All Glory to Sri Sri Guru Gauranga

GUIDANCE (YEAR 2021)

A full compilation of transcendental discourses emanating

from the holy lotus mouth of

His Divine Grace

Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru

Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj

spoken during 2021, the last year of his manifest pastimes

We pray this treasure trove of divine discourses may eternally nourish and sustain devotees’ hearts and souls. In the words of His Divine Grace, ‘How can you get Gurudev’s association? If you listen to Gurudev’s Hari-katha, if you read his books, if you read the scriptures, then you will easily get his association! If you follow his order, you will get his association, you will get the energy – only like this, not in any other way.’

CONTENT

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1 January 2021, a.m.

(1/7) Gurudev’s Appearance

(2/7) Gurudev’s Coming to Temple

(3/7) Perfect Adherence

(4/7) Who Is Guru?

(5/7) Sri Guru Tattva

(6/7) Guru’s Greed, Disciple’s Greed

(7/7) Deceivers and Deceived

1 January 2021, noon (Festival)

(1/8) Satiating Your Hunger

(2/8) Srila Gurudev’s Pastimes (1)

(3/8) Srila Gurudev’s Pastimes (2)

(4/8) Srila Gurudev’s Pastimes (3)

(5/8) Srila Gurudev’s Pastimes (4)

(6/8) Srila Gurudev’s Pastimes (5)

(7/8) Srila Gurudev’s Pastimes (6)

(8/8) Come as a Beggar

1 January 2021, p.m.

(1/13) Know and Love the Lord

(2/13) Develop Deepest Dedication

(3/13) At Lord’s Home

(4/13) Pure Preacher’s Position

(5/13) Clear Vision

(6/13) Clear Identity

(7/13) Sustaining Yourself on Gurudev’s Words

(8/13) Internal Purity

(9/13) Kirtan-Yajna

(10/13) Give Up Illusory Luxuries

(11/13) Who Will You Blame?

(12/13) Analysis Is Paralysis

(13/13) Western Idiosyncrasies

1 January 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/4) Grand and Joyous Festival

(2/4) Protecting Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math

(3/4) Unblemished Sacrifice

(4/4) ‘My Pride, Joy and Hope’

2 January 2021, p.m.

(1/9) Advent of Srila Prabhupad

(2/9) Rescuing Mahaprabhu’s Line

(3/9) Acharyas’ Arrival in Nabadwip

(4/9) Srila Prabhupad’s Initiation

(5/9) Illustrious and Loving Service

(6/9) Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s Kirtan

(7/9) Advent of Sri Gaura-Saraswati

(8/9) Step Towards Lord, Not Maya

(9/9) Be Kind to Yourself and Others

3 January 2021, a.m.

(1/6) Srila Prabhupad’s Exclusivity

(2/6) Listen and Learn

(3/6) Live Exemplary Life

(4/6) Srila Prabhupad: Divine Benefactor

(5/6) Life’s Purpose

(6/6) Strings Stronger Than Steel

3 January 2021

Sri Gaudiya Vaishnav Sangha Address (1)

Sri Gaudiya Vaishnav Sangha Address (2)

3 January 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/5) Illustrious Acharya

(2/5) Advent of Hari-Kirtan Murti

(3/5) Srila Prabhupad’s Mission

(4/5) Srila Prabhupad’s Teachings

(5/5) Unimaginable Service

10 January 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/7) Good Mind, Good Heart

(2/7) Uninterrupted Service Life

(3/7) Accommodating Heart

(4/7) Material Affection

(5/7) Coming Before Deities

(6/7) Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur and Sri Vakreshwar Pandit

(7/7) Best Turn In Life

12 January 2021

(1/14) What Is Surrender?

(2/14) Proper Recipient for Proper Taste

(3/14) Highest Stance

(4/14) Cry and Pray

(5/14) Seeking Respite

(6/14) Greatest Choice

(7/14) Nityananda Prabhu’s Mercy

(8/14) Mahaprabhu’s Mercy

(9/14) His Things, for His Service

(10/14) Faith Is Not Idle

(11/14) Devotion or Display?

(12/14) Example to Follow

(13/14) Shelter of Sri Guru’s Mercy

(14/14) Service or Offence?

13 January 2021

(1/13) An Auspicious Evening

(2/13) An Auspicious Birth

(3/13) Turning Back Home

(4/13) Beyond Perverted Comfort Zone

(5/13) What Are Your Plans?

(6/13) Life In Lord’s Family

(7/13) Not So Fast, Not So Cheap

(8/13) Mano-dharma vs. Bhagavat-dharma

(9/13) Eternal Values

(10/13) Ultimate Word of Scriptures

(11/13) Guided and Misguided

(12/13) Exclusive Zone

(13/13) Insurmountable Devotion

16 January 2021

(1/15) Where Does the Lord Stay?

(2/15) Mahaprabhu’s Advent and Gift

(3/15) Coming Out of Maya

(4/15) Make Yourself Qualified

(5/15) Six Limbs of Surrender

(6/15) Sincere and Deep Prayer

(7/15) Lend Me Your Heart

(8/15) Follow the Footsteps of Great Souls

(9/15) Suspicion Leads to Suspension

(10/15) Only One Question

(11/15) We Are Neither Enjoyers Nor Renouncers

(12/15) False Ego’s Folly

(13/15) Be Sincere and Studious

(14/15) Remembering Mahaprabhu’s Sannyas

(15/15) Way Out

17 January 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/7) Latest Events

(2/7) Memorable Day In Bamunpara

(3/7) Remembering Mahaprabhu’s Sannyas-Lila

(4/7) Ten Days in Shantipur

(5/7) Heart-Breaking Decision

(6/7) Deceitless Dealings

(7/7) Deficiency in Practice

24 January 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/7) Increasing Preaching Scope

(2/7) Distribute Krishna Consciousness!

(3/7) Offering Bhoga on Ekadasi

(4/7) Sri Jagadish Pandit

(5/7) Be Strong and Straight

(6/7) Mission’s Sustenance

(7/7) Learn to Tolerate

25 January 2021, p.m.

(1/5) Religion of This Age

(2/5) Know Thyself

(3/5) Qualification for Chanting Holy Name

(4/5) Come for Nabadwip Dham Parikrama

(5/5) Live Sincere Devotional Life

26 January 2021, noon

(1/13) Remembering Guru-Varga

(2/13) Sacrifice For Preaching

(3/13) Loving Interactions

(4/13) A Hole In Surrender

(5/13) Have a Heart for the Temple

(6/13) Power of Service

(7/13) Origin of Bhagavatam (1)

(8/13) Origin of Bhagavatam (2)

(9/13) Origin of Bhagavatam (3)

(10/13) Lacking or Slacking?

(11/13) Feeling Hungry?

(12/13) Main Target

(13/13) Determination and Surrender

29 January 2021, noon

(1/9) Vaishnav Rites

(2/9) Disciple’s Life

(3/9) Sincere Spiritual Life

(4/9) Eternal Servants

(5/9) The Answer Is One

(6/9) ‘Give Me These Alms’

(7/9) Remembering Haridas Thakur

(8/9) Poverty of Mind

(9/9) ‘Come, Dear Mind, Come’

31 January 2021, a.m.

(1/13) In Search of Hidden Treasure

(2/13) Know Your Own Identity First

(3/13) Sambandha Jnana: Launching Pad

(4/13) Utter Desperation

(5/13) Path to Qualification

(6/13) Sincere Devotion

(7/13) Highest and Rarest

(8/13) Rivet Yourself to Sadhu-Sanga

(9/13) Genuine Benefit

(10/13) Greatest Gift

(11/13) Enter the Land of Faith

(12/13) Unchaste Faith

(13/13) A Test of Faith

31 January 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/7) ‘I Want to Surrender’

(2/7) Our Plight and Plea

(3/7) Wealth of Nanda Maharaj’s Yard

(4/7) Pure Sambandha

(5/7) Blessing In Disguise

(6/7) Unconditional Life

(7/7) Jewel of Sincerity

3 February 2021, p.m.

(1/9) Have You Forgotten?

(2/9) Morning Shows the Day

(3/9) Genuine Surrender

(4/9) In Search of Hidden Treasure

(5/9) Humility and Dedication

(6/9) Jnana-Sunya Bhakti

(7/9) Taking a Stand Against Maya

(8/9) Be One-Pointed

(9/9) A Word of Warning

5 February 2021

(1/13) Honouring Hari-Prasad

(2/13) Exclusive Path

(3/13) Lord’s Messenger

(4/13) ‘Managing’ Your Life

(5/13) Internal Purity

(6/13) Pray To Be One-Pointed

(7/13) Mahaprabhu’s Gift

(8/13) At Vaishnavs’ Mercy

(9/13) Spiritual Deposit

(10/13) Lacking Spirituality

(11/13) About Srila Lochan Das Thakur

(12/13) Leave Separate Interests

(13/13) Muddled Minds

7 February 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/8) ‘Guru-mukha-padma-vakya chitete kariya aikya’

(2/8) Internal and Eternal

(3/8) Clearing the Path

(4/8) Cause of All Causes

(5/8) Do Not Be Disheartened

(6/8) Forthcoming Festivals

(7/8) On Importance of Chastity

(8/8) Study and Learn

8 February 2021

(1/13) Practise Devotion

(2/13) Land of Religions?

(3/13) Seva-Vidya

(4/13) Conditioned Souls’ Inaptitude

(5/13) Choose Your Association

(6/13) Lost and Languid Souls

(7/13) ‘Make Teachings of Sri Guru Non-Different from Your Heart’

(8/13) Price of Independence

(9/13) ‘Come Back to Your Home’

(10/13) Fighting Misconception

(11/13) Goloka at Your Home

(12/13) Ekadasi: Devotional Practice

(13/13) Stay Connected

10 February 2021, noon

(1/4) Service Outlet

(2/4) Do Not Waste This Human Life

(3/4) Eternal Oblivion

(4/4) Happy Life

10 February 2021, p.m.

(1/13) Always Practise Devotion

(2/13) Pure Devotional Life (1)

(3/13) Pure Devotional Life (2)

(4/13) Detach and Immerse Yourself

(5/13) Earn Qualification

(6/13) Humble Heartfelt Plea

(7/13) Quality and Qualification

(8/13) Devotional Depth

(9/13) Surrender and Practise

(10/13) Cut Off Material Attachment

(11/13) Bogus Kirtan – Bogus Devotion

(12/13) Embracing Controlled Life

(13/13) Start from Tongue

11 February 2021, noon

(1/5) Self-Deception

(2/5) Think About Lord

(3/5) Stay Away from Nonsense

(4/5) Delay No More

(5/5) Pastimes of Lord Siva

11 February 2021, p.m.

(1/7) Mahaprabhu’s Order

(2/7) Chad Kazi: Defeated Again

(3/7) Listen and Learn

(4/7) In Search of Real Benefit

(5/7) Rescue Programme

(6/7) Eating Up Old Rice

(7/7) No Other Shelter

12 February 2021, noon (1)

(1/2) Remembering Sri Ekachakra Dham (1)

(2/2) Remembering Sri Ekachakra Dham (2)

12 February 2021, noon (2)

(1/5) Vaishnavs’ Nature

(2/5) Heartfelt Prayers

(3/5) Devotional Ingenuity

(4/5) Devotional Substance

(5/5) Pure Name Comes from Pure Heart

13 February 2021, noon

(1/3) Remembering Champahati

(2/3) Remembering Saranga Murari

(3/3) Remembering Pastimes

13 February 2021, p.m.

(1/6) Attachment to Sadhus

(2/6) Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

(3/6) Jivan Chakravarti’s Pastime (1)

(4/6) Jivan Chakravarti’s Pastime (2)

(5/6) Result of Service Mood

(6/6) Joining Lord’s Pastimes

14 February 2021, noon

(1/6) Sincere Surrender

(2/6) Deserve, Then Desire

(3/6) Greatest Wealth, Ornament and Aspiration

(4/6) Remembering Nityananda Prabhu’s Glory (1)

(5/6) Remembering Nityananda Prabhu’s Glory (2)

(6/6) The Highest of the Highest

14 February 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/6) Holy Vasanta Panchami Day

(2/6) Extraordinary Qualities of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami

(3/6) Hanker and Aspire

(4/6) Keep Your Head at Vaishnavs’ Lotus Feet

(5/6) ‘Please Forgive Me’

(6/6) Renounce Pride, Not Practice

21 February 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/7) Lord’s Arrangement

(2/7) Service Field

(3/7) Gist of Guru-Mahima

(4/7) Eternal Bond with Sri Ekachakra Dham

(5/7) Sri Gauda Mandal Parikrama

(6/7) Construction Pastimes

(7/7) Pride in Our Identity

23 February 2021, p.m.

(1/13) This Is Not a Playground

(2/13) Wrong Worries

(3/13) Pure Identity

(4/13) Worshipful Devotion

(5/13) Meaning of Discipleship

(6/13) Free Mercy, Exclusive Rights

(7/13) Path of Devotion

(8/13) Krishna Conscious Life

(9/13) Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Glory (1)

(10/13) Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Glory (2)

(11/13) Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Glory (3)

(12/13) Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Glory (4)

(13/13) Clean Mood

24 February 2021, a.m.

(1/6) Clear Your Path

(2/6) Nurture Exclusive Desire

(3/6) Sri Ekachakra Dham: Our Fortune To Be Here

(4/6) Forging Your Destiny

(5/6) Extreme Mercy

(6/6) About Nityananda Prabhu

24 February 2021, p.m.

(1/16) Sri Ekachakra Temple

(2/16) Parental Sacrifice

(3/16) Full Service Sway

(4/16) Life in Kirtan

(5/16) Please Give These Alms

(6/16) Remembering Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Glories

(7/16) Sri Sivananda Sen’s Mercy

(8/16) Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Eccentricity

(9/16) Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami’s Gratitude

(10/16) Unblemished Nitai

(11/16) Sri Nityananda’s Supreme Mercy

(12/16) Our Only Wealth and Shelter

(13/16) Mahaprabhu’s Private Order

(14/16) Nityananda Prabhu’s Campaign

(15/16) Humility and Deep Faith

(16/16) Save Yourself

25 February 2021, a.m.

(1/11) Supremely Worshippable Day

(2/11) Do Not Pass Your Life in Vain

(3/11) Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness

(4/11) Meaning of Discipleship

(5/11) Ask Yourself, ‘Am I Practising?’

(6/11) Become Pure

(7/11) Who Is Nityananda Prabhu?

(8/11) How and When?

(9/11) Scattered Heart

(10/11) Learn the Truth

(11/11) What Do You Need?

25 February 2021, noon

(1/6) Sri Advaita Prabhu’s Nityananda Stuti

(2/6) Sriman Mahaprabhu’s Nityananda Stuti

(3/6) Approaching Nityananda Prabhu

(4/6) Know Your Place

(5/6) Amidst ‘Dal’ and ‘Gal’

(6/6) Increase Your Fortune

25 February 2021, p.m.

(1/14) Free Yourself From Deceit

(2/14) Be Truthful, Pious and Sincere

(3/14) Chastity In Preaching

(4/14) Cry, Pray and Serve

(5/14) Service: Labour of Love

(6/14) Service: Adherence and Attachment

(7/14) Forging Our Fortune

(8/14) Concentrate Your Mind on Nityananda Prabhu’s Service

(9/14) Direct Your Mind to Bhagavatam

(10/14) Keep Yourself On Track

(11/14) Are You Getting Off?

(12/14) Gentle Clean Hearts

(13/14) Do Not Give Up

(14/14) False Attachments

26 February 2021, p.m.

(1/10) Main Festivals

(2/10) Serve with Faith

(3/10) Service Duty (1)

(4/10) Service Duty (2)

(5/10) Heed My Word

(6/10) Perverted Tastes and Habits

(7/10) Snowball of Offences

(8/10) Path to Indigestion

(9/10) Memorable Pastimes

(10/10) Kali Yuga Brahmans

28 February 2021, noon

(1/8) Be Serious

(2/8) Quality Is Not Cheap

(3/8) Tie Your Mind

(4/8) Ask Your Heart

(5/8) Tired of Struggling?

(6/8) Proper Worship

(7/8) Watch the Road

(8/8) Regulated Life

28 February 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/7) Overflowing and Grand Festival

(2/7) Mission in Sri Ekachakra Dham

(3/7) Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s Line

(4/7) Sriman Nityananda Prabhu: Ocean of Mercy

(5/7) Sri Ekachakra Festival: Beyond Imagination

(6/7) Real Family Life

(7/7) ‘My Life Is for My Gurudev’

28 February 2021

Be Undefeatable

7 March 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/7) Perfect Mood

(2/7) What Are You Doing With Your Life?

(3/7) Sell Your Heart

(4/7) Tottering Intelligence

(5/7) Escaping Maya

(6/7) Two Important Questions

(7/7) Embracing the Fortune

21 March 2021, p.m.

(1/8) Keep Your Guard Up

(2/8) Clear Vision

(3/8) Cries of a Fallen Child

(4/8) Exclusive Current

(5/8) Mahaprabhu’s Teachings

(6/8) Practise What Is Preached

(7/8) Know Best

(8/8) Best News

22 March 2021, p.m.

(1/10) Parikrama Adhivas: Forsake Your Happiness

(2/10) Parikrama Adhivas: Fixed In Service

(3/10) Relief of Surrender

(4/10) Our Eternal Campaign

(5/10) ‘May You Always Remain in This Line’

(6/10) Know the Relationship

(7/10) Devotional Attachment

(8/10) Seva Bhumi

(9/10) Follow Vaishnavs’ Example

(10/10) Live a Sheltered Service Life

23 March 2021, Parikrama

(1/15) At Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan (1)

(2/15) At Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan (2)

(3/15) At Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan (3)

(4/15) At Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan (4)

(5/15) At Sri Yogapith (1)

(6/15) At Sri Yogapith (2)

(7/15) At Sri Yogapith (3)

(8/15) At Srivas Angan (1)

(9/15) At Srivas Angan (2)

(10/15) At Srivas Angan (3)

(11/15) At Sri Chaitanya Math

(12/15) At Sri Jagannath Mandir

(13/15) At Sridhar Angan (1)

(14/15) At Sridhar Angan (2)

(15/15) At Sri Rudradwip

23 March 2021, p.m.

(1/8) Lost and Wasted

(2/8) Spiritual Transformation

(3/8) Dacoit Dharma

(4/8) Esoteric Pastimes on the Banks of the Ganges

(5/8) Departure of Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj

(6/8) Be Serious

(7/8) Surrender Your Mind

(8/8) Faith, Devotion and Love

24 March 2021, Parikrama

(1/5) At Sri Buroraj Siva’s Temple

(2/5) At Sri Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj’s Samadhi (1)

(3/5) At Sri Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj’s Samadhi (2)

(4/5) At Sri Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj’s Samadhi (3)

(5/5) At Sri Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj’s Samadhi (4)

24 March 2021, p.m.

(1/9) Keep Your Lamp Alight

(2/9) Lord’s Impartiality

(3/9) Jay and Vijay Cursed

(4/9) Loving Relationship with the Lord

(5/9) Demons’ Plight

(6/9) Appearance of Prahlad Maharaj

(7/9) Unperturbed Purity of Prahlad Maharaj

(8/9) Placid and Undaunted Devotion

(9/9) Prahlad Maharaj’s Prayer

25 March 2021, noon

(1/9) Sri Madhavendra Puripad: One of a Kind

(2/9) Internal and External Struggles

(3/9) Defining Disciples’ Destiny

(4/9) Kali-Yuga’s Austerities

(5/9) Wrong Idea

(6/9) Check Who Is Calling Before Taking the Call

(7/9) Pitfalls of Deity Worship

(8/9) Srila Madhavendra Puri’s Purity

(9/9) Prahlad Maharaj’s Ideal

25 March 2021, p.m.

(1/6) Parikrama Schedule

(2/6) Away with Animal Ambitions

(3/6) Good Habits

(4/6) Beware Bogus Life

(5/6) Breaking Free from Maya’s Nest

(6/6) Remembering Ekadasi-Vrata

26 March 2021, Parikrama

(1/5) At Sri Suvarna Bihar

(2/5) At Sri Surabhi Kunja

(3/5) At Sri Svananda Sukhada Kunja (1)

(4/5) At Sri Svananda Sukhada Kunja (2)

(5/5) At Sri Hari-Hara Ksetra

26 March 2021, p.m.

(1/5) Remembering Holy Nabadwip Dham

(2/5) Do Not Shun Service

(3/5) Meaning of Chastity

(4/5) Pastime at Gadigachha

(5/5) Glory of Sri Madhyadwip

27 March 2021, Parikrama

(1/9) At Sri Samudragad

(2/9) At Sri Champahati

(3/9) At Sri Vidyanagar (1)

(4/9) At Sri Vidyanagar (2)

(5/9) At Sri Sarvabhauma Gaudiya Math

(6/9) At Sri Mamgachi (1)

(7/9) At Sri Mamgachi (2)

(8/9) At Sri Mamgachi (3)

(9/9) At Sri Mamgachi (4)

27 March 2021, p.m.

(1/11) Association and Chastity

(2/11) Service Formula

(3/11) Serve with Loving Care

(4/11) No Pain, No Gain

(5/11) Accepting the Rules

(6/11) Plausible Priority

(7/11) Guru-Pada-Asraya

(8/11) Priceless Wealth

(9/11) Temporal Distortions

(10/11) Where Chaste Ones Never Tread

(11/11) Do Not Get Mixed Up

28 March 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/2) Sri Gaura Purnima Address (1)

(2/2) Sri Gaura Purnima Address (2)

1 April 2021

(1/1) Turning Point In Your Life

2 April 2021, noon (Hapaniya)

(1/4) Remembering Srila Guru Maharaj (1)

(2/4) Remembering Srila Guru Maharaj (2)

(3/4) Remembering Srila Guru Maharaj (3)

(4/4) Remembering Srila Guru Maharaj (4)

4 April 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/8) Happy and Busy Days

(2/8) Whose Child Are You?

(3/8) Adjust Your Wavelength

(4/8) Avoid Provincialism

(5/8) Dubious Actions

(6/8) Effect of Pure Chanting

(7/8) Correcting Your Attitude

(8/8) Pure Surrender Without Gaps

11 April 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/5) Current of Eternal Service

(2/5) Proper Preaching

(3/5) Srila Gurudev’s Festival Etiquette

(4/5) Quality and Qualification

(5/5) Best Worship

18 April 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/5) Latest News

(2/5) Hapless Hindus

(3/5) Enter Auspicious Life

(4/5) Cannot Practise or Do Not Want to Practise?

(5/5) Vaishnavs’ Signature Qualities

21 April 2021, p.m.

(1/4) Beauty of Lord’s Incarnation

(2/4) Sevya and Sevak

(3/4) Dasarath’s Morality

(4/4) Love and Rupture

24 April 2021, noon

(1/8) Gurudev’s Disappearance

(2/8) ‘Everything Plunged into Darkness’

(3/8) Service Alertness

(4/8) Service Milestones

(5/8) Service Challenges

(6/8) Gurudev’s Insight

(7/8) Gurudev’s Loving Affection

(8/8) Nurturing Gurudev’s Mission

24 April 2021, p.m.

(1/5) Sri Guru Is All-in-All

(2/5) Escaping Ocean of Suffering

(3/5) Gurudev: Surrounded by Affection

(4/5) Param Dayal Gurudev

(5/5) Where Will You Run?

26 April 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/4) Preaching Opportunity

(2/4) Mercy and Service

(3/4) Perfect Rules

(4/4) Amidst Blazing Fire

1 May 2021

(1/8) Perfect Mood Comes From Perfect Practice

(2/8) Greatest Sadness

(3/8) Brahman Threads

(4/8) Me-Eating

(5/8) Unswerving Vision

(6/8) Highest Life

(7/8) Honest Life

(8/8) ‘What Is My Service?’

2 May 2021, p.m. (WA)

(1/3) Take Care of Yourself

(2/3) Sadhus’ Fight

(3/3) Be Exclusive, Be One-Pointed

1 January 2021, a.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Morning Festival Programme: Sri Vyasa Puja of Om Vishnupad Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/7) Gurudev’s Appearance

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar, Giriraj Govardhan ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim

yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika) 

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

‘I offer my obeisance to Sri Guru, who has opened my eyes, rescuing me from the illusory darkness of ignorance, by applying the salve of knowledge upon my eyes.’

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam
chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam
govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram
vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

‘I offer my obeisance to him who perfectly fulfils his gurudev’s most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all conceivable and inconceivable aspects of Vedic knowledge; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s line; who is known as “Govinda” (Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj); whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.’

devam divya-tanum suchanda-vadanam balarka-chelanchitam
sandrananda-puram sad-eka-varanam vairagya-vidyambudhim
sri-siddhanta-nidhim subhakti-lasitam sarasvatanam varam
vande tam subhadam mad-eka-saranam nyasisvaram sridharam

‘I worship Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, the bestower of all auspiciousness, my only shelter and the master of all renunciates. He is my Lord who possesses a transcendental form, whose face expression is very grave, who is clad in the holy clothes the colour of the newly risen sun. He is an abode of intense joy; the only genuine master whom one can accept and surrender to; and an ocean of divine knowledge of renunciation. He is a repository of holy scriptural teachings and pastimes of the highest devotion and a great follower of Srila Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad.’

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha
patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

vrndayai tulasi-devyai priyayai kesavasya cha
krsna-bhakti-prade devi satyavatyai namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to Vrinda Devi (Tulasi Devi), who is very dear to Lord Kesava, who bestows devotion to Krishna and is known as Satyavati.’

atha natva mantra-gurun gurun bhagavatarthadan
vyasan jagad-gurun natva tato jayam udirayet

‘Before reciting scriptures that can conquer material world, let us offer obeisances to our initiating guru, to the guru who teaches us the meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam, to Sri Vyasadev and all gurus in the universe.’

jayah sa-parikara sri-sri-guru-gauranga-gandharva-

govindasundar-padapadmanam jayastu

‘All glory to the lotus feet of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva-Govindasundar and all Their associates.’

vande rupa-sanatanau raghu-yugau sri-jiva-gopalakau

‘I worship Sri Rupa Goswami, Sri Sanatan Goswami, Sri Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, Sri Raghunath Das Goswami, Sri Jiva Goswami, and Sri Gopal Bhatta Goswami.’

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrnda

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Today is 1 January, the first day of the year, and this is the day of my Gurupadpadma Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj’s appearance. You are all present here on this occasion. Choosing this holy dvitiya-tithi day, Gurudev appeared in this world 92 years ago. I told you yesterday that Gurudev chose to appear in Bamunpara, a village near Putsuri, in the Bardhaman district. He accepted Nitaipada Adhikari as his father and Tarangini Devi as his mother – to bestow His mercy on the jiva souls, the Lord sent him, His own associate, to this world.

You know that our Param Gurudev, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, came back from Vrindavan to Nabadwip in 1941. As you also know, Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur left this world on 1 January 1937 (his disappearance day is in a few days), but the Lord sent His other associate to this world to tell the souls about Him. After Srila Prabhupad’s disappearance, it happened so that Srila Sridhar Maharaj left Chaitanya Math and came to Nanda-gram, Vrindavan. While he was staying there, he heard a divine message from Srila Prabhupad: ‘You have come to Vrindavan for your own benefit – to practise spiritual life and go back to the Lord – but what will become of My fallen souls in this world?’ Hearing this message, Srila Sridhar Maharaj came to Koladwip, where he first rented a small thatched house.

At first, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj stayed alone. Gradually, his godbrothers started coming to him. Our Gurudev also came a few years later, in 1947.

Before Gurudev appeared, his father, Nitaipada Adhikari, and mother, Tarangini Devi, had a few children, but they had all died. So, eventually, they made a promise to Dharmaraj Buroraj (Lord Siva’s Deity in Jamalpur, Bardhaman) that if they had one more child, they would give the child to him. That is why when Gurudev appeared, he was named Dharma Das, and that is also why we say that Gurudev is a son of Lord Siva. It was also his peculiarity that when he spoke – when words came out of his holy mouth – it was impossible to forget it.

When Gurudev was six days old and his family arranged his chhathi ceremony (performed for children on their sixth day), Gurudev’s mother went to Lord Siva to offer him worship. At the temple, she heard Lord Siva say, ‘You said you had given this child to me, but you are doing this worship taking the child as your own. Why did you put this black mark on his forehead? Instead of a black dot, you must put a chandan dot on his forehead!’ When she came back home, she told Gurudev’s grandmother (his father’s mother), ‘Ma, put a chandan dot on Dharma Das instead of a black dot. I have got this order from Dharmaraj during the worship. I have no right over this child.’

(2/7) Gurudev’s Coming to Temple

Gurudev’s father was a descendent of Nityananda Prabhu’s lineage and was the kulu-guru of the village. He gave initiations and took disciples, and he was also very good at singing lila-kirtans. When Gurudev grew up a little – when he was, perhaps, ten–twelve years old – his father would take him to different places where he sang lila-kirtans, and in this way, Gurudev also learned those kirtans. It happened so that one day Gurudev’s father left his body. After Gurudev, there were two more sons born in the family, but they were very small at that time, so all responsibility for the family fell on Gurudev’s shoulders. He had to earn money to maintain the family. There was one practising doctor, Kalipata Singh, staying nearby at Nadanghat, and Gurudev started working for him as an assistant: the doctor would prescribe patients some medicine, and he would prepare it. He stayed in Nadanghat and earned twenty rupees per month for his family (he would send it to his mother to run the household). Actually, Gurudev was a very good cook – I have learnt whatever cooking I know from him. He told me: this should be cooked in this way, and that should be cooked in that way; he taught me everything. Gurudev was also a good mridanga player.

One day, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj’s preaching party came to Nadanghat on their way back from preaching. Among them were Srila Bhakti Kamal Madhusudan Maharaj, Narasimhananda Brahmachari (later, he became Srila Bhakti Vaibhav Puri Maharaj), Bhutavrit Prabhu (later, Sripad Ashram Maharaj). During preaching, they did collection during the day and in the evening gave a class and chanted kirtans at the house of some zamindar. When they came to Nadanghat, Gurudev came and sat at the programme to listen to the Hari-katha. He told us later what he heard that day – the devotee who gave the class said that this body is nothing, this mind is nothing, and the soul is everything (that we are souls). It changed Gurudev. At the programme, somebody played the drum, and Gurudev thought, ‘He does not know how to play the drum, but how can I tell it to them? They are sadhus…’ Finally, he said:

‘Can I play the mridanga?’

‘Will you play it?’ they asked him.

‘Yes, I will,’ Gurudev answered.

When Gurudev started playing the mridanga, everyone liked it very much. They were impressed, ‘This boy knows how to play the mridanga!’

‘Do you want to come with us to the temple?’ they asked Gurudev.

‘Yes,’ Gurudev answered, ‘if you take me there today, I will go.’

‘Today?’

‘Yes, today.’

‘All right, let us go then.’

There was a large river in Nadanghat – after some rains, the Ganges had swelled and a river had appeared. There was no bridge, so they had to swim across it. Gurudev took off his clothes and put them on his head; after swimming across, he put his clothes back on and continued his way to the temple in Kolerdanga on foot. That day was Nrisingha-chaturdasi. Gurudev appeared at the temple for the first time on the day of Nrisingha-chaturdasi. He said that he was a Bardhaman boy, so he was used to eating rice three times a day, and he was very young at that time – he was a seventeen-year-old youth. So, when he came to the temple, having walked all the way from Nadanghat, he was told that it was Nrisingha-chaturdasi and the sadhus were fasting (not eating anything) that day. Gurudev had walked for so long and was very hungry, and they told him that it was a fasting day! Gurudev thought, ‘Where have I come? They are not eating anything!’ He walked around and saw one very tall sadhu. It was Srila Sridhar Maharaj – he was chanting the Holy Name on his veranda, looking very serious. Seeing Gurudev, Srila Sridhar Maharaj called him, ‘Come here.’

‘Have you come today?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Gurudev answered.

‘I guess you are hungry. Do you want to have something?’

‘What can I have? Everyone is fasting.’

‘Let me see what I have.’

Then, Gurudev noticed a ripe papaw on one of the trees nearby, and he told Srila Sridhar Maharaj about it. Srila Sridhar Maharaj asked him, ‘Can you climb the tree?’ Gurudev said, ‘Yes, I can. Shall I climb it then?’ Getting Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s permission, he climbed the tree, got the papaw and gave it to Srila Sridhar Maharaj. Then, Srila Sridhar Maharaj gave it to Gurudev, saying, ‘All right. Here, take it. You can have it.’ Everyone was fasting that day – they did not even drink water – but Srila Sridhar Maharaj told Gurudev that he could eat some papaw. Srila Sridhar Maharaj liked Gurudev from the very beginning. Moreover, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj observed Gurudev, and seven days after he came to the temple, he declared that this boy would be the next acharya and would hold the rudder of this Mission in the future.

(3/7) Perfect Adherence

Within seven days after Guru Maharaj’s coming to the temple, Srila Sridhar Maharaj told him, ‘Do not follow what your mind tells you – you must do only what I tell you. Never do what your mind tells you to do.’

Remember this. I also tell everyone the same thing: never do what your mind tells you to do; you must do what I tell you to do. The mind has two features, sankalpa (determination, or desire, to do something) and vikalpa (hesitation, doubts). When sankalpa comes, we think, ‘I will do this’, but then vikalpa comes and we do not do it. That is why Srila Sridhar Maharaj told our Guru Maharaj, ‘Mind is very naughty, you must not listen to it. Never do what your mind tells you. Do what I tell you to do.’ This is how Gurudev started to live his life at the temple.

At the beginning, the situation at the Math was different. I remember when I was young, I often went to the Math’s crops fields, and before leaving the temple, I took some plain dry rice kept from the day before (korkora bhat) with fried red chilli [and salt]. I like it very much, and if you mix some potato with it, it is even better! So, when Gurudev came to the temple, it was a rule that no prasad was to be wasted – now they give all leftovers to cows, but before, if anything was left in the evening, they kept it overnight, and all the brahmacharis would take it the next day. One day, there was some dal and mixed vegetable curry (labra) left, and somehow ants got into the dal. When they distributed the leftovers the next day, it happened so that the ants from the dal were put on Gurudev’s plate. Gurudev took the ants out and took the dal. Srila Sridhar Maharaj noticed this and said to Gurudev, ‘When you finish taking prasad, come to see me. I want to talk to you.’ Gurudev finished taking prasad and came to Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s room.

‘Did you want to see me?’ he asked.

‘Yes, come, sit down. I saw they had given you dal with insects, why did you eat it?’

‘I did not want to take it – my mind said, “I will not take it!” but then I remembered that you had told me not to listen to my mind, so I ate it.’

After that incident, Srila Sridhar Maharaj thought, ‘This boy will be the next acharya in the future.’

After that, so much water passed under the bridge. Many say, ‘Oh, Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj brought one grihastha, gave him sannyas and made him the acharya,’ but they must remember one thing. There were many brahmacharis and sannyasis at the Math – why did Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj not choose them but instead ‘brought one grihastha and gave him sannyas’? Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj had waited for thirty(!) years to give his chair to him, but Gurudev had been refusing to take it.

(4/7) Who Is Guru?

‘Guru-mukha-padma-vakya chitete kariya aikya: make the teachings from the guru’s lotus mouth one with your heart.’ Gurudev always spoke about this. There are some important things written here in Sri Gaudiya Kantha-hara, and I want to read it to you as we still have ten–fifteen minutes.

What did Lord Sri Krishna tell Uddhav Maharaj? ‘Acharyam mam vijaniyan. Guru is non-different from Me.’ Nityananda Prabhu and Gauranga, Krishna and Balaram are one body, but They manifest Themselves in two forms (eka deha-i, dui rupa) – Krishna is one form and Balaram is the other form, Gauranga is one form and Nityananda is the other form, but They are actually one. They manifest Themselves in this world as two to perform Their pastimes. Therefore, who is gurudev? Gurudev is Krishna Himself. We were singing in a kirtan this morning:

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 so by pious souls, but who is also no doubt the Lord’s dear associate.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

Sri Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur wrote this kirtan. The guru is the Lord Himself, but at the same time, the guru is also the Lord’s very dear associate: Srimati Radhika Herself. The perception of one’s gurudev depends on each person’s spiritual mood. Some know gurudev as Srimati Radharani (madhura-rasa), and some say that gurudev is Nityananda Prabhu (vatsalya-rasa). If somebody asks us, ‘Who is your gurudev?’, we say, ‘My gurudev is Radharani Herself’, or, ‘My gurudev is Nityananda Prabhu Himself.’ This is the answer. Who is gurudev? Gurudev is the Lord Himself.

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 so by pious souls, but who is also no doubt the Lord’s dear associate.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

It is said in the scriptures:

yasya deve para bhaktir

yatha deve tatha gurau

tasyaite kathita hy arthah

prakasante mahatmanah

‘Only unto those great souls who have implicit faith in both the Lord and the spiritual master are all the imports of the Vedic knowledge automatically revealed.’

(Svetasvatara Upanisad, 6.23)

‘He who exists in transcendental devotion to the Lord is known as gurudev.’ How did Srila Rupa Goswami define gurudev?

vacho vegam manasah krodha-vegam

jihva-vegam udaropastha-vegam

etan vegan yo visaheta dhirah

sarvam apimam prthivim sa sisyat

‘A sober person who can tolerate (1) the urge of speech, (2) the urge of the mind, (3) the urge of anger, (4) the urge of the tongue, (5) the urge of the belly and (6) the urge of the genitals is qualified to make disciples all over the world.’

(Sri Upadesamrita, Srila Rupa Goswamipad)

We sing in one of the kirtans, ‘Please help me control the six urges (chhaya vega dami)’ – gurudev is the one who has control over the six urges. The six urges are the urge of anger, the urge of the mind, the urge of the stomach, the urge of the genitals, the urge of the tongue and the urge of the speech. He who can subjugate these six urges is a guru. What is written in Sri Hari-bhakti-vilas? The guru is the one into whom the Lord has invested all His power. One gets the mercy from the guru by the grace of Lord Krishna. Once you get the mercy of the guru, you will get all mercy.

krsna yadi krpa kare kona bhagyavane

guru-antaryami-rupe sikhaya apane

‘When Krishna gives His mercy to a fortunate soul, He personally instructs this soul from within in the form of the internal guru.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.47)

If Krishna bestows His mercy on any fortunate soul, then the guru teaches that soul everything in his omniscient (antaryami) form. There are two kinds of gurus, chaitya-guru and mahanta-guru. The chaitya-guru is the guru that lives in everyone’s heart (he is non-different from the Lord who lives in everyone’s heart) – if you get the mercy of your chaitya-guru, he will bring you to your mahanta-guru (the personality who is your spiritual master). So, it is not that somebody can easily come and get initiation. Only those who have the Lord’s mercy can take initiation. Do you understand what I am saying? All this is explained in the scriptures.

(5/7) Sri Guru Tattva

sei se parama bandhu, sei pita-mata

sri-krsna-charane yei prema-bhakti-data

sakala janme pita-mata sabe paya

krsna guru nahi mile, bhajaha hiyaya

‘Those who give divine love for the holy lotus feet of Sri Krishna are my greatest friends – they are my father and my mother. Everybody gets a father and a mother in all births, but it is not in every birth that you can worship Sri Krishna and Sri Guru with all your heart.’

(Sri Chaitanya-mangala)

Lord Krishna is our greatest friend, He is our father and mother. That is why we say that you are all our spiritual relatives. Why? Because you are all sons and daughters of nectar – you are all children of the Lord. If you are children of the Lord, and I am also a child of the Lord, then it means that we are all brothers and sisters. We are all spiritual relatives, but because we are situated in illusory bondage, we forget this relationship.

It is written very beautifully:

krsna-bahirmukha hana bhoga vanchha kare
nikatastha maya tare japatiya dhare

‘When souls become averse to Krishna and desire enjoyment, Maya, who is always nearby, pounces on them.’

pisachi paile yena matichchhanna haya
maya-grasta jivera haya se bhava udaya

‘Those who are possessed by a ghost become delirious, and the same condition arises in those who are seized by Maya, illusion.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.2–3, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Such souls forget the Lord, forget gurudev and forget all their relatives, becoming engrossed in their lives with (material) children and friends.

‘ami siddha krsna-dasa’ ei katha bhule

mayara naphara hana chira-dina bule

‘Forgetting that “I am an eternal servant of Krishna”, souls become slaves of Maya and keep coming and going eternally.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.4, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Sometimes we become kings, sometimes we become subjects, sometimes we become brahmans, sometimes we become sudras, sometimes we are happy, sometimes we are unhappy, sometimes we become ants, sometimes we come to heaven, sometimes we come to earth, sometimes we come to hell, sometimes we become demigods, sometimes we become demons, and sometimes we become slaves. We go through all these lives, but we are actually eternal servants of Krishna!

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)

Souls wander throughout this universe, but if some fortunate souls take, by Krishna’s mercy, the seed of devotion from gurudev and practise Krishna consciousness, they can reach the Lord’s abode! Do you understand what I am saying? If you do not understand something, you can ask questions – stay here today and ask questions in the evening.

Who will be the guru?

kiba vipra, kiba nyasi, sudra kene naya

yei krsna-tattva-vetta, sei ‘guru’ haya

‘Whether one is a brahman, a sannyasi or a sudra – regardless of what one is – one can become a spiritual master if they know the science of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.8.128)

To be a guru, it is not necessary to be a brahman or a great scholar – those who know about Krishna can be a guru. There are also these beautiful verses written in Sri Prema-vivarta by Srila Jagadananda Pandit:

kiba varni, kibasrami, kiba varnasrama-hina

krsna-tattva vetta yei, sei acharya pravina

‘Anyone who knows Krishna’s nature is an expert acharya, regardless of whether one belongs to some religious and social order or not.’

asala katha chhede bhai varne ye kare adara

asad-guru kari’ tara vinasta purvapara

‘Brother, the past and future of those who reject truth, revere social status and accept a false guru are ruined.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 11.16–17, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

If somebody says, ‘Oh, he is not a brahman, he is a sudra,’ this is a bogus guru. There are also those who like to go to Vrindavan to practise in silence or seclusion – they do not preach, they only practise on their own. On the other hand, you can also find people who preach but do not practise what they preach. It is said in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita:

apane achare keha, na kare prachara
prachara karena keha, na karena achara
‘achara’, ‘prachara’,—namera karaha ‘dui’ karya
tumi—sarva-guru, tumi—jagatera arya

‘Some follow rules and regulations but do not preach Krishna consciousness; some preach Krishna consciousness but do not follow rules and regulation. You perform both duties in relation to the Holy Name by your personal behaviour and by your preaching; therefore, you are the spiritual master of the entire world, and you are the most advanced person in the world.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.102–103)

It is necessary to both preach and practise. It will not do to only preach and not practise or only practise and not preach. It is necessary to do both. It is necessary to preach and practise. I have told you before about this sloka, and it is here in Sri Gaudiya Kantha-hara also:

acharyam mam vijaniyan, navamanyeta karhichit

na martya buddhyasuyeta, sarva deva-mayo guruh

Sri Krishna said to Uddhav: ‘You should know the bona fide spiritual master as My very Self. Gurudev is the embodiment of all gods. Never dishonour him or find fault in him by ascribing any mundane conception of place, time or circumstances to him.’

(Srimad-Bhagavatam, 11.17.27)

Krishna tells Uddhav Maharaj, ‘Uddhav, you must know the guru as non-different from Me. You must never dishonour the guru by considering him an ordinary mortal man.’ Some can say, ‘Gurudev goes to the bathroom just like me’, ‘Gurudev eats just like me’, ‘Gurudev sleeps just like me’, but this means martya-buddhi – you consider gurudev a mortal man. Such persons will be cheated by their gurupad.

