bhramite kona bhagyavan jiva
guru-krsna-prasade paya bhakti-lata-bija

‘Having travelled throughout the universe, some fortunate souls receive the seed of the devotional creeper by the mercy of Sri Guru, who is non-different from Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.19.151)

You must understand that it is not so easy to get this seed. Only those who have some sukriti get it. So, do not be disheartened. You must not stop your service. Try your best, that is my advice.

Even when I went village to village for collection in Gurudev’s time, people would tell us not to come to their houses, people would swear us and say so many bad things. Sometimes, they said, ‘Oh, you are begging house to house making business on pretext of being a sadhu!’ They would say so many things, but we never stopped – I am still doing this service, you know that. I still go door to door and to so many rice mills, collecting rice and potato. Sripad Sadhu Maharaj sends some photos from here, you can see them. When we do rice collection, we go door to door.

Not everybody believes in God. There are so many conceptions here in India, especially in Bengal. Here, people are surrounded by myriads of demigods. In foreign countries, there is mostly only Christianity, and they come to Krishna consciousness after Christianity, it is OK, but here Hindu people follow so many demigods! Somebody worships Brahma, somebody worships Siva, somebody worships Ganesh, somebody worships Surya (the God of Sun), somebody worships Chandra (the God of Moon), and so on. It is very difficult to preach in Bengal. That is also why Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur started preaching from Kolkata – he said that Kolkata was a place of Kali. There is so much influence of Kali here.

It is a little easier to preach abroad because, as Gurudev said (I heard it directly from his lotus mouth), foreign devotees do not have so much attachment to their families. Even householder devotees there are not so much attached to their families – they can immediately divorce their wives or divorce their husbands; whereas here in India, the wife can be beaten by her husband every day, but she tolerates everything and continues serving him. I have seen so many families in villages – some wives tolerate so much, but when they cannot tolerate it anymore, they commit suicide; sometimes, the husband can burn his wife, and sometimes, the husband stifles his wife and then hangs her on the ceiling fan, saying, ‘Oh, she has committed suicide!’ These things happen here every day.

So, try your best to preach to these people and one day you will be successful.

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Length: 49 min
Language: English

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) "Guru-mukha-padma-vakya chitete kariya aikya"
2) Internal and Eternal
3) Clearing the Path
4) Cause of All Causes
5) Do Not Be Disheartened
6) Forthcoming Festivals
7) On Importance of Chastity
8) Study and Learn