(2/4) Do Not Waste This Human Life

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Tarakeshwar area, 10 February 2021 (noon), part 2

When I go for collection, many say, ‘I have no time’, ‘I cannot come for four days’, ‘I cannot come for two days.’ This situation is familiar to many of you. You are very busy with your work and cannot leave it even for two days, but if the Lord wishes, He can forcefully keep you in hospital for a month.

Many people do not fast on ekadasi – even though it is prohibited, they eat rice on ekadasi days, saying that they cannot manage without rice. But when you get into hospital and are given saline for fifteen days, what do you do then? You will not get any rice there – what to speak of rice, you will not even get water; they will only give you saline at hospital. It is said in the scriptures that if you take rice on ekadasi, it is the same as eating cow’s meat. You must follow ekadasi. It is good even for your health. You eat all kinds of things all the time, but take plain food on ekadasi – cook some potato with black pepper and take that at noon. We eat rice at noon and rotis in the evening, but instead of rotis you can have some vegetables, fruit, milk, curd and other non-grain food. You can take sandesh if you make it at home (shop sandesh can have other things in it). It is not a problem. Everyone must follow ekadasi independent of whether they are married or not. Many say that you must not follow ekadasi unless you are a widow. It is a misconception. Such things are not written anywhere in the scriptures. Whatever your lifestyle or position is, you must follow ekadasi twice a month (on the eleventh lunar day), it will be good because in this world everyone is part of Krishna’s family.

We suffer from five diseases, the first of which is avidya, ignorance. Ignorance means that we do not understand things. For example, if asked who we are, we say, ‘I am so-and-so Vishwanath’, ‘I am so-and-so Ray’, and so on, but this is not our identity, this is the identity of the body – as long as this body is there, people call me by this name, but once this body is thrown into the Ganges, will anyone call me by that name? They will not. So, the name we know ourselves by is the identification of this body, not of who we are. Not knowing who you are is called ignorance.

It is necessary to know who we are. I am not a brahman, a Maharaj, a Kaviraj, a Chaudhary or anything else like that. What am I? What is it that moves these legs, that make this mouth speak? There is a living entity within everything – in children, in insects, in trees, and so on – and this living entity is called the soul. The soul is the power of life within us. Who gives us this power? The Lord. Our fathers and mothers give us these bodies by mixing their blood together, but they do not give us that which we are (our intrinsic selves). You must remember this. Who gave us that which we are? The Lord. That is why it is said in the scriptures (in Srimad Bhagavad-gita and other places) that we are sons of nectar. We all come from the same place, and we are all relatives. We are all sons of the same Lord. Some live in Tarakeshwar; some, in Narayanpur; some, in Hooghly; some, in Bardhaman; some, in Russia; some, in America; some, in London; but we have forgotten that we are all children of the Lord. We must go back to Him whose children we are. We must return to that home.

This is something you must always think about. When you stay in a rented place, you may stay there for six months, and once there is some problem, you leave and find another place. Then, you can stay in the new place for a year, but again some problem can come, and you will again have to change your home. If you keep changing houses all the time, will you be happy? You will not. One day you will think, ‘I had better buy some land. If I can build and live in a thatched house, it is better than having to always move from place to place.’ In the same way, wherever we are staying now in this world, this is a rented house, and you will never feel happy until and unless you return to your own home. Our home is in Goloka Vrindavan – the home of the Lord. We come from the house of the Lord in Goloka Vrindavan, and we must all go there. We all had a place there, but as the result of our karma, some of us became humans; some, cows; some, trees; some, goats, and so on. It is said in the scriptures:

জলজা নবলক্ষাণি স্থাবরা লক্ষবিংশতি
কৃময়োরুদ্রসঙ্খ্যকাঃ পক্ষিণাং দশলক্ষনম্
ত্রিংশললক্ষাণি পশবঃ চতুরলক্ষাণি মানুষাঃ

jalaja nava-laksani sthavara laksa-vimsati
krmayo rudra-sankhyakah paksinam dasa-laksanam
trimsal-laksani pasavah chatur-laksani manusah

‘There are 900,000 aquatic species; 2,000,000 nonmoving living entities (trees, plants, etc.); 1,100,000 species of insects and reptiles; 1,000,000 species of birds; 3,000,000 species of beasts; and 400,000 species of humans.’

(Sri Padma Purana, Sri Vishnu Purana)

We have been born 900,000 times in the water. There are so many living entities living in the water: fish, sharks, whales, crocodiles, and so on. You can see on TV that there are so many aquatic species in this country and abroad, and we too have been born as such species 900,000 times. We have been born 2,000,000 times as trees, hills and other nonmoving species (for example, a mango tree is just one kind of such species). We were also born 1,100,000 times as worms, bugs and other insects (there are so many species living on the ground). Then, we were born 1,000,000 times as various birds (you can see so many birds flying in the sky). We were also born 3,000,000 times as animals (cows, goats, pigs, sheep, cats, and so on). Finally, we were also born 400,000 times as humans. Sometimes, we were born in America; sometimes, in Nagaland; sometimes, in Manipur; sometimes, as Christians; sometimes, as Muslim, and so on. There are so many kinds of humans in the world. There are even people who eat other people; there are also trees that eat humans (I have heard that there are such trees in the Amazon area in Brazil).

We have been born 400,000 times as all kinds of humans, but now we are born here in Bharata-bhumi (India), where there is Ganga, Yamuna, Vrindavan, Mathura, Kasi, Badrinath, Kedarnath and many other holy places. There are many great buildings in this world, but there is no other place in this entire world that could compare to this land. This is a pure land. The Lord Himself came to this land many times – He came here in Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dvapar-yuga and even Kali-yuga. Later, Kalki will also come after the current Age of Kali finishes.

The duration of Kali-yuga is 432,000 years, and only some 5,100 years have passed so far. There is still so much left – we will have to go through so many more births; but by great fortune, we have got this human birth now…

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READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Service Outlet
2) Do Not Waste This Human Life
3) Do Not Waste This Human Life
4) Happy Life