Moreover, it is written in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita:

yadyapi amara guru—chaitanyera dasa

tathapi janiye ami tanhara prakasa

‘Although my spiritual master is a servant of Sri Chaitanya, I also know Him as a manifestation of the Lord.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.1.44)

It is written very beautifully!

guru krsna-rupa hana sastrera pramane

guru-rupe krsna krpa kare bhagyavane

‘The scriptures confirm that the guru is a form of Krishna. In the form of a guru, Krishna bestows His mercy upon the fortunate.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.1.45)

siksa-guruke ta’ jani krsnera svarupa

antaryami, bhakta-srestha,—ei dui rupa

‘One should know the instructing spiritual master to be the Personality of Krishna. Lord Krishna manifests Himself as the Supersoul and as the greatest devotee of the Lord.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.1.47)

(6/7) Guru’s Greed, Disciple’s Greed

There is one more thing written in one of the Puranas. I often tell you about it in Bengali, but this is the actual sloka from the scriptures:

gurabo vahavah santi sisya-vittapaharakah

durlabhah sad-gurur-devi sisya-santapa-harakah

‘O Devi! There are many gurus who steal their disciple’s wealth, but it is very rare to find a guru who would steal the disciple’s three-fold miseries.’

(Purana)

In this world, there are many gurus who steal their disciples’ wealth. Many such gurus give initiation, leave and then come once a year to extract their tax from you. If you own some land, you have to pay tax to the municipality – in the same way, there are many gurus in this world who will come to you with a box and say, ‘Put one–two rupees here for me every day.’ Genuine gurus will never impose any ‘tax’ on you – a genuine guru will always think how to ‘steal’ your miseries (how to remove your three-fold miseries), he will never say, ‘I will come every month, and you must give me a sack of rice and some money.’ On the other hand, the disciples of bogus gurus also think, ‘I have got initiation, so I have got everything. My guru will come once a month, I will wash his feet, cook and do for him whatever he wants, and I can do whatever I want the rest of the time.’ Such gurus say, ‘Eat whatever your soul wants,’ but the soul wants to serve Paramatma (the Supersoul)! The soul never wants you to eat any fish, meat or anything like that – this is what your mind and tongue want! I have told you about the six urges earlier today – desires come from these urges. The soul never wants to eat fish, meat, this or that. The soul only always wants to serve Paramatma, the Lord. When you go to the market, you get some nice smell of fish, and even if you have no money, your mind will think, ‘Oh, if I had money, I would buy this fish!’ These are the desires of your tongue and mind! The soul never wants all this, but we are so greedy that we think that our mind and our soul are one and the same. People do not understand what is the mind and what is the soul. The soul exists on the internal plane (it judges about internal, spiritual matters), and the mind exists on the external plane (it judges about the external, illusory matters).

Some say, ‘I have already taken initiation from a guru, and if I now take initiation here, my previous guru will curse me.’ A genuine guru never curses anyone. Demigods’ guru can curse you (such as when one time, Brihaspati, the guru of demigods, cursed Indra), but a genuine spiritual guru will never curse you no matter how much wrong you do – he forgives all bad qualities, this is his duty. There are many gurus who will say, ‘Oh, you have given me up, so I will curse you!’ They come to you every year and get a sack of rice and fifty rupees, so if you leave them, they will lose their income – that is why they threaten to curse you, and when you back off, they will say, ‘All right, you can give me two sacks of rice, then I will not curse you – everything will be all right.’ This is what happens; it is the truth.

(7/7) Deceivers and Deceived

Gurudev always speaks Hari-katha and chants kirtan (speaks about the Lord, glorifies the Lord) – gurudev never sits and talks idly or gossips about others; gurudev never talks about other or talks nonsense things. It is written in Mahabharata:

guror apy avaliptasya karyakaryam ajanatah

utpatha-pratipannasya parityago vidhiyate

‘If somebody lives in enjoyment, is foolish (ignorant of what one’s duty is and what one must not do) and lives following any other path except pure devotion, then even if this person is called a guru (in name only), it is the order of the scriptures that he must be given up.’

(Mahabharata, Udyoga-parva, 179.25)

‘If somebody lives in enjoyment (lives with his wife, children, etc.), is foolish (ignorant of what one’s duty is and what one must not do) and lives following any other path except pure devotion, then even if this person is called a guru (in name only), it is the order of the scriptures that he must be given up.’ This is written in the scriptures, these are not my words – it is not that I am saying, ‘Oh, he must be given up.’

When the time comes, the Lord will tell you, ‘I gave you a mouth, but you only ate and spoke nonsense (gramya-katha, gramya-varta – spoke about your village and your village news) with it. I gave you ears, but you did not listen to discourses about Me with these ears – you listened to everything else instead. I gave you eyes, but instead of having My darshan, you saw dirty things. Now I will take everything away from you!’ You can be born as a cow or some other animal species, and you will not be able to speak then. The Lord will take everything away from you if you misuse what you have been given. The Lord has sent you into this human body, but you can fall down from this position. Just as when you go to school, if you do not study well, you will be transferred to a lower class. Here too, the Lord will judge, and He can take you from this human birth and send you to some lower life, and you will become a hill, a cow, a goat or any other living entity. This is what happens when you never hear about the Lord, never hear about the Lord’s glories and gurudev.

It is said in Sri Hari-bhakti-vilas:

sneha-dva lobhato vapi yo grhniyada-diksaya

tasmin gurau sa-sisya tu devatasapa apatet

‘If a guru gives initiation (the mantra) to others out of affection or greed, and if somebody takes such an initiation for the sake of affection or hoping to fulfil some desires, then both the guru and the disciple become cursed by demigods.’

(Sri Hari-bhakti-vilas, 2.7)

You know, sometimes people call me ‘Baba’ [lit. ‘father’, a very common informal and affectionate address in India], but I tell them not to do this. There is a relationship with gurudev, and you must not call your guru ‘father’ or ‘mother’ – you must call gurudev ‘gurudev’. Sometimes people come to some guru and think, ‘Oh, this guru has such a big temple, he has so much money! If I take initiation from him, I can get something! I will get some fame!’ I have seen this many times. People think that if the temple is big, then the guru is big, and if the temple is small, then the guru is small. So, if gurudev has a big temple or has many temples, if gurudev has many cars and other property, people say, ‘Oh, he is a great guru, I shall take initiation from him.’ So many people queue in some missions, thinking, ‘Oh, this place is so great! If I take initiation here, I will at once go to Goloka Vrindavan!’ And if the temple is small, they think, ‘What is the use taking initiation here? I will not get anything here.’ They think a big guru must have a big stomach, a big car, a big temple – big everything. You know, one time I went to a village for preaching, and I heard one lady saying, ‘When your gurudev comes, he does not even eat or drink anything, but when my gurudev came to my house one day – he looked so beautiful! He sat in a chair leisurely and smoked a cigarette! How lovely he looked!’

yo vyakti nyaya-rahitamanyayena srnoti yah

tabubhau narakam ghoram vrajatah kalamaksayam

‘When somebody (dressed as an acharya) glorifies other things (i.e. things that oppose the sattvik scriptures), and when somebody (as a disciple) listens to it with a wrong mind, both end up staying forever in horrendous hell.’

(Sri Hari-bhakti-vilasa, 1.101)

There is one guru in Uluberia. One man said to another man, ‘What is the problem? You can take the pots that were used for cooking meat, fish, etc. at the wedding and just wash them in the Ganges!’ The other man replied, ‘Well, ask gurudev and see what he says.’ The guru was the same as the disciple – he said, ‘It is all right! You can even eat fish and meat, just dip yourself into the Ganges after that, and your stomach will get purified!’ There are such gurus in this world… That is why it is said: ‘When somebody (dressed as an acharya) glorifies other things (i.e. things that oppose the sattvik scriptures), and when somebody (as a disciple) listens to it with a wrong mind, both end up staying forever in horrendous hell.’ This is written in Sri Hari-bhakti-vilas.

Sri Gaudiya Kantha-hara also writes about gurus who are envious of pure Vaishnavs and who are also to be rejected. It is written in Bhakti-sandarbha that if a guru is envious of a Vaishnav, this guru must be rejected. How does one reject them? The mantra is given here too:

guror apy avaliptasya karyakaryam ajanatah

utpatha-pratipannasya parityago vidhiyate

‘If somebody lives in enjoyment, is foolish (ignorant of what one’s duty is and what must not do) and lives following any other path except pure devotion, then even if this person is called a guru (in name only), it is the order of the scriptures that he must be given up.’

(Mahabharata, Udyoga-parva, 179.25)

You must recite this mantra and give up the guru if he does not have vaishnav mood: a non-vaishnav can never be a guru, so, as it is said in Mahabharata, it is much better to give up such a ‘guru’ than to follow him.

Always remember this. I will not take much more of your time now. I have told you about the guru-tattva. When all the Vaishnavs come for the main programme and you will assemble here again, I will speak about my gurudev and chant some kirtans. I came to Gurudev having heard many things and knowing many things – I knew that many people spoke against Gurudev at that time. People belittle Gurudev, but thousands and thousands of people have come to take shelter of Gurudev – do you think they do not understand anything? People say that Srila Sridhar Maharaj brought one householder man and, giving him sannyas, made him the acharya. Srila Sridhar Maharaj has accepted somebody as the acharya, but if we cannot accept that, then it means that we do not know anything. Gurudev, in turn, gave his mercy to such a fallen and lowly soul as myself – I have no quality, no qualification, but Gurudev crossed all the other ‘big’ personalities and placed me on this path. I had no desire for this, I have no qualities to sit here, I do not have anything in me, but I am sitting here in front of you, speaking some Hari-katha, and you have also come to hear from me. You are all disciples of Gurudev, and I wish you all well. I pray to the Lord that you may prosper spiritually.

I would like to finish here.

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha

patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

* * *

￼Line Line1 January 2021, noon (Festival)

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Noon Festival Programme: Sri Vyasa Puja of Om Vishnupad Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/8) Satiating Your Hunger

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Tadiya subha avirbhav tithi-bara maha-mahotsav ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda Sundar jiu ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gaura Nityananda, Laksmi Nrisinghadev, Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Tadiya sakha-math-samuha ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math Nrisingha Palli ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.

[Noise in the audience.] Say together with me: ‘Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!’ No other words should be coming out of your mouths.

dinera madhye abala-tabala
kata pachala padite para
tara madhye tumi ki ekbara
govinda balite nara

‘How much nonsense you can talk every day! How many idle talks you have! Can you not say the Name of Govinda even once?’

How much we talk! Come, say with me:

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Devotee: Jay Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Parivrajakacharya Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj ki jay. Harinam sankirtan ki jay. Gaura premanande Hari bol.

When Srila Gurudev went to Mexico, he gave a very beautiful lecture. I have printed a new (Bengali) book from this lecture; you can all get a copy at the bookstall. In that book, I also printed a short lecture by Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. There was a festival going on at the temple, and a man came and asked, ‘When are they going to feed beggars?’ Srila Prabhupad gave a very beautiful answer: you can get so many things at the temple, you can hear Hari-katha – but what kind of pauper are you? Are you poor because you lack food (bhojan), or are you poor because you lack spiritual life (bhajan)? When you tell people that there will be food, so many crowds come (you can see that the nat-mandir is so full now that there is no free place), but if you say there is not going to be any prasad, the nat-mandir will never become full. So, we are all beggars for food, we are all hungry for food. Srila Prabhupad expressed it very beautifully. Read it. The language is difficult: not everybody has the capacity to understand Srila Prabhupad’s language, but you must try to read it. He says: My dear, what kind of pauper are you? Do you need only food? Are you tongue-poor? Have you come to this world just to satisfy your desires and senses, or have you come only to bring benefit to your soul? Which is true? We do not think about the benefit of our souls – we always think about satisfying our senses (giving pleasure to our tongues, mouths, minds and other senses). We have no attachment or love for what great souls say. We only want food! What is the need to come to the temple then? If you want to come to the temple for the benefit of your soul, then you can come, but do not come as a beggar for food – come as a beggar for spiritual life! Always remember this.

Anyhow, time is short, so I will not take much time. There are other sannyasis present here, and I would like to request them to speak about the glories of Srila Gurudev first.

[After the honourable dham-bhusana sannyasis of Sri Mayapur Dham speak, His Divine Grace continues his address.]

I thought at first that because of the lockdown we will lose many devotees, but I can see now that there is no space in the nat-mandir – the entire hall is filled. I know some of you cannot even enter or get a seat at the back. What to do? On the one hand, by my misfortune, I left our temple [in Kolerganj, Nabadwip] and came here, but, on the other hand, you have all come here to give me your mercy, and that is my great fortune. I am praying to you all for your mercy. I will briefly speak about Srila Gurudev now. There are so many things that can be said about Gurudev, and it is not possible for such a lowly soul as myself to speak about his glories and qualities…

Our Gurudev has a pranam-mantra composed by our Param Gurudev, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. It had never been seen anywhere that a guru would write his own disciple’s pranam-mantra, but Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj did that – he personally composed my Gurudev’s pranam-mantra. He wrote:

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam
chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam
govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram
vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

‘I offer my obeisance to him who perfectly fulfils his Gurudev’s most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his Gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all conceivable and inconceivable aspects of Vedic knowledge; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s line; who is known as “Govinda” (Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj); whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.’

‘Guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam’: he is fully adorned with the blessings of his Gurudev and the entire guru-varga. ‘Chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam’: he is expert in all conceivable and inconceivable knowledge, his knowledge is beyond even the Vedas. ‘Sri-rupa-panthanugam’: he preaches the conception of Sri Rupanuga sampradaya. ‘Govindabhidham ujjvalam’: he manifests himself in a very radiant way in this world, bearing the name Govinda Dev-Goswami. Srila Sridhar Maharaj said: ‘I will not be able to go abroad to preach, neither have I ever been able to go there, but Govinda Maharaj will preach my words and the words of Srila Prabhupad in this universe.’ This is the divine reassurance Srila Sridhar Maharaj gave in Srila Gurudev’s pranam-mantra…

(2/8) Srila Gurudev’s Pastimes (1)

As you know, my Gurupadpadma came to the Math in 1947, when Pujyapad Bhakti Kamal Madhusudan Maharaj, Sri Nrisinghananda Brahmachari (later, he became Pujyapad Bhakti Vaibhav Puri Maharaj) and Sri Bhutavrit Prabhu (later, he became Pujyapad Ashram Maharaj) went for preaching to Nadanghat. You have all heard – I do not want to exaggerate anything – that Srila Sridhar Maharaj treated all his godbrothers with parental love and gave them shelter, even though the accommodation at the temple was not so good in those days. [Many of his godbrothers stayed with him and even went for preaching on behalf of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math.] At that time, my gurudev had lost his father and had to support his family, so he was working as a compounder for an ayurvedic doctor, earning about twenty rupees. One evening, having been collecting door to door the whole day, the Math devotees came to a zamindar’s house in Nadanghat. They chanted kirtan and gave a class there. Srila Gurudev said that when he saw that programme, it reminded him of Raja Birhambir’s assembly. When he heard Nrisinghananda Brahmachari saying, ‘This body is nothing, this mind is nothing, the soul is everything,’ he was astonished. He thought to himself, ‘What is this that I hear?’ Then the devotees started kirtan. One of the brahmacharis was playing the mridanga. Gurudev, who was very young at that time (seventeen years old), said, ‘He does not know how to play the mridanga; give the mridanga to me, I will play it better.’ Everyone was impressed how well Gurudev could play it.

At some point, the sannyasi who was there asked him, ‘Will you come to the Math with us?’

‘Yes, I will come,’ Gurudev answered.

‘Will you go today?’

‘Yes, I will go today itself!’

Then, crossing the river at Nadanghat, Gurudev came to this Math, on the day of Sri Nrisingha-chaturdasi: this was the first day he entered the temple.

After that, so many things happened. One time, I asked Gurudev, ‘You took shelter at the lotus feet of Srila Sridhar Maharaj, then how did you leave and get married?’ Gurudev said, ‘Because I had made a mistake.’ I asked Gurudev directly, ‘What mistake did you make?’ and Gurudev replied, ‘I was very young and did not know any better – I had planted some onion at the temple. Srila Sridhar Maharaj went to the garden one day to see what I had planted, and when he saw the onion, he said, “Have you planted this? You are finished! You will fall and go away.”’ So, initially, Gurudev took sannyas when he was twenty-four, but after that he left. Gurudev said, ‘I fell into a hole, but I did not grasp anyone’s hand to get out. Like a dog fallen into a hole, I was barking and whining. Then my Gurudev stretched his hand out to me and pulled me out again.’

Srila Sridhar Maharaj gave Srila Gurudev the name ‘Govinda Maharaj’ when he was twenty-four. Even though later he lived in Kolkata as a grihastha (he had beautiful curly hair), what did he do in Kolkata? He worked and sent money to Srila Sridhar Maharaj. When his daughter was born (later, she became a school headmistress; she is retired now), Gurudev said, ‘I did not have money to buy milk for my daughter – I would feed her with barley – but I made sure I sent twenty rupees to my Guru Maharaj every month…’

Srila Gurudev did not study at school so much – he finished the third grade of primary school and was transferred to the fourth grade, but Gurudev said that he was so naughty that whenever he went to school to study, there was not a single day when he would not be flogged by the teacher. Gurudev said, ‘The teacher would enjoy beating me.’ Although Gurudev completed only three–four grades, he did proofreading for Srila Guru Maharaj’s printing press! We have studied so much in our life, and even now if we write in Bengali, we will make ten mistakes, but I have seen Gurudev’s handwritten cheque in English – his handwriting is so beautiful! I could not write like that. You know, there were times when I would proofread texts so many times, so many times, but when Gurudev looked at it, he would still find a mistake in it. So, when Gurudev stayed in Kolkata, he not only gave Srila Guru Maharaj money for printing books but would also proofread them…

(3/8) Srila Gurudev’s Pastimes (2)

…Gurudev would also arrange tours. At first, Srila Sridhar Maharaj was alone, but when Srila Gurudev came, he started arranging tours to South and North India, sending everything they had collected to the temple and using something from there to run his family.

Srila Sridhar Maharaj made Srila Gurudev [Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj] the secretary of the Mission. Although there were many brahmacharis at the temple who had even seen Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur (Srila Puri Maharaj), who had even studied at Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s school (Krishna Sharan Brahmachari; Srila Gurudev later gave him sannyas, and his name became Bhakti Prasun Aranya Maharaj), Gurudev’s position as the secretary never changed – only when Srila Sridhar Maharaj declared Srila Govinda Maharaj the next acharya did they appoint another person as the secretary.

When Srila Sridhar Maharaj gave sannyas to Srila Gurudev, he told him that tridandi-sannyas means three things – to look after the Deities, to look after the temple and to look after the devotees. Do you want to hear how Gurudev protected and looked after the temple? There are many naughty people in Kolerdanga, but Gurudev had such a tight grip on them that when he came downstairs, people saw him and immediately spread the news among each other, ‘Watch out! Govinda Maharaj is coming! Run for your life!’ They were very afraid of Guru Maharaj [Srila Govinda Maharaj].

There is also a story that Gurudev told me.

One time, a clerk came from the municipality to measure the kitchen building to calculate the tax. Guru Maharaj said, ‘This is the Deities’ kitchen, you cannot come inside to take the measurement.’ There were no pillars at that time, so if the man measured outside, he would actually get twenty inches more.

‘You cannot enter inside’, Gurudev said. ‘Measure outside, and even if you get twenty inches more, I do not mind it.’

‘Why cannot I enter inside?!’ the man grew indignant.

‘Because this is the Deities’ kitchen.’

‘So what? I am a brahman!’

Saying this, the man showed that he was determined to go inside, with his shoes on. Then Gurudev said, ‘If you try to go inside, I will cut off your leg.’

The man got furious and went to complain to Srila Sridhar Maharaj, ‘What sort of man do you keep downstairs? He says he will cut off my leg!’

Srila Sridhar Maharaj replied calmly, ‘You must have done something. Call the boy.’ Then, Gurudev came, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj asked him, ‘What has happened? This man says you want to cut off his leg?’ Gurudev explained, ‘He wants to go to the Deities’ kitchen with his shoes on. What else will I say to him?’

Such was Gurudev.

(4/8) Srila Gurudev’s Pastimes (3)

…Gurudev did not spare anyone, not even his own brother. In Gurudev’s time I kept record of all expenses in a ledger. One time, when Gurudev took that ledger, he asked me about one of the records that said that I had given two hundred rupees to somebody. Who did I give that money to? To Dhananjaya, Srila Gurudev’s younger brother. Gurudev asked me why I had given him the money. Then, Gurudev called his brother and asked him, ‘Why did you take two hundred rupees?’ Dhananjaya said, ‘To buy keo-karpin oil for Mother.’ Gurudev became angry and said, ‘Your mother used to live on muri, and now she is buying keo-karpin oil with the Deities’ money?!’ He said even harsher things, but it would not be good to repeat it publicly. So, when it came to service, Gurudev did not spare even his family, including his own mother. Moreover, Gurudev told me personally, ‘You must not go to the house of this woman.’ Thakur Ma (Srila Gurudev’s mother) said after that, ‘Oh, Acharya Maharaj is big now, so he does not come to my room anymore,’ but Gurudev prohibited me to go there, then how can I go there? Gurudev said, ‘There is Maya there. If you go there, you will be caught by Maya.’

Gurudev told me: when we cook some dish for the Lord, or when we offer arati to the Lord, we offer the pancha-pradip lamp and other items, and we always clean those items – in the same way, Gurudev takes us, cleans and polishes us and then uses us for the Lord’s service.

I also remember one more thing Gurudev told. When Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad was a householder and lived in Kolkata (his name was Abhay Babu at that time), Srila Sridhar Maharaj stayed at his house during several months together with Gurudev (his name was Gaurendu Brahmachari then; he had not taken sannyas yet). You know that Srila Prabhupad preached much about Srimad Bhagavad-gita and knew it by heart. So, he would take Gurudev to various places – he told Gurudev, ‘You are a brahmachari, so you will sit on the vyasa-asan and recite the slokas, and I will explain their purport.’ This is how much Srila Swami Maharaj loved Gurudev. Later, when Srila Prabhupad lived in the Radha-Damodar temple, translating Srimad Bhagavatam into English, Gurudev would publish Gaudiya Darshan from our temple, where he wrote Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s lectures and slokas (many things were actually written by Gurudev himself, but he would sign them with Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s name). When Srila Prabhupad read those articles, he said, ‘I may have many sons, but I consider Govinda Maharaj my true son. In fact, I consider him my only son because he can write such excellent things.’

When Gurudev had just come to the temple, within seven days, Srila Sridhar Maharaj decided, ‘This boy will be my successor in the future.’ Why did he say so? Srila Sridhar Maharaj told Gurudev, ‘Do not listen to what your mind tells you, listen to what I say.’ Some time later, Gurudev happened to be given some dal with insects in it, and he ate it. Srila Sridhar Maharaj saw it and asked him, ‘Why did you eat that dal? There were insects in it.’ Gurudev replied, ‘I did not want to eat it, but then I remembered that you had told me not to listen to my mind but to listen to you, that is why I ate what was given to me.’ Such was Gurudev.

In 1973, Srila Swami Maharaj invited all Gaudiya Maths for the inauguration of ISKCON’s Sri Chandradaya Mandir in Mayapur. Many did not come, but Srila Sridhar Maharaj went there together with Gurudev and Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj (there are photographs from the inauguration, you can see them seated there). Gurudev was a householder at that time – he came from Kolkata, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj told him, ‘Do not leave, let us go to Mayapur. Swami Maharaj has invited us.’ When they came to Mayapur, Gurudev asked Swami Maharaj, ‘You are opening a temple, but where is the fire sacrifice? I do not see any inauguration paraphernalia.’ Then, Srila Swami Maharaj said, ‘Srila Sridhar Maharaj is my siksa-guru – he has come, so the temple is already inaugurated.’ During the inauguration programme, Srila Swami Maharaj gave a class and then requested Srila Sridhar Maharaj to speak, but Srila Sridhar Maharaj said (as if on purpose, showing some trickery), ‘I am not feeling well, so Govinda Maharaj will say something on my behalf.’ (Although Gurudev was a grihastha, Srila Sridhar Maharaj always called him ‘Govinda Maharaj’.) During his speech, Gurudev recited this sloka:

kam prati kathayitum ise samprati ko va pratitim ayatu
go-pati-tanaya-kunje gopa-vadhude-vidham brahma

‘Whom can I tell? Who will believe me when I say that Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is hunting gopis in the bushes by the banks of the Yamuna? In this way the Lord demonstrates His pastimes.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.19.98)

The meaning of this sloka is this: ‘Whom can I tell this? Who will understand this? The Supreme Lord Himself is running after milkmaids in the jungle! Who will believe it?’ In the same way, Gurudev was saying, ‘Whom can I tell that this Abhay Babu, whom we all previously knew as an ordinary householder, has now become a great Jagad-Guru (world guru) and preaches Krishna-katha all over this world?’ Hearing Gurudev recite this sloka and understanding Gurudev’s thought, Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj exclaimed, ‘Hari bol! Hari bol!’

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(5/8) Srila Gurudev’s Pastimes (4)

Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad often visited Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. Moreover, Pujyapad Bhakti Hriday Bon Goswami Maharaj, Pujyapad Bhakti Dayita Madhav Goswami Maharaj, Pujyapad Bhakti Prajnan Keshav Goswami Maharaj and many other great preachers and acharyas affirmed, ‘If you want to hear Hari-katha, you must go to Srila Sridhar Maharaj.’ Gurudev also said that he had learnt everything from his Guru Maharaj – Gurudev always did what his Guru Maharaj told him to do, he always lived in whichever way his Guru Maharaj arranged for him.

Many of you are older than me, and you must have seen that there was a big flood in 1978 (there was an even a greater flood later, in 2000). I had not yet come to the temple in 1978, so I did not see that flood, but I heard there was no bamboo at the temple at that time (the temple was poor, as you all know). That year, Gurudev came to Nabadwip from Kolkata specially to protect the temple – he made a raft from some banana tree trunks and would go around the Math in that raft the whole day, guarding the temple. One day during that time, a thief came to the temple to cut some banana trees for his cows’ food.

Gurudev noticed the man and shouted to him, ‘Hey, what are you doing here behind the temple?’

‘I wanted to take some banana trees,’ the man explained. ‘Will you give them to me? My cows have nothing to eat…’

‘No, I will not,’ answered Gurudev. ‘Why must you take these banana trees? I am the guard, and you have entered the temple territory as a thief – you came through the back door to steal! Let us see if you dare take these trees forcefully! If you are to take these trees, you have to steal them, but you will have to do it in front of me now! If you had come to me directly and asked for permission, I would have given you these trees, but if you come to steal, then I must guard, and we shall see how you take them!’

This is how our Guru Maharaj (Srila Govinda Maharaj) protected the temple…

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(6/8) Srila Gurudev’s Pastimes (5)

You can see now that Srila Gurudev travelled all over the world and established temples in more than 130 places: he went on world tours twenty-four times, visiting over a hundred countries in total. First, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj travelled abroad many times, and then Gurudev travelled twenty-four times, sometimes visiting between twenty-five–thirty countries at a time. I have also travelled with him a few times. I have visited even such places where there is no daylight – the whole day there is night (the sun does not rise); and when I went there at another time of the year, I saw that there was no night – the whole day was daylight (the sun is in the sky the whole day and night). People from these kinds of countries became attracted to Guru Maharaj (Srila Govinda Maharaj).

Gurudev also went for preaching to Colombia – when he came to a preaching programme, he was guarded by people with machine guns and pistols! Guru Maharaj spoke in English, and devotees translated what he said into Spanish. After the lecture, one man, armed with a pistol and wearing big boots, fell at Guru Maharaj’s feet and asked him, ‘Can you please give me beads? I want to chant the Holy Name.’ I still keep a photograph of that man that was taken that day. Another time, when we went to Russia, Gurudev told me, ‘Have you packed the luggage?’ I confirmed it, and Gurudev said, ‘Keep some beads with you, do not put everything into the check-in luggage. Keep some beads with you at hand.’ I thought to myself, ‘What should one keep beads on the plane for?’, but Guru Maharaj told me to keep some beads with me, so I did that. In the end, it turned out that when we were on the plane, some Russians came to Guru Maharaj and said, ‘We have been looking for you for so long! We have heard about you, but we did not know where to find you. We want to take your shelter.’ Guru Maharaj gave them initiation in this kind of situation (right on the plane)! Sometimes, some people may have no culture, nothing, but they have a heart.

That is why I always remember what Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said: ‘Is everyone who takes initiation a disciple?’

In his last days, Guru Maharaj (Srila Govinda Maharaj) became very upset and left Nabadwip. After he declared my name on 4 December 2009, I went for preaching in Australia and then Malaysia. In Malaysia, I received a phone call from Guru Maharaj. He asked me, ‘Can you come back?’ I said, ‘I have just arrived in Malaysia.’ Guru Maharaj ordered me to come back within seven days, so although I was supposed to have an eleven-day tour in Malaysia, I cut it short and came directly to Nabadwip within seven days. As soon as I came, I went straight to Guru Maharaj’s room. He showed me a letter he had been given (somebody wrote a long one-page letter to Guru Maharaj that upset him very much). Guru Maharaj said, ‘I am going away from here tomorrow. Guru Maharaj, protect this temple. I will not stay here any longer. There is no anugatya (devotional adherence) left in this world, so I do not want to stay in this world.’ Leaving Nabadwip Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Guru Maharaj came to Dum Dum Park, Kolkata. Some time later, I came to Dum Dum Park too. I sat by Guru Maharaj’s side, and Guru Maharaj said, ‘You have brought many people to me, and I have given them initiation, but how many of them have actually become disciples?’

Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘One does not become a disciple just by taking the mantra or initiation. A disciple is one who can take disciplining [who can tolerate, digest and follow chastisement], who can accept strict adherence and submission to the guru.’ But these days, people think, ‘If I take initiation, I will get this big temple, big building, big room’…

This is what Gurudev said.

(7/8) Srila Gurudev’s Pastimes (6)

I still remember what Sripad Bhakti Kumud Shanta Goswami Maharaj told once about the guru’s wealth in his speech in 1995. I remember that day there were so many people at the temple that I could not handle the crowd. Before the programme, I went to Mayapur in our old ambassador car to bring Pujyapad Bhakti Kumud Shanta Goswami Maharaj and Pujyapad Bhakti Suhrid Akinchan Goswami Maharaj to the temple on the occasion of Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s centenary anniversary. I remember Sripad Shanta Goswami Maharaj told a very nice story about the guru and disciples. These days, the situation everywhere is actually like in that story…

At one temple, there lived a guru with two disciples. All temples look more or less the same: there are very few people staying at temples. Even Mahaprabhu sent Srila Raghunath Das Goswami away, saying:

sthira hana ghare yao, na hao batula

‘Go back to your home, do not become crazy.’

markata-vairagya na kara loka dekhana
yatha-yogya visaya bhunja’ anasakta hana

‘Do not show your false renunciation to impress people. Use whatever material things you require, but without attachment.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.16.237–238)

Mahaprabhu told him, ‘Do not show monkey renunciation. Go back to your home.’ He sent him to stay as a grihastha. So, not everybody can stay at the temple or live a renounced life. Here too, we can see in this story that there were only two disciples staying at the temple, but they always fought and rivalled with one another because of the service to their guru. One day, their guru said, ‘Since you are always fighting so much because of my service, I will divide your service: one of you will massage my left leg, and the other one will massage my right leg.’ One day, the disciple who was supposed to massage his guru’s left leg got sick and could not do his service. The other disciple, as usual, massaged only his guru’s right leg. The guru asked him, ‘What is wrong? Why are you not massaging my left leg?’ The disciple said, ‘It is his leg! It is not my leg.’

I see this mood in disciples nowadays. Everyone thinks, ‘It is his service!’ Somebody washes the dishes, and they do not want to do anything else. If someone steals something and runs away, they say, ‘The security guard will take care of it! It is not my matter. I only wash the dishes!’ Such is our mood. All the disciples now have an enjoyment mood.

Gurudev told one very nice story. We go everywhere by car now, but in olden days they used to go by bullock or horse carts. So, once a guru and his disciple were going to travel somewhere by cart. Gurudev told his disciple, ‘Listen, there are my clothes, stick, umbrella, tilak and other things in this bag. Take care of all the things and make sure nothing falls off. If anything falls off, you must pick it up.’ They started their way. The guru climbed on the horseback, and the disciple sat at the back of the cart, guarding the things. Whenever anything fell from the cart, the disciple carefully put it back. At some point, he picked up the stool that fell out of the horse’s backside! The guru scolded him, ‘What are you doing?!’ The disciple explained, ‘You said I had to pick up whatever fell down!’ Then, the guru had the disciple make a list of all the things they had (1 - umbrella, 2 - comb, 3 - stick, and so on) and told him to keep all the things from the list safe. They continued their way. On their way, there was some hole in the road, and the horse jumped over it. As the horse made the jump, the guru fell off the horse! He shouted, ‘Help! Help! Catch me!’ The disciple took the list out of his pocket and started checking it. His guru was not on the list, so the disciple did not bother – his guru shouts, ‘Save me!’ but he does not care. We are also such servants: we only worry about our guru’s material property. Gurudev’s wealth or property is not a great temple or a house. Gurudev’s wealth is faith, devotion and divine love.

People think: the bigger temple you make, the bigger guru you are (‘visva-math – visva-guru’), and if you make a small temple, then you are a small guru. We must always want to be small. We want to be servants of Vaishnavs – this is what we must always remember. We must listen to what Gurudev says; there is no other way for us. But we are always engrossed in material things: as Pujyapad Bhakti Kumud Shanta Goswami Maharaj said, ‘It is very difficult to become a sadhu, but it is very easy to dress yourself as a sadhu.’ There are so many sadhus who only dress themselves as such. That is why Sri Jagadananda Pandit said:

‘gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

loka dekhana gora bhaja tilaka matra dhari’
gopanete atyachara gora dhare churi

‘You put on tilaks and show the whole world that you serve Gora, but secretly you do outrageous things. Gora will catch you out, thief (hypocrite)!’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6–7, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

We secretly engage in vile activities, but Gora (Gauranga Mahaprabhu) will catch us! He knows everything! Guru is antaryami – he knows everything; he knows what we do and what we do not do.

(8/8) Come as a Beggar

Anyhow, much has been said today. To conclude, I would like to read an article written by Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. Actually, no matter how many times I tell everyone about it, it does not help… You must all listen to what Srila Prabhupad says.

You can see that just now they will be giving prasad. We say:

tava nija-jana prasada seviya
uchchhista rakhibe yaha
amara bhojana parama-anande
prati-dina habe taha

‘Every day I will with great joy have whatever remnants Your devotees leave behind after honouring Your prasad.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We say this, but when it comes to prasad time, everybody goes first, saying, ‘No, I will eat first!’ This world is all about eating – people only eat, eat, eat, and if they do not eat once, they think they will die. So, what I wanted to read to you is this:

One time, there started an annual festival at Sri Gaudiya Math. Many preachers of exclusive genuine religion, exemplary sannyasis and brahmacharis came to the temple from all over India. Many invited respectable gentlemen and ladies also came to the festival, yearning to hear about the nectarean devotion to the Lord. Endlessly jubilant and endowed with sincere service mood, all selfless, pious servitors were ready to enrich everyone – the invited, the uninvited, devotees, non-devotees, materialists and strict renunciates who are averse to service – through Hari-kirtan (glorification of the Lord). There was Krishna-katha heard everywhere, and everyone’s hearts rejoiced and soared to hear narratives about Krishna, to hear songs extolling Krishna’s qualities resounding all around them. Even surprised passers-by, drawn by the festival, became stunned and forgot where they were going.

At this time, somebody had the guts to come and ask me, ‘Hey, listen, when are they going to feed the poor here?’ What must I reply! Alas, hearing this question, I felt completely at a loss. I looked within my own heart and started to reason with it:

Listen, foolish mind! Let us see the truth: What kind of a beggar are you? What do you lack? What do you want? Alas! You seem to only wish to gratify your material senses; you feel that you lack the capricious pleasures and happiness that your senses have a wayward, mischievous hunger for, and not being able to attain that sufficiently, you consider yourself a beggar! Is that not the truth? ‘When will they feed the poor? When can I enjoy various auspicious paraphernalia and first-class ingredients?’ This is all you are looking for! You have come to a tree with very ripe and beautiful juicy fruit, but you are searching for ripe amla [Indian gooseberry, which is very sour]! You know it. Your tongue is drawn to amla’s taste. You think that your hankering will be satisfied by that – you think the appetite you have lost because of sickness will come back, and as you eat amla, you will slowly recover, but you are wrong! You are making a great mistake! Do you not think that this unhealthy bitter juice of amla will only erode your teeth and you will become even sicker? You will not be able to get the taste of any other food – you will die! If, overcome by the desire to enjoy, you see maha-prasad as just some food meant to bring you enjoyment or happiness, then you will only get the result of eating! Foolish mind, your search for the end of your poverty is futile here! What you beg for is available even on the street – even animals enjoy that. Why do you need to come to the temple for that? O dear! Do the great servitors surrendered to Krishna call you to this temple, a great place of pilgrimage, invite you to this temple, to satisfy your material senses with material flavours? To feed her child the medicine that will cure the disease, a clever, loving mother will entice the child with a laddu (sweet ball), but is the laddu the point? It is not, it really is not! The main substance is hidden within it! Here too, at this holy abode of the Supreme Lord, at this greatest place of pilgrimage, the very gist of maha-prasad ‘food’ (bhojan) – the nectar from the holy mouth of Sri Gaura – is actually permeated by service (bhajan) to Mahaprabhu! This is the main thing for the entire world, the main necessity! So, I am telling you: come, dear mind, come! If you want to get benefit, come – come not as a beggar for food (bhojan), but come as a beggar for spiritual life in service to the Lord (bhajan) and roll at the holy feet of the supremely merciful devotees of the Lord, placing on your head their feet dust, the water that has washed their feet and the remnants of their food:

bhakta-pada-dhuli ara bhakta-pada-jala
bhakta-bhukta-sesa—ei tina sadhanera bala

‘The dust from devotees’ feet, the water that has washed devotees’ feet and the remnants of devotees’ food – these three are the sole strength of one’s spiritual life.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.16.60)

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￼Line Line1 January 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Evening Class: Sri Vyasa Puja of Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/13) Know and Love the Lord

The festival in honour of our beloved Gurudev Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj has taken place today, and you have observed this festival properly. I feel very happy when we can observe Gurudev’s festival properly and beautifully.

I am very pleased that you have come; I am pleased with how you have served. Some participated in service, and some have not been able to do service, but they sat here and listened to Hari-katha. If you just come to hear Hari-katha and chant the Lord’s glory (sravan, kirtan), I am pleased with that. The Lord will give you mercy through that. I want everyone to get benefit, and I am very happy when someone can nicely join and take part in Gurudev’s service and Gurudev’s festival.

Observing this holy day, you are present here today. You are thinking, ‘The festival is now over, so Maharaj will tell us to leave.’ Actually, it is not so. The day after tomorrow, on Sunday, is the disappearance day of Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. It always falls on this day: two days after Srila Gurudev’s appearance day. I think all of you have the photograph of our guru-parampara at home, but not everyone knows whose photographs they are. When I sometimes ask somebody the names, they cannot say it, and many cannot recite the Jaya Dhvani. You must learn these things well. If you give ‘jay’ to our guru-varga every day, it will increase the desire for devotion in your heart. Many cannot give ‘jay’ to their guru-varga, they cannot pronounce the names properly, or they cannot even tell their own guru’s name properly. At home, there is a wife, husband, sons and other family or friends, and you know everyone’s names very well, but you do not know your guru-varga’s names properly. Not only that, some cannot even properly chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra… It is very sad.

So, the day after tomorrow is Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s disappearance day, and we will observe this day with whoever stays at the temple on this day. I have no objection if all of you stay. You have come leaving your homes, so stay here at the temple for a few days. Take this family as your own.

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara
sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

‘May I have the same love and attraction to Your holy feet that I now have for material things.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Do you understand the meaning of this verse? May we love the Lord in the same way that we now love our house, wife, sons, friends, etc. When will this day come? Until and unless this day comes, you will have to keep coming to this material world and material family. Listen to what sadhus say. This is not just something that only I am saying – all sadhus say this. Some say more, some say less, but all sadhus say the same things. Jiva souls have fallen into material bondage, and sadhus come to tell them:

‘samsara’ ‘samsara’ kari’ michhe gela kala
labha na haila kichhu, ghatila janjala

‘Time has passed as I have been busy with my material life, and the result is nothing – only garbage.’

kisera samsara ei chhayabaji praya
ihate mamata kari vrtha dina yaya

‘What sort of world is this? It is only a trick, a show. While I affectionately take it as my own, days pass by in vain.’

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(2/13) Develop Deepest Dedication

[To a devotee] Send them a message: 9 o’clock. [To everyone] I must give a class at 9 p.m. tonight – a hundred countries join online classes. When it is 9 p.m. here, it is 9 a.m. in some other countries, and in some countries, it is 2 a.m. at night. That is why Guru Maharaj often said that the sun never sets on Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. You may wonder how this is so. When the sun sets in some place, it rises in another place: it is evening here for us, but for them the sun is only rising now. For example, it is 11–12 o’clock in the morning in London now, and at 9 p.m. our time (India), it is 9 a.m. in America. They sit for the programme, and I speak some Hari-katha for them. I will tell them about the guru, etc. in English, and each country translates it into their own language, writing what I am saying so that others can understand it. Even when I give a class in Bengali, they record everything, write what I say down and translate it into English, and then it is posted at the website (scsmathinternational.com). You can find everything I have spoken today, all photographs of today’s festival at the website. The whole world can see it – they can see how many people have come today, how many people have taken prasad, and so on. The photographs are already at the website, and everyone is calling me, saying in amazement, ‘So many people!’

That is why Gurudev said that the sun never sets on Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. When I was in my room today, I spent most of the time talking on the phone. I had kept my phone in the room today, and when I turned it on again at 4 p.m., I saw many missed calls, and now I will also give a two-hour class from 9 p.m. until 11 p.m. Devotees from all the countries want to hear from me and know how the festival went, so I must speak to them. On Sunday, there will be another class in honour of Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s disappearance festival (I anyway give a class online every Sunday).

So, this Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math is not only a group of people from West Bengal. This Mission includes members from all over the world. Therefore, I have to harmonise and speak with everyone all over the world equally – I must adjust and behave with everyone according to their nature. This is also how Srila Gurudev sowed the seeds all over the world. First, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad went all over the world and ploughed the land, and then Srila Gurudev went all over the world, planting the seeds, as a result of which we are now getting the fruit. Hearing Hari-katha, people from various countries become attracted, and we give them initiation from here. They come in front of the screen in their country, and I can see them through the screen here; in this way, I give them initiation: I chant on beads and send them abroad beforehand, and when the beads arrive, the devotee who is in charge of the local temple or mission hands the beads to them. Sometimes, five–six devotees, sometimes two devotees take initiation. In this way, even during the lockdown, people came to take shelter in Gurudev. During some time, planes were not running, so it was difficult to send beads – it was a big problem – but now the post office is running as before, and we send the chanted beads, after which we arrange an online programme for the initiation.

Srila Janardan Maharaj, Srila Ashram Maharaj, and many other senior devotees – you know them all – join these online programmes. I meet with everyone in ‘zoom’ (online) every week. Srila Gurudev has made over 130 temples all over the world, and after Gurudev left, many more centres have been opened, both in Bengal and beyond. If you have Gurudev’s mercy, you must give yourself completely, to the very end, for the service of your Gurudev – you must pour out all your heart, all your mind, everything…

(3/13) At Lord’s Home

Every country has big rivers, but there is no other country in the whole world that has a river that could compare to the Ganges, Yamuna, Saraswati or Godavari. Srila Bon Maharaj, an honourable sannyasi from Mayapur, mentioned this today in his speech. There is no other place in the world where the Ganges, Yamuna, Saraswati and Godavari flow. In the same way, there is land everywhere, but the Lord appeared in the land of Bharata-bhumi (India). He did not and will not appear in any other place. In India, people are religious, and the Lord comes here time after time. Moreover, in the Age of Kali, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared in Mayapur, Nabadwip, in the district of Nadia in West Bengal, here in Bharata-bhumi. This is such a great fortune, and you are so fortunate! Who will you tell this to? Who will be able to see it and who will be able to understand it?

You go to Mayapur only for some sightseeing, to buy souvenirs for your grandchildren and to see some great buildings, but what else do you see? Srila Sridhar Maharaj said that such ‘excursions’ are eye-exercise. If you come to look at things like this, what will you understand? Can you understand something by seeing it? The truth is that you cannot see or understand a sadhu with your eyes: you must see the sadhu with your ears. Likewise, when you come to a holy place, you must come on a parikrama, and you must walk not with your legs, but with your head. You must take the dust of the holy place on your head.

We are present here in Sri Nrisingha Palli; this area is also called Deva Palli (‘a village of demigods’) because all 330,000,000 demigods reside here. As you know, every temple comes here during the parikrama, and when we were at our old ‘jal mandir’ Nabadwip temple (Kolerganj), we used to also come here on the third day of the parikrama. Now, Gurudev has mercifully given us a place in Godrumdwip. It is a great fortune for us. This place has appeared for you all, so that you can come and stay here. At first, when there were difficulties, you had to struggle and stay in the nat-mandir, but now you can see that everything has become manifest. Everything is not built suddenly and at once: as they say, Rome was not built in a day. Rome is a very beautiful city, but even that city was not built in a day. It was built gradually, slowly. Here too, everything is appearing gradually.

When I first came to our old temple, I did not see there any great buildings or anything like that. There was only Param Guru Maharaj’s house, Gurudev’s house, the two-storey Bengali building and the Western brahmachari building. At Govinda Kunda, where you can see the five-storey guesthouse building today, people would come to pass stool, and in the place where the four-storey Centenary building is (where I stayed), people used to grow roses. The goshala also increased gradually – at first it did not even have a boundary wall.

When one makes a house and the husband, wife and children live there peacefully, then you can call it a home, or a family, but if there is no happiness or peace in the family, how can you call this place a home? You cannot. The place can have cement and bricks, but if there is no peace there – if you do not feel peace there even when you sleep at night – then it is not a home. When you come here, you can find happiness. Nobody will come to arrest you, nobody will come to beat you, nobody will come to swear you, nobody will come to complain to you or about you. The environment is beautiful here. You can see that devotees started arriving from the day before yesterday, and Hari-katha has been going on all the time here. Today, some lady asked me, ‘Why are all these classes, kirtans, etc.? Is this your home?’ This is a temple! Lectures and kirtans are going on here every day – every morning, noon and evening. Just as you do arati and kirtan at home, the same is done here; the only difference is that there are few people at home, and there are many people here. There is continuous, eternal daily service going on here; nothing is stopped. All temples run in the same manner: lectures, kirtans, aratis, bhoga offering and all other services are carried out at each temple, every day.

Ordinary householders’ houses are not temples, so they can wake up at 8 a.m. and go to wake up the Lord at leisure. It is not like this here; we do not live like householders who are attached to their material life: waking up at ten, and when you fancy or have time, you go with a plate of some food to the Deities. No. Temples have rules. You must wake up at 4 a.m., wake up the Deities, offer balya-bhoga (usually some sweets and milk or water), do arati and parikrama. Then, you sit and chant kirtans, listen to Hari-katha (a lecture, reading from scriptures), do archan, offer morning bhoga and take prasad. After taking prasad, everyone does whatever service they have at the temple. At noon, you again offer bhoga and do arati, then put the Deities to rest, close the temple, take prasad, and you can also go to rest or continue your service. In the afternoon, you get up and wake the Deities up at 4 p.m., offer some bhoga (usually some fruit and muri or a snack). A little later, at 6 p.m., you do the evening arati and parikrama; you sit and chant kirtans and listen to Hari-katha (the evening class, reading from scriptures); then, you offer the evening bhoga. Finally, you put the Deities to rest again, take prasadam and go to rest yourself. These are the rules at all temples.

(4/13) Pure Preacher’s Position

[His Divine Grace notices a devotee dozing off.] You are falling asleep! You went to the gate to meet with me or greet me, but I told you all yesterday that I am neither a pranam-taking guru nor a pranami-taking guru. I am not expecting pranam (obeisances) or pranami (donation) from anyone. I was talking with somebody and after that went to rest, and you came to my door and started knocking, did you not? I heard the noise, and I could hear your voice. It is not right. If you hear what Gurudev said, you will be surprised and probably upset. Gurudev said: you can see many devotees coming from abroad, but there are three kinds of devotees among them. There are these three kinds of devotees among you too, even more so, I can say. Gurudev said that arriving from abroad, devotees get off the plane and bring many gifts they have bought for him, sometimes they bring thirty gifts – a whole bag full of gifts! – but not all devotees are the same, and not everything is what it seems: some come to serve their guru (guru-sevi); some can come and show devotion, but after some time they reject their guru (guru-tyagi); and the third class are those who come to use their guru (guru-bhogi).

You can see me also wearing this jacket and other unusual or expensive things. All these things were given to me by foreign devotees. One time, somebody looked up the price of the shoes I wear in the internet, and it turned out that they cost very much – my room had been robbed and absolutely everything was stolen, including even my soap, so foreign devotees sent things for me (it may be affordable for them). I personally do not buy anything for myself – I do not even buy soap for myself. I have never even bought a toothbrush for myself with the Lord’s money – I never did it when I was a brahmachari, and I have never done it to this day. For example, somebody can give me ten rupees, but I have never ever bought tooth paste, a toothbrush or anything like that for myself with that money. My only expense is petrol because I have to go for preaching: whether people give me money or not, I must go for preaching. If somebody pays for petrol, they can do that, and if not, I take money from my pocket and spend Gurudev’s money to go for preaching. Sometimes, when I go to somebody’s house for preaching, they give us money for petrol – if they give, they give, and if they do not give, I do not mind it, I pay myself. Gurudev told me to spend money for preaching. Moreover, Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur also said that for preaching you can even borrow money: if you borrow money, it will force you to go out for collection to pay that money back because the person you have borrowed it from will keep coming to you and asking you for that money. This is the rule; this is how we must preach.

I also spend money on printing books for preaching. This time, I printed 500,000 books. I do not know how many people buy them. Sometimes, we give books for free – if you cannot pay the printing price, you can take it for free. Take it, read it and follow what is written in them, then you will get some benefit. This is how we preach. So, when it comes to petrol, I always buy it. Every month, I spend 100,000 rupees on petrol for the car because I must go to various places and temples to preach Hari-katha. I am doing that…

(5/13) Clear Vision

When there was a lockdown, everybody had a lockdown, but not I – my car was going everywhere. I did not have any lockdown – the government had a lockdown, not I. Those who needed a lockdown, they were in a lockdown, but I did not need it: I am a preacher, I go house to house preaching Mahaprabhu’s conception to everyone. Somebody does not want to listen, somebody starts swearing, somebody closes their door, but even if they close the door or swear you, you must come and knock on their door ten more times. This is our work, our duty.

I keep coming and saying, ‘Come, you must chant the Holy Name!’ I am a beggar, and this is the alms I want: ‘I am begging you for one thing only: come with us and chant the Holy Name of Krishna (Krishna bolo, sange cholo, ei matra bhiksa chai)!’ Another thing I come to beg for is this: ‘Please bless me so that I may have devotion to Krishna. I will come to your house ten times – even if you kick me out, I will still come; even if you beat me, I will come again. Even if you beat me with a stick or a broom, I will still come. You must come to this path! You must come!’ This is what I come to say. This is how we preach for Mahaprabhu for as long as we are alive in this world: ‘As long as you have life in the body, you must preach (prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara).’

When your life is gone, you will not be able to preach, that is why Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that as long as you have life in the body, you must preach. You know, Gurudev spoke so much that he would sometimes cough blood (his servant would be standing by, helping him wipe it), but even then he did not stop! If blood comes out of your mouth, you will run to hospital or stay in bed, but when blood came from Gurudev’s mouth, he continued speaking. He would lose voice when he sang kirtans, but he still continued singing. He did not stop speaking about the Lord! Such was my guru, and I have learnt from him. He gave me his blessings, and I want to be like him – I will not do anything else. I do not think about my health – I engage my body and my health in the service of the Lord, and the Lord will take care of my health. One day I have to die anyway, so I do not worry about it, I rely on the Lord. You think somebody can save you, but only the Lord will save you. Gurudev gives you life, so if he says, ‘You must stay here,’ you will be here, and if he says that you do not need to stay here anymore, then you will leave – you will have to leave. Therefore, there is no use sitting in the room.

This is how we must preach. You must make yourself supremely qualified (uttam) in this way.

This temple and mission are not only mine. How long will I be here? You are the ones who will stay behind, and you must always come. You must always keep love and affection for gurudev, you must always come to the temple – if you cannot stay permanently, come from time to time, stay for five–ten days now and then. What are you so worried about? Why do you need to say, ‘Gurudev, I am coming for seven days this time’? One devotee’s daughter came and told me, ‘I will stay for seven days,’ and I told her, ‘Why seven days? Stay for seven years!’ If you stay here, your life will be longer. You live in your homes and worry about your sons, about this, that – you do not need to think about all this. Stay here, practise Krishna consciousness and think about the Lord. You will live longer. Instead of staying at your home and worrying about everyone and everything, come to the temple, chant the Holy Name of the Lord and serve the Lord, and you will live happily, but no, you come for seven days only…

This is your home! Do you think I have built all these rooms and temples for myself? Do you think I have any brothers, sisters, relatives or friends who will live here? Do I have any family? You are my family. Then why will you not come to stay here? Who will stay here if not you? This is home for those who want to practise Krishna consciousness. My friends, family, etc. are you all.

I have a younger brother from my previous ashram, but I do not even speak to him. He sometimes disturbs me, but I told him, ‘You are dacoits disguised as family.’ I told it to him straight. He calls me to say, ‘Oh, your dear father struggles to breathe.’ I said, ‘Of course! Why wouldn’t he?’ When I studied in grade seven, he gave me one rupee in the morning and told me to get him bidi (cigarettes) after school. The way to school took one hour on foot – there were no proper roads, so I walked down mud roads, wearing half-pants (the era of full pants had not come yet at that time). When I came to school and started studying, I realised that the rupee he gave me had fallen out of my pocket somewhere on the way. As the day went by, I forgot all about buying bidi or the money, but when I came home, he beat me so much that I ‘forgot my father’s name’! He has been smoking all his life, and now he is saying he has problems breathing! I said that it was only natural – he cannot breathe? Well and good! Why wouldn’t he? They have to suffer, it is natural. I am neither sad nor distressed about it at all. I told my younger brother that they are dacoits in disguise of family. It means that they look like family, but actually they are dacoits because they only think how to take you away from the Lord. All material relatives and family are disguised dacoits! They come to forcefully rob you. You must always remember this. Devotees of the Lord can never be dacoits – they come and arrange everything for you to give you mercy.

(6/13) Clear Identity

You must practise Krishna consciousness. Wife, sons, friends and everyone else are all your body-family – they are all temporary. The problem is that we do not even know our own identity. Somebody says proudly, ‘I am a brahmachari’, but Mahaprabhu says:

naham vipro na cha nara-patir napi vaisyo na sudro
naham varni na cha grha-patir no vanastho yatir va
kintu prodyan-nikhila-paramananda-purnamrtabdher
gopi-bhartuh pada-kamalayor dasa-dasanudasah

‘I am not a brahman, not a ksatriya, not a vaisya, not a sudra; neither am I a brahmachari, a householder, a vanaprastha or a sannyasi. I identify Myself as a servant of the servant of the servant of the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krishna, who is the beloved of the gopis, an ocean of nectar, eternally self-effulgent (self-manifest) and filled with the entire scope of all possible highest ecstasy.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.13.80)

Mahaprabhu said, ‘I am not a brahmachari or a sannyasi, I am not a ksatriya, a vaisya or anything else. Who am I? I am a servant of the servants of the servants of the servants of the Lord.’ We do not even have the ego of our true identity (atma-abhiman).

So, somebody says, ‘I am a brahmachari’, pointing at their clothes, showing that they are a brahmachari, but anyone can put on brahmachari clothes – I can give somebody saffron clothes today, and they will wear it, but does it mean that the person has become a brahmachari? Our identity does not depend on our clothes! Our identity is not based on any external varna (brahmachari, grihastha, vanaprastha, sannyasi) – our identity is based on our behaviour and practice.

Once, a devotee asked another devotee, ‘Prabhu, you are washing the dishes in winter without wearing any warm clothes, do you not feel cold?’ He brushed him off, ‘No! I am a Vaishnav! Why would I feel cold?’ The first devotee told me about it later, adding, ‘I guess his head has gone too cold, that is why he is not thinking straight.’ What to do? The person is a little crazy. If you think that because you are a Vaishnav you do not need to wear warm clothes, then so many have come here wearing warm clothes – does it mean that none of them is a Vaishnav? At the same time, we never consider ourselves Vaishnavs. A Vaishnav will never call himself a Vaishnav. The degree of one’s vaisnavata (Vaishnav nature, or qualities) is measured by the person’s humility:

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If you get this idea that you are a Vaishnav, then you will not stop desiring respect for yourself. The other day, ** Prabhu called me. He said, ‘Dandavat, this is ** Prabhu speaking.’ Do you know what Gurudev replied once when somebody said that to him? When a devotee phoned him and said, ‘Gurudev, this is ** Prabhu speaking,’ Gurudev said, ‘Yes, Prabhu, dandavat. This is your servant, Gobe, speaking.’ [‘Gobe’ is an extremely informal variant of the name ‘Govinda’; Srila Gurudev sometimes used this name in his intimate relationship with Srila Guru Maharaj, saying, ‘I am your Gobe.’] Gurudev thought, ‘Everybody calls me Govinda Maharaj now, but I know that if Guru Maharaj had not given me sannyas and made me the acharya, then I would still be living as simple Gobe in Bamunpara.’

Another time, a devotee from Govardhan told me that he was going to visit his house to give some money to his family. I asked him, ‘Where have you got money at this time? It is lockdown time now, where have you got the money from?’ He said, ‘Some temples invited me for festivals, and when I went there, they gave me some donation, but what will I do with that money? I want to give it to my family.’ I told him, ‘Oh really? You do not know what to do with donations, so you send that money to your house?’ Gurudev said once very strong words – I did not tell about it today in front of everybody. You know that Gurudev got married and lived with his family during some time. Referring to that time, Gurudev said, ‘I passed stool behind closed doors, but many of the sannyasis and brahmacharis live at the temple and pass stool in the open.’ These are Gurudev’s words. Do you understand what these words mean? There are many brahmacharis and sannyasis living at the temple, and when they pass stool, they do it in the open, in front of everyone. I heard it from Gurudev’s mouth. He said, ‘Many criticised me for leaving the temple, giving up sannyas and getting married. Yes, I did that and left, but these brahmacharis and sannyasis continue wearing saffron clothes and keep women in their rooms!’ Externally, they show they are sannyasis, brahmacharis, but they keep ladies. That is why Gurudev said, ‘I passed stool behind closed doors, and when they pass it, they do it in the open, but does anyone see that?’

Many of you did not hear what Gurudev said, but I heard it from him directly. He told me a few things, and I remembered everything. Not everyone can remember it, and it is also not possible to tell such things in front of everyone, but such was my Gurudev. He did not spare anyone. He taught me many things – how to serve, how to cook, how to serve the Lord, how to offer the bhoga, and so on. You can see how those who are staying near me are serving. When I chant kirtan and feel thirsty, I do not even have to say that I need water – they can understand that I am thirsty and give me water themselves. How they serve! I cannot comb my sikha myself. My hair has grown very long, but I cannot comb it myself – Kamalendu Prabhu combs it for me. I take thirty pills every day. Do you know about it? But if you look at me, you will never think that I am not well. I have a very strong mind. But when doctors prescribe some medicine, I have to take it. Gurudev also took medicine. Actually, Gurudev has given me everything – he gave me his mercy, and he also gave me all the diseases that he had. When Gurudev saw my hand, he said, ‘You are very restless, you are prone to have diabetes.’ Gurudev said that, and it happened – eventually, I got diabetes, and so many other things came also. Despite many health problems, I can still write and read without glasses. Sometimes, I cannot see things far clearly, and doctors told me to wear glasses, but I cannot wear them all the time – I get annoyed when there is something on my face all the time. I had a little weak sight even when I was in college, forty years ago, but I do not wear glasses to this day. Sometimes during the arati, I feel I cannot see clearly, then I can put on the glasses, otherwise not. I can see well when I read or write; there is only some difficulty when I have to see far. I have -1.25, and the doctor said, ‘You are now over sixty, you should wear glasses.’ Sometimes, I wear them (for example, when I am in the car), but I do not wear glasses all the time. You know, they wanted to get me glasses that cost 200,000, but if I wear such expensive glasses, people will say, ‘Look at this sadhu! He is wearing 200,000-rupee glasses!’ Not everybody can understand this, but many can. When I walk in Kolkata, people stare at my shoes, and I understand that they recognise that my shoes are very expensive. What am I to do? I did not have other shoes – my shoes were stolen, so I wore what I was given…

(7/13) Sustaining Yourself on Gurudev’s Words

Gurudev has given me a lot. He has given me much mercy, that is why I am telling all these things to you also so that you too can serve Gurudev and the Lord like that. I was always like a chatak bird (always waiting anxiously, intently for a drop of mercy, for any service) in my service to Gurudev. Even when I went to the bathroom, I would keep my mobile phone on a small shelf for soap because I always waited for Gurudev’s call, thinking, ‘When will Gurudev call me? When will there be some news from Gurudev?’

Gurudev explained to me what was my service and what was not my service. He never let me climb to the altar – he said, ‘You must not do puja.’ He told me how to cook, but he told me not to go to the kitchen to cook myself. He told me to never drive a motorcycle and to never take a gun in my hand because I can become hot-headed and injure somebody. He told me, ‘Never get a gun license.’ I always remember what Gurudev told me and follow that. On some occasions, I told others to get a gun license, but I never got it myself; neither have I driven a motorcycle. I have been following what Gurudev told me to a T.

Gurudev told us many things – he had a great vision and could see very far. His behaviour was always candid, genuine. He always spoke very sweetly. When there was nobody speaking to him, he was very grave and spoke little, but when he started speaking, he spoke very happily and at length. To this day, I feel happy when I remember his words. If Gurudev had not given me his mercy, I would have already left a long time ago, but because Gurudev gave his mercy, I am still alive and can sit here in front of you, speaking about the Lord. This is my great fortune.

I am a beggar, so please give me these alms: wherever I may go, you must always live following this spiritual line (siddhanta), and please bless me so that I may have devotion to Krishna. On the other hand, I am also telling you: please continue all together. ‘Krishna bolo, sange cholo, ei matra bhiksa chai – I am begging you for one thing only: come with us and chant the Holy Name of Krishna!’ Please stay all together, then we will all be able to get out of this illusory prison and reach the Lord. We are living now in this prison of the illusory environment, and we keep falling into this wicked, material environment:

amara jivana, sada pape rata,
nahika punyera lesa
parere udvega, diyachhi ye kata,
diyachhi jivere klesa [1]

‘My life is always engrossed in sin. There is not a trace of piety in it. I have been giving others so much anxiety and pain.’

nija sukha lagi’, pape nahi dari’,
daya-hina svartha-para
para-sukhe duhkhi, sada mithya-bhasi,
para-duhkha sukha-kara [2]

‘I am not afraid to commit sins for my own happiness. I am merciless and selfish. I always lie. I feel unhappy to see others happy, and I feel happy to see others sad.’

asesa kamana, hrdi majhe mora,
krodhi dambha-parayana
mada-matta sada, visaye mohita,
himsa-garba vibhusana [3]

‘My heart is filled with endless desires. Angry, arrogant and vain, I am always intoxicated, mad, engrossed in the material world. Pride and envy are my ornaments.’

nidralasya hata, sukarye virata,
akarye udyogi ami
pratistha lagiya, sathya-acharana,
lobha-hata sada kami [4]

‘Ruined by laziness and sleep, I am averse to doing anything good and eager to do nothing. I behave crooked desiring prestige. I am ruined by greed and always want something.’

e hena durjana, sajjana-varjita,
aparadhi nirantara
subha-karya-sunya, sadanartha-manah,
nana-duhkhe jara jara [5]

‘Such a bad person as I is shunned by good souls – I am a constant offender. I do not do anything good – instead, I am always filled with inauspiciousness. I am racked by various miseries.’

vardhakye ekhana, upaya-vihina,
ta’te dina akinchana
bhakativinoda, prabhura charane,
kare duhkha nivedana [6]

‘Old and having no way out now, having thus become poor and materially destitute, Bhaktivinod humbly submits his sorrow at the holy feet of the Lord.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This is my prayer to you all: always practise Krishna consciousness, then you will be all right.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Sri Guru-charana-padma’, ‘Krpa kara Vaisnava Thakura’, ‘Nitai-guna-mani’, ‘Emona durmati’, ‘Gaya Gaura madhur svare’ and then continues the class.]

(8/13) Internal Purity

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Listen carefully and remember this.

grhi hauka tyagi hauka bhakte bheda nai
bheda kaile kumbhipaka narakete yai

‘There is no difference between devotees, regardless of whether they are householders or renunciates. Those who discriminate go to the hell of boiling oil.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 17.22, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Many say proudly, ‘I am a brahmachari, and you are a grihastha!’ ‘There is no difference between devotees, be they householders or renunciates. If someone makes distinctions between them, they go to the hell of boiling oil.’ In Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s time, there were twelve great sannyasis in the mission, and the Mission Secretary was Sri Kunja Babu (he took sannyas later, and his name became Srila Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj). Although Sri Kunja Babu was a grihastha, everybody, including all sannyasis, offered their full, prostrate obeisances to him: sannyasis offered full sastanga-dandavats to a grihastha devotee. It was Srila Prabhupad’s order that everyone must offer obeisances to Sri Kunja Babu. You should think why he ordered everyone to do so.

Moreover, you may have two–three children, not more than that, but Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur had eleven(!) children, and he would always say, ‘Emana durmati samsara bhitare padiya achhinu ami – O Lord! I have fallen into this vile world!’ He wrote so many beautiful books and poems. Although he was a householder with eleven children, everybody would come to him from Nabadwip, including all the babajis, and everyone would pay their obeisances to him. Why? Because he was a genuine Vaishnav – that is why everyone paid obeisances to him and hankered for his mercy. You must remember this.

Much depends on our behaviour and mood. If I am jealous of others or hate others, if I cannot love anybody, then nobody will love me. If I do not believe or respect anyone, then nobody will believe or respect me. On the other hand, if I treat others with respect, then I will get respect from others; if I trust others, then others will trust me. In the same way, if I do not want good for anybody, the Lord will not want good for me, and if I want benefit for everyone, then the Lord will want me to get benefit as well. However, if I am jealous of everyone, the Lord will be very angry with me. You must remember this. That is why it is said: ‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour (expecting others to respect me)’ – if I get the ego that ‘I am a Vaishnav’, then the desire for name and fame (pratistha) will come to my mind, and my heart will become polluted; as the result, I will clear the road to hell for myself and come to live in hell. Once pratistha comes, we become heavy and end up in hell.

tomara kinkara, apane janiba,
‘guru’-abhimana tyaji’
tomara uchchhista, pada-jala-renu,
sada niskapate bhaji

‘I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru. I will always earnestly worship the remnants of Your food, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘I will consider myself Your servant (kinkar, das). I will not have any ego that I am a guru (that I can teach others).’ Even if you take initiation from me and become my disciples, it does not mean that I am giving you mercy – on the contrary, it means you are giving mercy to me. When you come to take initiation from me, you actually come to give me your mercy. A guru must always think in this way. When somebody came to offer their obeisance to Srila Prabhupad, Srila Prabhupad would say, ‘Daso ‘smi – I am your servant.’ He would pay an obeisance to his disciples. I do not give obeisances to my disciples because they will be disturbed – ‘Oh no, I have committed such a big offence, my guru is offering me obeisance!’ – but I always think in my mind, ‘I am your servant.’ It is said in the kirtan we are singing, ‘I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru.’ When you consider yourself a servant, then your ego will go away. ‘I will always earnestly worship the remnants of Your food, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.’ I will take the remnants of Your food, I will live on Your mercy (prasad). It is necessary to practise Krishna consciousness constantly (sada) and earnestly, sincerely (niskapate).

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada,
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest”, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Have you not seen it anywhere? There are many gurus who will say, ‘Give my prasad to everyone!’ They forcefully give their prasad to others. I have told you about Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj – he once ate the prasad he was given, along with the plate! First, he took all prasad that was on his plate, but then the old lady who had invited him to her house thought, ‘How can I not get his prasad?’ She started forcefully putting more prasad on Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj’s plate. Babaji Maharaj understood what she was doing, so he ate all the prasad she had put for him again, and along with that, he also ate the banana-leaf plate! [Some devotees laugh quietly.] This is not a joke – it is the truth! He ate the banana leaf plate. This is what Babaji Maharaj did, but some go about saying, ‘Oh, give my prasad to everyone,’ and they become proud that everyone is taking their prasad. This is ego. Do you understand it? You can see Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj’s picture in the guru-parampara photographs (the second from the right). When we do Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, we go to his bhajan-kutir and speak about this pastime. I have also written about it in Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala. Another time, somebody gave Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj a little money – Babaji Maharaj took the money and continued his way, but having walked three miles, he suddenly turned back and went to return that money. He said to the man who had given it, ‘I am sorry. I cannot tolerate the burden of this money. I keep thinking what I will do with this money, what I will buy – it gives me a headache, and I cannot chant the Holy Name! Please take it back.’ This is how he served the Lord…

We always want to be disciples (sisya tava thakiya sarvada); we do not want to take worship from anyone (na laiba puja ka’ra). Why do we not allow anyone to touch our feet? You serve the Lord with this hand, you cut the Lord’s vegetables with this hand, then why will you touch the feet of such a fallen soul as myself? That is why I prohibit to touch my feet. Sometimes, I am talking to somebody and do not notice who is coming, so somebody can come, touch my feet and go away, but I do not like anyone to touch my feet. Mahaprabhu also did not allow anyone to touch His feet.

One time, when somebody did it secretly and in a clever way, Mahaprabhu told Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya to kick that person out, but internally He was actually pleased to see that devotee’s ingenuity. That devotee came to clean the Gundicha Temple with everyone. He thought, ‘How can I get some water from devotees’ feet?’ When Mahaprabhu climbed some place to sweep and clean it, that devotee came to Mahaprabhu’s feet and suddenly poured a pot of water on them – the water started flowing down, and he quickly scooped that falling water and drank it. When Mahaprabhu saw that, he told Svarup Damodar, ‘Hey, look at your gaudiya [Bengali]! What on earth is he doing?! I am washing the temple, and He is pouring water on My feet and drinking it?! What kind of person is he?!’ That devotee was very clever! ‘Ye jana Krsna bhaje sei bada chatur: those who worship Krishna are very clever.’ Although Mahaprabhu kicked that devotee out, He was pleased internally, ‘How ingenious! I do not allow anyone to touch My feet, but he has managed to drink water that has washed My feet! How clever he is!’

amani manada, haile kirtane,
adhikara dibe tumi
tomara charane, niskapate ami,
kandiya lutiba bhumi

‘When I become free from the desire for honour and learn to give honour to others, you will give me the right to chant Your kirtan. Rolling on the ground, I will earnestly cry at Your holy feet.’

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

dayal vaisnava thakur
dayal vaisnava thakur
vaisnava thakur
dayal vaisnava thakur

[His Divine Grace continues to chant ‘Nitai-guna-mani’, ‘Emona durmati samsara’ and ‘Gaya Gaura madhur svare.’]

(9/13) Kirtan-Yajna

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy and aspiring to serve him; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all guru-varga, all my godbrothers, all the listeners, all the motherly lady devotees and all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet and praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

yasya prasadad bhagavat-prasado
yasyaprasadat na gatih kuto ‘pi
dhyayam stuvams tasya yasas tri-sandhyam
vande guroh sri-charanaravindam

‘I offer my obeisance unto the lotus feet of Sri Guru, by pleasing whom one can please the Lord and without pleasing whom there is no other way; I sing and meditate on his glory at the three junctions of the day.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

Without the mercy of Sri Guru, there is no other way: without the mercy of Sri Guru, we can never get out of this prison of the illusory environment. Getting mercy means getting service. Do you know how gurudev gives his mercy? Gurudev bestows his mercy when he gives you the right for some service (seva-adhikar) – he gives you some responsibility: ‘Do this service at the temple.’

I have told you earlier that you cannot just take initiation and go home. You must practise sravan and kirtan. I tell this to everyone. I have printed small kirtan books: chant five kirtans every morning and five kirtans every evening. If somebody cannot leave home and come to the temple – if somebody has fallen into complete material bondage and cries all the time because of two rupees, some food and clothes – then they should at least chant five kirtans every morning and five kirtans every evening. It does not take much time: it takes about fifteen minutes to chant five kirtans. Pray to the guru (give ‘jay’ to gurudev and the guru-varga), pray to Vaishnavs, and so on. Always do this. Chant prayers (vandana) to the guru, prayers to Pancha-tattva, prayers to Vaishnavs, prayers to Nityananda Prabhu and prayers to Mahaprabhu. Chant in this way every morning and every evening.

Mahaprabhu becomes pleased through kirtan-yajna – kirtan-yajna is the method of worshipping Mahaprabhu (I wrote about it Guidance 4). You can offer two flowers, you can offer arati, you can give some incense, but if you chant kirtan extolling Mahaprabhu’s glories (mahima-kirtan), Mahaprabhu is more pleased with that. Mahima-kirtan means you chant (kirtan) about the glories (mahima) of the Lord. If you chant about gurudev, this is guru-vandana; if you chant prayers to Vaishnavs, that is Vaishnav-vandana, and so on. It is necessary to chant kirtans every day.

If you come to gurudev one time and say, ‘Gurudev, please give me your mercy,’ this will not do. You must glorify gurudev (chant his kirtan) every day. You eat every day, you wear clothes every day, you go to the bathroom every day, and in the same way, you must also chant kirtan every day. If you chant kirtans with the kirtan book every day, you will remember them by heart. Chant kirtans every single day: wake up early in the morning, take a shower, worship the Lord and then chant kirtans. You must set aside five–fifteen minutes for this every day.

Time is passing, and you are spending your whole life on material life, and the Lord understands, ‘You do not give Me the time of the day, then how can I look after you? Why must I provide for you? If you do not provide for Me (if you do not pray to Me, if you do not chant My glories and remember Me), why should I provide for you?’ A wife has a religion, a brahmachari has a religion, a sannyasi has a religion, a ksatriya has a religion, but what do the scriptures say? What is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita?

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

‘Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

‘Leave all religions and surrender to Me, I will look after you.’ The Lord Himself says this. ‘I will look after you, do not worry about anything. I will rescue you from all your sins.’ If you take shelter at the holy feet of the Lord, all your sins will be removed. Not only that:

ananyas chintayanto mam, ye janah paryupasate
tesam nityabhiyuktanam, yoga-ksemam vahamy aham

‘I bear the responsibility of acquiring and protecting the necessities of My fully dependent devotees who are always absorbed in thoughts of Me and worship Me in every way.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 9.22)

If somebody surrenders to Me and does not think about anything else, I will even bring food right to their house! Moreover, the Lord also says:

api chet suduracharo, bhajate mam ananya-bhak
sadhur eva sa mantavyah, samyag vyavasito hi sah

‘If even a very sinful person serves Me exclusively with devotion, he should be regarded as saintly because his resolve is perfect.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 9.30)

‘No matter how many sins you have committed (even if you stole, killed, etc.), if you give up everything to Me and surrender to Me, I will relieve you from all sins and engage you in My service.’

(10/13) Give Up Illusory Luxuries

You must tell about this to new people:

We are alive in this world, but do we realise how many sins we commit every day? We are riding a bicycle or walking, and so many insects get killed under the wheels of our bicycles or under your feet. We cut vegetables and eat them, we eat wheat, rice and many other things. These are all sins. Even when we breathe or drink water, so many living entities are killed and finished off at this time. How can one get relief from this? If our life becomes Krishna-centred, then whatever we do – whether we cook, build a home, make a family, cultivate land, cut cabbage, cauliflower, drumstick vegetable, bananas or do anything else – we will be using everything in the service of the Lord. When we live like this, we do not do anything for our own enjoyment. For example, you can see the devotees cooking here: so many insects and other living entities suffer because of the smoke and heat, but these devotees are cooking for the Lord, so they are actually getting mercy. This is how we can get relief from the sins we commit. We must make our life Krishna-centred. You must always explain this to others. Scriptures say: ‘Give up everything unfavourable and live in Krishna’s family (kariya Krsnera samsara chhadi’ anachara).

If you do not do that, then whatever you earn every day (by doing business, agriculture or any other work) will be wasted. You cannot run a family if you do not rely on the Lord – even if you have millions of rupees, it will not be of any use. I read the other day in the newspaper about some so-called ‘coal thieves’ and ‘cow thieves’. One day, people noticed that there had appeared a three-storey house nearby, and everybody wondered how it had appeared there. Apparently, the owners stole cows, coal and other things at the market and built the house with the money. Now the police and CBI are looking for them and the stolen money. Is that a happy peaceful life? When you eat simple rice and dal, have a small job and earn an honest living, you live well – you do not need to get a master’s degree or anything like that to live peacefully. Those thieves now have to flee and live abroad. Is there happiness in that? There is not. As the saying goes, ‘Greed is a sin, and sin is death (lobha papa, pape mrtyu).’ It is not necessary to hire people or have many things: you can live an honest life in your house and eat rice with salt or rice with spinach (take simple food), that is well and good. Stealing others’ things, taking others’ things, destroying others’ things, getting other people to do such things – it is not good. Some may live like that, but one day or another they will be caught, and they will be ruined.

We must live an honest life. It is necessary to live in Krishna’s family and give up all bad things and habits. The problem is that we cannot leave trifle things, and because of all the trifle things we are losing the greatest things. We are always hankering for and running behind trifle matters. For example, because people cannot give up fish and meat, almost nobody comes to this line.

There are many gurus in this world running guru businesses – you can take initiation from them, but you will not get any result or benefit. Unless you take shelter of a bona fide guru and practise God consciousness, you will never get any spiritual benefit. They say so many things – they will tell you that there are no scriptures or that there is no need to follow any scriptures. They will explain to you that one plus one equals four, but you will never get any benefit through that. It is necessary to take shelter of a bona fide guru. Mahaprabhu Himself set the example by taking shelter of a guru. When Mahaprabhu was in Gaya, as soon as He saw Sri Ishwar Puri, He prayed:

‘samsara-samudra haite uddharaha more
ei ami deha samarpilana tomare’

‘Please rescue Me from this ocean of material existence! I am surrendering Myself to you.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.17.54)

‘Please rescue Me from this material ocean. I have surrendered this body, mind and soul to you.’ Later, somebody criticised Him, ‘Oh, You are not reading any Vedas or Vedanta,’ and Mahaprabhu replied:

‘kiba mantra dila, gosani, kiba tara bala
japite japite mantra karila pagala’

‘My lord, what kind of mantra have you given Me? What kind of power does it possess? Chanting this maha-mantra has driven Me mad!’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.7.81)

Mahaprabhu Himself said this! And what did Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur say?

kabe navadvipe, suradhuni-tate,
‘gaura-nityananda’ bali’ niskapate
nachiya gaiya, bedaiba chhute,
batulera praya chhadiya vichara

‘When will I wander along the banks of the Ganges in Nabadwip, sincerely calling out, “Gaura-Nityananda!”, dancing, singing and running about without any thinking, as though mad?’

kabe habe bala se dina amara

‘Tell me, when will that day be mine?’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘When will I become crazy? When will I go so mad that I will roam the banks of the Ganges, dancing and calling out, “O Gauranga! O Gauranga!”’ These are Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s words.

(11/13) Who Will You Blame?

We must always read Hari-katha. If you just read Sri Gaudiya Gitanjali (the kirtan book), you can find the purport of all scriptures in it. Be it Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Srimad Bhagavatam or Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, everything is there in Sri Gaudiya Gitanjali. There is also a small book Saranagati, you can read it too – you will learn so much from it. Even if you always stay at home, you can still practise Krishna consciousness.

There is ‘grantha Bhagavata’ (the book embodying Bhagavatam) and ‘Vaishnav Bhagavata’ (devotees embodying Bhagavatam). There is no difference between them. If you listen to Vaishnavs, it is the same as listening to the scriptures because what comes from their holy mouths is all written in the scriptures; and if you read scriptures, it is the same as listening to Vaishnavs. You should read books, you should study…

Some of you started preparing to leave yesterday in the morning, thinking, ‘When will I be back at home?’ You love your homes so much… I fled to my room and locked the door, otherwise everyone would have started queuing outside – everyone is waiting anxiously, ‘When will I run home? When will I go home?’ You think that your home cannot stay without you, that there is nobody to look after the family, but when you die, who will look after your house and family? You never think about it!

bhala manda khai, heri, pari, chinta-hina
nahi bhavi, e deha chhadiba kona dina

‘I eat, see and wear whatever I fancy without a worry. I never think that I will ever leave this body.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You never think you will leave this body, but death is always running behind you! You know, you can go to the Howrah station, and even if you offer somebody a book, for free, they will tell you, ‘No, no, I have no time! I have no time!’ and they run away to catch their train, pressing their bags and folders under their arms. One time, somebody had just stepped onto the train, one leg was still outside, when the door closed and the train started moving – the person fell down, and as the train dragged the man on, he hit a pillar at the station and died! They are in such a hurry! They are so anxious about money. This is how people live in this world. Only ‘money, money’. They cannot understand that money is the root of all evils. If the Lord wants to give you His wealth, then nobody can stop Him, just as nobody can stop it if the Lord wants to take something away.

We have forgotten the Lord. We remember everything, but we have forgotten the Lord. We remember our father, mother, wife, sons, friends, relatives, but we do not remember the Lord, we do not remember our guru. We become stricken with grave misfortune. We are so unfortunate, so ill-natured – as we sing in one of the kirtans, ‘I am very bad, I have fallen into this material world (emana durmati samsara bhitare padiya achhinu ami).’ That is why I am earnestly praying to you all: please never forget the Lord, always remember the Lord. You must never forget your guru.

If you send your letter to your guru, you will get a response, but if you write a letter to the Lord, you will not get a reply. When you write a letter to gurudev, who is the Lord’s representative, or deputy, he will tell you the news about Lord Krishna and His home. You must come to the Lord – take shelter of a bona fide guru, and when you take shelter of a bona fide guru, you must practise Krishna consciousness. You must never forget the Lord. If you forget the Lord, Maya will catch you.

krsna bhuli’ sei jiva—anadi bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsara-duhkha

‘Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

Because we have been forgetful of the Lord since time immemorial, Maya is constantly, repeatedly giving us various miseries and agonising suffering – we keep falling again and again into this prison of illusory environment. We are forced to suffer again and again. When we learn to forget our own happiness and think about the happiness of the Lord, then the Lord will keep us in a happy place. The Lord Himself says, ‘If you worry and think about Me, then I will think about you, and if you do not think about Me and worry only about yourself, then I will not look at you – whether you are dead or alive, I will not care, it is not My duty to look after you then. I have sent you to this world, and I have also sent a sadhu (My deputy) to you so that you can hear about Me, but you did not listen to him carefully, you did not follow what he said, you did not live following his guidance, so I will not look after you. I will keep pulling you in and out of this prison of illusory world; I will keep forcing you to come and go in this material world.’

kaya bara eli kaya bara geli
tabu tattva na sikhili
nijer matha nije khaili
e dosa dibe kare bhai?

‘Coming and going, coming and going, you never learnt anything! You have been eating your own brain – who will you blame for this, brother?’

Whose fault is it? Only your own! We are our own friends, and we are our own enemies. Sri Guru and Vaishnavs come and keep telling us the truth again and again, but if we do not listen to them, if we do not make a step forward – if we do not remember the Lord, if we do not think about the Lord – then we are destroying our own fortune.

Therefore, always practise Krishna consciousness. If you practise Krishna consciousness, the Lord will bestow auspiciousness and spiritual benefit onto you.

(12/13) Analysis Is Paralysis

I have heard that you are leaving tomorrow for Maya’s prison house. Raise your hands, let me see who is leaving. Is everyone leaving? Why are you raising your hands? But why? How many days have passed? Has it been two years or just two days since you came here? What are you leaving for? What will you do at home?

Devotee: The festival is over, what will we do here?

What will you do? Is there no service to the Lord here? There is so much service! You can make garlands, wash the dishes, listen to kirtans, listen to lectures.

An elderly, frail-sounding devotee: You said that it is an offence to touch your feet. I want to ask forgiveness, I have touched your feet…

No, no. There is no offence for you. It is an offence for me to allow others to touch my feet. That is why I said that we always think of ourselves as lowly. Vaishnavs never tell others to touch their feet – they are always very humble when it comes to them. Just as Vaishnavs must be humble, you must also be humble. You must think, ‘I am impure, how can I touch gurudev? I cannot touch him and contaminate him by my touch.’ It is the duty of disciples to think in this way. On the other hand, gurudev must think, ‘They are servants and maidservants of Krishna, why will they touch my feet? I am a lowly soul.’ Do you have any other questions?

Devotee: They say that if we observe ekadasi, we can get the result of practising yoga…

You must not think about it. You will not get any result like that.

Devotee: If we fast on ekadasi, do we still have to fast on purnima (full moon) days?

You must fast on ekadasi, you do not need to fast on purnima days. Also, fasting on ekadasi does not mean eating nothing the whole day. You can take the calendars; everything is written there. Only fast on ekadasi, not on purnima or amavasya. Gurudev never spoke about the result of fasting on ekadasis. You know, there is glorification of Srimad Bhagavad-gita, where it says what results you can get if you read Srimad Bhagavad-gita, but it is written just to make people read the book. So, because people do not want to fast on ekadasi, there is some glorification of each ekadasi written for those who need to be enticed. In our case, we think, ‘Gurudev has told me to observe ekadasi, so I must observe it.’ Mahaprabhu tells everyone to fast on ekadasi, so we fast on ekadasi. This is all we need to know – it is not necessary to know what result you will get by fasting on this or that ekadasi.

You can take fruit on ekadasi. You must fast until midday, but if somebody cannot fast in the morning, they can take some boiled potato with black pepper or plain potato. Why do we say potato with black pepper? Because if you cook only potato without any spices, it can cause gas in your stomach. You can also use turmeric, but only if you make it yourself (if you grind the root yourself) – do not use the powder that is sold at the market, it may not be pure.

Devotee: What about sago?

Well, actually, the matter is like this. We cannot prepare it in a pure way (large sago often has some contaminants), but gurudev told us to offer and take sago at the temple. Sometimes, you get peanut oil or sunflower oil – it says on the bottle that it is peanut oil or sunflower oil, but how do you know that they do not mix it with some rice oil? Everything is mixed, everything is contaminated. We remember the Lord and use some ingredients on ekadasi, this is all there is to it. This is what you must remember. Gurudev told us to follow ekadasi, and we follow it. We bring some sunflower oil from the market, but who knows if it is pure sunflower oil or mixed with some rice or mustard oil? Who can know it? You can see that sunflower oil price is higher now – that is because they are mixing some rice oil or palm oil into it. So, you must not think about sago and other things like that. Do not think about all these crooked things, do not look into whether there is duplicity somewhere or not. Fast until midday, it is good, and if you cannot, take some boiled vegetables and fruit. You can also take milk, curd. Do not buy sweets from the market – if you are habituated to taking sweets, then make them yourself at home. For example, you can make some sweets with sugar and coconut.

If you start looking into everything, you will not eat anything. Have you ever been to a sugar mill? I have been to one in South India (in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh). You think that nice white sugar comes out of mills, but if you know how they make sugar, you will never want to eat it again! You know, when sugar comes out of the machine, they keep it in an open space, and crows pass stool on that sugar! Crows’ stool is white, and the sugar is white, so who will say anything? [His Divine Grace laughs.] So, what will you do then? There is no way out. It is not necessary to think about all this too much.

When you go to buy potato at the market, they keep potato and onions in the same place, so sometimes onion peel gets into potato. People start making excuses, ‘Oh, I cannot be a vegetarian, it is too hard to offer bhoga – you need this, you need that!’ What is required? If you want, you will offer bhoga to the Lord and take prasad, and if you do not want, then you will make excuses, ‘Oh, I have grandchildren at home’, ‘Oh, it is necessary to keep separate dishes for cooking and offering, but they will get mixed with the other dishes!’ People ask me, ‘What should I do if the offering plate touches other plates?’ If you think about everything so much, you will not eat anything and you will not be able to do anything. Do not overthink it. Only be a vegetarian, follow ekadasi and practise Krishna consciousness. Give up meat, fish, eggs, onion, garlic, masoor dal (lentils), tea, coffee, etc.

(13/13) Western Idiosyncrasies

We must give up meat, fish, eggs, onion, garlic, masoor dal (lentils), tea, coffee, etc. However, when we go abroad, there can be no moong dal available in the country, so we sometimes have to take masoor dal (lentils). What are we to do? We either have to take it or just not eat dal at all when travelling. One time, I was abroad with Gurudev. I had not eaten masoor dal for a long time, and when I ate it in front of Gurudev (it was served to us by devotees who did not know we are not supposed to take masoor dal), I liked the taste and ate a lot of it – seeing this, Gurudev told me, ‘Yes, eat, eat! You will not get this dal in Bengal!’ What will you say then?

Another time, we all sat down to take prasad. A beautiful, dressed-up, dolled-up girl was distributing prasad – she looked like a goddess who had come down from heaven; a very good-looking girl. She was giving some sweets they had made themselves, but she had very long nails!! Leave that, how did she distribute prasad? She was holding her clothes with her right hand, pressing them to her stomach, and she was distributing the sweets with her left hand! When I saw it, I quickly said, ‘No, no, I won’t have sweets, thank you!’ Gurudev saw it and said to me, ‘Oh, but you are not diabetic yet! Have you already given up eating sweets?’ Then, he smiled and said, ‘I know why you did not take the sweets!’ [His Divine Grace and devotees burst out laughing.] I did not feel like taking it at all because I knew some of them did not have a bath even once a week – some of them may not have a bath for fifteen days or even a whole month! – and when they pass stool, they do not use water, so it is awkward enough that you have to take food from their hand, but on top of that, that girl was giving it with her left hand! I lost all appetite! [Laughter.]

They have to be taught everything. Those who are staying with me live in a pure way: they have learnt all these things. Different countries have different ways, and not everybody can come and stay with us to learn proper etiquette. Such is their culture. What will they understand? They do not understand anything… Once, a Western devotee came to pay obeisance to Gurudev. He took off his shoes and was about to pay obeisance to Gurudev, but he had his mala (chanting beads) on his neck, and somebody told him that his mala was touching the ground, and it was not good, so what did that devotee do? He took his mala off his neck and kept it on his shoes! [Laughter.] What will they understand then? They have to be taught everything. They do not know all this culture – they must gradually learn the proper culture, and it is necessary to explain everything to them. Those who came to the mission in olden days know these things, so they come wearing saris and follow all rules and regulations – they practise properly.

…Have you ever been to a beach? I went there once when I was in Venezuela. They offered me to go to the beach, and I thought, ‘OK, I have never been to a beach. Let me go once to see what a beach is like.’ When I saw it, I said, ‘I see it for the first time in my life, and I do not want to see it ever again. Let’s get out of here quickly!’ I went there with the drums and karatals, and everybody was laughing. People do not wear clothes there! Even women take off their clothes and stay like that! There, nobody, not even women, wear clothes when they swim. Everyone is undressed! How can I stay there, tell me? We went there to do kirtan, but they are all laughing. Thousands of boys and girls jump and swim in the ocean without any clothes! When I saw it, I thought, ‘O Lord, why have You brought me here? You have brought me here to preach, so that I can preach Hari-kirtan here and bring them benefit. Bugger it, I do not need to give any benefit here! Let me get out of here quickly!’ [His Divine Grace laughs.]

When I went to Russia, we went through some parks – I just closed my eyes! One time, we were doing kirtan, Srila Ashram Maharaj was walking next to me. Suddenly, we saw a pretty girl with a bottle in her hand walking towards us. There was no way to avoid passing her – everyone is walking down the street, but when the girl saw Ashram Maharaj, she threw the bottle away, came near and suddenly jumped on him! I bolted out of there at once! [Laughter.]

Gurudev also told us about New Zealand when he returned from there. You know that in our country and in other countries, people shake hands when they greet each other. Do you know what they do in New Zealand? When somebody comes to visit your home, the guest and the host come close to each other and rub noses! [Explosive laughter.] What kind of customs are these?! But these are their rules. Gurudev came to somebody’s house, and as they greet their guests in this way, you have to rub noses with the host! [Laughter.]

Such are the places where I have travelled… People come from such places to chant the Holy Name and practise Krishna consciousness. Gurudev brought people from such places to this path. Now they live like civilised people: they wear saris, they cook and practise nicely. When you go to public events or places in those countries, you cannot even look at what is going on there, but it is necessary to preach there. There, amidst the crowds, it is necessary to take out a microphone and chant, preach. Moreover, when you see all those things and all those people, you have to stay straight. Do you think everyone can do that? At festivals, people do not even wear clothes. They only wear something on their hips and cover their bust a little, and the whole body is without any clothes. Now some of these things are coming to this country too. You saw yesterday that some girls came wearing jeans. India is slowly becoming like the West. If I say all these things, they will print it in newspapers, saying, ‘Oh, Maharaj has said this and this about ladies’ clothes.’ We cannot speak about these things because everyone is independent now – you cannot tell anything to anyone.

This is the Age of Kali. Kali is slowly coming more and more…

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

Those who will take initiation tomorrow must come upstairs to the veranda. Be ready by 8 a.m. There will be a fire sacrifice for those who are taking the second initiation. If there are many devotees taking initiation, I will first give the second initiation. If you can sit at the fire sacrifice, it will be good. Mantras are chanted during the sacrifice, and if you listen to those mantras, it is good for you. I will not take more time today. I am finishing here.

[His Divine Grace chants Hari Haraye Nama Krsna, recites Sri Jaya Dhvani and concludes the evening class.]

There is a festival the day after tomorrow. Please stay. If anyone has to leave earlier, if there is some urgency, I will not say anything, but please take prasad in the morning before you leave, it will be good.

[Note: This part of the lecture is published with no intention of demeaning anyone but with the view to acquaint readers with the vision and mood of His Divine Grace as well as offer guidance to those who are not aware of basic human dignity and encouragement to those who struggle to adjust with the oft-perverted environment.]

* * *

￼Line Line1 January 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/4) Grand and Joyous Festival

Dandavat.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
His auspicious appearance day ki jay.
All the assembled sannyasi-vrinda ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.

All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

I am very happy to see you all. I have just got free and have this opportunity to meet with you all. So many people have been coming here from all over Bengal starting from yesterday and even the day before yesterday. There are still five–six hundred devotees staying this night: some are leaving tomorrow, and three–four hundred devotees are staying for the disappearance festival of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur (the day after tomorrow, on 3 January 2021).

I am very happy because the festival was very successful. All Gaudiya Maths from Nabadwip and Mayapur also came. Actually, my original assumption turned out a little wrong. It is a lockdown period and also 1 January (many pilgrims usually come to every temple at this time of the year), so I thought many would not be able to come, but by the mercy of Gurudev, more than a hundred brahmacharis and sannyasis came from Mayapur. I thought seventy or seventy-five devotees would come and had prepared some gifts (bags and pranami, donation) for this number of guests, but when everyone came, I saw that the quantity of gifts was not enough. Sripad Niriha Maharaj had to go and quickly get more bags.

Each year, when we make Gurudev’s Vyasa Puja, I always want to give some gifts to Vaishnavs – I always want to take the opportunity to do some sadhu-seva, vaishnav-seva. This year I have got this opportunity too, and this year Gurudev actually ‘overfulfilled’ my desire because so many devotees have assembled again, for the first time since last Gaura Purnima. Actually, the attendance at the Vyasa Puja festival this year was even more than at Gaura Purnima. I thought that it was winter season and not so many would come, but so many devotees came from all over Bengal, and they are all very happy. As I have already said, a few hundred devotes are also staying for the festival that is the day after tomorrow.

I feel very happy because all the brahmacharis and sannyasis who came from Mayapur are very pleased – they came and stayed with us in a very happy mood. We have been inviting them for many years, from the time we were at the mul-math Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math (Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s bhajan-kutir), and when they come here now, they receive the same hospitality, warmth, love and affection that they used to get before, in Gurudev’s time. They saw that the nat-mandir here was full to the brim; some did not get a place, so they even stood outside, on the street. This is how the day went. Everybody is very happy with this festival. It is only possible by the mercy of Gurudev. They have all actually come to see Gurudev – they want to see Gurudev’s appearance day and what kind of festival I can make now that I have left the mul-math Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math (Kolerganj, Nabadwip).

This year, there was also special prasadam. Devotees made many varieties of prasadam, and not only Indian-style: there was also some Western-style prasadam. All Vaishnavs were very happy with it. There were two types of paneer (chilli paneer and cauliflower paneer), veg pulao (fried rice), a good quality of rice (basmati rice), posta bora fried in ghee and many other preparations. This festival was extremely great. Actually, this kind of crowd has come again for the first time since Gurudev’s disappearance. We have seen such crowds before only in Gurudev’s time in Nabadwip (at the mul-math of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math), and now was the first time we have seen it again, at this Vyasa Puja festival of Srila Gurudev in 2021. It is also the beginning of a new year. Happy new year to everyone.

Devotees also ‘inaugurated’ the new guesthouse, Sri Bhakti Sundar Angan – I gave nineteen rooms in that building, and they stayed there for the first time. Here too, all rooms, verandas and the nat-mandir are full of devotees. I have also made a pandal behind the temple for everyone to take prasad. During the festival, we distributed prasad to all the Vaishnavs in the temple (at the veranda of the second floor). We feel great happiness after this festival.

That is the news from here, Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Sri Nrisingha Palli, Nabadwip. This is what happened today.

(2/4) Protecting Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math

…That is the news from here, Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Sri Nrisingha Palli, Nabadwip. This is what happened today. All this is only possible by the mercy of Gurudev.

I have seen how Gurudev protected his temple, Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s temple. On the one hand, I am very unfortunate because even though I had tried so hard to protect Gurudev’s mission after Gurudev, I could not do it. On the other hand, at least I could protect Gurudev’s devotees. Also, I heard some news this afternoon that some of those whom Gurudev did not like were not present today at the festival at the mul-math of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. So, Gurudev is protecting this mission…

Gurudev made his declaration of the succession on 4 December 2009, and shortly after that he sent me with Srila Ashram Maharaj to Australia. When I left, somebody gave Gurudev a very bad letter, which gave his heart a very deep pain. I remember that when I was on my way to Australia, Gurudev phoned me and asked, ‘Where are you now?’ I said I was at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, going to Australia, and Gurudev said, ‘There is a big problem here. I will manage something from here, but you must make your foreign tour shorter. You are scheduled to be away for fifteen days, but you must come back in seven days. Srila Ashram Maharaj can stay there.’ So, I left Australia earlier and went back to India. Once I arrived, I went straight to Nabadwip and came to Gurudev. When I came, Gurudev gave me that letter, and I saw how many bad words they used – they wrote Gurudev very bad and painful words, I cannot even repeat it. After that, Gurudev said, ‘I cannot stay here anymore. I am leaving Nabadwip tomorrow early in the morning.’

The next day Gurudev left, and normally he always went to the Deities and the samadhi-mandir of Srila Sridhar Maharaj to pay his dandavat, but that time he did not even go to the samadhi-mandir. He only stopped for a few seconds at the Centenary Building and said, looking up at Srila Guru Maharaj’s room with folded palms, ‘Guru Maharaj, please protect this mission.’ This is how Gurudev left Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math.

You all know better than me what happened after that. So many things have happened. All foreign devotees, all senior leaders were harassed by them so much. You are giving so much energy, so much money for Chaitanya Saraswat Math, but what to speak of giving you any respect, they actually beat you! It is very painful. I stayed there for as long as I could, and I would have tried to stay longer, but those who stayed near me had heard some message that those people were going to kill me, so they forcefully removed me from Nabadwip, saying, ‘You will die if you stay here!’ This is how I left Nabadwip and came to Dum Dum Park…

This is what happened. Srila Gurudev’s mission is still running, and I am very happy about it. All the devotees, all Gurudev’s disciples are with us – you all always keep Gurudev, and me also, in your heart, and Gurudev also keeps you in his heart. I always tell all my disciples who live here that I always want to be a disciple – I do not want and have never wanted to be a guru. If I think that I have become a guru, then ego (abhiman) will come to me. That is why, I always want to be a disciple, nothing else. This is my situation.

(3/4) Unblemished Sacrifice

Today is Gurudev’s appearance day. You all know everything – where Gurudev was born, how he came to the mission, and so on. I do not want to describe so many things now. However, there are some people who criticise Gurudev, and I would like to give some message to them.

Actually, Gurudev said that we are all paraphernalia. For example, when you do the Deities’ arati, you sometimes use a pancha pradip, sometimes a candle, and so on – you take some pot or some vessel, clean it and then use it for the worship. Gurudev said that he did leave Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math at some point, but he never left his guru. Gurudev said, ‘I may have left Chaitanya Saraswat Math physically, but I have always kept Chaitanya Saraswat Math in my heart.’

When Gurudev lived as a householder, he ran a printing press: he would use a little bit from whatever money he earned to maintain his family and send the rest for Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s Mission. Moreover, Srila Sridhar Maharaj himself never changed his mind – from the beginning, Gurudev was the secretary of Chaitanya Saraswat Math and Srila Sridhar Maharaj was the president, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj never removed Gurudev from this position. Gurudev may have changed his clothes only, but Srila Sridhar Maharaj decided that Gurudev would be his successor from the beginning, from the time when Gurudev was a brahmachari, and he never changed this decision.

Many years later, Srila Sridhar Maharaj brought Gurudev back and said that he had been waiting to give his chair to Gurudev for thirty years and did not want to wait any longer. Gurudev tried to argue, saying, ‘My lifetime is very short, my horoscope says I will live only fifty-five years. Why are you giving this position to me?’ but Srila Sridhar Maharaj would not listen. He said, ‘Throw your horoscope away! I am giving you eighty-two years of life.’ In his own life also, Srila Sridhar Maharaj was told by an astrologer that he would die early, but Srila Sridhar Maharaj ended up living for ninety-two years. So, in the end, Srila Sridhar Maharaj wanted to give his chair to Gurudev and leave this world, but Gurudev did not want that. Gurudev knew that if Guru Maharaj stayed longer and longer, it would be good for all devotees, and all the world too – even all the Gaudiya Vaishnavs, all the Gaudiya acharyas always came to Srila Sridhar Maharaj to hear his Hari-katha! They all knew that if you wanted to hear Hari-katha of Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, you had to come to Srila Sridhar Maharaj, and many came. This is how Gurudev got an opportunity to serve all the Vaishnavs, all the godbrothers of Srila Sridhar Maharaj – he was Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s servitor at that time, and when all godbrothers came to see Srila Sridhar Maharaj, Gurudev served everybody.

Gurudev told me many things, and I know that he protected the Mission in so many ways. He told me some of his childhood stories from his brahmachari life, and he taught me so many things.

Once, I came to complain to Gurudev about something, and Gurudev told me, ‘I have kept an Alsatian dog downstairs, but when there is some danger, that Alsatian dog jumps on my shoulder and cries, “Please save me! Please save me!”’ Gurudev taught me in this way. When you are a manager, you must be humble, but sometimes you also have to take a stick in your hand – both are necessary for management if you want to protect the Mission.

I remember Gurudev told one story from the time when he was a brahmachari. Srila Sridhar Maharaj had given Gurudev a bicycle, and Gurudev would always go everywhere by that bicycle. (I kept his bicycle in the museum in Nabadwip, but I do not know if it is still there or not; I do not know what they did with it. There was Gurudev’s name engraved on its handlebar.) One day, when Gurudev was about to go out on his bicycle, a surveyor, or an overseer, came from the Nabadwip municipality office to measure the temple’s kitchen building. Srila Sridhar Maharaj was upstairs at that time, so the man spoke to Gurudev. Gurudev told him, ‘All right, you can take the measurement, but from outside!’ If he measured the building from outside, the area, and subsequently the tax, would be bigger, so the surveyor was supposed to be happy with that, but instead he started arguing, ‘Why cannot I enter the kitchen?’ The problem was that he was going to go there with his shoes on, so Gurudev said, ‘It is the kitchen of the Deities, so you cannot go inside.’ The man got angry, ‘Why not? I am a brahman!’ Finally, Gurudev said, ‘If you try to enter the kitchen again, I will cut off your leg!’ The man went upstairs to Srila Sridhar Maharaj and complained, ‘This little boy threatened me that he would cut off my leg! What is this?!’ Srila Sridhar Maharaj asked him calmly, ‘Which boy? Bring him here, perhaps, there is some mistake; it is possible…’ The boy came, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj saw that it was Gurudev (Gaurendu Brahmachari at that time).

‘Gaurendu,’ Srila Sridhar Maharaj asked him, ‘did you say you would cut off this gentleman’s leg?’

‘Yes, I did,’ answered Gurudev.

‘Why did you say that?’

‘He says he is a brahman, but he wants to enter the kitchen with his shoes on!’

Then, Srila Sridhar Maharaj said to the surveyor, ‘Oh, then he is right. You cannot enter the kitchen. If you want to measure the building for taxation, you can measure it from outside. Why is it necessary for you to enter the building? The boy is right. He did not make any mistake. If you try to enter forcefully, well, then what to do? He will cut off your leg…’

This is how Gurudev protected this Mission, this Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math.

There is also another story. It happened in 1978, when there was a big flood at Chaitanya Saraswat Math, just like in 2000. In 1978, there was no boundary wall around the temple (the temple was very poor), so the whole territory of the temple was heavily flooded. Gurudev made a raft from some banana trees tied together and would move around the temple on that raft. One day, he saw a man who was about to chop some banana tree at the temple’s territory. Gurudev went to the man on the raft.

‘What are you doing here?’ Gurudev asked the man.

‘Oh, my cow is hungry,’ answered the man, ‘and I wanted to ask for a banana tree to give it some food.’

‘You did not ask me for it before. You have already come to the temple compound, and you have come from behind, not from the front. Because you have come to steal, I will not give you any banana trees.’

The man got angry and tried to protest, but Gurudev said, ‘No problem, I am the security of the temple, and you are a thief. Let us see how you will steal this banana tree!’

This is another example of how Gurudev protected Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math.

Gurudev said also: Like a dog, I had fallen into a hole, a big well, and was barking for help. Nobody came to my rescue, but my Guru Maharaj caught me by the hand and took me out of that well – he cleaned me and engaged me again in the service to Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math…

Some people criticise Gurudev for leaving the temple, but I say what is the problem? You know that even Mahaprabhu Himself told Sri Govinda Ghosh to get married and live as a householder. Moreover, Mahaprabhu told Sri Raghunath Das Goswami:

sthira hana ghare yao, na hao batula

krame krame paya loka bhava-sindhu-kula

‘Go back to your home, do not become crazy. It takes time: one reaches the shore of material existence gradually.’

markata-vairagya na kara loka dekhana
yatha-yogya visaya bhunja’ anasakta hana

‘Do not show your false renunciation to impress people. Use whatever material things you require, but without attachment.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.16.237–238)

Go back to family life, but do not show attachment to it – give your life, sacrifice your life for service. Do not be attached to material things. Do you understand what I am saying? Mahaprabhu told Srila Raghunath Das Goswami not to behave like a monkey.

Gurudev told me so many things and taught me in so many ways. I am very happy because I realise that I am very fortunate to have got this kind of Gurudev, and I think that you are all also fortunate because you have got this kind of personality, this kind of representative of the Lord. Gurudev is not an ordinary person! He was sent here by the Lord, and we have got the fortune of taking shelter at his lotus feet. This is our greatest fortune.

I am a simple beggar, and I pray to you all, I beg you all to give me some mercy so that I can serve my guru until my death. This is all I beg you for. Please give me some mercy so that I can increase my service position day by day, so that I can serve the Mission of my Gurudev, the devotees and the Deities of my Gurudev more and more every day. I am begging you all for this mercy.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

(4/4) ‘My Pride, Joy and Hope’

Krishna Sundari Didi (Australia) made a special sweet rice for this festival, and all the sadhus said, ‘We have never tasted this kind of sweet rice in our Gaudiya Math!’ I told them, ‘Gurudev himself has come and cooked it!’ Sudevi Didi also made fried rice (with capsicum, beans, etc. – fried rice is a dished called veg pulao; it is not puspanna) and chilli paneer; it was also special for them. Devotees made very nice preparations. They also made beguni (aubergine) fried in ghee, kochu sak (spinach) and other preparations. I did not let them use any potato this festival [most likely in remembrance of Srila Gurudev showing diabetes pastimes and out of affectionate care for the sadhus, who could also be abstaining from potato – ed.], so there was no potato cooked today at noon, and everybody was happy. Everything was cooked very nicely.

I observed how they served prasadam to all the Vaishnavs, and I saw that all groups of devotees did it very nicely. Madhumangal Prabhu came with thirteen young boys from Jharkhand, and they helped very much. I am very happy with them. They are very helpful. Actually, I have got this group, and I am always worry-free – I have no headache because I do not have to think about distributing prasadam and cleaning the pots afterwards. They serve prasadam to all the Vaishnavs very nicely. There was also another group of devotees downstairs, and many ladies also helped distribute prasadam to everybody.

When we were in Nabadwip, many outsiders and non-devotees (not initiated people) used to come at festivals, but I am very glad and very happy that all the initiated devotees come here. Even when I speak Hari-katha, if the audience’s mood wanders in another direction, if the audience does not like Hari-katha, then some disturbance comes, people become distracted and absent-minded, but this year mostly devotees came, so there were no such problems. In Nabadwip, many outsiders would also come and start fighting for prasad, but it was not like that here. There was no fighting, no crowds – devotees distributed prasad in two–three places, and everyone came one by one and took prasad happily. It was very nice.

[Somebody asks about coronavirus.] What corona? You are sitting in your room, then you are thinking about corona too much, but if you come outside, there is no corona. You must remove Coronasur [the demon Corona] from your head, from your brain. You know, all the political parties gather huge meetings – they dance and drink whiskey in parks, and they have no rules and regulations. But if some sadhu is making a programme, they come up with all sorts of rules and regulations! What is this? I was ready to face them today if they had come to disturb us.

I am always on the go – I always go to one place, another place, here and there. I do not stay in one place, even during the lockdown. Sometimes, I may stay in one place for four–five days, sometimes for two or three days, but other than that, I always go door to door, knocking at everyone’s doors – if somebody kicks me out, if somebody tells me not to come, I will come knocking at their house ten time more. This is my situation.

Devotee: Like Nityananda Prabhu!

Not like Nityananda Prabhu. Nityananda is Nityananda! I cannot think about myself even as His foot dust. If I could get His foot dust, it is such a great attainment!

On the one hand, we are actually unfortunate because our mind is always very fickle, very unsteady, and we always think about bad things – if we cannot think good about everybody, then Krishna will not think good about us. On the other hand, even though we always think bad about others, our guru and Vaishnavs are still very merciful because they give us ‘amanda-daya kripa’. ‘Manda’ means ‘bad’, and ‘a-manda’ means ‘good’ (‘devoid of anything bad’): they always give us pure mercy. So, it is my fortune that Gurudev has kept me at his lotus feet. That is my only hope (ei mora chitte bharasa); that is the main thing in my life.

Srila Prabhupad said, ‘Prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara – you have life in the body, you are alive, therefore you must preach.’ I do not know how many days I will be alive, but I want to preach until my death – I want to go everywhere and approach everyone, I do not want to stop my preaching.

Anyhow, I do not want to take more of your time today; I only want to say two–three more words in conclusion. Gurudev is always very proud of you. He always said very happily: ‘By the mercy of Srila Guru Maharaj (Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj), I have got so many good souls as my friends and companions. It is unbelievable that Srila Guru Maharaj has kept all charge for the foreign devotees in my hand – I do not know English, I do not know their culture, but Srila Sridhar Maharaj gave all charge to me, and this is how I have got so many devotees, such as Srila Janardan Maharaj, Srila Ashram Maharaj, Sripad Yudhamanyu Prabhu, Sripad Srutasrava Prabhu (known as Sripad Vaishnav Maharaj later), Srila Avadhut Maharaj, Srila Trivikram Maharaj in Brazil and many other foreign devotees. I do not worry how Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math will run – when Srila Guru Maharaj has given me such good souls, I know that Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math will run automatically, and preaching will continue in the future.’ Srila Gurudev is very proud of you all. He also always said: ‘I am a village boy, and I have no qualities – I did not even go to school – but my Guru Maharaj gave me this position, and when I have got such good souls as you all, who have come to me and serve me as their guru, I must say that I am a very fortunate soul.’

So, I feel very happy today. I do not want to take more of your time today. We can discuss Srila Gurudev’s festival, as well as Srila Prabhupad’s glorification and Gurudev’s glorification, another time, during our next online Sunday programme; it will be good for everybody. Please forgive my offence. I have told you that I am a beggar, but I do not come to beg for money – I only beg you for one thing: please give me your mercy so that I can serve my Gurudev and his Mission like this until my death. This is all I am begging you all for.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Srila Bhakti Pavan Janardan Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Srila Bhakti Kusum Ashram Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj’s holy appearance day festival maha-mahotsav ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.

…Some of our Bengali godbrothers do not follow Gurudev properly. When Gurudev became sick, he left Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math and stayed in Dum Dum Park, and he was very sad. One day, he called me to come to Kolkata. He was lying down, and I came and sat beside his bed. At that time, he told me: ‘Maharaj, you are bringing so many people from villages, and I have initiated them, but can you tell me how many of them have actually become disciples?’ I am also thinking that Indian devotees only think, ‘Hari bol! Hari bol!’– they only say, ‘Hari bol! Hari bol! Doyal Nitai!’ and dance – but it is the foreign devotees who can show us how many per cent of those who have taken initiation have actually become disciples because foreign devotees never betrayed me – they follow Gurudev’s word 100%. I am very proud of you all. I am very happy that Gurudev has kept such ‘fruits’ in my hand, and I can happily ‘take’ them (have their association).

My dandavat to everyone. Please forgive my offence.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

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￼Line Line2 January 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Evening Class: Eve of Disappearance Day of Bhagavan Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/9) Advent of Srila Prabhupad

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar, Giriraj Govardhan ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim

yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika) 

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

‘I offer my obeisance to Sri Guru, who has opened my eyes, rescuing me from the illusory darkness of ignorance, by applying the salve of knowledge upon my eyes.’

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam
chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam
govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram
vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

‘I offer my obeisance to him who perfectly fulfils his gurudev’s most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all conceivable and inconceivable aspects of Vedic knowledge; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s line; who is known as “Govinda” (Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj); whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.’

devam divya-tanum suchanda-vadanam balarka-chelanchitam
sandrananda-puram sad-eka-varanam vairagya-vidyambudhim
sri-siddhanta-nidhim subhakti-lasitam sarasvatanam varam
vande tam subhadam mad-eka-saranam nyasisvaram sridharam

‘I worship Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, the bestower of all auspiciousness, my only shelter and the master of all renunciates. He is my Lord who possesses a transcendental form, whose face expression is very grave, who is clad in the holy clothes the colour of the newly risen sun. He is an abode of intense joy; the only genuine master whom one can accept and surrender to; and an ocean of divine knowledge of renunciation. He is a repository of holy scriptural teachings and pastimes of the highest devotion and a great follower of Srila Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad.’

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha
patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

vrndayai tulasi-devyai priyayai kesavasya cha
krsna-bhakti-prade devi satyavatyai namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to Vrinda Devi (Tulasi Devi), who is very dear to Lord Kesava, who bestows devotion to Krishna and is known as Satyavati.’

atha natva mantra-gurun gurun bhagavatarthadan
vyasan jagad-gurun natva tato jayam udirayet

‘Before reciting scriptures that can conquer material world, let us offer obeisances to our initiating guru, to the guru who teaches us the meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam, to Sri Vyasadev and all gurus in the universe.’

jayah sa-parikara sri-sri-guru-gauranga-gandharva-

govindasundar-padapadmanam jayastu

‘All glory to the lotus feet of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva-Govindasundar and all Their associates.’

vande rupa-sanatanau raghu-yugau sri-jiva-gopalakau

‘I worship Sri Rupa Goswami, Sri Sanatan Goswami, Sri Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, Sri Raghunath Das Goswami, Sri Jiva Goswami, and Sri Gopal Bhatta Goswami.’

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrnda

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Yesterday, the festival of the holy appearance day of our Gurupadpadma, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, was completed. When we stayed in Kolerganj, Nabadwip, we would go to Bamunpara every year. Now, there is a big problem at the place. Santosh Prabhu used to stay in Bamunpara, and he would arrange the festival, but now there is nobody to do it there, and we do not know who will arrange anything or who is doing what there. That is why, to avoid giving you austerity and pain, we do not go there. Tomorrow we are having one more festival – the festival of the disappearance of Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad. Many of you are leaving early tomorrow, so I will speak about Srila Prabhupad today. He is a grand pillar in the sky of Sri Gaudiya line.

As I got some time earlier today, I studied a scripture describing Srila Prabhupad’s pastimes (Gaudiya Acharya Bhaskar Srila Prabhupad, in Bengali). I had this book before also, in Kolkata. Tomorrow is Srila Prabhupad’s disappearance, and I wanted to read this book. I had brought some books here, but I saw this book was not in my room, so I got another copy. Tomorrow, there will be a programme organised by the Gaudiya Vaishnav Sangha (held online this year). I have been invited to speak through zoom. The programme is from 4 p.m. until 6:30 p.m., and after that, at 7 p.m., we will have our own regular zoom programme. I can speak in English or Bengali, it is not a problem. Last time, when it was Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s appearance day, there was also an online programme with Gaudiya Vaishnavs.

So, tomorrow is Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s disappearance festival. He is gurudev of our Param Gurudev (Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj). You can see Srila Prabhupad’s Deity in various temples. In Gaudiya Math, everyone calls Srila Saraswati Thakur ‘Prabhupad’, but later ISKCON devotees also wanted to called Srila Swami Maharaj ‘Prabhupad’, and there is no fault in that (anyone can call their guru ‘Prabhupad’). However, if somebody downplays the position of Srila Prabhupad, they are making an offence. I myself never create any contradiction, I also sometimes call Srila Swami Maharaj ‘Prabhupad’ – Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Srila Prabhupad. I know the relationship between our mission and Srila Prabhupad, so I give honour to everyone.

I know very well that you can never get any respect if you do not treat others with respect. If you do not want good for others, if you do not have faith in others, the Lord will not want good for you. If you want everyone to face an ill fate, the Lord will make you face an ill fate too. If you want good for everyone, then the Lord will also want good for you. You must always remember this. It is not necessary to humiliate anyone or make anyone small.

You all know that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur appeared in this world in Sri Jagannath Puri, at a place called Narayan Chata.

Srila Sachchidananda Bhaktivinod Thakur was nine years old when he was married, and his wife was five years old (in old days, marriages took place at a very young age). When Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s first wife died, he got married again, and he had all his children from his second wife. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur was his sixth son. At first, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was a school teacher in Midnapore. Then, he took an ICS (Imperial Civil Service, under the British government) exam and, having passed it, became Deputy Magistrate. He served as Deputy Magistrate in Dinajpur (in present-day Bangladesh), and it was there that he became drawn to Mahaprabhu. He wanted to understand what Mahaprabhu’s real religion was. After Mahaprabhu left, there was Srila Narottam Das Thakur, Sri Acharya Srinivas, Srila Shyamananda Prabhu, who continued Mahaprabhu’s conception and teachings, but after them, much time passed, and people started criticising Vaishnavs: the society of Vaishnavs had become full of imitation and wrong behaviour (sahajiya). Muslims would not call temples a ‘math’ – they would use the word ‘akhra’, which means a club or a place for musical or sport exercises (in other words, a dirty place).

In this way, in the name of pure religion, many dirty, polluted things were taking place, and people abused those who wore tilaks. Vaishnav religion was dragged to a dirty place. Seeing what was happening, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was disgusted…

(2/9) Rescuing Mahaprabhu’s Line

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur himself appeared here in Bengal, in Birnagar (in a village called Ula). This place was later run by a son of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, Lalita Prasad, who had come to the sahajiya line, and since then the place has been under sahajiyas. He (Lalita Prasad) also had a place in Vrindavan – I have never been there. Lalita Prasad was always envious of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, although they were brothers. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur gave all power, all wealth of Srimati Radharani to Bimala Prasad (Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur), and because Lalita Prasad could not take share of it, he felt envious. That is why Srila Saraswati Thakur wrote to him once, ‘Baba badha Radha.’ I tell you about it from time to time. It means that ‘father’ (baba) is one thing, and guru is another thing.

Everybody knows their father, and in every birth everyone gets a father. When I was a dog, I had a father; when I was a goat, I had a father, and so on. We have gone through many births. In this birth, we have Indian fathers, but when we were born in Mexico, Pakistan or China, we had other kinds of fathers. You get a father in every birth, but it is not in every birth that you get a guru. Gurudev is Srimati Radharani Herself or Nityananda Prabhu. You must remember this. Some of my disciples call me ‘baba’ [lit. ‘father’, also often used as an affectionate or familiar address to any male]. I do not say anything, but it is not right. A father is a low conception – gurudev’s position is higher than that. Gurudev is Radharani or Nityananda. You must remember this. I do not say anything to those who call me ‘baba’, but you must understand these things. You must understand what ‘Baba badha Radha’ means.

Lalita Prasad only thought of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur as his father, and he always called him ‘father’ (‘baba’), but Bimala Prasad (Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur) never considered Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur from this point of view. Although Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was his father, he always considered him his guru. Even when they lived together in one house, Srila Prabhupad called his father ‘Prabhu’. He called Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj ‘Prabhu’, and he called Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur ‘Prabhu’ – he did not call him ‘father’. That is why Srila Prabhupad said to his brother, ‘Because you see Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur only as your father, you cannot get Radha – you only get a father. You only see the body, and you see that this body is your father, but you cannot recognise what is there within him. You do not understand the transcendental relationship that is there in Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur – in that relationship, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur is Srimati Radharani Herself. Your inability to understand this relationship is your obstacle (badha) to attaining Srimati Radharani.’ Do you understand the meaning of these words?

Anyhow, seeing the deplorable situation in the world, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur started collecting Vaishnav scriptures. Many years before that, when devotees (Srila Narottam Das Thakur, Srila Srinivas Acharya Prabhu and Srila Shyamananda Prabhu) were bringing scriptures from Vrindavan to preach in Bengal, they were robbed by the people of King Birhambir in Vishnupur, Bankura area. Later, the king admitted his mistake and apologised, but the scriptures ended up getting scattered around. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur rescued and collected those scriptures containing authentic teachings of Sriman Mahaprabhu. Through those scriptures, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur learnt what the true conception of Mahaprabhu was. Then, he thought, ‘I will retire from the government service, and instead of returning to Odisha, I will come to stay in Godrumdwip.’ He did that – eventually, he came to stay here, in Godrumdwip.

Before that, he served as a magistrate in Odisha and was the head of the government committee in Jagannath Puri. He was in charge of Jagannath Temple during that time. He punished some big bogus sadhu and did so many other things during that time. You can read about it in Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s autobiography. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur lived in Puri with his spouse, Sri Bhagavati Devi. One day, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur went with his spouse to Bimala Devi’s (Laksmi Devi’s) Deity in Sri Jagannath Temple and, offering his obeisance to her, prayed, ‘Please give me a son who will be able to preach Mahaprabhu’s line properly.’ Bimala Devi, or you can say Jagannath, heard his prayer, and Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur got his sixth son, Sri Bimala Prasad, who later became renowned as Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. Srila Saraswati Thakur is gurudev of our Param Gurudev (Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj).

(3/9) Acharyas’ Arrival in Nabadwip

…This is how Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur was born in Sri Jagannath Puri, at a place called Narayan Chata. It used to be a simple house, and now there is Srila Bhakti Dayita Madhav Maharaj’s temple, Sri Chaitanya Gaudiya Math. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur stayed there during the period of his government service in Puri, and it was there where he got his sixth son.

When his son, Srila Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad, was only six months old, there was a Rathay-yatra festival in Puri, and when the chariots came to the house of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, they stopped and did not move. Then, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur brought out his little son, Srila Saraswati Thakur (his name was Bimala Prasad when he was born, in honour of Bimala Devi’s prasad, or mercy) and touched his head to the chariot. When they climbed atop the chariot, Jagannathdev’s garland tore and fell on Bimala Prasad’s neck! After that, the chariot started moving again to Gundicha. Seeing this, everybody could understand that this boy would be a great personality in the future.

Later, when Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur became a magistrate at Krishnanagar, he got a place in Svaruganj (Godrumdwip) and settled there. First, he stayed at Surabhi Kunja and later moved to his house at Svananada Sukhada Kunja, nearby, where he stayed with Bimala Prasad during his vanaprastha life. He left his wife and daughters and came to live in Godrumdwip with only his son. He taught him everything, including all scriptures and Sanskrit.

Although Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur taught Bimala Prasad himself, he did not give him initiation – on Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s order, Bimala Prasad went to take initiation from Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj. Srila Babaji Maharaj had spent thirty years in Vrindavan, at Radha Kunda. Eventually, he got some inspiration from Srimati Radharani: ‘There is nothing left here in Vrindavan. All pastimes of Radha-Krishna are all going on in Nabadwip, which is non-different from Vrindavan Dham and where all pastimes of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu took place. You must go to this Nabadwip Dham.’ Following this inspiration, Srila Babaji Maharaj came to Nabadwip.

I told you the other day that at some point in his life, Srila Babaji Maharaj stayed in a public toilet. People asked him, ‘Why are you staying here? Do you not find it difficult to live with the smell?’ Srila Babaji Maharaj replied, ‘This toilet smell can be tolerated, but I cannot tolerate the smell of materialists!’ What beads did Srila Babaji Maharaj chant on? Many worry, ‘What happens if my mala breaks?’ To this day, I still have the beads that I received from Gurudev’s hand, and I never looked at what mala Gurudev gave me – Gurudev gave it to me, and that is my mala. But now the disciples are such that they examine what mala they were given to see if there is anything wrong with it. How did Srila Babaji Maharaj chant the Holy Name? He found some cloth at the crematorium, tore off a strip and tied knots on it. He used that cloth-made mala to chant the Holy Name: ‘Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.’

(4/9) Srila Prabhupad’s Initiation

Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj stayed in a small hut built from banana leaves. One time, local people heard that he was talking to some lady at night. It was Srimati Radharani, but nobody knew it, so they thought, ‘Oh, this sadhu is spending nights with a girl!’ They decided to guard the hut to see who that girl was. They had stayed on guard for three days, but they did not see anyone – nobody entered or spoke in the daytime, but at night they could again hear a girl’s voice. In the end, they broke into the hut one night and saw Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj calmly chanting the Holy Name. They were astonished. Moreover, people would throw pebbles at Srila Babaji Maharaj, thinking he was mad, but Srila Babaji Maharaj only said, ‘Listen, Gopal! I will tell Mother Yasoda! Do not be naughty! Do not pester me!’ Such was Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj.

So, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur sent Bimala Prasad (Srila Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad) to this Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj. Srila Saraswati Thakur had grown up by then – he must have been over eighteen. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur told him, ‘Go to the other bank of the Ganges and take initiation from Babaji Maharaj.’ You can think about it: Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, who was a great, famous magistrate, sent his son to a babaji who was living in a banana-leaf hut.

When Srila Prabhupad came to Srila Babaji Maharaj, Babaji Maharaj said, ‘Go away! Go away!’ Srila Prabhupad left and told Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, ‘I came to him, but he told me to go away, he did not recognise me.’ Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur told him to go back again the next day, so Srila Prabhupad returned. This time, Srila Babaji Maharaj spoke to him.

‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘Where have you come from?’

‘My father’s name is Kedarnath Prabhu [Bhaktivinod Thakur’s previous name],’ answered Srila Prabhupad (Bimala Prasad at the time).

‘Oh,’ Srila Babaji Maharaj said, ‘you are the son of the district magistrate! Your father is a great scholar, how can you come to me for initiation bypassing him? Go back! Take initiation from your father.’

‘He has sent me to take initiation from you,’ Bimala Prasad explained.

‘From me? No, no, go away.’

Srila Prabhupad left and then came again the next day.

‘You again?’ Srila Babaji Maharaj was surprised.

‘Yes, Father has sent me to you.’

‘All right. Come tomorrow. I must ask Gaura Hari first.’

Srila Prabhupad left again and came back the next day.

‘You again?’ said Srila Babaji Maharaj. ‘Oh, I have forgotten to ask the Lord about you.’

Srila Prabhupad left and returned later again, saying humbly, ‘Prabhu, have you asked yet?’

‘Oh, yes, I have asked, but I have not got a reply yet.’

Srila Prabhupad returned to Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, and Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur told him, ‘Do not give up. Keep coming back until you get initiation.’ In the end, Srila Prabhupad came to Srila Babaji Maharaj wearing a dhoti, tilaks and kanthi-mala and said tearfully, ‘Prabhu, I will not leave without initiation.’ Srila Babaji Maharaj replied, ‘All right. If you do not want to leave, then come and sit down.’ Then, Srila Babaji Maharaj gave him initiation. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur became his only disciple.

(5/9) Illustrious and Loving Service

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur would often walk to Mayapur. Everybody used to think that Mahaprabhu’s birthplace had been taken away by the Ganges. (It is true that the Ganges can take it, but the Ganges can also return it.) It was Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s exclusive, one-pointed desire and prayer, ‘Prabhu, please mercifully allow me to see Your birthplace. Please show this place to me.’ He started chanting the Holy Name very intently. One day, when he was chanting the Holy Name on the roof of his house in Svananda Sukhada Kunja, he saw some transcendental light. In the morning, he took a horse and some men and went to the place where he had seen that light. The local people were surprised, ‘Why are there so many people suddenly?’ Mostly Muslim people lived there. When Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur asked somebody what that place was, he was told that it was Miyapur (Mayapur was previously called ‘Miyapur’). Seeing a vast Tulasi garden in that place, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur asked somebody why there were so many Tulasi trees, and he was told that no matter what people had tried to plant there, nothing grew in that place – only Tulasi trees grew! Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur thought, ‘What is this? So many Tulasis, and I saw this place radiating divine light at night… Can this be Mahaprabhu’s birthplace then?’ After that, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur went to Nabadwip and brought Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj to that place. When Bihari Das, Srila Babaji Maharaj’s servant, brought him there in a basket (Srila Babaji Maharaj was 137 years old at that time!), Srila Babaji Maharaj jumped out of the basket and started dancing! He cried, ‘This is Prabhu’s birthplace! I have found it! Hari bol! Hari bol!’ This is how Mayapur was discovered. Later, babajis filed a court case claiming that another place was Mahaprabhu’s birthplace, but it was dismissed by the court. It is clearly written in the scriptures, in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita and other holy books, that Mahaprabhu’s birthplace is in Mayapur.

Param Guru Maharaj wrote a very beautiful kirtan in glorification of Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. We sing it every day, and also all other Gaudiya temples sing it.

sujjanarvuda-radhita-pada-yugam

yuga-dharma-dhurandhara-patra-varam

varadabhaya-dayaka-pujya-padam

pranamami sada prabhupada-padam

‘I offer my obeisance to Prabhupad (Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur), whose holy lotus feet are worshipped by millions of pious souls, who is the establisher of the religion of the age (Krishna-sankirtan), who is the presiding divine successor (at the Visva-Vaishnava-Raja Sobha, the assembly of Vaishnavs of the whole universe), who fulfils the desires of the dispellers of all fears. I eternally offer obeisance to the radiance emanating from the toenails of my master.’

(Sri Sri Prabhupada-padma Stavakah, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

One time, Srila Sridhar Maharaj asked Gurudev, ‘Which verse do you like the most in this poem?’ and Gurudev replied:

krpaya hari-kirtana-murti-dharam

dharani-bhara-haraka-gaura-janam

janakadhika-vatsala-snigdha-padam

pranamami sada prabhupada-padam

‘Bestowing his mercy upon jiva souls, he is manifest as a worshippable deity of Hari-kirtan. He is an associate of Sri Gaura who removes the burden of offences from Mother Earth. I offer obeisance to this very gentle fountainhead of greater parental affection towards jiva souls than even that of a father. I eternally offer obeisance to the radiance emanating from the toenails of my master.’

(Sri Sri Prabhupada-padma Stavakah, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Gurudev said that he liked this verse the most, and I also like it the most. ‘Krpaya hari-kirtana-murti-dharam.’ Srila Prabhupad is a holy embodiment of kirtan, but he did not chant kirtan so much himself – he did not like songs, tunes, melodies or anything like that. His kirtan was through Hari-katha. So, kirtan here is not what is sung with drums and karatals; Srila Prabhupad is the embodiment of Hari-kirtan, Hari-katha…

‘Dharani-bhara-haraka-gaura-janam.’ He carries the burden of the entire earth. ‘Janakadhika-vatsala-snigdha-padam.’ His love is stronger than even that of a father. Our Gurudev is also like that. He chastised me a lot, but he also loved me a lot. Do you see me ever making a festival for my father’s birthday? No, I make a festival and celebrate my Gurudev’s birthday. Because we love Gurudev, we make a grand festival. When it comes to my birthday, I always say that if you do not make anything, it is all right, but I have shown my disciples how one must do guru-seva, vaishnav-seva. You know, this time, I searched all Krishnanagar but could not find banana leaf plates, so I sent somebody to find banana trees in the area and cut some leaves to use them as plates for the sadhus…

(6/9) Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s Kirtan

Srila Sridhar Maharaj also wrote another poem, Sri Dayita-dasa-pranati Panchakam:

bhayabhanjana jayasamsana-karunayatanayanam

kanakotpala janakojjvala-rasasagara-chayanam

‘He (of a divine form) came forth from the birthplace of the golden lotus – the ocean of the mellow of divine consorthood.’

(Sri Dayita-dasa-pranati Panchakam, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur liked it when Srila Sridhar Maharaj sang kirtan. In the end, he asked Srila Sridhar Maharaj to chant a kirtan. He also said about him, ‘I know now that I have left one person in this world who will be able to preach Hari-katha after me. I can leave now being confident that there is somebody left in this world.’ Srila Prabhupad left on 1 January 1937. Just before he left, he listened to Srila Sridhar Maharaj singing a kirtan, early in the morning, shortly after 4 a.m.

Many wanted Srila Sridhar Maharaj to become the acharya of Gaudiya Math, but Srila Sridhar Maharaj refused. He said, ‘I do not want to be the acharya, and even if I become the acharya, will you be able to respect me as the acharya? It is not possible.’

Do you know what the situation at the temple in Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s time was? There were no great buildings. Do we come to the temple to see a great building? We do not. We come to see gurudev. Those who come to see buildings will fight and make problems, and they can have the temple for themselves. Because Gurudev’s dead body is physically there, we constructed his samadhi-mandir, but I know where his soul is…

Srila Sridhar Maharaj composed the Sujjanarvuda poem, and all temples sing it now. There is also another very beautiful song composed by an unnamed author: ‘Jayare jayare jaya paramahamsa mahasaya’. I heard it for the first time when I went to Mayapur – there was an assembly of Gaudiya Vaishnavs at Sri Chaitanya Math. Another famous song is Sri Saraswat Arati (‘Jayare jayare jaya gaura-sarasvati’). It is sung for the arati of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga and Radha-Krishna. Sometimes, we do not sing it or have to sing it quickly because sometimes I just start singing it, but the pujari already comes out to blow the conch, finishing the arati. I have told them that the arati finishes when we finish singing the songs, but they sometimes come to blow the conch before the second song is finished. What am I to say?

jayare jayare jaya gaura-sarasvati
bhakativinodanvaya karuna murati

‘All glory, all glory to Sri Gaura–Saraswati, the holy embodiment of mercy in the line of Sri Bhaktivinod Thakur.’

prakasile gaura-seva bhuvana mangala
bhakatisiddhanta suddha prajnana ujjvala

‘Revealing service to Sri Gaura, which spreads auspiciousness in this world, you presented devotional teachings (bhakti-siddhanta) that radiate self-effulgent pure transcendental knowledge.’

(Sri Saraswat Arati, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

These four lines are about Srila Prabhupad, and after that the song is about the combined form of the Divine Couple (Sri Sri Radha-Krishna). We sing it in many temples. Srila Sridhar Maharaj set a very high standard, and we do not want to go below it.

(7/9) Advent of Sri Gaura-Saraswati

Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj wrote:

jayare jayare jaya gaura-sarasvati
bhakativinodanvaya karuna murati

‘All glory, all glory to Sri Gaura–Saraswati, the holy embodiment of mercy in the line of Sri Bhaktivinod Thakur.’

prakasile gaura-seva bhuvana mangala
bhakatisiddhanta suddha prajnana ujjvala

‘Revealing service to Sri Gaura, which spreads auspiciousness in this world, you presented devotional teachings (bhakti-siddhanta) that radiate self-effulgent pure transcendental knowledge.’

radha-syama eka-tanu dakse gora raya

bame radha madhye svayam syama-gopa jaya

‘Sri Gora Ray, the combined form of Sri Sri Radha-Shyama, is standing on the right, Sri Radha is on the left and in the middle is the cowherd boy Shyama Himself.’

(Sri Saraswat Arati, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

This is a very beautiful description: in the centre, there is the Lord Himself, and on His left is Radharani.

vraja-rasa nava-bhave navadvipe raje

udare madhura raga abhinava saje

‘Vraja’s rasa manifests itself in a new way in Nabadwip: the sweetness of madhura-rasa is now freshly garbed in benevolence.’

(Sri Saraswat Arati, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

The mood that exists in Vraja is now present in Nabadwip.

madhurya kaivalya raga vrajera niryasa

prapti parakastha tahe gauranga vilasa

‘Exclusive, sweet divine love – Vraja’s essence – reaches its zenith in Sri Gauranga’s pastimes.’

radhabhava-kanti angikari’ bhala mate

daksine asana rasa garima dekhate

‘Sri Gauranga earnestly embraces Sri Radha’s heart and halo and takes His place on the right to show the glory of Her ecstatic loving mood.’

(Sri Saraswat Arati, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Krishna took Radharani’s heart and halo and appeared as Mahaprabhu. (There is also a book of Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s lectures titled Heart and Halo.) Does a person have only their mood (bhava) and halo (kanti; colour)? No. There is also a body. So, when Krishna took Radharani’s heart and halo, the rest – Her body – was taken by Gadadhar. That is why it is said that Gadadhar is an incarnation of Srimati Radharani. A question can arise, ‘If Radha-Krishna’s combined form is Gauranga, then how can Gadadhar be Radharani’s incarnation?’ Both facts are correct. Krishna takes Radharani’s heart and halo, and They become one as Gauranga. Halo means the colour, or complexion, and mood means Radharani’s inner devotional mood. She is always mad about Krishna – She is always feeling separation from Krishna. Mahaprabhu tasted and relished this mood in Gambhira. If you read Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, you can find it described there. He always cried, ‘Where am I to go to find Krishna?’ He would be hitting His head against the wall until blood started to flow from His head. He would become completely intoxicated – garbed in Radharani’s mood, He was madly searching for Krishna. During the last years that Mahaprabhu spent in Puri, He would crush His head every day. He first slept on some banana leaves and then on a plain cot. He would pull His hair (sikha) out and do so many other things… Just as Radharani became mad for Krishna, Mahaprabhu also, garbing Himself in the mood of Radharani, became mad for Krishna. And as for the complexion, you can see the colour of Mahaprabhu – He assumed a golden complexion. After that, Gadadhar took the rest of what was left of Radharani…

This is what we must worship. I will not go into further detail now because we are talking about Srila Prabhupad today. There is one more beautiful glorification written about him:

sri-gauranga-parisada, thakura bhaktivinoda,
dina-hina patitera bandhu
kali-tamah vinasite, anilena avanite,
toma’ akalanka purna indu

‘To dispel the darkness of this Age of Kali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, an associate of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu and a friend of fallen souls, brought to this earth you [Srila Saraswati Thakur], a spotless, unblemished full moon.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur is an associate (parsad) of Sri Gauranga, and he is the friend of all poor and bereft souls. If he had not come as our friend, he would not have prayed to Bimala Devi for Bimala Prasad – and if Bimal Prasad had not come, where would we have found our Param Guru Maharaj and Gurudev then? Not only that, where would you have found Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad also? That is why Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur is extremely merciful. He is the friend of all poor and bereft souls like us. He brought a spotless full moon to dispel the darkness of Kali. Even the moon has some spots, but Srila Prabhupad was stainless, spotless. These are very beautiful words. We must always remember all these glories of Srila Prabhupad.

(8/9) Step Towards Lord, Not Maya

Srila Prabhupad taught the teachings of Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatan. In particular, he often quoted Mahaprabhu’s instruction to Srila Sanatan Goswami Prabhu:

jive daya name ruchi vaisnava seva
iha bahi sanatana nahi ara dharma

‘Be merciful to the souls, chant the Holy Name happily and serve Vaishnavs. Sanatan, except for this, there is no other religion.’

Apart from these three duties (being kind to others, chanting the Holy Name and serving Vaishnavs), there is no other religion. Being kind to others means it is necessary to bring the jiva souls who are averse to Krishna to this line. This is not only my duty. You take initiation from a guru, chant, sing and have a good time, but this is not Krishna consciousness. You must think, ‘Gaura Purnima has finished, but I must now preach so that next time, in one year, I can bring ten more people.’

One time, when I was sitting with Gurudev at his veranda in Nabadwip, one devotee came (he took sannyas on the same day as I). He offered his obeisance to Gurudev, and Gurudev told him, ‘Maharaj, after you took sannyas, you left my service – you have become a big maharaj now. You have left my service, it is all right, but you never even stay at the temple, you go to so many places, visit different houses and eat all kinds of things – why cannot you bring even one person to me?’ Then, pointing at me, Gurudev said, ‘This boy is staying at the temple all the time, but every year two months before Gaura Purnima, he goes to preach in Bardhaman and Midnapore, and through that preaching he has brought so many people to me!’ At that time, none of you had come yet. When I came to Hooghly, I tried to preach very hard. When I went to Midnapore, I went to so many houses, tried so hard, and many people came in this way. That is why Gurudev said to that devotee at that time, ‘He preaches only for two months a year, but so many people have come to take initiation. Yet, you have not brought even one person to me. Why? Are you keeping everything for yourself thinking you have become a great guru?’ This is what Gurudev said.

Therefore, our duty is to bring others to this line.

When I came to Gurudev, there was one devotee who would wash Gurudev’s dishes once a day and also look after the cultivation at the Math’s fields (he would actually always steal from the temple). So, when I just came to the temple, ** Prabhu told me to stay at the temple, but that devotee told me, ‘You are so educated, you have been earning so much money – why did you leave your job and come here?! You could get married and come to the temple later.’ The first few times, I was scared to sleep alone in the room, so I slept in his room, but when he started telling me all this at night, I thought, ‘What is this? I have come to practise spiritual life, but he is telling me all this! This is bad association. ** Prabhu told me one thing at the evening class, but this devotee is telling me the opposite! I do not want to stay with him.’ After that, I steered clear of him and avoided ever speaking to him again. In the end, that devotee left the temple. This is how illusion attacked me when I just came.

If you make one step to the Lord – if you think, ‘I want to practise spiritual life, I want to serve the Lord’ – the Lord will help you, He will come ten steps to you. You know, in other missions, people are made to wait for ten years before they can take initiation. There is a (Bengali) book written by Param Guru Maharaj called Amrita Vidya. When we reprinted it recently, the book’s name was changed to Bhakti Raksak Hari-kathamrita (Bengali). There is a very popular book Ramakrishna Kathamrita, so to attract more readers and challenge their popular (mis)conception, we changed the name of Amrita Vidya to Bhakti Raksak Hari-kathamrita. It is a very beautiful book – all newcomers should read it. In this book, Param Guru Maharaj wrote: if you take initiation from gurudev and if you just buy some beads at the market, is that the same thing?

Why have you come to your guru? When you come to a doctor, you come so that he can cure the diseases of your body; in the same way, you come to a guru to cure diseases too, but not the diseases of your body – you come to your guru to cure the material diseases of your heart (to become rescued from maya, illusory environment). Both the guru and the doctor can cure, but the guru is a spiritual healer, and the doctor is a body-healer. When you come to this kind of spiritual guru, or healer, you do not come to talk to him about your material life – you come to talk to him about spiritual matters. Remember this. You must always talk to your guru about spiritual matters – never talk about yourself with your guru. Why do you think it is said in the scriptures ‘asat-sanga sada tyaga chhada anya gita-raga – always give up bad association, do not listen to material songs and music’? What is called bad association? Those who talk about anything else except Hari-katha are bad association. We do not want to associate with those who talk about other things and not about the Lord – who always talk about themselves and all the material things. We must keep far from such association. Keep yourself away from those who talk about material things (samsarik visaya). Associate with those who speak Hari-katha, who talk about the Lord and all that is related to the Lord. I too do not like to talk about the material matters of the illusory world; I am a virakta-sannyasi – I am annoyed by anything related to the material world.

So, Srila Sridhar Maharaj wrote: when you come to a doctor, the doctor gives you some medicine in globules (they look like balls of sago/tapioca). If you have a fever or a flu, the doctor will ask what your symptoms are, give you some globules with medicine, and you become cured. At the same time, there are also empty globules (without any medicine in them) that you can get at the market. Doctors buy them to mix in different types of medicine and then administer them to patients. Both the globules with medicine and without look the same, but if the doctor gives you empty globules without any medicine, will that cure you? It will not. So, when it comes to getting beads, you must receive beads from a guru who first chants on those beads. Taking initiation from gurudev and buying beads at the market may look the same, but it is not the same, just as taking empty globules is not the same as taking globules that contain medicine.

(9/9) Be Kind to Yourself and Others

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)

Many people grow potato here in West Bengali (in Hooghly, Midnapore and other places). I know everyone likes to buy seed potatoes from Punjab. A sack of potato is now sold for four–five thousand rupees, but when you plant those seed potatoes, you get much more crops than when you plant your own seed potatoes. In the same way, you can buy beads at the market, you can chant on such beads, but Srila Sridhar Maharaj said that it is just finger-exercise. People try so hard – panting, they chant and chant – but this is only finger-exercise. I have seen many times how people chant their mala – they can be fervently counting the beads, but at the same time they can also be talking to others! Is this chanting the Holy Name, tell me? How is it possible to be saying the Hare Krishna maha-mantra and saying something else at the same time? It is not possible!

That is why I always tell you that only taking initiation is not enough. It is necessary to practise sravan and kirtan. There is one more important part of Krishna consciousness that will cure your disease. We sing every ekadasi:

prasada-seva, karite haya,

sakala prapancha jaya

‘The entire material world can be conquered by honouring the Lord’s prasad.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I know how many people live, I have been to many houses. They take initiation and show some incense to the Deities every day, but they do not offer bhoga to the Deities. If your wife or daughter-in-law cooks, you must offer that first to the Deities and then take prasad; if you are not married and there is no one to cook, then you can cook yourself and offer bhoga. ‘All worldly illusions are conquered by honouring the Lord’s prasad.’ You must honour prasad. What happens if you do not do it?

visayira anna khaile malina haya mana

malina mana haile, nahe krsna-nama grahana

‘If you eat food that comes from materialistic people, it will contaminate your mind. And if your mind becomes contaminated, you will not be able to chant the Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.278)

This is said in the scriptures. What is materialistic food? It is food that has not been offered to the Lord. If you take this food, your mind will become dirty, and you will never be able to chant the Holy Name. It happens slowly. Your mind exists in darkness, and when maya grasps it, it can do many things to you. You will never be able to chant the Holy Name:

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

You will be saying ‘Hare Krishna’, these words will be coming out of your mouth, but it can never be the Holy Name. You must remember this. What you chant can be the letters of the maha-mantra, but it can never be the real Holy Name if you take outside food and keep bad association. Remember this. You must always keep sadhu-sanga (association of saintly devotees), and you must be kind to others and try to bring people to this line. When somebody comes to you and you push them away, this is an offence at the lotus feet of the Lord because the Lord can see, ‘You have pushed My child away from Me!’

There is no difference between the Lord and the Lord’s Name. What is the Lord’s Name? The Hare Krishna maha-mantra is the Name (Nama), and the bearer of the Name (Nami) is Krishna. There is no difference between Nama and Nami. When you chant the Holy Name, you take shelter of the Holy Name, which means you take shelter of Krishna. There is no difference between Krishna and His Name. So, when somebody takes the Holy Name, it means they have come to the Lord and taken shelter in Him, and you if you scold and abuse this person, if you create trouble for them and try to keep them away, this is the greatest offence – this is an offence at the holy lotus feet of the Lord. Always remember this.

This is what being kind to others means. It is not about giving somebody money or a house. You know, when I was buying the land for the new four-storey guesthouse here in Nrisingha Palli, I had to quickly pay a lot of money. It is not a problem to manage the construction because money for construction comes gradually, but I could not pay a very large amount of money at a time. I called one devotee, and he arranged for it. But for him, we would not have had that land, but even that is not such a big service – the biggest service is that this devotee preaches and brings people from this material world to the Lord. When I woke up today in the morning, he called me, saying, ‘Gurudev, dandavat. Today is Guru Maharaj’s appearance day. For me, you are my gurudev now.’ He was originally a disciple in ISKCON. He was a sannyasi but later became a grihastha, and he is still preaching as a grihastha. A grihastha can preach even more than a sannyasi – his attraction and attachment to preaching is more than even that of a sannyasi. He is preaching and speaking Hari-katha to this day. He knows everything, but he lives as a householder, and I do not see any problem in this. We do not prohibit anyone to get married. I told you what Gurudev said: if you are to pass stool, pass it behind closed doors, not in front of everyone.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay!

* * *

￼Line Line3 January 2021, a.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Morning Class: Disappearance Day of Bhagavan Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/6) Srila Prabhupad’s Exclusivity

sripat khetari-dham, thakura sri-narottama,

tomare tanhara guna dekhi

‘We can see the qualities of Srila Narottam Das Thakur from Sri Khetari Dham in you.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Sripat Khetari Dham means the place where Srila Narottam Das Thakur appeared. It says here that we can see the qualities of Srila Narottam Das Thakur within Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur.

sastrera siddhanta-sara, suni lage chamatkara,

kutarkika dite nare phanki

‘If you hear the gist of scriptural conclusions, you will be astonished. No sophists (persons given to false arguments) can ever trick you after that.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur expressed the gist of all scriptures in a very beautiful way, so much so that nobody can twist you with their arguments after that. There are so many religions in this world – there is a religion of mothers, religion of fathers, religion of wives, religion of sons – all these religions become insignificant. Sriman Mahaprabhu said:

chari varnasrami yadi krsna nahi bhaje

svakarma karileo se raurave padi maje

‘Whatever varna (a priest, fighter, manager or worker) or ashram (a celibate, householder, renouncer of the household life or monk) you belong to, if you do not worship Krishna but engage in your prescribed duties, you will have to fall into a terrible hell.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.26)

There are four varnas (brahman, ksatriya, vaisya, sudra) and four ashrams (brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha, sannyasa) – no matter what your position is within this varnashrama system, if you do not serve and worship Krishna, you will go to hell.

One time, Srila Prabhupad went for preaching to Kasim Bazar, where people arranged a 56-prahar kirtan – they hired a band and had them chant the Holy Name during seven days. The king invited Prabhupad to give class, but when Prabhupad came there, he saw that the entire audience was composed of sahajiyas – aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, ativadi, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari. Prabhupad told openly that nobody should associate with such people, and, as the result, they had some policemen come and make Prabhupad go away, saying, ‘Do not listen to him!’ Prabhupad went to his room and stayed there for three days without eating anything. After three days, Prabhupad told the king that he wanted to leave, and the king was surprised, ‘But why? The festival is not over yet.’ Srila Prabhupad replied, ‘I have not come here to waste your rice.’ The king did not understand what Prabhupad meant, so he asked him, ‘What has happened? I ordered to give you a nice room on the top floor and have your meals brought to you!’ The fact was that all these days Srila Prabhupad had not touched anything – he only took the Tulasi leave from the plate; he did not even touch their water. Such was Srila Prabhupad. I went to Kasim Bazar too, and I saw the situation there… Anyway, these things do not last forever.

suddha-bhakti-mata yata, upadharma-kavalita,

heriya lokera mane trasa

hani’ susiddhanta-vani, upadharma khana khana,

sajjanera barale ullasa

‘Your teachings of pure devotion devour all unscriptural religious practices – seeing this, people become terrified. Striking with the supreme conclusions, you break all unscriptural practices into pieces, which increases the joy of all pious men.’

smarta-mata jaladhara, suddha-bhakti ravi-kara,

achchhadila bhaviya antare

‘The rain clouds of smarta-brahmans (skilled in laws and logic) covered the sunshine of pure devotion and kept it concealed.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Do you understand what smarta-vad is? These are people who always argue and ask challenging, duplicitous questions, always trying to know, ‘What happens if this?’, ‘What happens if that?’ Always duplicitous, always envious of the guru, always exhibiting ego. These are the smarta people. They ask, ‘Oh, what happens if you eat sago on ekadasi?’ Why ask this? Gurudev told to take it, then we take it. So, when the clouds of these smarta brahmans covered the sun of pure devotion, concealing it within in, Srila Prabhupad came to clear the sky.

sastra-sindhu manthanete, susiddhanta jhanjnavate,

udaila dig-digantare

‘Churning the ocean of scriptures and creating a storm of the highest teachings, you cleared and delivered all directions.’

(Acharya Vandana)

(2/6) Listen and Learn

sthane sthane kata matha, sthapiyachha niskapata,
prema-seva sikhaite jive
mathera vaisnava-gana, kare sada vitarana,
hari-guna-kathamrta bhave

‘You have established temples in many places to teach the souls sincere loving service to the Lord. The Vaishnav residents of these temples always spread the nectar of the glories of the Lord.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Why do pure Gaudiya Vaishnavs and guru-varga open temples? To give people some place to stay and eat? So that cockroaches and rats can have a place to stay? Duplicitous people like to look for holes and to criticise and gossip about everything, but a temple is a place for bhakti-siddhanta-sravan-sadan: a temple is a place for practising listening to the devotional precepts. A temple is only for Hari-katha and kirtan. It is not necessary to think about anything else. There must be only Hari-katha and kirtan at the temple! There must be no gossiping, no nonsense talks, no material talks – all this turns a temple into a commode! Do not do this.

There are many services at the temple, so engage in service. You must also remember that those who cook for the Deities do a greater service than even those who serve the Deities directly. The Lord deeply loves those who cook for Him because they cook for Him with heart and soul, with all their attention, putting their whole being into it. Those who cook are often dissed and not given proper respect, but pujaris are, on the other hand, given much respect – people even come to offer them obeisances (but nobody will come to offer obeisances to the cook). Srila Prabhupad said that those who cook do an even greater service than pujaris because those who cook serve the Lord extracting and smearing mellows of deep love from within their hearts. You can relate to it yourself also – when will you feel happy: when somebody worships you or when somebody cooks and serves you prasad nicely?

It is necessary to cook in a very orderly, skilful way. You know, I have seen people making posto-bora (white poppy seed fritters) at home – when they make it, posto gets into their hair or gets stuck under their nails! They do not know how to make it. How do you make posto-bora? You take some posto (white poppy seeds), add some water and grind it. I think you all also do that, but this is not how it is made. Posto must be first ground dry, then you add water. Remember this. You must learn this. I learnt this from those who know these things very well. In the same way, you must learn to speak Hari-katha from those who know how to do it well – it is necessary to listen to such persons carefully. When sannyasis come here, I also sit and listen to what they say. It is necessary to know how to listen. Once, I heard somebody say, ‘You must become a good listener (srutasrava).’ To be a good listener means to be able to listen well and to be able to remember what you hear. There is srutidhara, and there is srutasrava. Both words refer to good listeners. If you do not listen properly, how will you speak? Therefore, you must listen to gurudev’s Hari-katha with heart and soul. Otherwise what will happen? What happens when you stop going to school? You think you can go to the market, buy some books and study everything from books. If you hear Hari-katha from gurudev’s mouth and from Vaishnavs’ mouths, you can realise everything much quicker. You can see school and college teachers – they also listened to their teachers first, after that they started teaching others.

(3/6) Live Exemplary Life

sthane sthane kata matha, sthapiyachha niskapata,
prema-seva sikhaite jive

‘You have established temples in many places to teach the souls sincere loving service to the Lord.’

(Acharya Vandana)

What are temples opened for? So that others can practise, and when one practises at the temple, they should then go out to preach. For example, I go to many householders’ houses to preach. Preaching is not about telling stories, eating fancy food, drinking sherbet and enjoying other ‘luxuries’ – it is not about eating nice food and sleeping on a nice bed. A preacher must realise, ‘I am going there to teach others how to practise, so I will wake up early in the morning for the mangal-arati – otherwise, if I do not wake up, the hosts will not wake up either. It is not right!’ There must be no laziness, no procrastination at the temple. People cannot wake up early in the morning, but the Lord cannot be satisfied with this. I have seen at many temples that only the pujari wakes up, and when he rings the bell for the arati, everybody continues sleeping. Do you know what Srila Sridhar Maharaj said? He said: if somebody does not come for the mangal-arati, they must not be fed. Later, Gurudev said: ‘If you sleep through the mangal-arati, please do not come to eat.’ He did not prohibit them to eat, but he asked them to please not come for prasad themselves.

When I came to the temple, I always came to the arati and after the temple parikrama, if Gurudev was not at the temple, I would run to catch the bus and get to the field. I looked after the workers – made sure they had food and everything else (I even had to arrange for bidi for them because they had to have them to be able to work). I stayed in the fields until two o’clock in the afternoon and came back to the temple by three o’clock. By that time, all prasad had finished, and one time Gurudev noticed this. He called one man and said, ‘What is the matter? He goes to the fields early in the morning, stays there the whole day, and there is no prasad for him when he returns? Go make something for him!’ That person came to me and said that Gurudev had asked him to make something for me, but I refused – I said that it was not necessary, I would just have some muri (puffed rice). After that, Gurudev chastised some devotee, ‘What is this? Vinod Prabhu goes to work in the fields, but you all cannot even keep some food for him?!’

Another time, everybody sat to take prasad. I was a new boy at the temple, but they knew I did not drink milk. Everybody was given prasad, and suddenly the person who was serving prasad put some curd on my plate! Everybody was taking milk, and I suddenly got curd. They saw it and started grumbling, ‘We came to the temple five years ago, and we do not get curd, but he is a new boy, he came only one–two months ago – how come he is getting curd?’ The person who gave it to me replied, ‘Do not ask me. This is the head office’s order.’ I did not want anything – Gurudev gave it to me himself. Later, I actually stopped taking curd [for health reasons and out of personal disinterest – ed.], and I do not drink milk (I did not drink it before too). Now doctors tell me not to eat rice three times a day, so I sometimes take rotis. If I eat rice three times a day, my blood sugar goes up, but when I take rotis, my stomach becomes upset (gas)… Both is not good – in which direction am I to go?…

Anyhow, it is said here that sadhus and Vaishnavs are always spreading Hari-katha:

sthane sthane kata matha, sthapiyachha niskapata,
prema-seva sikhaite jive
mathera vaisnava-gana, kare sada vitarana,
hari-guna-kathamrta bhave

‘You have established temples in many places to teach the souls sincere loving service to the Lord. The Vaishnav residents of these temples always spread the nectar of the glories of the Lord.’

(Acharya Vandana)

(4/6) Srila Prabhupad: Divine Benefactor

kuliyate pasandira, atyachara kaila ya’ra,
ta sabara dosa ksama kari’
jagate kaile ghosana, ‘taroriva sahisnuna’,
hana ‘kirtaniyah sada harih’

‘You [Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad] forgave the atheists of Kuliya village despite their atrocities. You proclaimed to the whole world: one who is as tolerant as a tree can always chant the glory of the Lord.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Kuliya is the same place as Nabadwip. When Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur was in Nabadwip, he was assaulted by the babajis and goswamis of Mayapur, but he showed no resistance – instead, he forgave everyone and declared, ‘Chant the Holy Name, being as tolerant as a tree!’

karitechchha upakara, yate para upakara,
labhe jiva sri-krsna-sevaya

‘Your benevolant kindness is such that receiving it, souls get the benefit of attaining service to Lord Krishna.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Srila Prabhupad’s help was such that everyone was benefitted through it. What kind of help was it? For example, he used bananas in the service of the Lord, and in this way he helped banana trees – through him, banana trees got some spiritual benefit. This is the kind of help that benefits everyone. You can come to somebody’s house and ask them for a handful of rice or a sack of potato – common people cannot serve the Lord themselves because they do not offer bhoga, they do not take prasad (somebody can be a vegetarian, but they do not take prasad). To give benefit to such people, you can use their wealth and property in the service of the Lord.

Last year, there was a lockdown. Do you know what we did with all the potato we had collected? There are many small temples in Mayapur, in some of which devotees did not even have anything to eat. Somebody offered me to sell the potato we had, but I said no. I took all the potato and sent Sripad Niriha Maharaj to distribute everything to temples – he went temple to temple and gave some rice, dal, potato, soya beans and oil to all the temples in Nabadwip. It was not possible for temples to buy many things during lockdown, and we did not have many festivals (Vaishnavs could not come during the lockdown), so we did not use this bhoga. What was I to do? I sent Sripad Niriha Maharaj in a car and had everything distributed to the temples in Nabadwip. For example, they went to Champahati – we go there during the parikrama and always have a big programme there every year. They went also to Mamgachi, Vidyanagar. I even sent bhoga to the place where Sripad Tirtha Maharaj is staying (where he made his temple). I do not care who criticises me – I sent bhoga everywhere. If you give, then it is necessary to give to everyone. We sent bhoga to Chaitanya Math also, but we did not send to ISKCON because they have money and did not lack bhoga. We also distributed bhoga to everyone in the neighbourhood – people stood in a long queue to take rice and potato; but it was much more important to give this bhoga to Vaishnavs. It is necessary to use the property of the temple for the service to Vaishnavs. Because it was good for the reputation of the temple, we gave also something to common people, so that they may have a favourable attitude to the temple (‘Maharaj has built this temple, and he also gave rice to us!’). People see us building temples and think we have money, but this money belongs to the Lord – I myself am a beggar. We collected very much rice and potato last year, and I could not allow it to get wasted, so we distributed everything.

dure yaya bhava-roga, kande yahe karma-bhoga,

hari-pada-padma ya’te paya

jiva moha-nidra-gata, jaga’te vaikuntha-duta,

‘gaudiya’ pathao ghare ghare

‘[Through service to Lord Krishna] jiva souls’ heart disease goes far away and all enjoyment and selfish pursuits are destroyed – in this way, souls attain the lotus feet of the Lord. As a messenger of the spiritual world, you send Gaudiya Vaishnavs house to house to awaken souls sleeping in illusion.’

(Acharya Vandana)

People are sleeping on the lap of Maya. They forget the Lord and sleep on the lap of illusion. When we sleep, we do not think about anything, we do not realise that we are sleeping, but the problem is that when we wake up, we still continue sleeping because we forget the Lord. We do not remember anything about our past lives, and we do not remember the Lord. Srila Prabhupad sent messengers from Vaikuntha (brahmacharis and sannyasis) for such sleeping souls – on his order, they went house to house, calling out, ‘Wake up, brother! Wake up! Stop sleeping!’

uthare uthare bhai, ara ta samaya nai,
‘krsna bhaja’ bale uchchaihsvare

‘Wake up, wake up, brother! There is no time! “Worship Krishna!” they call out loudly.’

tomara mukhara-binda, vigalita makaranda,

sinchita achyuta-guna-gatha

sunile judaya prana, toma moha antarddhana,

dure yaya hrdayera vyatha

‘Hearing the drops of molten nectar coming from your mouth glorifying the Infallible Lord (Achyuta) soothes our being and dissipates all darkness and illusion, and all our heart pain goes far away.’

jani ami mahasaya, yasovancha nahi haya,

bindu-matra tomara antare

tava guna vina-dhari, mora kantha-vina dhari’,

avasete baliya amare

‘I know that you are a great soul, and there is not a drop of desire for fame within you. Your glories are like a vina player – they have captured the vina of my throat and, paralysing me, force me to sing.’

(Acharya Vandana)

The Vaishnav poet says, ‘Prabhu, I know that when I say all these things, no pratistha will come to you, and you will not consider me a flatterer (karta-bhaja).’ Do you understand what karta-bhaja means? I can tell you. For example, there is a ‘temple-in-charge’ (manager). Many people come to compete and fight with the temple-in-charge, ‘Oh, I am not getting a good room!’, ‘Oh, I am not getting good food!’ They like to bypass the manager and come to complain to gurudev. This is ‘goda dingiye ghas kawa’ (‘bypassing the proper channel’; lit. ‘jump over the goda [a raised platform for cows to stand while eating grass] to eat grass’). For example, there are managers in Puri and Vrindavan, but people bypass them and run to other places, thinking, ‘Oh, if I give that man some money, he will like me, and I can stay there nicely.’ Such people are called karta-bhaja (flatterers). There are such aul, baul and karta-bhaja people (apa-sampradayas).

jani ami mahasaya, yasovancha nahi haya,

bindu-matra tomara antare

tava guna vina-dhari, mora kantha-vina dhari’,

avasete baliya amare

‘I know that you are a great soul, and there is not a drop of desire for fame within you. Your glories are like a vina player – they have captured the vina of my throat and, paralysing me, force me to sing.’

vaisnavera guna-gana, karile jivera trana,

suniyachhi sadhu-guru-mukhe

krsna-bhakti samudaya, janama saphala haya,

e bhava-sagara tare sukhe

‘Singing the glories of Vaishnavs rescues and protects the jiva soul – I heard this from the mouths of sadhus and my guru. When devotion to Lord Krishna arises within you, your life will become successful, and you can happily cross this ocean of material existence.’

te-karane prayasa, yatha vamanera asa,

gaganera chanda dharibare

adosa-darasi tumi, adhama patita ami,

nija-gune ksamiba amare

‘Thus, my attempts are like those of a dwarf who hopes to catch the moon in the sky. You never see anyone’s faults, and I am extremely fallen and lowly; therefore, please forgive me.’

sri-gauranga-parisada, thakura bhaktivinoda,
dina-hina patitera bandhu
kali-tamah vinasite, anilena avanite,
toma’ akalanka purna indu

‘To dispel the darkness of this Age of Kali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, an associate of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu and a friend of fallen souls, brought to this earth you [Srila Saraswati Thakur], a spotless, unblemished full moon.’

kara krpa vitarana, prema-sudha anuksana,

matiya uthuk jiva-gana

harinama-sankirtana, nachuk jagata-jane,

vaisnava-dasera nivedana

‘Please bestow your mercy so that jiva souls may arise, feeling constantly intoxicated with the nectar of love of God. May the whole world dance in the sankirtan (congregational chanting) of the Lord’s Holy Names. This is the humble plea of this servant of Vaishnavs.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Jay Prabhupada Jay Prabhupada
Jay Prabhupada Jay Prabhupada

(5/6) Life’s Purpose

Today is the disappearance day of Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. Wherever he may be now, we pray at his holy lotus feet that he may give us his mercy so that we may pass this life serving him heart and soul. This is a very important day for us. May Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur bestow his mercy on us so that we can serve him and attain spiritual benefit – so that we may serve him and thereby rescue ourselves from this world.

In the end, Srila Prabhupad left this world after hearing a kirtan that was very dear to his heart from the holy mouth of Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. You all know this kirtan: ‘Sri Rupa Manjari-pada, sei mora sampada’. Hearing this separation kirtan (viraha-kirtan), he gave up his body and left this world. At that time, devotees would stay with Srila Prabhupad continuously throughout the day, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj agreed to keep his duty from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. So, that day, he had finished his duty at 4 a.m. and went to take a shower and get ready to go for the mangal-arati. Shortly after 4 a.m., Srila Prabhupad asked, ‘Where is Sridhar Maharaj? Is he here? I want to hear one kirtan, “Sri Rupa Manjari-pada”.’ As Srila Sridhar Maharaj was not there, the devotee who was in charge of the temple (it all happened at Bagh Bazar Gaudiya Math in Kolkata) told another devotee, who was present at that time and who could sing very well, to sing this kirtan. The devotee started singing this kirtan in a very melodious way, but Srila Prabhupad shouted, ‘Please stop it! I do not want to hear the tune!’ Everybody was astonished, ‘The person who has never sung in his life is being asked to sing now!’ Srila Sridhar Maharaj hardly ever sang kirtan – he did not sing very well…

…Srila Prabhupad would say: What is the use living for 120 years if you do not practise Krishna consciousness? If you live for only ten years, but you chant the Holy Name, then there is no need to have a 120-year-long lifetime. If you do wrong things, if you do bad things, if you say bad things, if you gossip about others and criticise others, then what is the use living for 120 years? You can live for ten years only – chant the Holy Name, serve the Lord, and you will get benefit. There is no use living for 120 years. Do you understand? These are Srila Prabhupad’s words; these are very beautiful words.

(6/6) Strings Stronger Than Steel

People like to talk nonsense and all kinds of things. Sometimes, you can see people are lying down almost dead, but even then they are talking on the phone!

Srila Sridhar Maharaj had a sister, Rama Didi. She could barely see, but she would still write letters on postcards, putting her face very, very close to the paper and sometimes even with her eyelids closed! One day, Guru Maharaj went out to take a walk around the temple in the afternoon when everyone was resting in their rooms (brahmacharis would take lunch and go to sleep, and Gurudev would take prasad early, at 11 a.m., and come out for a walk at about 1 p.m.). I was supervising some labour workers at that time to make sure they did not cheat or work haphazardly. (Gurudev would always ask me what works were going on, what was being done, and so on, and I would write everything down in a record book.) So, when Gurudev went out that day, he saw Rama Didi sitting at her house with her mala in her hand. As she spoke to Gurudev, she continued going through her mala, and Gurudev joked, ‘Didi, do you remember Guru Maharaj’s fist?’

Rama Didi became a widow when she was thirteen years old, and when a girl becomes a widow, she does not marry again. This is something that is followed in India to this day. So, after she became a widow, Rama Didi gave all property that she had to Srila Sridhar Maharaj. Some of that land is in Hapaniya, where wheat is cultivated now. Later, she actually left the temple. When she left, Gurudev was pained, and he personally brought her back.

That day, when Gurudev asked her, ‘Do you remember Param Guru Maharaj’s fist, Didi?’ Rama Didi was puzzled, ‘What do you mean?’ Gurudev laughed. I thought to myself, ‘Why is Gurudev saying this? Why would Guru Maharaj hit anyone? Param Guru Maharaj was a very calm person, he did not hit anyone.’ When I asked Gurudev about it, he said, ‘Yes, he was calm and did not hit anyone, but he did not tolerate it when others did wrong, and that included his own sister.’ I asked Gurudev what wrong she had done, but Gurudev said, ‘Well, you can understand it yourself,’ and I did eventually.

Many old people are like this. Rama Didi became a widow at thirteen–fourteen years old, but no matter how much you try to protect them, there are still some desires. You can see young boys and girls always using their mobile phones when they go to school – they fall in love, go out and mix with each other in many ways. So, when somebody becomes a widow at thirteen–fourteen and comes to the temple, do you think they have no desires? In Rama Didi’s case, she liked to affectionately feed others – she liked to treat others with some sweets, savouries, and so on. This is not good. One time, Param Guru Maharaj saw her giving the Deities’ prasad sweets to some brahmachari, and when he saw this, he waved his fist at her. You can imagine it – Srila Sridhar Maharaj was very tall, and when he waved his fist at her, she knew that she had got caught.

Rama Didi had two nephews, Nityacharan (Nitu) and Satyacharan (Satu). They would come to Rama Didi sometimes, offer their obeisances, give her some money and leave. Rama Didi used that money for her expenses, to buy some food she liked and other things. One time, Gurudev asked Rama Didi, ‘Didi, are you chanting the Holy Name? Are you chanting “Hare Krishna” or are you holding your mala and chanting “Nitu, Satu, Nitu, Satu, Nitu, Satu”?’

Asha Didi was also like that. Instead of chanting the Holy Name, she would be glued to her phone, going, ‘Rumu, Chumu, Rumu, Chumu, Rumu, Chumu.’ (Rumki and Chumki are her two nieces.) She could not see, she could not hear, but she would not part with her phone. She got angry, ‘Oh, they do not feed me at the temple! I cannot walk! I suffer so much here!’ Nothing happened to her, but she would complain to all her relatives, and I would get concerned phone calls from various places around Bengal. I was amazed, ‘What is this?! If a plough breaks at the temple, do you have to cry about it to others?!’ At other times, she would lie down with her eyes closed, pretending she was asleep. She did not chant the Holy Name, but she would be always glued to her phone, chanting, ‘Rumu, Chumu, Rumu, Chumu, Rumu, Chumu.’ She would sit on her veranda and talk to them on the phone all the time, and when nobody saw it, she would also visit neighbours behind the temple. How do I know it? I engaged one person to watch the road behind the temple, and I told the man, ‘Keep an eye on the road and let me know if any old lady passes by.’ She would always complain about something. One time, she complained that one of the devotees had stolen her chanting beads. Who will steal your mala? She kept some money in her bead bag, and some neighbours must have taken it. Why would any devotee steal your mala?…

[His Divine Grace then finishes the morning class, chanting ‘Sri Rupa Manjari-pada’ and ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and reciting Sri Jaya Dhvani.]

* * *

￼Line Line3 January 2021

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Gaudiya Vaishnav Sangha (online programme) in honour of the Disappearance Day of Bhagavan Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

Sri Gaudiya Vaishnav Sangha Address (1)

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim

yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master, Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy and aspiring to serve him; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all acharya-varga, guru-varga, all my godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees and all the devotees.

Today is the disappearance day of our Param Gurudev, Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad, and I am offering my obeisance at the holy lotus feet of this great soul, merely trying to offer some flower-offering. It is not possible to do this for such a fallen soul as myself, but by the mercy of the guru-varga and on the order of the guru-varga, I am merely trying to say a few words today.

When our Param Guru Maharaj, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, was composing the pranam-mantra of Srila Saraswati Thakur, he wrote:

nikhila-bhuvana-maya-chhinnavichchhinna-kartri
vibudhabahula-mrgya-mukti-mohanta-datri
sithilita-vidhi-raga-radhya-radhesa-dhani
vilasatu hrdi nityam bhakti-siddhanta-vani

‘He slashed to shreds the illusion of the whole material universe, putting a stop to scholarly speculations and conceptions of liberation; he eased the strict rules and regulations, bestowing the conception of natural loving worship of the Divine Couple – may the devotional teachings of this Sri Bhaktisiddhanta play eternally in your heart.’

(Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Actually, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur declared a war. Why would sadhus fight? They do not fight in the common sense, but they fight against Maya, illusory environment. Declaring a war against Maya, Srila Prabhupad slashed illusion to shreds. Moreover,

sthane sthane kata matha, sthapiyachha niskapata,
prema-seva sikhaite jive

‘You have established temples in many places to teach the souls sincere loving service to the Lord.’

(Acharya Vandana)

He established sixty-four temples and sincerely preached the current of devotion in this world. Not only that, he also relaxed some of the rigid rules and regulations (vidhi). Before, people used to follow many unnecessary or contradictory rules and regulations, but Srila Prabhupad relaxed the rigidness of those rules (sithilita-vidhi).

There is one more verse that was composed by our Param Guru Maharaj, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj:

gaude ganga-tate nava-vraja-navadvipe tu mayapure
sri-chaitanya-math-prakasaka-baro jivaika-kalyanadhih
sri-siddhanta-sarasvatiti-vidito gaudiya-gurvanvaye
bhato bhanuriva prabhato-gagane rupanugaih pujitah

‘You have manifested Sri Chaitanya Math in the land of Gauda, on the bank of the Ganges, in Mayapur, Nabadwip, non-different from Sri Vraja. Renowned among great Gaudiya Vaishnav teachers as Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, you have appeared like a radiant sun rising in the morning sky. You are worshippable to all followers of Sri Rupa Goswami.’

(Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

When Srila Prabhupad established Chaitanya Math in Mayapur, on the bank of the Ganges in Nabadwip, he took a vow to chant one billion Holy Name of the Lord (sata-koti Nama-yajna). At this time, Srimati Radharani (Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharvika Giridhari, whom Srila Prabhupad installed in Mayapur) appeared to him and said, ‘You must preach. You are not alone. I am sending many great scholars (dig-pal acharyas) to you.’ Soon after that, all the great dig-pal Gaudiya Acharyas came to help Srila Prabhupad. We have little time now, so I will not tell their names.

As one of the worshippable sannyasis was saying before me, there were times when Srila Prabhupad was assaulted, but what did Srila Prabhupad do?

kuliyate pasandira, atyachara kaila ya’ra,
ta sabara dosa ksama kari’
jagate kaile ghosana, ‘taroriva sahisnuna’,
hana ‘kirtaniyah sada harih’

‘You [Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad] forgave the atheists of Kuliya village despite their atrocities. You proclaimed to the whole world: one who is as tolerant as a tree can always chant the glory of the Lord.’

(Acharya Vandana)

The atheists living in Kuliya village (Nabadwip) harassed Srila Prabhupad, but Srila Prabhupad forgave them and declared to the world: you must be as tolerant as a tree!

uthare uthare bhai, ara ta samaya nai,
‘krsna bhaja’ bale uchchaihsvare

‘Wake up, wake up, brother! There is no time! “Worship Krishna!” they call out loudly.’

(Acharya Vandana)

• ‘If you serve jiva souls, it will give benefit to your soul.’

• ‘Satisfying the whims of your mind and pretending to practise Krishna consciousness is not what Krishna consciousness is. Krishna consciousness means following your guru and Vaishnavs cent-per-cent and serving your guru and Vaishnavs, satisfying their minds.’

Srila Prabhupad brought these messages to this world.

Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj also wrote that when Srila Prabhupad left on this day (it was 1 January 1937), the sky plunged into darkness, reminiscent of Srila Haridas Thakur’s disappearance, when ‘without Haridas this world became void’ (Haridasa bina sunya haila medini). The world lost such a great personality on that day that the entire world had become void, covered in darkness.

Sri Gaudiya Vaishnav Sangha Address (2)

One time, Param Guru Maharaj (Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj) asked my gurudev Om Vishnupad Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, ‘You always sing this kirtan:

sujjanarvuda-radhita-pada-yugam

yuga-dharma-dhurandhara-patra-varam

varadabhaya-dayaka-pujya-padam

pranamami sada prabhupada-padam

‘I offer my obeisance to Prabhupad (Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur), whose holy lotus feet are worshipped by millions of pious souls, who is the establisher of the religion of the age (Krishna-sankirtan), who is the presiding divine successor (at the Visva-Vaishnava-Raja Sobha, the assembly of Vaishnavs of the whole universe), who fulfils the desires of the dispellers of all fears. I eternally offer obeisance to the radiance emanating from the toenails of my master.’

(Sri Sri Prabhupada-padma Stavakah, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

‘Which line in this poem do you like the most?’ Gurudev replied that he liked this verse the most:

krpaya hari-kirtana-murti-dharam

dharani-bhara-haraka-gaura-janam

janakadhika-vatsala-snigdha-padam

pranamami sada prabhupada-padam

‘Bestowing his mercy upon jiva souls, he is manifest as a worshippable deity of Hari-kirtan. He is an associate of Sri Gaura who removes the burden of offences from Mother Earth. I offer obeisance to this very gentle fountainhead of greater parental affection towards jiva souls than even that of a father. I eternally offer obeisance to the radiance emanating from the toenails of my master.’

(Sri Sri Prabhupada-padma Stavakah, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Srila Prabhupad is the worshippable deity-personification of Hari-kirtan. ‘Bestowing his mercy upon jiva souls, he is manifest as a worshippable deity of Hari-kirtan. He is an associate of Sri Gaura who removes the burden of offences from Mother Earth. I offer obeisance to this very gentle fountainhead of greater parental affection towards jiva souls than even that of a father. I eternally offer obeisance to the radiance emanating from the toenails of my master.’ This is the meaning of the verse. There is also another verse, many of you will recognise it:

bhayabhanjana jayasamsana-karunayatanayanam

kanakotpala janakojjvala-rasasagara-chayanam

mukharikrta-dharanitala-harikirtana-rasanam

ksitipavana-bhavatarana-pihitaruna-vasanam

subhadodaya-divase vrsaravija-nija-dayitam

pranamami cha charanantika-paricharaka-sahitam

‘He (of divine form) came forth from the birthplace of the golden lotus – the ocean of the mellow of divine consorthood. His large, merciful eyes dispel (the suffering souls’) fear and proclaim (the surrendered souls’) victory. His tongue (constantly) makes the whole Earth planet vibrate with Sri Krishna-sankirtan, his beauty resplendent in the robes of the sun’s radiance (saffron) that purifies the universe and dispels the suffering of material existence. On his Holy Day of Advent, I (again and again) bow down unto that beloved associate of Sri Vrisabhanu-nandini and the servitors of his lotus feet.’

(Sri Dayita-dasa-pranati-panchakam, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

The Bengali translation of this poem is very beautiful:

‘[1] He (of divine form) came forth from the birthplace of the golden lotus – the ocean of the mellow of divine consorthood. His large, merciful eyes dispel (the suffering souls’) fear and proclaim (the surrendered souls’) victory. His tongue (constantly) makes the whole Earth planet vibrate with Sri Krishna-sankirtan, his beauty resplendent in the robes of the sun’s radiance (saffron) that purifies the universe and dispels the suffering of material existence. On his Holy Day of Advent, I (again and again) bow down unto that beloved associate of Sri Vrisabhanu-nandini and the servitors of his lotus feet.’

The next verse: ‘[2] The devotees surrendered in pure devotion are eternally protected at his lotus feet. He is worshipped by pure souls endowed with sincerity and good fortune, and he accepts (even) those who obstruct the service of Sri Hari, just to rectify them. As the very fountainhead of mercy upon all mobile and immobile beings, he crushes the inauspiciousness of the whole universe. On his Holy Day of Advent, I (again and again) bow down unto that beloved associate of Sri Vrisabhanu-nandini and the servitors of his lotus feet.

‘[3] Like a miracle, his body moves with joyful elegance and charm beyond the world’s understanding, fulfilling the artist’s aspiration. (Or, dancing in supramundane pastimes, his artistic form incites divine love’s hankering). His intellect surpasses that of (even) demigods, and he is nobility incarnate as the commander-in-chief of the Vaishnav sannyasis (tridandi-yatis). The sadhus of profound intellect describe the nature of his personality as meticulously in the line of Sri Sanatan, Sri Rupa and Sri Raghunath, and they speak of him as being on the same plane as Sri Jivapada (being superbly replete in perfect theistic conclusions). On his Holy Day of Advent, I (again and again) bow down unto that beloved associate of Sri Vrisabhanu-nandini and the servitors of his lotus feet.

‘[4] On the bank of Sri Radha Kunda at Svananda Sukhada Kunja, he is devoted to the service of his Beloved, and (furthermore) he is greatly endeared to the divine damsels of Vraja headed by Lalita. He is most favourite to Kamala Manjari, who is pre-eminent in Vrindavan; and with the glorious qualities of Guna Manjari, he builds the residence of Sri Hari. On his Holy Day of Advent, I (again and again) bow down unto that beloved associate of Sri Vrisabhanu-nandini and the servitors of his lotus feet.

‘[5] He is immaculate joy incarnate, or he is the graciousness or the joy of Bimala Devi. He manifested the pastimes of his Advent at Purusottam Ksetra in the holy land of Odisha, and he revealed his pastimes of delivering the fallen souls and extending his mercy upon them (by awarding them the gift of divine love) at the land of “new sand-bank” (Nabadwip). Circumambulating Gaura Dham in the same way as traditionally done at Vraja Dham and Purusottam Dham, he continuously propagates the loving desire of Vraja, the divine abode of Vaikuntha and the Holy Name of Krishna. On his Day of Holy Advent, I (again and again) make my obeisance unto that dear associate of Sri Vrisabhanu-nandini and the servitors of his holy lotus feet.’

Param Guru Maharaj’s writing is very beautiful.

I am a beggar, and I would like to ask you all for some alms today. This is the alms I am begging you for: may I be able to make myself pure by serving all the devotees and servants of this Srila Prabhupad, and may I keep myself engaged in the service to you all. Saying this, I will not take more of your time. I would like to finish here.

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha

patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer my obeisance unto the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

* * *

￼Line Line3 January 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Nrisingha Palli

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s disappearance

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/5) Illustrious Acharya

Dandavat. Please accept my humble obeisance. I am very happy to see you all.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
All the acharya-varga ki jay.
Srila Bhakti Kusum Ashram Maharaj ki jay.
Srila Bhakti Pavan Janardan Maharaj ki jay.
Srila Bhakti Vijay Trivikram Maharaj ki jay.
All the assembled sannyasi-vrinda ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.

All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my beloved Gurudev Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, then I am giving my full obeisance to all the guru-varga, acharya-varga, all the sannyasis, all the Vaishnavs, all distinguished devotees and all the assembled devotees. Finally, I am offering my obeisance at the lotus feet of Bhagavan Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, whose disappearance day took place today and who is a great personality. He is not an ordinary person of this material world – he came from Goloka Vrindavan, from the Lord Himself, and when his job finished here, he passed the responsibility onto his beloved disciples and went back to his home.

Our Param Guru Maharaj (Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj) wrote a beautiful pranam-mantra of Srila Saraswati Thakur:

nikhila-bhuvana-maya-chhinnavichchhinna-kartri
vibudhabahula-mrgya-mukti-mohanta-datri
sithilita-vidhi-raga-radhya-radhesa-dhani
vilasatu hrdi nityam bhakti-siddhanta-vani

‘He slashed to shreds the illusion of the whole material universe, putting a stop to scholarly speculations and conceptions of liberation; he eased the strict rules and regulations, bestowing the conception of natural loving worship of the Divine Couple – may the devotional teachings of this Sri Bhaktisiddhanta play eternally in your heart.’

(Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Srila Prabhupad declared a totalitarian war against maya and reduced some rules and regulations. There used to be many rules and regulations before, but he relaxed those rules and distributed proper pure devotion.

sthane sthane kata matha, sthapiyachha niskapata,
prema-seva sikhaite jive
mathera vaisnava-gana, kare sada vitarana,
hari-guna-kathamrta bhave

‘You have established temples in many places to teach the souls sincere loving service to the Lord. The Vaishnav residents of these temples always spread the nectar of the glories of the Lord.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Srila Prabhupad opened sixty-four temples, or branches, of Gaudiya Math – he collected people from Maya, turned them into brahmacharis and sannyasis and then again sent them back to preach to householder people; he utilised them in the service to Srimati Radharani, Sri Sri Radha-Govinda. Our Param Guru Maharaj also wrote another beautiful sloka in glorification of Srila Prabhupad, where he says:

gaude ganga-tate nava-vraja-navadvipe tu mayapure
sri-chaitanya-math-prakasaka-baro jivaika-kalyanadhih
sri-siddhanta-sarasvatiti-vidito gaudiya-gurvanvaye
bhato bhanuriva prabhato-gagane rupanugaih pujitah

‘You have manifested Sri Chaitanya Math in the land of Gauda, on the bank of the Ganges, in Mayapur, Nabadwip, non-different from Sri Vraja. Renowned among great Gaudiya Vaishnav teachers as Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, you have appeared like a radiant sun rising in the morning sky. You are worshippable to all followers of Sri Rupa Goswami.’

(Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

He bestowed great benefit to all jiva souls (us) by establishing Sri Chaitanya Math on the bank of the Ganges, and he is worshipped by all followers of the Rupanuga line.

One day, sitting under a jackfruit tree in Chaitanya Math, Srila Prabhupad made a promise to complete a ‘sata-koti Nama-yajna’ – he made a promise to chant a billion Holy Names [a hundred koti, or crore; one crore is ten million]. After that, Srimati Radharani (Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Giridhari) came in front of him and ordered him, ‘You must preach!’ Srila Prabhupad said, ‘How? I have no wealth, no manpower… How can I preach?’ Srimati Radharani said, ‘Do not worry. I am sending My associates to you.’ Then, all the acharya-varga came one by one to this world. So many great acharyas (Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad, Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Alok Paramahamsa Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Gaurava Vaikhanash Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Vichar Jajavar Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Dayita Madhav Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Prajnan Keshav Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj and others) – so many great scholars and great personalities came as Srila Prabhupad’s disciples. However, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur was always very humble: he never thought they were his disciples; on the contrary, he always said, ‘You have come to me to take initiation, so you are coming to give me some mercy. You are all my gurus, my masters; you are not my disciples.’ He would pay his obeisance to everyone. Such was his quality. Not only that –

kuliyate pasandira, atyachara kaila ya’ra,
ta sabara dosa ksama kari’
jagate kaile ghosana, ‘taroriva sahisnuna’,
hana ‘kirtaniyah sada harih’

‘You [Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad] forgave the atheists of Kuliya village despite their atrocities. You proclaimed to the whole world: one who is as tolerant as a tree can always chant the glory of the Lord.’

(Acharya Vandana)

(2/5) Advent of Hari-Kirtan Murti

‘Kuliyate pasandira atyachara kaila ya’ra’: Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur was harassed for his strong preaching against misconceptions that prevailed in the society at that time. You know that there were thirteen prominent apa-sampradayas (misconception lines) at that time, and Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was greatly distressed to see that.

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was a very learned personality. When he was the deputy magistrate in Krishnanagar, he collected many books about Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, including Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, and various other scriptures. Reading all these books, seeing the true conception of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and seeing what was going on at that time in Bengal, he understood that it was all misconception (wrong teachings), it was all maya – he saw that what people distributed and preached in the name of religion was absolutely wrong. Eventually, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur and his wife prayed to Bimala Devi in Sri Jagannath Dham for a son who would be able to preach proper conception in this world, and by the mercy (prasad) of Bimala Devi, they soon got a son.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur appeared in this world in Sri Puri Dham, the abode of Utkale Purusottam. Because he appeared by the mercy (prasad) of Bimala Devi, he was named Bimala Prasad at birth.

You know that Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s house in Puri is on the same street where Jagannathdev’s chariot passes during Ratha-yatra. That year when Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur appeared, the chariot of Lord Jagannath stayed in front of his house for three days (miraculously, nobody could move the chariot from there for three days). This was the meeting of the Lord and the Lord’s devotee; there is an intimate connection between them. At that time, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was in charge of the Ratha-yatra festival, in other words, he arranged everything for the festival, so during those three days he arranged for all bhoga to be cooked and offered in front of his house. At some point during that time, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came out with his wife and their new-born child to pay dandavat to Jagannathdev, and when little Bimala Prasad was placed at the lotus feet of Jagannathdev, he suddenly crawled up and caught hold of Lord Jagannath’s feet. Such was the meeting of the bhakta and Bhagavan – the devotee and the devotee’s Lord; there is an intimate connection and acquaintance between the two of them. When Bimala Prasad caught Lord Jagannath’s feet, Jagannath gave His own garland to Bimala Prasad (it tore and fell from the Lord’s neck onto Bimala Prasad). Seeing this, all the pandas (priests and servants of Lord Jagannath) were astonished; they thought, ‘This boy is not an ordinary person! This boy will be a great preacher in this world. He will preach about Lord Jagannath all over the world!’

This is how Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, Bimala Prasad, came to this world.

We have heard about so many glories of Bhagavan Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur from many Vaishnavs and scholars, and our Param Guru Maharaj (Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj) also described everything in his poetry.

sri-gauranga-parisada, thakura bhaktivinoda,
dina-hina patitera bandhu
kali-tamah vinasite, anilena avanite,
toma’ akalanka purna indu

‘To dispel the darkness of this Age of Kali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, an associate of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu and a friend of fallen souls, brought to this earth you [Srila Saraswati Thakur], a spotless, unblemished full moon.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Srila Sridhar Maharaj told so many things about Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur; he also told about the day of his disappearance. A disappearance day is also called viraha-tithi, a ‘separation day’. Viraha, separation, comes if there is a relation – if you have some relation with the person, then separation comes. When and how does relation come? It comes through service. If you have no service, you have no relation; if you have service, then you have a relation, and when there is a relation, separation comes. No service – no relation. Remember this. Srila Param Guru Maharaj always spoke about it in a very beautiful way.

One day, Srila Param Guru Maharaj asked our beloved Gurudev, ‘You sing the kirtan “Sujjanarvuda-radhita-pada-yugam”, but which part of this kirtan do you like the most?’ Gurudev was a little puzzled at first, he thought, ‘What do I say?’ and then he quoted this verse:

krpaya hari-kirtana-murti-dharam

dharani-bhara-haraka-gaura-janam

janakadhika-vatsala-snigdha-padam

pranamami sada prabhupada-padam

‘Bestowing his mercy upon jiva souls, he is manifest as a worshippable deity of Hari-kirtan. He is an associate of Sri Gaura who removes the burden of offences from Mother Earth. I offer obeisance to this very gentle fountainhead of greater parental affection towards jiva souls than even that of a father. I eternally offer obeisance to the radiance emanating from the toenails of my master.’

(Sri Sri Prabhupada-padma Stavakah, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur gave so much mercy to the fallen souls through his Hari-katha – he is a deity of kirtan, a deity of Hari-katha. He removed so many of our offences, so many of our faults. He is an associate of Sri Gaura and more loving and affectionate to jiva souls than a father!

This kind of glorification of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur is written by Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. These are very beautiful things. I read some poems in the morning and explained their meanings.

bhayabhanjana jayasamsana-karunayatanayanam

kanakotpala janakojjvala-rasasagara-chayanam

mukharikrta-dharanitala-harikirtana-rasanam

ksitipavana-bhavatarana-pihitaruna-vasanam

subhadodaya-divase vrsaravija-nija-dayitam

pranamami cha charanantika-paricharaka-sahitam [1]

‘He (of divine form) came forth from the birthplace of the golden lotus – the ocean of the mellow of divine consorthood. His large, merciful eyes dispel (the suffering souls’) fear and proclaim (the surrendered souls’) victory. His tongue (constantly) vibrates the whole Earth planet with Sri Krishna-sankirtan, his beauty resplendent in the robes of the sun’s radiance (saffron) that purifies the universe and dispels the suffering of material existence. On his Holy Day of Advent, I (again and again) bow down unto that beloved associate of Sri Vrisabhanu-nandini and the servitors of his lotus feet.’

(Sri Dayita-dasa-pranati-panchakam, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

This poem is very beautiful. If you see the meaning of this poem, you will see how beautiful it is. It is very difficult for me to explain it in English. The meaning of this poem is actually eternal: its meaning develops from deep to deeper and deepest – what is written here is eternal.

saranagata-bhajanavrata-chirapalana-charanam
sukrtalaya-saralasaya-sujanakhila-varanam
harisadhana-krtabadhana janasasana-kalanam
sacharachara-karunakara-nikhilasiva-dalanam
subhadodaya-divase vrsaravija-nija-dayitam
pranamami cha charanantika-paricharaka-sahitam [2]

‘The devotees surrendered in pure devotion are eternally protected at his lotus feet. He is worshippable by the pure souls endowed with sincerity and good fortune, and he accepts (even) those who obstruct the service of Sri Hari, just to rectify them. As the very fountainhead of mercy upon all mobile and immobile beings, he crushes the inauspiciousness of the whole universe. On his Holy Day of Advent, I (again and again) bow down unto that beloved associate of Sri Vrisabhanu-nandini, and the servitors of his lotus feet.’

atilaukika-gatitaulika-ratikautuka-vapusam
atidaivata-mativaisnava-yati-vaibhava-purusam
sasanatana-raghurupaka-paramanugacharitam
suvicharaka iva jivaka iti sadhubhiruditam
subhadodaya-divase vrsaravija-nija-dayitam
pranamami cha charanantika-paricharaka-sahitam [3]

‘Like a miracle, his body moves with a joyful elegance and charm beyond the world’s understanding, fulfilling the artist’s aspiration. (Or, dancing in pastimes transcendental to the world, his artistic form incites divine love’s hankering). His intellect surpasses that of (even) the demigods, and he is nobility incarnate as the commander-in-chief of the Vaishnav sannyasis (tridandi-yatis). The sadhus of profound intellect describe the nature of his personality as meticulously in the line of Sri Sanatan, Sri Rupa and Sri Raghunath, and they speak of him as being on the same plane as Sri Jivapada (being superbly replete in perfect theistic conclusions). On his Holy Day of Advent, I (again and again) bow down unto that beloved associate of Sri Vrisabhanu-nandini, and the servitors of his lotus feet.’

sarasitata-sukhadotaja-nikatapriyabhajanam
lalitamukha-lalanakula-paramadarayajanam
vrajakanana-bahumanana-kamalapriyanayanam
gunamanjari-garima-guna-harivasanavayanam
subhadodaya-divase vrsaravija-nija-dayitam
pranamami cha charanantika-paricharaka-sahitam [4]

‘On the bank of Sri Radha Kunda at Svananda Sukhada Kunja, he is devoted to the service of his Beloved, and (furthermore) he is greatly endeared to the divine damsels of Vraja headed by Lalita. He is most favourite to Kamala Manjari who is pre-eminent in Vrindavan, and with the glorious qualities of Guna Manjari he builds the residence of Sri Hari. On his Holy Day of Advent, I (again and again) bow down unto that beloved associate of Sri Vrisabhanu-nandini, and the servitors of his lotus feet.’

vimalotsavam amalotkala-purusottama-jananam
patitoddhrti-karunastrti-krtanutana-pulinam
mathurapura-purusottama-samagaurapuratanam
harikamaka-haridhamaka-harinamaka-ratanam
subhadodaya-divase vrsaravija-nija-dayitam
pranamami cha charanantika-paricharaka-sahitam [5]

‘He is immaculate joy incarnate, or, he is the graciousness or the joy of Bimala Devi. He manifested the pastimes of his Advent at Purusottam Ksetra in the holy land of Odisha, and he revealed his pastimes of delivering the fallen souls and extending his mercy upon them (by awarding them the gift of divine love) at the “new isles”, or Nabadwip. Circumambulating Gaura Dham in the same way as traditionally done at Vraja Dham and Purusottam Dham, he continuously propagates the loving desire of Vraja, the divine abode of Vaikuntha and the Holy Name of Krishna. On his Day of Holy Advent, I (again and again) make my obeisance unto that dear associate of Sri Vrisabhanu-nandini, and the servitors of his holy lotus feet.’

(Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

This poem was written by Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. It is very hard to translate it into English – these words express the highest truths.

(3/5) Srila Prabhupad’s Mission

When Mahaprabhu finished His pastimes, Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Sanatan Goswami and others stayed in this world and preached Mahaprabhu’s conception. After them, there was Srila Narottam Das Thakur, Srila Srinivas Acharya, Srila Shyamananda Prabhu, Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu – they preached and distributed Mahaprabhu’s conception in a proper and pure way. However, when Mahaprabhu left, when Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Sanatan Goswami left, when Srila Narottam Das Thakur, Srila Srinivas Acharya, Srila Shyamananda Prabhu and others left too, then so much misconception came to this world and spread everywhere. There appeared various bogus sampradayas (aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, ativadi, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari), and as the result of their wrong preaching, the whole of Bengal started to hate the Vaishnav society.

After that, many years later, in 1838, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was born in Nadia district near Krishnanagar. I do not want to describe his life history in great detail now, but Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was a magistrate in Krishnanagar, and during that time he collected many books, many scriptures about Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu – reading those books, he saw what Mahaprabhu wanted to distribute in this world, and he understood that what the people who claimed to be His followers were doing was all absolutely wrong, it was all misconception. Then, at some point, when Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was staying in Puri Dham, he prayed to Bimala Devi and Lord Jagannath, ‘Please send someone who can preach the pure conception!’

After that, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur got the mercy (prasad) of Bimala Devi – Srila Prabhupad was born in this world. Srila Prabhupad and Lord Jagannath have an intimate relation, this is bhakta and Bhagavan (the Lord’s devotees and the Lord)…

Later, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came to Godrumdwip, and he brought Bimala Prasad (Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur) with him. They stayed in a small house that is now called Svananda Sukhada Kunja. Some time later, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur took a vow to chant one billion (a hundred crores) Holy Names, and upon the completion of this vow, so many scholars and associates of Srimati Radharani started coming to this world. Our entire guru-varga (Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj and all the other acharyas) came to this world. I do not want to repeat all the names again, I have already mentioned them today. All these great souls started preaching for Mahaprabhu and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, and we see that this preaching is still going on in this world.

sthane sthane kata matha, sthapiyachha niskapata,
prema-seva sikhaite jive
mathera vaisnava-gana, kare sada vitarana,
hari-guna-kathamrta bhave

‘You have established temples in many places to teach the souls sincere loving service to the Lord. The Vaishnav residents of these temples always spread the nectar of the glories of the Lord.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Srila Prabhupad taught everyone what pure service is – he taught that everything could be used and is meant for the service of the Lord. He established sixty-four temples, and all the brahmacharis, sannyasis of these temples preached house to house and distributed Hari-katha. Srila Prabhupad told, ‘Uthare uthare bhai ara ta samaya nai: wake up, you have no time in your hand!’ ‘Wake up, do not sleep in the lap of Maya! Chant the Holy Name, worship the Holy Name in this age!’

Srila Prabhupad proclaimed Mahaprabhu’s conception:

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

‘Humility, tolerance, giving honour to others.’ Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur was beaten, they tried to kill him in Kuliya (Nabadwip), but he proclaimed, ‘They can beat me, but my declaration to those who come to torture me is “taror iva sahisnuna!” – “tolerance!”’ Such is his glory.

kuliyate pasandira, atyachara kaila ya’ra,
ta sabara dosa ksama kari’
jagate kaile ghosana, ‘taroriva sahisnuna’,
hana ‘kirtaniyah sada harih’

‘You [Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad] forgave the atheists of Kuliya village despite their atrocities. You proclaimed to the whole world: one who is as tolerant as a tree can always chant the glory of the Lord.’

(Acharya Vandana)

This is such a beautiful expression. Our Srila Param Gurudev also wrote a very beautiful song (we sing it every day), where he says:

jayare jayare jaya gaura-sarasvati
bhakativinodanvaya karuna murati

‘All glory, all glory to Sri Gaura–Saraswati, the holy embodiment of mercy in the line of Sri Bhaktivinod Thakur.’

prakasile gaura-seva bhuvana mangala
bhakatisiddhanta suddha prajnana ujjvala

‘Revealing service to Sri Gaura, which spreads auspiciousness in this world, you presented devotional teachings (bhakti-siddhanta) that radiate self-effulgent pure transcendental knowledge.’

(Sri Saraswat Arati, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Some Gaudiya acharyas tried to object once, but our Gurudev said, ‘No, what Srila Sridhar Maharaj said is right. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur is not an ordinary person. He is Bhagavan Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. He is the Lord Himself!’

In the end, when Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj was at Bagh Bazar Gaudiya Math, Srila Prabhupad was a little sick (he was showing his pastime of sickness), and in his last moments, he wanted to hear the viraha (separation) song ‘Sri Rupa-manjari pada’, and he wanted to hear it from Srila Sridhar Maharaj. Devotees called Srila Sridhar Maharaj, but because he came a little late, somebody had ordered another Prabhu to sing it. Srila Prabhupad became excited and shouted, ‘Stop it! I do not want to hear any tune. I want to hear the song, and only Srila Sridhar Maharaj is to sing it.’ Then, Srila Sridhar Maharaj came and sang it. Less than twenty-four hours later, on 1 January 1937, Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur left this world…

(4/5) Srila Prabhupad’s Teachings

Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj often said that Srila Prabhupad’s word was very hard, like a stone or thunderbolt, but inside he could be soft as a lotus. Everybody knows that fathers are always very loving and affectionate to their sons, but Srila Prabhupad gave more love and affection than any father could give.

Srila Prabhupad told:

‘You may not like what I am saying, but you will remember me after my death.’

‘We have not come to this world to become masons, marble workers or carpenters – we have come to this world to distribute Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s message everywhere.’

‘You must go door to door, knock at the door of every materialist who is averse to Lord Krishna – bring these people, change them and turn them into devotees for the service of the Lord.’

‘You can make millions and millions of hospitals, you can serve so many patients or work in a hospice, it is good, but if you can change one single materialist and turn them into a devotee, then it is a far greater achievement.’

‘Tosamod kari’ kakhon guru hate pare na. A flatterer can never be a guru.’

‘In this world, 99% people will not come to Krishna consciousness, but you must not be disheartened – do not lose your enthusiasm; try to preach more and more.’

‘So many problems will come, so many dangerous situations will come in your life (sata ganjana, sata lanchana – you will be humiliated and abused hundreds of times), but you must not leave Krishna consciousness. You must stay in Krishna consciousness no matter what.’

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur established Nama-hatta (the market of the Holy Name), and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur increased and expanded this Nama-hatta programme.

‘Those who want to practise Krishna consciousness must be eternal servants of their guru, eternal servants of their Lord – they will serve forever under the guidance of their guru. If you practise Krishna consciousness without the guidance of the guru and Vaishnavs, then it is not Hari-bhajan (worship of the Lord) – it is maya-bhajan (worship of Maya, illusion). You can do so many things perfectly – you can practise so many things, chant three million Holy Names every day, you can visit so many holy places, you can practise all sixty-four types of bhaktyanga (limbs of devotion), you can practise great renunciation, observe many vows and penances, practise so much meditation, but if you do all this without having anugatya for your guru (if you do not have chaste faith in your guru and you do not live under the guidance of your guru), then all your attempts are nothing but attempts to satisfy yourself and your own desires. It is not Krishna consciousness – it is mere deception of your own self and of others.

‘What is the root of Hari-bhajan (practise of Krishna consciousness)? Guru- and vaishnav-anugatya: you must live and practise under the guidance of your guru and under the guidance of Vaishnavs. If you try to worship the Lord without following the guidance of the guru, it is the same as trying to eat by jumping over the plate.’

So, on this day, we pray to Srila Prabhupad: wherever you may be, wherever you may be staying, please let us be servants of the servants of your disciples or followers. We only wish to serve them. I am a beggar, and I am begging you all: please give me some mercy so that I can serve my guru-varga and Vaishnavs. This is all I am praying for…

(5/5) Unimaginable Service

Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj spoke about Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s disappearance describing what happened in 1937. I would like to speak a little about what happened that day.

[His Divine Grace reads from the Bengali translation of the article ‘On Srila Prabhupad’s Disappearance’ transcribed from an informal conversation spoken at Nabadwip, Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, on 4 January 1983.]

Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj also wrote Sri Sri Dayita Dasa Dasakam after Srila Prabhupad’s disappearance (after Srila Prabhupad left his body).

nite yasmin nisante nayana-jala-bharaih snata-gatrarvvudanam
uchchair-utkrosatam sri-vrsakapi-sutayadhiraya sviya-gosthim
prthvi gadhandhakarair hrta-nayana-manivavrta yena hina
yatrasau tatra sighram krpana-nayana he niyatam kinkaro ‘yam

‘At the end of the night, Sri Vrisabhanu Nandini suddenly took him to Her entourage, drawing him away from the company of thousands of grief-stricken, lamenting souls, their bodies drenched in tears. When he was thus stolen away, this world was plunged into deep darkness as when the jewel of one’s eyes is plundered (Saraswati Thakur’s hidden name is “Nayana-mani”, “the jewel of one’s eyes”). O my wretched eyes (bereft of the vision of my Divine Master)! (Alternative interpretation: O rescuer of the fallen! O Master named Nayana, who, in his mercy, is miserly not letting me get his company!) Wherever that great soul may be, please quickly take this servitor there!’

(Sri Dayita Dasa Dasakam, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Srila Sridhar Maharaj wrote so many things, but I do not want to take more of your time today. I have spent a lot of time in zoom today – Gaudiya Vaishnav Association made a programme on behalf of ISKCON, and I was there in zoom from 4 until 6:30 p.m. All the leading Gaudiya Vaishnavs, all the Gaudiya acharya-vrinda joined this programme in honour of Srila Prabhupad’s disappearance festival. I saw that everybody is doing OK, it was a nice programme.

I remember ** always sends me some poems at every festival, but this time I did not get any poem from him for Srila Gurudev’s festival. [Addressing one of the devotees.] I do not know his email, but you can send him an email, tell him on my behalf, ‘How are you, Maharaj? I am very worried about you. Where are you? How are you?’ Ask. Sometimes they get lost, and I have to search them out. I must search where they are hiding and reach out to them. They may kick me, but I will go to them again and again. I do not mind it. ‘Sata ganjana, sata lanchana’ – so many problems, so many dangerous situations will come, but we are not to leave Krishna consciousness. We must always remember Krishna. This is the main thing.

…I know some devotees are trying to send here some money, and they have already sent something for me to buy a new land in Nrisingha Palli. I am going to make a prasadam hall (a place for taking prasadam). I have got the money you sent, thank you for that. Actually, I am not only giving ‘thank you’ – to say ‘thank you’ is a simple matter. When somebody told ‘thank you’ to Gurudev, Gurudev would often ask, ‘Oh, only “thank you”?’ So, I do not want to say thank you – to say ‘thank you’ is a simple thing, we only say it out of courtesy and tradition. From my heart, I am giving my love and affection to you, and I am engaging you in service. I have just said that where there is service, there is a relation; no service – no relation.

Everybody may not have the capacity to help financially. Somebody can help with their money, and somebody can help through their mind, through their heart. Many devotees come from Bokaro, from all over Bengal – they cook, help in many ways, serve prasadam, clean, decorate the temple, clean the Deities’ room. Devotees come and do so many services. You have seen the nat-mandir here – this year they made all the decorations anew. All old decorations were taken down and thrown away, and Kamalendu Prabhu, Sripad Sadhu Maharaj, Krishna Sundari Didi, Sudevi Didi did so much service decorating everything again. You can see Srila Gurudev’s vyasa-asan has turned out very powerful – they made an amazing decoration. I heard that they had worked all night until 4 a.m., then they went to sleep at 4 a.m. and woke up again at 7:30–8 a.m. – after that, they cooked and did other services. They served very nicely in every way, and they did so much service. Even those who are far also send some money for Gurudev’s festival and to buy the new land – they also serve in this way.

This year I had to make a pandal again for prasadam. It is very difficult to give a class and serve prasadam at the same place (in the nat-mandir), that is why I am trying to make some arrangement for Indian devotees – next week I want to buy a small land of five thousand square feet in the middle of our temple territory and make there a place for prasadam. I have heard that many devotees have been collecting money for it and have already sent their donations. Those who have some capacity and those who want to do some service, they send. I am very happy with them, I am happy to see that everybody is serving happily. Srila Gurudev has given so many good souls in my hand…

We have here Krishna Sundari Didi from Australia – even though she is an old lady, she is also helping out with her pension! Gurudev said, ‘When one door closes, another door will open.’ She is staying here and she is helping so much – she is doing a lot of service. You know, all banks were closed here on 31 December and 1 January – I was a little short of cash money at that time, and Krishna Sundari Didi gave me some money and did so much service here. She did so much, it is unforgettable. We do not know who Krishna and Gurudev take service from – only those who have some sukriti, who have some great fortune can participate in service in their life. There are so many rich people, there are so many big people, but only a fortunate soul can do service. Even poor ladies, even poor people sometimes send two dollars, five dollars, ten dollars, and they are helping according to their capacity. I know that in Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela, the situation is very difficult (their dollar rate is the worst), but they still serve their Gurudev’s mission. It is unimaginable.

Anyhow, by the mercy of Gurudev, we hope that 2021 will be good for us all, that some very nice things are coming in the future for everybody. I do not want to take more of your time now. I am going to Kolkata tomorrow, then I must visit Ekachakra to make some arrangements there, and after that I will start village preaching again.

Dandavat pranam. Please accept my humble obeisance; please forgive my offences.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line10 January 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sevak Bhavan, Kolkata

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/7) Good Mind, Good Heart

Hari bol. Dandavat.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev, Subhadra, Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Sri Chaitanya Math, Mayapur, Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Please accept my humble obeisance. I am meeting you all again after one week, and I am very fortunate to be always able to meet with you all, with all the devotees.

‘Vaisnava sangete mana anandita anuksana. My heart rejoices in the association of Vaishnavs.’ When we get the association of Vaishnavs, the association of great souls, we always feel pleasure and all dirty things become removed from our hearts. That is why we always need good association.

We must always think good about everybody. If you think good about everybody, then Krishna will think good about you. It is important to understand this. We must think good about everybody – everybody can join Krishna consciousness, everybody can chant the Holy Name. I see that despite the situation now, all the devotees are OK, everybody is doing some service in some small way, everybody is joining this programme. It gives us happiness.

I went to Bankura temple (Betur) yesterday, and from there I went to Ekachakra. I had some service there. The goshala in Ekachakra has become a little too small – some cows are living now in the big kitchen I made last year. So, today I started the works to extend the goshala a little. Three cows gave calves, so the number of our cows in Ekachakra has increased, that is why I had some small job there to extend the goshala, and I also arranged some preparation for the festival of Lord Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance.

It is Kali-yuga now, and everything is changing – when it is the winter season, winter does not come, and when it is the summer season, the summer weather does not come. So many things are happening in this world, and all these things are bound to happen, but our duty is to practise properly, to chant the Holy Name, to follow all the rules and regulations. It was ekadasi yesterday, but I travelled three hundred kilometres, and I am fine – we must never stop our service.

I pray that all the devotees’ health remains good and that everybody stays very happy in their lives. Sometimes, some problems come in family life, some things can happen, and it gives us a little pain, but when something bad comes, we should always ignore it.

(2/7) Uninterrupted Service Life

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘Prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara: you have life, you are alive, then you must preach.’ As long as we have life in this body, for as long as we are alive, we must preach Krishna consciousness to people. In this Age of Kali, not so many people will come to Krishna consciousness because of maya, because of the influence of Kali, but Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that we should not be disheartened – we must do our job.

Srila Param Guru Maharaj, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, said: when you are giving a class in the nat-mandir, there may be no people listening, but you can realise that the Deities are listening, even every pillar in the nat-mandir is listening to your Hari-katha. So, we must preach – we must tell our message, tell and tell it every day, and one day people will listen. Because the influence of Maya (illusory environment) is very strong, people cannot easily accept Mahaprabhu’s message – they are not eager to hear about such things.

‘Sithilita vidhi’ – Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur drastically reduced the rules and regulations. He even relaxed the rules of following ekadasi – he said that if you are hungry, you can take some fruit or potato, it is not necessary to fast the whole day without any water. If it is not possible for you to do a complete fast, you can take some anukalpa (non-grain prasad that is permissible on ekadasi). We all know our temple’s rule that we must fast until noon, but sometimes, for health reasons, some people have to take something earlier because they suffer from acidity, for example, and if they fast, then so much problem comes; or sometimes we must take some medicine in the morning, and to take that medicine, we have to eat something first – in such cases, we can take anukalpa earlier also. Other than that, we must try to follow the rules and regulations as much as we can. We must always do our best in our practising life. All of our guru-varga, all followers of Sri Rupanuga line have already accepted and established all these things. There are many rules and regulations, and we must continue our service life properly.

I have seen also that when Gurudev travelled by aeroplane, he would even take the food from the servant at the aeroplane. Gurudev is not some simple, ordinary person – he is the representative of the Lord Himself! The airhost could be a Muslim, a Christian or even an atheist (a person without any religious creed), but Gurudev did not cringe to take food from their hand. He was never like that. Gurudev is not an ordinary person – it is not like he will take food from others and thereby lose his caste. No! When somebody comes near gurudev (if somebody gets mercy from gurudev), they become purified. We must understand it in this way. If some nurse or an airhost gives food to Gurudev because they have accumulated sufficient sukriti and have got this chance to serve Gurudev, then their heart will be satisfied and they will be ultimately purified by Gurudev’s association. These people received this kind of fortune to give food to Gurudev! This is how we take it.

On the other hand, some smartavadis, some other ordinary people can criticise Gurudev for taking such food. There are also people who like to criticise others for every small thing. We see that Ramachandra Puri criticised Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. There are always such people in this world, their duty will always be to criticise – what can you do? You cannot stop their mouths. There are such people whom Krishna has given a mouth not for chanting the Holy Name but for criticising. There are such people in this world, but you must be careful – always try to avoid the association of such people.

(3/7) Accommodating Heart

Now accommodation in Nrisingha Palli is not a problem for devotees. It is not necessary to go to a hotel and not necessary to stay in somebody else’s house anymore. A very nice building (‘Sri Bhakti Sundar Angan’) is coming out now on the land.

Actually, some devotees (mostly foreign devotees) are helping to make the construction, otherwise how could I be doing it? Even though I left the mul-math (main temple) of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, all the devotees are with me, they are giving their mercy to me, that is why I am able to do something for them. How did Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math appear? Gurudev went abroad and many foreign devotees gave him money for the Centenary Building, the two guesthouses at the Govinda Kunda, the prasadam hall – they gave so much money to Gurudev and for the temple, but now they cannot even stay there. It is giving me very much pain. Not only that, those asuras (demons) even beat them! That is why I am trying to make a new arrangement now. Devotees come every year for Gaura Purnima, Ekachakra Festival, Gurudev’s Vyasa Puja, and I am thinking that I must do something for them, I must arrange their accommodation – and it is happening by the will, by the desire of Gurudev.

Today is the disappearance day of Sripad Bhakti Bhudev Shrauti Maharaj, a disciple of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, and tomorrow is the disappearance day of Srila Mahesh Pandit and Srila Uddharan Datta, who are both Nityananda Prabhu’s associates. We should always check the calendar, and when we see some dates mentioned there, even if we do not know anything about the Vaishnav or events mentioned there, we can at least give ‘jay’ to them – that also brings some good sukriti, some purification to us. Seeing the calendar and taking devotees’ names early in the morning, from the beginning of the day, is very good for all devotees.

Question: We hear that Mahaprabhu experienced His greatest spiritual ecstasy when He was a sannyasi in Jagannath Puri, but we also hear that devotees do not like to remember Mahaprabhu as a sannyasi. Why is that so? Should not the devotees be happy that Mahaprabhu is experiencing much more ecstasy when He is a sannyasi than in His married life?

It is not the question of married life. Nabadwip-basis (residents of Nabadwip) do not want to see Mahaprabhu leave Nabadwip and take sannyas. It is a matter of feeling separation from Mahaprabhu. Nabadwip-basis always think, ‘Mahaprabhu must stay as He is! We do not want Him to take sannyas and leave Nabadwip!’ Mahaprabhu rejected Nabadwip and accepted Puri, but Nabadwip-basis do not want that. Before, they used to neglect and criticise Mahaprabhu, even all the brahmans also criticised Him, but after Mahaprabhu left, they understood their mistake and they were very sad because of that.

It actually has nothing to do with Mahaprabhu’s married life. Mahaprabhu took Vishnupriya Devi and Laksmi Priya Devi as His sakti for His pastimes (lila). If you mix the married life of us, ordinary householder people, and the pastimes of Mahaprabhu, it is not good. Some think, ‘Oh, Mahaprabhu got married, and everybody accepts it, so I will get married too!’

You must understand how much Vishnupriya Devi sacrificed in her life. Vishnupriya Devi made a huge sacrifice for us because if she had not given up Mahaprabhu, how would we have known about Mahaprabhu’s Radha-bhav, separation pastimes in Gambhira?

Everybody understood that. Jagadananda Pandit, Nityananda Prabhu and others knew who Mahaprabhu was – they knew He is the Lord Himself. Although Mahaprabhu is the Lord Himself, He comes in this Kali-yuga to practise and preach, so He had to show everyone practising life. If He had stayed with His wife, who would have listened to Him? Nobody would. They used to say, ‘Oh, He is a householder, and I am also a householder, why must I listen to Him?’ That is why Mahaprabhu decided, ‘I have to leave My family life and take sannyas.’ In this way, He showed practising life. Moreover, when He left Vishnupriya Devi, He sang and cried at that time,

ami yai yai mane kari
yaite nahi pari
ami yaibo sadhane paribo kemane
maha-maya pichhanete dhaya

‘I am thinking, “I will leave! I will leave!” but I cannot! How will I manage to leave when maha-maya is always running behind Me?’

Mahaprabhu would say like this…

(4/7) Material Affection

Question: I have read that they passed an abortion law in Argentina and there are many people in favour of it. What advice can you give about preaching in this region?

It depends upon the culture and upon the particular country. Every country has its own rules. In general, abortion is very bad, and we are not going to tell anyone to kill a baby.

Here in India, if an unmarried girl has a baby, the society or the community simply boycotts her – such girls get no position, they become outcasts, and they cannot even say who the baby’s father is. It is a big problem here. That is why, because of the social pressure, girls secretly go for an abortion in some hospital, nursing home or small clinic. Boys and girls mix, make a baby, and if that boy does not marry the girl, the girl can also sometimes commit suicide, or she can secretly have an abortion within two–three months. This is what is happening here in India. I do not know other countries’ laws. I have heard that in some countries, like in Australia for example, when women have a baby, they get some money from the government. Many of our devotees also have babies, but they do not even get married. Sometimes, a girl wants to be a mother, so she gets a baby – the boy runs away and she takes care of the baby on her own with the government’s support. Here in India, nobody gives any support in such cases.

I cannot say if it is good or bad, all I can say is that it is better if you do not make any sexual contact with anyone before marriage or without marriage. In our spiritual life also, such relations are called illegal sex, and our scriptures also tell that it is not good to enter into such relations. If you are not married, you cannot have sex with your girlfriend – it is illegal sex. It is important to understand this.

Question: When I develop affection for a devotee who lives at the temple, I see that they show indifference or try to avoid my association. What attitude should I have towards such devotees?

You are showing some love and affection, but how are you doing it? Sometimes, there are brahmacharis and sannyasis living at the temple, and you should always keep some distance from them. You can pay dandavat to them, you can hear their Hari-katha, but it is necessary to have a proper mood. We must see every girl as our mother – we must see that we are all godbrothers and godsisters, so we must see ladies as our mothers or sisters.

Always be careful with ‘giving love and affection’. It is actually a very difficult situation. Here in India also, ladies stay at the temple with brahmacharis, and people sometimes say some bad things, they criticise. It is not good for them and not good for you also. So, we will stay together in a temple, but we must be always careful – we will not enter with anyone into a husband–wife relationship. Always be careful about it. It is necessary for everyone to understand this.

One time, one of the disciples of Gurudev, a lady from Mexico, was sick – she had hepatitis B, and she asked me to go with her to the doctor. I agreed, but first I went to ask Gurudev for permission to go with her. Gurudev said, ‘You can go with her, but not in the same rickshaw.’ I told Gurudev, ‘Yes, I have already arranged two rickshaws.’ I was not going to go with her in the same rickshaw. Gurudev always warns us to be careful – he always protects us.

Question: When a disciple does not practise properly complaining that they do not have guidance of senior devotees, is it correct that they blame the environment or should they be blaming themselves?

It is not correct. We must always see our own fault – we must not see others’ faults. If we only take initiation but do not practise, then what kind of disciples are we? Suppose you get admitted to a school, but you do not learn anything, you do not practise anything, what result will you get? Taking initiation means getting admission to a school, college or university, but if you do not study properly, if you do not practise properly, do not chant the Holy Name properly, then you will fail – you will not get a good result. The result will be bad. A year later, or some time later, you will face an exam, and you can understand how much you have progressed, how much you have learnt by the result of that exam. Your result depends on what you are doing. If you do not practise your sadhana properly, you will not get a good result – the result will be bad.

(5/7) Coming Before Deities

Question: What should we think about when we stand before the Deity?

That depends upon the practitioner.

When you come in front of the Deities, you must always think, ‘I must serve the Deities.’ Sometimes some other thoughts come – sometimes some good thoughts can come, and sometimes some bad thoughts can also come. It is not really offensive, you should just ignore that. What is offensive? If you shout in front of the Deities, if you do nonsense things in front of the Deities, if you stretch your legs in front of the Deities, and so on – these things are offences, and we must not do that.

Sometimes you come in front of the Deities many times a day – every time you come in front of Them, you must pay obeisance to Them: it can be a sastanga-dandavat (full, prostrated obeisance, touching the ground ‘with eight limbs’), a panchanga-dandavat (not full obeisance, like the obeisances paid by ladies; touching the ground ‘with five limbs’) or at least fold your palms. Always pay obeisance to the Deities, every time you see Them – that is good. We must do that. We must give respect to the Deities.

When we come before gurudev, we always give him respect – no matter how many times we see him, we offer our obeisance to him every time. You must have the same attitude to the Deities – always pay obeisance to Them, every time you come before Them.

If some other thought comes to your mind, it can come because our mind is always naughty, even some bad thoughts can come. What can we do? We cannot do anything, but we will try to be good, and we will do our best so that only good thoughts come to our minds. We can only try…

(6/7) Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur and Sri Vakreshwar Pandit

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami writes:

maha-bhagavata-srestha datta uddharana
sarva-bhave seve nityanandera charana

‘Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur is a greatest, exalted maha-bhagavata devotee. He served the holy feet of Nityananda Prabhu in all possible ways.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.11.41)

Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur was a great Vaishnav, a maha-bhagavata, and he always worshiped and served Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s lotus feet. In Sri Gaura-ganodesa-dipika, which was written by Sri Puri Das (Sri Kavi Karnapur, a son of Sivananda Sen), it is said that Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur is an incarnation of a cowherd boy Subahu. In Vraja-lila, he is a friend of Krishna, and in this age, he comes as Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur.

Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur writes in Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, or Sri Chaitanya-mangal:

kata-dine thaki’ nityananda khadadahe
saptagrama ailena sarva-gana-sahe

‘After passing some days at Khadadaha, Nityananda came to Saptagram with all His associates.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavatam, 3.5.443)

When Sriman Nityananda Prabhu visited Khadadaha and then came to Saptagram (Adisaptagram, the birthplace of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami), He stayed at the house of Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur, on the bank of the Triveni River, a confluence of three rivers – Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati. At that time, Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur was a servant of the king of Naihati, but despite his material occupation and position, he received Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy.

Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur was a householder, and he established a sad-bhuj (six-armed) Deity of Gauranga, next to Him are Nityananda and Gadadhar, and on another altar, he established Sri Sri Radha-Govinda. These Deities are still there.

Later, Jahnava Devi, Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s sakti, or wife, as we commonly say, also visited the house of Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur, but at that time he had already left this world.

Today is the day when Sri Uddharan Datta Thakur left his body…

When Mahaprabhu was in Nabadwip, before He took sannyas, a devotee called Sri Vakreshwar Pandit stayed with Him. Later, when Mahaprabhu left Nabadwip to take sannyas, Sriman Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Vakreshwar Pandit accompanied Him. When Mahaprabhu stayed in Puri, Sri Vakreshwar Pandit also stayed there. The birthplace of Sri Vakreshwar Pandit is in Guptipara, near Kalna. Sri Vakreshwar Pandit always danced during Mahaprabhu’s kirtans – he was a great singer and dancer. When Mahaprabhu went to Ramkeli to meet with Srila Sanatan Goswami and Srila Rupa Goswami, Sri Vakreshwar Pandit was with Him.

You know the story of Devananda Pandit’s offence. One time, Devananda Pandit was giving a class when Srila Srivas Pandit suddenly became overwhelmed with transcendental feelings and began to show ecstatic mood. Some followers of Devananda Pandit did not like it, so they kicked Srivas Pandit out from that assembly, and Devananda Pandit did not stop them. This is the offence Devananda Pandit made to Srivas Pandit. Some time later, Sri Vakreshwar Pandit said to Devananda Pandit that he had made a grave mistake and told him to ask Srivas Pandit forgiveness – then his offence would be removed. Devananda Pandit did not make a direct offence to Srivas Pandit, but the offence was committed through his followers. As a result of that offence, Mahaprabhu always ignored Devananda Pandit and did not give him any mercy. One time, Sri Vakreshwar Pandit came to Nabadwip and was chanting and dancing at the house of one of the devotees. Devananda Pandit was there too, and when Sri Vakreshwar Pandit also started to show his transcendental mood, Devananda Pandit picked up a stick and started to check the crowd – he told people not to crowd so much around Sri Vakreshwar Pandit and not to disturb his dancing and chanting. When Sri Vakreshwar Pandit sat down after the kirtan, Devananda Pandit paid obeisance to him, and Sri Vakreshwar Pandit bestowed his mercy upon him – he advised him to go to Srivas Pandit and apologise to him. Devananda Pandit did so, and later, when Mahaprabhu came to Nabadwip from Puri to see His mother and the Ganga, Mahaprabhu finally bestowed His mercy on Devananda Pandit.

As I have mentioned earlier, Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur also says in Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata that Sri Vakreshwar Pandit stayed with Mahaprabhu when He was in Nabadwip, and when Mahaprabhu went to Puri, Sri Vakreshwar Pandit also came there and stayed with the Lord. There are many pastimes of Sri Vakreshwar Pandit described in the scriptures. In Vraja-lila, Sri Vakreshwar Pandit is a gopi called Tunga-vidya. Sri Vakreshwar Pandit also composed a book called Sri Sri Gaura-Krishnodaya that was later reprinted by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur.

Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur writes:

jivera bhagye avani aila gaura-hari
bhuvana mohana rupa sonara putali
harinamamrta diya karila chetana
kali-yuge chhila yata jiva achetana
nityananda advaita acharya gadadhara
sakala bhakata majhe saje pahubara

‘Fortunately for all jiva souls, Sri Gaura Hari came to this world assuming the form of a beautiful golden doll that enchants the entire world. He bestowed the nectar of the Holy Name on all unconscious jiva souls of Kali-yuga and brought them to consciousness. The Lord comes in the garb of Nityananda, Advaita Acharya, Gadadhar and all the associate devotees.’

Sri Vakreshwar Pandit was a close associate of Sriman Mahaprabhu. During the festival of Sri Ratha-yatra in Sri Puri Dham, Mahaprabhu divided all the devotees into four groups, and Sri Vakreshwar Pandit was the leader of one of the groups. He was a great dancer, as I have already said. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami also glorified Sri Vakreshwar Pandit in very beautiful words:

vakresvara pandita—prabhura bada priya bhrtya
eka-bhave chabbisa prahara yanra nrtya

‘Vakreshwar Pandit is a very dear servant of the Lord. He can dance unwaveringly for seventy-two hours.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.10.17)

Sri Vakreshwar Pandit could chant and dance for three days at a time without stopping. Such are the glories of Sri Vakreshwar Pandit…

(7/7) Best Turn In Life

[A devotee mentions that they intend to arrange some online cooking classes and ask His Divine Grace for some general guidance.]

All the devotees know how to cook, what is there to it? When Nityananda Prabhu is in Ekachakra, He likes roasted and mashed eggplant (begun pora), and when Nityananda Prabhu comes to Venezuela or Colombia, He takes arepa. What is the problem? Nityananda Prabhu’s taste is different – He can take different things from everybody and from everywhere, as long as you cook it with heart. The main thing is to serve with heart – do not do anything artificially. When you do any service or cook anything, you must do it with heart, then it will be good for everybody, and then Mahaprabhu, Krishna or Nityananda Prabhu will be happy – They will enjoy, and gurudev will also enjoy. This is the main advice how to do everything. It is necessary for us to understand this.

[Addressing one of the devotees looking uncomfortably cold.] Oh, is it too cold there? Then come here!

Devotee: But it is not possible to get the visa to India now…

Oh… You are talking about the material visa, but the transcendental visa is not necessary – you have already got your transcendental visa from gurudev, that is sufficient. You can start walking then. Why not? Six months, and you will come here. What is the problem? [His Divine Grace laughs.]

In one–two months, there will be election here in Bengal – many politicians are gathering so many meetings and events without any restrictions, so our festival will not be stopped this year. Our Gaura Purnima will take place, and the parikrama will be five days starting from this year.

I have not heard from ** for many days, but I received a message that he had left home. It is not a problem. If he wants to live a brahmachari life, what is the problem? [Addressing the mother of the boy.] This is why you are a little sad, is it not? You know, when I joined Krishna consciousness, my family also said, ‘Oh, that boy has lost his mind! He is crazy!’ They did not even want to see my face. I heard recently that my mother’s sister had died (last time I saw that lady was thirty-five years ago). I was going to Ekachakra yesterday and decided to find her house. I had actually forgotten the address, but anyhow I managed to find a shopkeeper who told me the address because that family are big landlords, very rich people, so it was not difficult to find them. When I came there yesterday, I saw that lady had six sons and two daughters, and they were doing the last rites for her. They have a very big family now – there are maybe more than a hundred people in that family. I saw them and said, ‘What to do? Krishna will take everybody one day.’ Before, they used to say I had become crazy, but now they understand that I had not made a mistake. I left my family and came to help Gurudev – I made no mistake.

Before, ** wore saffron-colour clothes, he was a brahmachari, and I wanted to make him the leader of the London Temple, but now he has gone to family life. He is still serving as much as he can, but he cannot serve full-time – he can serve maybe 30–50%. But those who become brahmacharis and sannyasis can give their whole life forever, until death, for service, and their mothers and fathers should be proud of them – their son has become a sannyasi! Gurudev also said that when a son becomes a sannyasi, twenty-one generations become liberated from all illusory bondage and go to Vaikuntha. Your son is now sixteen years old, maybe going on seventeen – for now you can tie him with a rope, but once he turns eighteen, you cannot tie him anymore, he will be free. I am praying to Gurudev that this boy will be the next leader of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in London. I will be very happy with that. Try to understand that.

When I meet with devotees, I know they have a family life, they have daughters, sons, and I come to beg from them, but I do not beg them just for some money – sometimes I beg them, ‘You have more than one child, can you give me one of them forever for service?’ When mothers hear it, they become afraid, ‘If I give him my son, what if he never gives him back to me?’ Some may even curse me, ‘If Maharaj dies, I can get my son back!’ And there is another problem also. Once, I asked **, ‘You have six sons, can you give one son to me?’ She did – she gave me a good boy, but then somebody stole my son. When one brahmachari left (got married), Gurudev also said, ‘They have stolen my son.’

One time, when I was in Russia, I met one of the main devotees there (that was then, I do not know what she is doing now). That devotee had many children, I think she had just had her third child at that time, and there was not much of an age gap between the children – one year difference, I think. She was very disturbed by them and struggled to manage them. I was quite foolish and naive at that time, so I asked her, ‘Why are you making so many babies??’ And she said, ‘Oh, I am making brahmacharis for you!’ After that, I have not got any news from her, I do not know where she has gone. That was in 2000, so twenty-one years have passed, all the babies have grown up and must be twenty-one, twenty-two years old now. If saw her, I would ask her, ‘You promised that you were making brahmacharis, so where are my brahmacharis??’

It is necessary for some devotees to leave their family and join full-time – it is necessary for the future of Srila Guru Maharaj’s Mission, Srila Gurudev’s Mission. If Srila Sridhar Maharaj had not got Gurudev, how would he have made this Mission? How would Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s Mission have been maintained, expanded and continued? After that, Gurudev also eventually got me – no doubt, I am a fallen soul, but Gurudev got me as his servant, and I am also trying to find somebody who will come to carry on this Mission. Unfortunately, not every mother will agree to give her son for the service of the Lord, such is the Indian culture here – they can give their house, they can give their land, but they will not give their child for service. It is very unfortunate.

Now ** and ** must be afraid thinking when I will ask for their son for service. You must understand that this boy will be the next generation in our Mission, and I am very, very happy with his mood. I am very, very happy with his humility, tolerance, and giving honour to others. It is a very happy mood. **’s sons are also good, but I see their mood now, and I understand that they want to be householders. When I see devotees, I can understand their mood, and I can detect where their mood is going. ** was a very simple-hearted boy, the other boy too, but now I see that the way their mood is going they are thinking, ‘If I become a sannyasi or brahmachari, who will take care of me? Who will massage my feet when I become old? I want my wife to massage my feet.’ They are thinking like that…

These are very heavy words, and not everybody can digest them…

When I heard that ** wanted to get married, he told me, ‘Maharaj, if I get married, I can serve you together with my wife. What is the problem?’ Yes, it is not a problem, you can come and join and serve the Mission together. I have no problem with that, but the problem is that now they are doing some cake business in their country instead. Why is it necessary to make cakes? For their baby…

It takes great fortune and great sukriti to be able to join full-time and forever. Otherwise, without special fortune, who could have thought that I myself would become a sannyasi? When I was a school boy, I was very naughty – if I saw some person with shaved head putting on tilaks, I used to throw stones at their heads! Even all the village people from my birthplace were astonished, ‘This boy has become a sadhu?! The boy who used to fight for a piece of food in this childhood?!’ Who would have known it?

All right, I am finishing the programme for today. We will try to make a programme next Sunday from wherever we are, it will be good.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
Srila Bhakti Pavan Janardan Maharaj ki jay.
Srila Bhakti Kusum Ashram Maharaj ki jay.
Sripad Bhakti Bandhav Puri Maharaj ki jay.
Sripad Bhakti Nandan Sadhu Maharaj ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Please forgive my offence. I want to see you all again next Sunday. Jay Srila Gurudev. Dandavat.

* * *

￼Line Line12 January 2021

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Uluberia (West Bengal)

Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/14) What Is Surrender?

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’

svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari’

‘To bestow His mercy to jiva souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Lord Sri Krishna accepted the heart and halo of Srimati Radharani and came in this Age of Kali together with all His associates who participated in His pastimes in Dvapar-yuga. In Dvapar-yuga, Krishna took up weapons and destroyed demons, but in Kali-yuga, He takes the heart and halo of Srimati Radharani (garbs Himself in the madhura-rasa mood) and appears in this world manifesting His audarya-lila, magnanimous pastimes.

krsna-varnam tvisakrsnam sangopangastra-parsadam
yajnaih sankirtana-prayair yajanti hi su-medhasah

‘In this Age of Kali, intelligent souls will always worship Sri Gaurasundar through sankirtan-yajna (the sacrifice of chanting the Holy Names). He appears as dark-complexioned (Krishna) but with a non-dark, or golden, halo (couched in the heart and halo of Sri Radha). Together with His associates, He searches for Krishna by chanting His Holy Names. His limbs (anga) are Sriman Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Advaita Prabhu; His accessory limbs (upanga) are Srivas Acharya and all pure devotees; His weapons (astra) are the words of the Holy Name; and His associates (parsada) are Sri Gadadhar, Sri Svarup Damodar, Ramananda, Sanatan, Rupa and others.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 11.5.32)

His associates are devotees, and His weapons are khol, karatal and mridanga. Armed with these weapons, the Lord wandered in this world:

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’

svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari’

‘To bestow His mercy to jiva souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

He made His advent in this world together with all His associates from Dvapar-yuga, and, going house to house, He told everyone:

jiva jaga jiva jaga gorachanda bale
kata nidra yao maya-pisachira kole

‘Sri Gorachand says, “Wake up, souls! Wake up! How much longer will you sleep in the lap of the witch Maya?”’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Out of compassionate kindness to all jiva souls, He went house to house, urging everyone, ‘Wake up! Stop sleeping! How much longer will you sleep in the lap of the witch Maya?’ Moreover, the Lord comes here bringing His own abode: Sri Nabadwip Dham, which is non-different from Sri Vrindavan Dham (Goloka Vrindavan). What does He give when He comes? He distributes to everyone, door to door, the rarest form of transcendental love for Lord Krishna (Krishna-prema) that even Lord Brahma and Lord Siva have not been able to get.

Despite this magnanimity, not everybody was able to get this transcendental love – only those who had the capacity to grasp it could get it. It is not possible to keep water in just any glass: if a glass has a hole in it or is full of other things, then no matter how much water you pour into it, it will not stay inside (all water will spill out). So, those who are proud, thinking, ‘I know everything, I have understood everything’, are not able to accept transcendental knowledge. If you have ego (‘I understand it better than others!’) and you do not have humility, you will not be able to understand these things. Srila Guru Maharaj sometimes told a story about a sadhu who stayed on his own in a small cottage – he would cook something, offer bhoga, and take prasadam. One day, some boy became curious to know what kind of knowledge that sadhu had.

When you come to a sadhu, what should be your mood?

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant inquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

It is necessary to have surrender. There are six kinds of surrender (saranagati):

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Dainya’ means being humble, considering yourself lowly and bereft, poor. ‘Atma-nivedan’ means surrendering yourself, submitting yourself. ‘Goptritve-varan’ means to accept the Lord as your maintainer, your guardian. ‘Avasya-raksibe Krsna’ means to accept that Krishna is the protector. ‘Bhakti-anukula karyera svikara’ means to do what is favourable to devotion, and ‘bhakti-pratikula bhava varjanangikara’ means to reject what is not favourable to devotion.

You must accept what is favourable and, at the same time, reject what is not favourable. When you drink milk, you get vitamins, but if you at the same time smoke tobacco or cigarettes, all the vitamins from milk will be destroyed. Suppose you are doing a fire sacrifice – if you put one spoon of ghee and one spoon of water into the fire, you cannot make a fire sacrifice like this. When you do a fire sacrifice, you must put only ghee into the fire. If you do something that is good for your health and at the same time do something that is harmful for your health, you will not get any result. Many people say, ‘I chant the Holy Name, so all difficulties and results of my actions are dissipated.’ This is called ‘sinning on the strength of the Holy Name’ (‘Nama bole papachar’): it is one of the offences to the Holy Name. If you chant the Holy Name thinking that you can sin and when you chant the Holy Name all sins will be removed, then it is an offence against the Holy Name. It can never be the Holy Name. For example, shopkeepers at the market have to lie the whole day – they sell ghee mixed with dalda (vegetable oil) or mustard oil mixed with rice oil. You know, there is oil that costs 62 rupees a litre, and there is oil that costs 128 rupees a litre. I asked once at the market why there is a difference of 66 rupees, and I was told that half of the cheaper oil is rice bran oil, that is why it is cheaper. There are such mix-ups in this world – not everything is of the same purity. Actually, it is rare to find unalloyed things.

suddha-bhakata-charana-renu,

bhajana-anukula

bhakata-seva, parama-siddhi,

prema-latikara mula

‘The dust of pure devotees’ feet is favourable to devotion. Serving the devotees is the supreme fulfilment and the root of the creeper of divine love.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to accept that which is favourable and reject that which is unfavourable. You cannot do what is unfavourable because it will not give you any result. You think you can chant the Holy Name and all sins will go away, but if you chant with this idea in mind, this is ‘Nama bole parachar’ (sinning on the strength of the Holy Name).

So, I have told you what surrender (saranagati) is: (1) humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting the Lord as your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.

(2/14) Proper Recipient for Proper Taste

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant inquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

So, pranipat is surrender (six types), and pariprasna means honest enquiry. Honest enquiry is not asking ‘How are you?’, ‘Where do you live?’ Honest enquiry means five questions: (1) ‘Who am I (ke ami)?’ (2) ‘Why am I suffering (kene amaya jare tapa-traya)?’ (3) ‘How can I get benefit (kise hita haya)?’ (4) ‘What is the ultimate goal in life (sadhya vastu ki)?’ (5) ‘How can I attain this goal (sadhya vastu ki korle paowa yaya)?’ First, it is necessary to know who you are. Those who forget who they are – who do not know their real identity – think that they are this body. If you think you are his body, it means you have not got the knowledge of the self. Identifying yourself with the body is ignorance. You say, ‘My name is so-and-so’ but this is not who you are – this is only a name. Your real identity is that you are a soul and an eternal servant of Krishna (‘jiva nitya Krsna-das’).

‘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)

Illusion attacks as soon as you forget that you are an eternal servant of Krishna. We are always servants of the Lord. We are not servants for one–two hours only – it is not like we will chant and give class for one or two hours, we will remember that we are the Lord’s servants or menial workers, and the rest of the time we live with ‘I, I, I’ (engrossed in ourselves).

diksa-kale bhakta kare atma-samarpana
sei-kale krsna tare kare atma-sama

‘Devotees submit their entire being when they take initiation. At this time, Krishna accepts them as His very own.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.192)

You surrender yourself when you take initiation, but after that you forget everything. Taking initiation means being admitted to a school – your education does not end there. Do you think students get school certificates just by being admitted to a school? They do not. They must first study for ten years, then they take the exams, and then only they get a certificate (if they pass the exams). Exams show how much you have been studying (or not studying) for ten years – whether you studied 45%, 35%, 60%, 80% or 90%. Therefore, once admitted to a school, it is necessary to study. What does studying mean in spiritual life? It is explained by Srila Sanatan Goswami.

There is sambandha (relationship), abhidheya (the means to the end), and prayojan (the goal). The Deity of sambandha is Madan-Mohan, the Deity of abhidheya is Govinda, and the Deity of prayojan is Gopinath. ‘Ei tina thakura gaudiyake kariyachena atmasat – these three Deities have captured the hearts of Gaudiya Vaishnavs’ (Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.1.19). You can see that there are these three Deities (Madan-Mohan, Govinda and Gopinath) installed in most places. Abhidheya, the means to the end, is sravan and kirtan. If you do not hear first (sravan), you will not be able to understand anything. It is necessary to listen well, with your heart and soul. I have told you that if you have holes in a glass, you cannot keep water in it – all water will fall through the holes. In the same way, if your heart is full of other things, full of dirty things, then where will you keep the Lord?

I began telling you the story about a sadhu who lived on his own and practised Krishna consciousness. Curious to know what kind of knowledge that sadhu had, some naughty man came to that sadhu to test him. He did not come to him with a surrendered mood, but the main thing is that it is necessary to be surrendered.

Surrender is the first rule in devotion – you must first of all surrender, submit yourself at the lotus feet of the Lord and gurudev. If you think, ‘I know a lot’, then it is the end of talk – you will not know anything, all your attempts to learn anything or to teach you anything will be in vain.

So, when the man came to the sadhu, the sadhu gave him a chair to sit on and put some old table next to him (the sadhu was a poor man, so he had only simple things). On the table, the sadhu put a glass of sherbet (sweet or flavoured water) – he had a habit that when anyone came, he would give the guest some water or sherbet. Then, the man, sitting on the chair and swinging his leg in the air, said, ‘Listen, sadhu, I have come to you for knowledge, can you give me some?’ The sadhu thought, ‘What knowledge does he want to get from me? He thinks he already knows everything, more than me. Even if I try to teach him, will he understand anything?’ So, he decided to teach the man a lesson. He brought some water and poured it into the glass of sherbet on the table – the glass was already full, so when he poured water into it, that water mixed with sherbet spilled over. The man came wearing nice pants and a shirt, and as the water flowed down the table, he got all wet – he cried, ‘You are a fool! You have spoilt my new clothes!’

‘Yes, I did it on purpose,’ explained the sadhu.

‘What do you mean?’ the man asked, puzzled.

‘You are full of knowledge up to your head – where will I put knowledge into you? You have seen just now – I poured water, and everything got spilled. So, if I give you knowledge, everything will spill over, nothing will stay in your head.’

If somebody thinks, ‘I know everything, I have understood everything’, this is a dead end.

We chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra every day, and whenever we hear Hare Krishna chanted somewhere, we go there to listen to it. You think, ‘What is the problem? It is the same Holy Name, it is the same kirtan as we chant!’ It is actually not so. The glory, the taste, the beauty of the Name is different. Somebody chants one lakh (100,000) Holy Names, somebody chants two, three, four lakhs – they chant the same Holy Name, but is there taste? Where does that taste take them? First, taste must come. If you eat a piece of sugar and do not feel its sweetness, then you can understand that you are ill. You can often see that sometimes people do not feel like eating anything – they try to eat, but they cannot – it means that the person has a disease. So, if you chant the Holy Name and do not feel its taste, then you can understand that there is some disease in you: kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy), rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (desire for enjoyment through eyes, tongue, nose, ears, skin), kanak, kamini, pratistha (desire for money, women, fame), avidya, asmita, raga, dvesa, abhinivesa (ignorance, false identification, misdirected love, aversion to anything that goes against your enjoyment, being unable to give up unfavourable habits). Those who are full of these diseases will not feel any taste for chanting the Holy Name – they will not like chanting the Holy Name.

Always remember this.

(3/14) Highest Stance

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya

kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya be merciful to me? When will I reach the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We have a chaitya-guru in our hearts, and when this chaitya-guru gives us the inspiration, we come to our mahanta-guru (we come to our guru and take initiation from him). That is why we pray, ‘When will Sri Chaitanya be merciful to me? When will I get the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet? When will I find my asraya-vigraha (worshippable embodiment of shelter)? When will I be able to accept the shade of the holy feet of Vaishnavs? When will I be able to take shelter of a bona fide guru? When will Chaitanya be merciful to me – when will my chaitya-guru bring me to the Lord?’

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘When will I give up all ego?’ I think, ‘This is my house’, ‘This is my room’, ‘This is my son’, ‘This is my family’ – when will all this leave me?

‘asakti-rahita’, ‘sambandha-sahita’,

visaya-samuha sakali ‘madhava’

‘When you are free from material attachment and establish relationship with the Lord, then you will see that everything around you is Lord Madhav Himself.’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’ When will I be able to pay obeisance to devotees? When will I be able to think, ‘Prabhu, I am your slave’?

gala-vastra krtanjali vaisnava-nikate

dante trna kari’ dandaiba niskapate

‘I will stand before a Vaishnav sincerely, with a cloth around my neck and joined palms, holding a straw between my teeth.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When will I be able to come with all humility (with a cloth on my neck, joined palms and a straw in my teeth)? Srila Sanatan Goswami Prabhu and Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu were chief ministers serving emperor Hussein Shah, but when Mahaprabhu came to Ramkeli, both of them came to Him with straws between their teeth, like cows, ‘Prabhu, we are your cows, dogs, goats – whatever You may call us.’ They came to Mahaprabhu with straws between their teeth! Will we ever be able to do that? To stand with all humility (with a straw in our teeth), with all sincerity? This is very beautiful. ‘When will I take a straw between my teeth and stand before You, my Lord? I will stand before You without any duplicity.’ Most of us are duplicitous: externally, we show we are sadhus, but internally, we have another mood. We are merely disguised as sadhus. There are a lot of such disguised sadhus in this world. You may be dressed as a sadhu, but have you become a sadhu?

Parvati Devi also told Sivji Maharaj, ‘Have you become a gopi or have you only dressed yourself as a gopi?’ One time, dressing himself as a girl, leaving his dreadlocks and arranging his hair beautifully, Lord Siva decided to enter the rasa-lila. Even Laksmi Devi has not got a chance to enter there, but Sivji Maharaj was determined, ‘I will go there.’ At that time, Parvati Devi said to him, ‘Have you dressed yourself as a gopi or have you become one? You are only dressed as one, so how will you enter there?’ Lord Siva replied, ‘I am praying with all my heart to you – please bless me so that I may become exclusively devoted to gopis.’ It is possible to enter the rasa-lila only if you have exclusive chaste devotion (anugatya) to gopis. So, receiving Parvati Devi’s blessing, Sivji Maharaj was able to enter there. Krishna recognised who had come and came to speak to him. However, seeing Krishna in the company of this new gopi, all the other gopis, including Srimati Radharani, became angry, so much so that Radharani left the rasa-lila and went away to a place known as Man Sarovar (‘man’ means pride – She came there, showing Her hurt dignity). Why did She feel hurt? Because when Sivji Maharaj came as a gopi, Krishna had called him Gopeshwar (‘master of the gopis’), but Radharani thought, ‘I am Gopeshwari! I am the head of all gopis. How can some new gopi who has just come be Gopeshwar?’ In the end, gopis caught up with what was going on – they threw off Sivji Maharaj’s clothes and wig. They attacked him, saying, ‘What is this? Have you come to make fun of Radharani?! She has left because of you!’ When the truth came out, Krishna told Sivji Maharaj to leave and stay nearby. Since that time, Gopeshwar has been staying near Vamsivat in Vrindavan…

Therefore, chaste devotion (anugatya) to gopis is everything – there cannot be any spiritual life without anugatya.

(4/14) Cry and Pray

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

gala-vastra krtanjali vaisnava-nikate

dante trna kari’ dandaiba niskapate

‘I will stand before a Vaishnav sincerely, with a cloth around my neck and joined palms, holding a straw between my teeth.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

What will I do next? I will tell the Vaishnav about my unhappiness. Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that if you send a letter to the Lord, you will not get a reply. But if you submit your letter to the Lord’s representative, or delegate (gurudev), then you will get a reply. Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur said that gurudev is the Lord Himself. Moreover, Krishna Himself told Uddhav Maharaj, ‘Acharyam mam vijaniyan. Know that the acharya is non-different from Me.’ Acharya is the one who practises (achar) himself and preaches (prachar), and the Lord says, ‘Know the acharya to be My own self. He is non-different from Me.’ Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur said:

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 so 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, the guru is the Lord Himself, and on the other hand, the guru is the dearmost of the Lord. Who is the dearmost of the Lord? Radharani. Therefore, gurudev is a form of Radharani in madhura-rasa. Alternatively, in sakhya-rasa or vatsalya-rasa, gurudev is non-different from Nitai or Balaram. Krishna and Balaram and Gaura and Nitai are two forms of the same body (eka deha-i, dui rupa): They are one, but to perform Their pastimes, They become two. In either case, gurudev is the Lord Himself, and gurudev is very dear to the Lord. We must address our prayers to gurudev: if you send a letter to gurudev asking about the Lord, he will tell you about the Lord. That is why it is said that it is necessary to make proper enquiry:

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant enquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

Enquiry must be proper, not any nonsense enquiry. Gurudev is the Lord’s close associate. What must you come to tell him? You must come to tell him about your sadness, ‘My Lord, I cannot practise properly.’ ‘Gora pahu na bhajiya mainu: not worshipping Gora, I have been merely dying!’

gora pahu na bhajiya mainu

prema ratana-dhana helaya harainu

visaya-visama-visa satata khainu

gaura-kirtana rase magana na hainu

keno va achhaye prana ki sukha lagiya

narottama-dasa kena na gela mariya

‘I did not worship Gora’s feet, I did not care for the jewel treasure of the divine love and have lost my chance! I always took the deathly poison of the material life and have not become attracted to the ecstasy of Gaura’s kirtan. Why am I still alive? What joy is there in this life? Oh, why did Narottam Das not just die?…’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

We lose the chance to attain the highest transcendental love for the Lord! You must cry and tell this to gurudev…

(5/14) Seeking Respite

kandiya kandiya janaiba duhkha-grama
samsara-anala haite magiba visrama

‘Weeping, I will tell about my miserable life and pray for respite from the fire of material existence.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

How can we get respite from the fire of the material world? We keep coming and going, coming and again, again and again, burning in the fire of the miseries of this world. Today you are born as a dog, tomorrow as a cat, another time as a sheep, hen, human, as a Russian, Indian, Japanese, Bangladeshi, Pakistani. Everyone is born in various situations and families in this world. Even when we were born as a dog or a pig, we were born in some family, and now we are born in a family of humans. You can understand what an agony it is to live in the material world. We keep suffering from all sorts of austerities, difficulties and pain. On top of that, this life is not eternal:

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Do what you have to do, but in the meantime take shelter of the Holy Name. Taking shelter of the Holy Name means taking shelter of the Lord because the Lord and the Lord’s Name are non-different from each other. The Name is Hare Krishna, and He who bears the Name is Krishna. They are the same; there is no difference. Therefore, we must take shelter of the Name and the bearer of the Name (Nama and Nami) and surrender to Their holy feet; otherwise, we will keep coming and going.

kaya bara eli kaya bara geli
tabu tattva na sikhili
nijer matha nije khaili
e dosa dibe kare bhai?

‘Coming and going, coming and going, you never learnt anything! You have been eating your own brain – who will you blame for this, brother?’

Whose fault is it? My own. I have many faults – it is not your fault that I am born in this world and live in this world; the fault is only mine. This world! What is this world like?

‘samsara’ ‘samsara’ kari’ michhe gela kala

labha na haila kichhu, ghatila janjala

kisera samsara ei chhayabaji praya

ihate mamata kari vrtha dina yaya

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base

nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘Time has passed as I have been busy with my material life, and the result is nothing – only garbage. What sort of world is this? It is only a trick, a show. While I affectionately take it as my own, days pass by in vain. My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We never think that we can leave at this very moment. We are making a three-storey house hoping to stay there nicely, but we can leave and never even see that house. I have seen many people end up like that.

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base

nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We never think that we can leave the world this very moment. That is why it is said in the song that we are singing now:

kandiya kandiya janaiba duhkha-grama
samsara-anala haite magiba visrama

‘Weeping, I will tell about my miserable life and pray for respite from the fire of material existence.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We pray, ‘My Lord, when will I get some respite? When will I get some respite from this material world?’ Many of you may think, ‘This life is so difficult, I will commit suicide!’ You think that you can take your life and get some respite, but this is not so. You will get no rest – instead, you will fall into even more suffering because you will get a worse birth. Not only that, until the sraddha ceremony is conducted for you, you will live as a ghost in the ‘no man’s land’. Do you understand what ‘no man’s land’ means? For example, India borders with China and Nepal, and there is a place at the border that both countries have no right over. So, when somebody commits suicide, they stay in such a position – neither in the sky nor on earth – for fourteen days (until the sraddha ceremony is conducted), they roam everywhere in the air, sometimes taking shelter under some tree. After that, they get another body, but they do not get a good body – they have to reap the result of their past actions (karma). They can become insects, spiders, animals, birds or some other species. So, you think that you will get relief from all the pain, but this is a misconception: your pain will only increase.

(6/14) Greatest Choice

suniya amara duhkha vaisnava thakura
ama’ lagi’ krsne avedibena prachura

‘Hearing of my sorrow, the worshippable Vaishnav will ardently pray to Krishna on my behalf.’

vaisnavera avedane krsna dayamaya
e hena pamara prati habena sadaya

‘Lord Krishna is merciful – hearing the Vaishnav’s appeal, He will take pity on this wretched sinner.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When you tell Vaishnavs about your unhappiness and ask them how you can get some respite from it, Vaishnavs will listen to it, and you can get some mercy because they will pray to the Lord on your behalf. However, not everyone turns to the Lord. There is a verse in Srimad Bhagavad-gita:

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)

‘Those who always think about Me, who are devoted to Me, who worship Me, who pay obeisances to Me – such devotees always attain Me. I am attained by those who take shelter in Me with their mind, body and soul. It is such devotees’ prayer that I hear.’ The Lord does not listen to anyone and everyone. Krishna Himself says, ‘I will listen to those who bow to Me, who take Me as their own, who surrender to Me. I do not listen to anyone else. I know only those who know only Me. Vaishnavs do not know anyone else except Me, and I also do not know, do not recognise anyone else except Vaishnavs.’ These are very beautiful words.

So, when Vaishnavs appeal to the Lord on our behalf, Krishna becomes very merciful, and He takes pity on such extremely lowly souls as us because a Vaishnav, or gurudev, prays for us to Him, ‘Prabhu, please give this soul a break from the burning fire of the material world so that they can start practising Krishna consciousness.’

Do you understand the meaning of what I am saying? There is another beautiful verse in Srimad Bhagavad-gita:

api chet suduracharo, bhajate mam ananya-bhak

sadhur eva sa mantavyah, samyag vyavasito hi sah

‘If even a very sinful person serves Me exclusively with devotion, he should be regarded as saintly, for his resolve is perfect.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 9.30)

‘Even if someone is very bad, even if they are worse than the worst – the person may have practised much karma, jnana or anything else – but if they give everything up and worship Me (even if somebody has committed terrible sins, killed others, and so on, but if they have surrendered to Me), then I will know them to be a sadhu because they lead a good life now. I allow such sadhus to hear about Me from My devotees and purify their hearts from all dirt, and then I give them shelter at My holy feet!’

These are very beautiful words. You must read Srimad Bhagavad-gita carefully. Buy a copy – it is a small book, you can carry it with you in a pocket – and read it.

So, this is how ‘satisfied by the Vaishnav’s prayer, Krishna becomes merciful to such a sinner as myself.’

vinodera nivedana vaisnava-charane
krpa kari’ sange laha ei akinchane

‘Bhaktivinod prays at the holy feet of Vaishnavs: “Please take this destitute soul with you.”’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur prays to Vaishnavs, ‘Prabhu, please take me wherever you go.’ If you stay with Vaishnavs, they will take you wherever they go.

vaisnavera avedane krsna dayamaya
e hena pamara prati habena sadaya

‘Lord Krishna is merciful – hearing the Vaishnav’s appeal, He will take pity on this wretched sinner.’

vinodera nivedana vaisnava-charane
krpa kari’ sange laha ei akinchane

‘Bhaktivinod prays at the holy feet of Vaishnavs: “Please take this destitute soul with you.”’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

There is still time to turn. There are two ways. Do you hanker for material love and happiness or do you hanker for eternal happiness? If you want to have money, wealth, houses, cars and enjoy in this material world forever, then you will not get anything else in this world. If you think about money, things, property, wealth, houses, cars or anything else in this world, then you can even come to the doorstep of the highest plane, but you will not be able to enter there no matter how much you practise Krishna consciousness (even if you have taken initiation). I have told you that one does not become a disciple just by taking initiation. If you take initiation and use your gurudev, then this is not initiation.

When you take initiation, you must serve your guru. Serving your guru does not mean massaging his feet – serving your guru means listening to what your guru says and preaching (practising). ‘Prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara: you must preach about the Lord for as long as you have life in this body.’ I hear others say all the time, ‘Oh, it is a lockdown now’, ‘Oh, it is a lockdown now’, but I have not stopped speaking Hari-katha even during lockdowns. My car goes everywhere, and all temples are running as always. Neither lockdown nor anything else can stop me. I went for preaching before, and I am preaching now, too. I give classes online, and I also go outside for preaching.

You must understand that the Lord is the master. You say here in Bengal, ‘Janma-mrtyu-biye tin Vidhatar niye.’ There are three things – ‘janma’ means ‘birth’, ‘mrityu’ means ‘death’, and ‘biye’ means ‘marriage’; these three things are not in anybody’s hands – they are only in the hands of the Lord (they come through the Lord). So, death and birth are not under your control – can you say when you will be born or when you will die?

Somebody asked me, ‘Oh, you said during the class yesterday that Vyasadev’s son, Sukadev, had spent twelve years in his mother’s womb, refusing to come out because he did not want to be attacked by the illusory environment, and when he finally appeared, he ran to the forest. How can it be possible?’ The day before yesterday, a cow at our Nrisingha Palli temple gave birth to a calf, and when the calf was born, it stood up and began to play around within just half an hour. If a calf can stand right after birth, then why cannot Sukadev Goswami, the son of the great sage Vyasadev, do that? It is necessary to think about these things. When people have children, they start standing up or walking after two years, but it does not take calves, deer and other living entities this long to learn to stand and walk…

(7/14) Nityananda Prabhu’s Mercy

Sri Nityananda Prabhu is so merciful! It is said about Him in the scriptures:

uttama, adhama, kichhu na kare vichara
ye age padaye, tare karaye nistara

‘Nityananda Prabhu does not judge who is good and who is bad: He saves anyone who falls before Him.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.208)

He does not consider whether one is high or low, whether one is born in a noble family or a lowly family, or anything else – Nityananda Prabhu rescues anyone who falls at His feet. Such is His mercy! That is why Mahaprabhu told Him:

suna suna nityananda, suna haridasa

sarvatra amara ajna karaha prakasa

prati ghare ghare giya kara ei bhiksa

‘bala krsna, bhaja krsna, kara krsna-siksa’

‘Listen, listen, Nityananda! Listen, Haridas! Make My command known everywhere! Go house to house and beg everyone, “Please chant Krishna’s Name, worship Krishna and practise Krishna’s teachings.”’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavat, 2.13.8–9)

Mahaprabhu said, ‘Go house to house and preach about the Lord, about Krishna!’ and Nityananda Prabhu went to each and every house, urging everyone:

bhaja gauranga, kaha gauranga, laha gaurangera nama re
ye jana gauranga bhaje, sei amara prana re

‘Worship Gauranga! Say Gauranga! Take Gauranga’s Name! Those who worship Gauranga are My heart and soul!’

(Sri Nityananda Prabhu)

This is what He preached about everywhere. You have heard that one day, when He came to Madhai Ghat, Madhai hit Him with a clay bottle from wine. When Haridas Thakur told Mahaprabhu the news, Mahaprabhu became very angry and, calling His Sudarshan chakra (‘Chakra, chakra, chakra!’), ran to the place. When He came, Nityananda Prabhu stopped Him, ‘Prabhu, You have promised that You would not take up any weapons in Kali-yuga. Do not be angry. Madhai hit Me, but Jagai has stood up for Me.’ After that, Nityananda Prabhu prayed to Mahaprabhu with all His heart, ‘Prabhu, You have come to rescue this world. I have never asked You for anything, but today I am asking You: please give Me Madhai as alms.’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘Nitai, when You ask for something, I cannot refuse You.’ Then, Madhai fell at Nityananda Prabhu’s feet, and after that Mahaprabhu embraced him. Do you know what kind of service Mahaprabhu gave Madhai? There used to be no bathrooms in those days, so people would come to pass stool on the bank of the Ganges. Mahaprabhu told Madhai to clean the bank of the Ganges, and Madhai would take a spade and clean the bank from all stool. This is the kind of service he got from Mahaprabhu. That is how that bathing place eventually became known as ‘Madhai Ghat’ or ‘Jagai-Madhai Ghat’ (now the Ganges is dry in that place – the course of the river has changed). This is the meaning of mercy. When you receive service, you receive mercy…

(8/14) Mahaprabhu’s Mercy

There were many instances when Mahaprabhu rescued jiva souls. One time, He rescued Chad Kazi.

Mahaprabhu had divided devotees into groups of dancers and made Vakreshwar Pandit the leader of one of those group (He would also engage him similarly at the Ratha-yatra festival). One day, when Vakreshwar Pandit came out to chant kirtan in Mayapur, Nabadwip, Chad Kazi broke one of the mridangas, prohibiting anyone to chant Hindu kirtans. The devotees became scared and came back to their homes. Later, they asked Mahaprabhu, ‘What should we do, Prabhu? Shall we stop kirtan then?’ Mahaprabhu said, ‘Never! There were four groups today, so tomorrow you must go out in a hundred groups! You will all go first, and I will come behind you.’ The next day, everyone came out with kirtan again, and Mahaprabhu told them to first go to the house of Chad Kazi…

In the meantime, something peculiar happened that night when Mahaprabhu gave the order. Lord Nrisinghadev came to Chad Kazi in a dream and jumped on his chest, pressing his chest so much that Chad Kazi could not breathe! When Chad Kazi opened his eyes, he saw the furious form of Nrisinghadev. Lord Nrisinghadev said, ‘You are done with! Today I will crush your chest in the same way that you broke My mridanga!’ Chad Kazi became so scared that he closed his eyes, and the Lord then said, ‘Oh, so you are scared? Since you are scared, I will spare you today, but because you broke the mridanga, I will destroy your entire lineage.’ Saying this, Lord Nrisinghadev disappeared, and Chad Kazi sat up on his bed, speechless.

So, when devotees came out with kirtan the next day, ministers asked Chad Kazi, ‘Are you not going to say anything? They have come out again!’ Chad Kazi said, ‘No, I will not go there. You can send somebody to stop them.’ Somebody went to try to stop the kirtan, but suddenly that man’s body caught fire and his beard had all got burnt!

At night, Mahaprabhu came with the sankirtan party to Chad Kazi’s house. Chad Kazi was at home, sitting behind closed doors. While devotees continued chanting and dancing outside his house, Mahaprabhu came to the door and called out to Chad Kazi.

‘What is this, Kazi?’ He said. ‘Is this your religion? Is it written in your Quran that if a guest comes to your house, you must close the door and sit in your room?’

‘Prabhu, I thought You had come angry, so I got scared and closed the door,’ Chad Kazi explained, opening the door cautiously.

‘What has happened? There has been kirtan chanted for so long, why have you told us to stop it now? We are chanting now here, are you not going to stop it?’

‘Can I say something to You privately?’ Chad Kazi asked, looking around.

‘Why privately?’ Mahaprabhu asked. ‘Everyone here are My own men, you can speak in front of them.’

‘All right… That day when I ordered them to stop kirtan, Nrisinghadev grabbed my chest,’ said Chad Kazi, opening his shirt. ‘You can see His claw mark on my chest. Not only that, one of my men’s face got burnt when he went to try to stop kirtan. That is why I do not try to stop Your Harinam anymore.’

‘Oh, you have said the Name of Lord Hari!’

‘What? I have?? Haram! Haram!’

‘See? Now you are chanting the Name of Rama! Ha Ram! You have become rescued!’

In the end, Chan Kazi promised Mahaprabhu, ‘I will never stop kirtan again, and I promise You that if anyone in my family does not chant kirtan, I will disown them.’

From that time, Chad Kazi became a devotee. You know that when we go for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, we always come to the samadhi of Chad Kazi in Simantadwip.

(9/14) His Things, for His Service

[His Divine Grace resumes the class after kirtan.] 

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim

yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy and aspiring to serve him; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all assembled guru-varga and godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees and all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet and praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

It is not always that we get an opportunity to hear Hari-katha and kirtan. It is said that a bad day is not a cloudy day – a bad day is the day without Hari-katha. If any day we do not get a chance to hear about the Lord, to hear Hari-katha and kirtan, this day is a bad day for us.

I have told you earlier today that taking initiation is not the final destination. If you take initiation and receive the mantra, it does not mean that you have got everything. After taking initiation, you must hear Hari-katha (practise sravan) and practise spiritual life (do kirtan).

adau sraddha tatah sadhu-sango ‘tha bhajana-kriya

tato ‘nartha-nivrttih syat tato nistha ruchis tatah

athasaktis tato bhavas tatah premabhyudanchati

sadhakanam ayam premnah pradurbhave bhavet kramah

‘First, there is faith; then, saintly association and practising life. After that, unwanted habits gradually go away, spiritual life becomes stable, and spiritual taste comes. Then comes attachment, feeling and, finally, transcendental love. This is how love for the Lord comes to those who practise Krishna consciousness.’

(Sri Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhuh, 1.4.15–16)

There are nine stages of devotion: first is faith (sraddha), then good association (sadhu-sanga), then you must practise (bhajana-kriya), after that your offences will gradually go away (anartha nivritti), your faith will grow stronger (nistha), then taste will come (ruchi), followed by attachment (asakti), love (bhava) and strongest love (prema). We must follow these steps of devotion in our life. It is also said in the scriptures: sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord).

When you come to do Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, you must know about the nine islands of Nabadwip. Nabadwip is comprised of nine (nava) islands (dvipa), and each of the nine kinds of devotion (sravanam, kirtanam, etc.) resides on a corresponding island. For example, our Nrisingha Palli temple is situated on the island of Godrumdwip, it is the domain of kirtan (chanting the Lord’s Holy Names); Simantadwip is the island of sravanam (hearing about the Lord); and Koladwip, where our old temple stands, is the domain of pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet).

First, it is necessary to have sukriti. There is jnata-sukriti (conscious spiritual merit) and ajnata-sukriti (unconscious spiritual merit). Dal, flowers and other items are not used for the service of the Lord in every house. There are many flowers sold at the market – there are flowers that are bought for sraddha places (ceremonies for the deceased), some flowers are bought to be placed on dead bodies, some flowers are used at birthday parties, and so on, but here, flowers are used for decorating the temple and to make garlands for devotees and the Lord. This is how (ajnata) sukriti comes – although flowers do not realise it, if they are offered to the Lord, they get some benefit. For example, people make sweets from milk, but are all sweets offered to the Lord? If some sweets are offered to the Lord, then the cows that gave that milk will get some unconscious sukriti. Sukriti means that everything is His, and everything must be used for His service (‘tad vastu tadiya sevaya: His things – for His service’).

For example, somebody gave two hundred rupees for the temple in Uluberia yesterday – they think they gave that money, but they only used the Lord’s money for the Lord’s service. Because people are overcome with ego, they use money for their own enjoyment, but when they give something for the Lord’s service, they get benefit. They think they give their own money, but what they actually do is they worship the Ganges with the Ganges water (Ganga jal Ganga puja): you are serving the Lord with the Lord’s things. This is the rule. Everything that is created in this world – trees, plants, insects, worms, animals, birds, mosquitos, flies – exists for the service of the Lord. Everything is used in and is meant for the Lord’s service in one way or another. The Lord has created everything for one purpose or another, but not every living entity gets a chance to serve the Lord. This is what sukriti is. Sukriti is the very first step on the path of spiritual progress.

(10/14) Faith Is Not Idle

After spiritual merit (sukriti) comes faith (sraddha). There are four types of faith: kamala-sraddha (soft, fragile faith), taranga-sraddha (flickering faith), drdha-sraddha (strong faith), sudrdha-sraddha (the strongest faith). The quality of one’s devotion depends on the quality of their faith (sraddha-anusari haya bhakti-adhikari; Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.64).

You can see many people who took initiation a long time ago, but their behaviour and practice are not right; at the same time, somebody may have taken initiation two–four days ago, but they can speak Hari-katha – they can preach and speak about Krishna. You may have taken initiation six–ten years ago, but you cannot do anything because you have not been studying. Just as you will not learn anything if you bunk lessons at school, in spiritual life also, you will not learn anything if you ‘bunk’ your spiritual life – if you do not chant the Holy Name or chant too little, if you do not chant kirtans, and so on. I tell everyone: you must chant the Holy Name on your beads, and you must also remember kirtans by heart. Chant five kirtans in the morning and five kirtans in the evening. I tell this to every single person. Chant the same kirtans every day. Each kirtan has a little different tune, but pick two kirtans in glorification of gurudev, Pancha-tattva, Vaishnav Thakur, Nityananda Prabhu and Mahaprabhu and chant them every morning and every evening.

You can take the kirtan books with you and chant from those books. We have printed pocket-size kirtan books – you can keep it in your pocket and always read it. You can even read it when you are on the train or bus. Sometimes, you go to some place on business and have to wait and sit somewhere – you can read books at this time. You must set aside more time for the Lord.

You must ask yourself: How much time do I spend for the Lord and how much time do I spend on eating, dressing, sleeping, earning money and thinking about enjoyment? How much time do I think about the Lord? You must answer to yourself. There is a saying in Bengali: ‘There are two clerks who are writing your diary (dui kande dui muhuri likhte achhe dairi).’ You do not have to write your own diary (account for your actions)! There is already Chitragupta who is writing accounts of all your days. He notes everything down: whether you chant the Holy Name, how much namabhasa you chant and how much nama-aparadha you make.

It is said in the scriptures that the mouth that chants the Holy Name cannot make vaishnav-aparadha. Therefore, if somebody makes vaishnav-aparadha, their mouth can never chant the Holy Name. Moreover, if one’s gurudev criticises Vaishnavs, you must reject this guru as bogus. This is written in the scriptures. If you read Gaudiya Kanthahara, you will find it there, in the part that describes the glory and nature of the guru. Therefore, you must never criticise others or discuss others. For example, you see somebody steal prasadam – the person who steals is doing wrong, but if you tell others about it, you are doing wrong too, and your fault is even greater. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said this. I wrote about it in Guidance 4, you can get the book and read it. I have written there how you make offences and how you may not be able to progress even if you chant the Holy Name.

Actually, you chant the Holy Name so much, but why cannot you progress in your spiritual life? You must not find faults with others – you must see your own faults. Why cannot you practise? What hinders you? There must be some shortcoming. Where is that shortcoming? You must search and find it yourself. You must find it within yourself: why cannot you progress in your spiritual life?

(11/14) Devotion or Display?

Mahaprabhu warned Srila Raghunath Das Goswami against discussing and criticising others (para-charcha):

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

Serve internally, it is not necessary to show anything to others. Keep your own spiritual life to yourself. Many hang their chanting beads on their necks and proudly show everyone, ‘Look! I have become a devotee!’ It is said in the scriptures that there may be only one devotee of Krishna among a thousand Vaishnavs. Think about it. And we say that we have become devotees of Krishna! People sell beads for ten–fifty rupees at the market, and they will tell you, ‘Buy the beads and chant the Name!’ This is just finger exercise! I have seen many devotees holding and counting their beads and at the same time talking to others. How it is possible to chant the Holy Name like this, tell me? Is it possible to say two things at the same time? That is why Gurudev said that such chanting is not chanting the Holy Name – it is finger exercise.

Srila Sridhar Maharaj also wrote that if you have indigestion, cold or fever, you can go to a homeopathic shop, and they will give you some medicine in white globules that look like sago balls. At the same time, they also sell empty globules without any medicine at the market. If a doctor gives you empty globules, will it help you? It will not because first it is necessary to add medicine to those globules. In the same way, you must take the Holy Name from a bona fide guru – if you buy chanting beads on the street and chant the Holy Name, it can never be the Holy Name: the alphabet may be the same, but such chanting can never be the Holy Name (‘Nama aksara bahiraya bate tabu Nama kabhu naya’; Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 7.1).

People do finger exercise and think this is all to it. Chanting the Holy Name is not only chanting on your beads. You can chant the Holy Name with your mouth also: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. These days, they have even made a counting machine and chant using the machine. Have you seen it? I notice these things, I notice everything…

Practise Krishna consciousness properly. Never criticise or gossip about others. This is our biggest fault. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that if somebody chastises you or speaks bad to you, you must understand that it is not your problem – the person who does it has some problem. The person has a problem, that is why they speak harsh to you or chastise you. There is nothing else to it except this. It is necessary to understand human nature. People get angry sometimes. Why? Anger comes from lust, desires. You think, ‘I will get this thing!’ or ‘I will get one lakh rupees today!’ and if you do not get what you want, you become angry. Somebody thinks, ‘I will become a guru,’ and if they do not become a guru, they become angry and go crazy. Somebody expects others to pay obeisances to them and when it does not happen, the person becomes frustrated and angry. What is this? If you are a Vaishnav, you must pay obeisance to others! Who pays obeisance to you, who does not pay obeisance to you – what is it to you? You must pay obeisance to others! Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘None of them are my disciples. They are all my gurus. When you come to take initiation from me, you actually come to give me mercy. You are not my disciples, you are my gurus. Daso ‘smi: I am your servant.’

If you do not read all these things, where will you learn it from? How will you even know these things?

People stretch out their legs so that others wash them and distribute their prasad to everyone, but when we chant this kirtan, we say with our mouths:

tava nija-jana, prasada seviya,

uchchhista rakhibe yaha

amara bhojana, parama-anande,

prati-dina habe taha

‘Every day I will with great joy have whatever remnants Your devotees leave behind after honouring Your prasad.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We sing, ‘I will take the remnants of your prasad,’ but in practice we do the opposite: we give our remnants to others. Some say, ‘I have become a guru, here, take my prasad.’

We sing this kirtan also:

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When you worship the Lord, your ego must go away. But if your boat becomes too heavy – if you become proud when others give you garlands (when pratistha comes to you as the result) – then one day you will sink. This is how gurus fall down. Those who have acharya-abhiman – who have the ego that ‘I am an acharya! I can teach others!’ – can never be a guru. Those who have acharya-abhiman must fall down and get removed from the Vaishnav line.

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada,
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest”, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You think, ‘I am the greatest of all. I am bigger than anyone else,’ and you give your remnants to others. What is the result? You will become filled with ego, and under the weight of this ego, your boat will sink. That is why it is said that Narayan is the proprietor of kanak (money, wealth), Krishna is the proprietor of kamini (women), and gurudev is the proprietor of pratistha (name and fame). If anyone offers you a garland or pays you an obeisance, you must send everything to your gurudev, then you will not become heavy – you will be submitting everything at the lotus feet of your gurudev, and you will stay light. Do you understand what I am saying?

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada,
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest”, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I will always be a disciple. I will not be a guru – I will not take worship from anyone. When I am going somewhere, people often come and try to stop me, saying, ‘Gurudev, please wait, I am offering my dandavat to you,’ and I say, ‘Sorry, I cannot take your dandavat. If you offer me your dandavat, I will offer it to gurudev. I do not have the right to stand and take anyone’s dandavat.’ I feel I am very lowly, very poor. It is necessary to be very humble. If I think, ‘I have become a Vaishnav,’ then I will not be able to give honour to others – I will think that I am the greatest and start giving my prasad to everyone.

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,

amani na ha’ba ami

pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,

haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(12/14) Example to Follow

In Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala, I wrote about some pastimes of Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj.

One time, an old lady invited Srila Babaji Maharaj to Dhatrigram (a village near Kalna). She told Babaji Maharaj’s disciple Bihari Das, ‘Please come to my house. I will cook and give you prasadam.’ Bihari Das agreed it with Babaji Maharaj and carried him in a basket to the house of that lady. (When Mayapur had just been discovered, Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj, who was 137 years old at that time, went there in a basket, too, and when he arrived at the place, he jumped out of the basket and cried, ‘This is Prabhu’s birthplace!’). On the way to Dhatrigram, some rich man saw Babaji Maharaj and thought, ‘This man’s clothes are all torn… I guess he is so poor that he cannot even buy clothes. Let me give him some money.’ (Babaji Maharaj’s clothes were clean but old and torn – he did not wear a shirt or anything like that; he would only use some cloth for his upper body and some loincloth). The man gave one rupee to Babaji Maharaj, and Babaji Maharaj took it and continued his way. However, after they had walked a few miles, he suddenly told Bihari Das:

‘Turn back! Let us go back to that man!’

‘But why?’ Bihari Das was surprised. ‘That old lady is waiting for us, she wanted to give us some prasad.’

‘We can go there later, first go back to that man.’

‘But why?’

‘You will understand it later. Let us go back now.’

They came back to the house of that man and saw him rubbing oil on his body before taking bath (it was about midday). Srila Babaji Maharaj told Bihari Das to call the man, and when the man came, he told him: ‘Please, take this money back. I cannot tolerate this burden. I cannot chant the Holy Name because of this money! Please take it back.’

After that, they went to the house of the old lady. When they came, the lady said, ‘You are late, so the cooking is all done,’ and asked Bihari Das to offer the bhoga. Then, she seated Srila Babaji Maharaj and Bihari Das and served them prasadam. Srila Babaji Maharaj did not eat much, but he ate whatever she had put on his plate (he did not leave anything on the plate). The old lady was frustrated, ‘Tsk, I have invited Babaji Maharaj, but he has not left any prasad for me! What am I to do now? Let me feed him again!’ Then, she started pushing Srila Babaji Maharaj, ‘Please take some more rice, please take some more!’ Babaji Maharaj tried to refuse, ‘No, no, I do not need anything more. I have finished eating.’ She insisted and forcefully put some rice and subji again on his plate. Then, Srila Babaji Maharaj understood what was happening, ‘Oh, I have understood your plan.’ What did he do then? He again ate everything that was on his plate, and this time he also ate the plate! The lady was taken aback, ‘Oh no! What have I done!’ she thought. ‘I have made an offence – because of me, Babaji Maharaj got so much disturbance!’ Seeing what had happened, Bihari Das promised, ‘Prabhu, I will never take such invitations again!’

Such was Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj. These pastimes show the symptoms of a Vaishnav. It is necessary to practise these things in your life; otherwise, you will not get any result.

(13/14) Shelter of Sri Guru’s Mercy

When we have some problem, we run to tell about it to gurudev. For example, our leg hurts, and we come to complain… but have you heard about Srila Gauri Das Pandit?

Srila Gauri Das Pandit had a disciple called Chaitanya Das (later, his name changed, and he became known as Hriday Chaitanya). Sri Gauri Das Pandit’s temple is in Kalna, and the Ganges is about one–two kilometres from there. One day, Sri Gauri Das Pandit told Chaitanya Das, ‘Listen, we need some flowers for the Deities. Can you plant some flowers?’ Chaitanya Das agreed. Materially, he was an absolutely ignorant man – he did not even know how to read or write; but anyhow, he made a flower garden.

His gurudev, Sri Gauri Das Pandit, went to travel and preach in different places soon after that (he was a disciple of Nityananda Prabhu, so his lifestyle was similar to Nityananda Prabhu’s), and when he returned to the temple after a while, he thought, ‘Let me see how the flower garden is.’ When he came to the garden, he was very surprised and pleased: although it was winter time, the garden was full of flowers! Sri Gauri Das Pandit called out to his disciple, ‘Where has Chaitanya Das gone?’ Then he saw him coming from the Ganges with a pot of water on his head. There were no pipe lines or tube wells in those days, so Chaitanya Das would bring water from the Ganges to water the garden. When he saw his gurudev standing there, he put down the clay pot with water and paid a full sastanga-dandavat to him. At this time, Sri Gauri Das Pandit noticed that Chaitanya Das had a large sore on his head, and it was so neglected that there were already some insects in it! He exclaimed, ‘Chaitanya Das, what is this?! Have you not seen a doctor?’ Chaitanya Das said quickly, ‘No, no, everything is all right, nothing has happened.’ Sri Gauri Das Pandit did not let it go – he told him, ‘Come with me at once,’ and took him to an ayurvedic doctor, who cleaned the sore well and applied some medicine. Such was Chaitanya Das.

Chaitanya Das did not know how to read or write, but Sri Gauri Das Pandit made him his successor acharya. All the other ‘learned’ disciples of Sri Gauri Das Pandit opposed this decision and kicked Chaitanya Das out of the temple, so Chaitanya Das went to Vrindavan, where he spent the rest of his life chanting the Holy Name. One time, the Lord came to a big Delhi merchant (marwari) in a dream and said, ‘My devotee is sitting nearby, chanting My Name. Please go and help him.’ The merchant found Chaitanya Das and made a great temple for him. Now, there are many followers descending from Sri Chaitanya Das’s line. His godbrothers may have ousted him from the temple, but they could never oust him from the mercy of his gurudev. That is why we must always think that if we have the mercy of our gurudev, nobody can do anything to us.

Srila Sridhar Maharaj gave a very beautiful analogy in his book Sri Guru and His Grace. Suppose there is a lotus flower growing beautifully in a pond. As long as this lotus flower stays in the soil and water, it looks very beautiful and even the sun cannot harm it. However, once you pluck this lotus and keep it somewhere outside, it will dry up in the sun within just two hours (the sun will scorch and destroy it). This lotus flower is compared to us, the sun is compared to the Lord, and the soil and the water are compared to gurudev – for as long as we stay in the shelter of gurudev, even the Lord cannot do anything to us, but once we leave gurudev’s shelter, we will dry up through the influence of the Lord.

(14/14) Service or Offence?

For as long as we are alive by the wish of the Lord, we must preach about the Lord. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur also preached in this way, and he instructed everyone to chant the Holy Name all together, in each other’s association. If we cannot chant Krishna-kirtan, if we cannot practise Krishna consciousness, then this life will pass in vain. I wrote some very beautiful words in Guidance 4. I will tell you some things from there.

Many of us make a show of taking initiation, but the result of such an ‘initiation’ is that we are not able to genuinely serve our guru. Gurudev said that there are three kinds of devotees: guru-sevi, guru-bhogi and guru-tyagi – somebody serves their guru, somebody enjoys with gurudev’s things, and the third kind of devotees are those who do not listen to what gurudev says and eventually renounce him. Almost 100% people hanker for kanak (money), kamini (women) and pratistha (name and fame), and they see gurudev’s temple as a facility for their enjoyment. Some people use temples to make money – they open temples and sit in their ‘shops’, waiting for some devotees to come and give them money. This is wrong. It is wrong to see a temple as an object of your enjoyment.

Instead of serving the Lord, we often turn the Lord into our menial servant. How? When people come to worship Kali, Durga, Laksmi or Ganesh, they give some bribe to the Deity (some rice, bananas and money) and ask them in exchange, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, varyam dehi, kavitam dehi, sundarim dehi – give me wealth, give me knowledge, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me a poet, give me a beautiful girlfriend, and so on.’ We make the Lord our menial servant in exchange for some pranami (donation), rice, bananas or flowers. We turn the Lord into a bribe-taker. You must come to the Lord to serve Him – do not ask the Lord for anything. Do you understand? You must not ask the Lord for anything.

Serving the Lord and wanting something in return is karma-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with material pursuits). There is also jnana-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with pursuits of knowledge), jnana-sunya bhakti (devotion devoid of pursuits of knowledge), and jnana-sunya suddha bhakti (pure, spontaneous, unmotivated devotion). Karma-misra bhakti means ‘I will give Him something, and I will get something in return.’ This is a shopkeeper–customer relationship. You go to a store, pay some money and get some butter or oil in exchange. In the same way, there are temples where you must pay to see or offer obeisances to the Deities. There are places where, when you come to a guru, you must give him some money. Some make it a rule, ‘When you come to offer obeisances, you must give me a donation.’ Such rules are made by materialist enjoyers. In which scripture is it written that you must give a donation when you come to offer obeisances? When you come to a king, you must give some presentation, so when you come to a guru, you must also give some presentation – this is what (mostly village) people say. I do not like this at all.

We turn the Lord into our menial servant – we turn the object of our worship into a bribe-taker! Think for yourself if this is so or not, and if you do not agree, you can say so. If you have no chaste devotion to your guru, you can never practise Krishna consciousness – whatever you do will be only an offence.

Another thing I want to tell you from Gaudiya Kanthahara is this. Gurudev is the only shelter for a disciple. When one becomes a disciple, they must live in strict adherence to their guru. If somebody thinks, ‘I will live as I please’, then they cannot be called a disciple. A disciple is a person who can tolerate gurudev’s chastisement and who can mould themselves according to their gurudev’s chastisement. If you take initiation, you enter gurudev’s family, or lineage. Gurudev’s wealth is not temples, buildings, houses, money – his wealth is faith, devotion and love. This is what we must aspire for – not buildings, houses or money. If anyone serves their guru with the hope to get his temple, this is not service.

After you take initiation, you must practise sravan, kirtan, archan – you must serve gurudev with love and affection, extracting loving devotion from your very heart (it means that you must serve very intensely). You must always be alert about what makes gurudev happy. Disciples must always be alert and attentive to how they can make their gurudev happy, how they can please their gurudev, and for their guru’s happiness, they must give up everything. When you serve, you must serve for the Lord’s happiness and for your gurudev’s happiness. For example, when you fast on ekadasi, you get some result, and we are told also that if we follow this ekadasi, we will get this result, but this is not why we fast! If we fast on ekadasi, Mahaprabhu becomes pleased, gurudev becomes pleased, the Lord becomes pleased – this is why we fast. Gurudev told me once, ‘Do not ask about the result of ekadasi.’ One time, somebody asked Gurudev, ‘Can you tell about the glory of this ekadasi?’ and Gurudev said, ‘I do not know it. ** [a scholarly devotee] knows it.’ He did not speak about this.

We do not do service in the hope of getting something. Always remember this. Please serve the temple here, and you will get benefit…

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line13 January 2021

Basirhat (West Bengal)

Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/13) An Auspicious Evening

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-sri-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar, Giriraj Govardhan ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Devotee: Jay Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Parivrajakacharya-varya Ashtottara-sata-sri Srimad Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj ki jay. Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol

vande ‘ham sri-guroh sri-yuta-pada-kamalam sri-gurun vaisnavams cha
sri-rupam sagrajatam saha-gana-raghunath-anvitam tam sa-jivam
sadvaitam savadhutam parijana-sahitam krsna-chaitanya-devam
sri-radha-krsna-padan saha-gana-lalita-sri-visakhanvitams cha

‘I worship the holy lotus feet of my initiating and instructing guru as well as all predecessor gurus, all Vaishnavs, Rupa Goswami, Sanatan Goswami, their dear associates Raghunath and Jiva, Advaita Prabhu, Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Krishna Chaitanyadev along with all His near and dear ones, and Sri Radha-Krishna, along with Their associates headed by Lalita and Visakha.’

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

‘I offer my obeisance to Sri Guru, who has opened my eyes, rescuing me from the illusory darkness of ignorance, by applying the salve of knowledge upon my eyes.’

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam
chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam
govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram
vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

‘I offer my obeisance to him who perfectly fulfils his gurudev’s most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all conceivable and inconceivable aspects of Vedic knowledge; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s line; who is known as “Govinda” (Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj); whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.’

devam divya-tanum suchanda-vadanam balarka-chelanchitam
sandrananda-puram sad-eka-varanam vairagya-vidyambudhim
sri-siddhanta-nidhim subhakti-lasitam sarasvatanam varam
vande tam subhadam mad-eka-saranam nyasisvaram sridharam

‘I worship Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, the bestower of all auspiciousness, my only shelter and the master of all renunciates. He is my Lord who possesses a transcendental form, whose face expression is very grave, who is clad in the holy clothes the colour of the newly risen sun. He is an abode of intense joy; the only genuine master whom one can accept and surrender to; and an ocean of divine knowledge of renunciation. He is a repository of holy scriptural teachings and pastimes of the highest devotion and a great follower of Srila Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad.’

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha
patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

vrndayai tulasi-devyai priyayai kesavasya cha
krsna-bhakti-prade devi satyavatyai namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to Vrinda Devi (Tulasi Devi), who is very dear to Lord Kesava, who bestows devotion to Krishna and is known as Satyavati.’

atha natva mantra-gurun gurun bhagavatarthadan
vyasan jagad-gurun natva tato jayam udirayet

‘Before reciting scriptures that can conquer material world, let us offer obeisances to our initiating guru, to the guru who teaches us the meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam, to Sri Vyasadev and all gurus in the universe.’

jayah sa-parikara sri-sri-guru-gauranga-gandharva-

govindasundar-padapadmanam jayastu

‘All glory to the lotus feet of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva-Govindasundar and all Their associates.’

vande rupa-sanatanau raghu-yugau sri-jiva-gopalakau

‘I worship Sri Rupa Goswami, Sri Sanatan Goswami, Sri Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, Sri Raghunath Das Goswami, Sri Jiva Goswami, and Sri Gopal Bhatta Goswami.’

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrnda

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

[Clamour in the audience.] Please do not talk, stay quiet. If some of you are busy cooking, busy with the service to the Lord, then do your service with your hands and only say ‘Krishna’, ‘Krishna’ with your mouth. There must be no other talks.

We are very fortune because we have come today on this auspicious evening. There is a very special day coming very soon…

[His Divine Grace calls a devotee and instructs] Can you get a lau (gourd)? Make some payesh with lau, milk and sugar. Mahaprabhu is leaving Nabadwip tomorrow to take sannyas. Make some payesh from lau and milk, enough for everyone.

On this day today, Mahaprabhu sat together with all the devotees in the evening in Nabadwip. Only four devotees (Vakreshwar Pandit, Mukunda, Nityananda Prabhu, Sachi Mata and maybe Vishnupriya) knew that Mahaprabhu would leave tomorrow in the morning. Nobody else knew about it. Mahaprabhu left early in the morning, at dawn, swimming across the Ganges… He left Sachi Mata and Sri Vishnupriya Devi to save the fallen souls of this world such as ourselves. Do you know what Mahaprabhu told everyone that evening (today)?

‘Do you really love Me or not?’ Mahaprabhu asked them.

‘Yes, Prabhu, we love You,’ devotees answered.

‘If you have any love and affection for Me,’ Mahaprabhu said, ‘then only say “Krishna” – do not say anything except “Krishna”. I am leaving Nabadwip, but My life, My heart and soul will stay with you all. I will always be with you.’ Then, Mahaprabhu turned to Srivas Pandit, ‘Srivas, you must have kirtan at your house every evening. You will see Me come there. You must have kirtan at your house in the evening, every day.’

One time, somebody asked Mahaprabhu, ‘Prabhu, where do You stay?’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘I stay at My mother’s kitchen, in Nityananda’s dancing, at Srivas Angan and at Raghav Bhavan.’ Sachi Mata’s kitchen is where Nimai’s Mother always thinks about Him and cooks for Him – where she thinks, ‘If only Nimai was here, I would cook all these nice things for Him and feed Him!’ Srivas Angan is the house of Srivas Pandit, and Raghava Bhavan is the house of Raghav Pandit in Panihati, where Raghav Pandit’s sister, Damayanti, cooks so many things for Mahaprabhu during the whole year – two months before Ratha-yatra, when Sivananda Sen and Raghav Pandit went to Puri with all the devotees, they would put baskets full of different pickles (achar), kasundi, pitha (cakes), pana (snacks) and many other preparations on their heads and carry them to Mahaprabhu in Puri.

It is a very auspicious day today – to fulfil the desire of His devotee, Mahaprabhu told His mother, ‘Mom, please make some payesh with milk and lau.’ Sachi Mata was surprised, ‘Oh, but it is cold in the evening! Who is going to have lau when it is so cold?’ It was cold because the month of Magh was coming (the end of winter season). Mahaprabhu took sannays on poila magh (the first day of Magh) – He walked to Katwa and took sannyas from Keshav Bharati. Tomorrow He will be walking the whole day – it is forty or forty-five kilometres to Katwa from Nabadwip. He walked the whole day and in the evening appeared at the door of Keshav Bharati’s ashram.

Each of our temples observes this day. It is Sankranti tomorrow, the day when Mahaprabhu left Nabadwip. Before He left, He told everyone:

yadi ama’-prati sneha thake sabakara
tabe krsna-vyatirikta na gaibe ara

‘If you all have love and affection for Me, then do not chant anything else except “Krishna”.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.28.27)

Why does Lord Krishna come in this Kali-yuga? What was His purpose? To rescue the conditioned souls who are ruined by Kali and live in the material bondage of illusion. The souls of the material world always think, ‘This is my house’, ‘This is my room’, ‘This is my son’, ‘This is my relative’, ‘This is my wife’, ‘This is my daughter.’ They always think like this and live in the world of ‘my, my, my’. There is so much illusion… We sing in a kirtan written by Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur:

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya
kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya be merciful to me? When will I come in the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When will I be able to surrender at the holy lotus feet of Vaishnavs and know about the Lord?

(2/13) An Auspicious Birth

We keep on coming to this world again and again. There is a sloka in Vishnu or Padma Purana, you can also find it in Srimad Bhagavatam:

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 Visnu Purana)

We have been born 900,000 times in water – we have been born as all kinds of crocodiles, sharks and fish (there are so many kinds of fish living in water). We have been born 2,000,000 times as all kinds of trees, plants, hills, etc. We have been born 1,100,000 times as all kinds of insects, spiders, frogs, snakes, ants, etc. We have been born 1,000,000 times as birds (you can see so many kinds of birds flying in the sky). We have been born 3,000,000 times as all kinds of animals (cows, goats, sheep, cats, pigs, dogs, etc.). Finally, we have been born 400,000 times as humans in all kinds of countries. You can see how many devotees from different countries are with us also – there are devotees from Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and a few other countries. They all come from so far. Can you imagine where their home is? It is right under the earth (on the other side of the globe). This Earth is like a ball – it is evening here for us now, but it is only early morning for them. It is just the opposite. There are such countries. I have even been to places where the sun never sets – it is light there all day long. We find it hard to stay there because we are used to sleeping during the night, but there it is daytime all day long – the sun only sets for 5–10 minutes and then rises again. When I saw this, I thought, ‘Oh God, what kind of country have I come to?’ I went there at another time also, and that time there was no day – the sun did not rise and it was dark all day long! It is dark there twenty-four hours a day! I have been to that place, and we have a temple there. In this way, we have been born in very different countries before. Having crossed all these 8,400,000 species we have got this human birth here in Bharata-bhumi (India).

durlabha manava janma labhiya samsare
krsna na bhajinu duhkha kahiba kahare?

‘I have got a very rare human life in this world, but I have not worshipped Lord Krishna. Whom will I tell about my misery?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

bharata-bhumite haila manusya janma yara
janma sarthaka kari’ kara para-upakara

‘One who has taken birth as a human being in the land of India should take advantage of this birth by bringing benefit to others.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.9.41)

We have been born here in India – the place where there are so many pure things that you will not find anywhere else in this world, the place where the Lord has come so many times (He appeared here in Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dvapar-yuga and Kali-yuga). This is a pure land. The Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati are here. There is the Themes and many other rivers in other countries, but you can never find there such beautiful things as you find here…

We have been born as human beings in this wonderful land, but we must fulfil the purpose of this birth – we must help others. What does ‘help others’ mean? It means to give people something having got which they will not have any other desires. When people talk about helping others they mostly mean giving somebody ten, fifty or a hundred rupees, giving somebody some food, a blanket in winter or some other material things, but these things are trifle. If you give somebody a blanket, they will again want something a month or two later. If you give somebody ten or fifty rupees, next time you see them they will ask you for a hundred rupees. All these things do not stop desires. But Mahaprabhu has given us such a gift, such mercy that you will be astonished to think about it.

sri-krsna-chaitanya-daya karaha vichara
vichara karile chitte pabe chamatkara

‘Just consider Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mercy! If you do, you will feel astonished in your heart.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.15)

What has the Lord given us coming in this Kali-yuga? Going door to door, He distributed His very own Name to everyone! There is no difference between the Lord Himself and the Lord’s Name, the Lord’s form, the Lord’s pastimes. Mahaprabhu went door to door calling out to everyone,

jiva jaga jiva jaga gorachanda bale
kata nidra yao maya-pisachira kole

‘Sri Gorachand says, “Wake up, souls! Wake up! How much longer will you sleep in the lap of the witch Maya?”’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘You are sleeping in the lap of the witch Maya! Wake up! Worship Krishna!’

uthare uthare bhai, ara ta samaya nai,
‘krsna bhaja’ bale uchchaihsvare

‘Wake up, wake up, brother! There is no time! “Worship Krishna!” they call out loudly.’

(Acharya Vandana)

‘Chant loudly the Lord’s Name, “Krishna! Krishna!”’

(3/13) Turning Back Home

Those who worship Lord Brahma come to live on the planet of Lord Brahma, those who worship Lord Siva come to live on the planet of Lord Siva, those who worship humans come to live on the planet of humans. However, if you worship the Lord, if you return to the Lord – you will never again have to suffer from birth, death, old age and disease. We are born, and we have to die. Do you all believe that? You do, but does anyone of us know when we are going to die? We do not know it, but anyhow one day we will have to leave this world.

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We can leave this world at any moment – this life is temporary – one can be talking, talking and suddenly die. One day we all have to leave. We are saying now, ‘This is my house’, ‘This is my room’, ‘This is my son’, but what is all this for?

gardabhera mata ami kari parisrama
kara lagi’ eta kari, na ghuchila bhrama

‘I toil like a donkey. For whom am I doing this? Still my illusion has not been dispelled.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Who am I struggling so much in this world for? You will have to leave everything once your eyes close. I say, ‘These are my ears’, ‘This is my head’, ‘These are my legs’, ‘These are my eyes’, but who am I? Tell me, who am I? I am a soul (atma). I am not so-and-so Maharaj, I am not so-and-so Das, I am not so-and-so Mallik, and so on. When Mahaprabhu was asked, ‘Who am I?’ He replied,

jivera ‘svarupa’ haya—krsnera ‘nitya-dasa’
krsnera ‘tatastha-sakti’ ‘bhedabheda-prakasa’

‘By its intrinsic nature, the soul is an eternal servant of Krishna. Souls come from the marginal energy of Krishna and are simultaneously one with and different from the Lord.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.108)

I am wearing these clothes today, but tomorrow I will take them off and wear fresh clothes. Everybody is like that. For example, you are wearing this sari today, but tomorrow you will wear another sari. Just as we always keep changing clothes, we also keep changing our bodies. As the saying goes, ‘as you sow, so you reap’: you will get what you deserve according to your actions. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If I kill something in this life, it will kill me in my next life. If I slaughter some animal in this life, that animal will slaughter me in my next life.

I have got a human body in this life, and I have a mother and a father – they are my parents, but they only give me this body, they do not give me that who I am (they do not produce my soul). If our parents could give us the soul, then do you think anyone’s parents or children could die? You call somebody ‘mother’, but she only gave you this body – she did not give you your soul. Who gives life? The Lord. We come from the Lord, and we must go back to the Lord.

The Lord has given you life. You are laughing, moving your hands, doing everything only because there is a jiva soul inside your body. You can move this body only for as long as the jiva soul stays inside it. When the soul leaves the body, the body will be dumped at the cremation ghat.

smasane sarira mama padiya rahibe
vihanga patanga taya vihara karibe

‘My body will be dumped at a crematorium, and birds and insects will heartily enjoy it.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When a mosquito bites you, you kill it, but when this body is taken to the cremation ghat, so many ants, insects and other creatures start eating it. If somebody dies and the person’s children or relatives cannot come for them within two–three days, you know that the body starts decaying…

This world is not eternal! One day you have to leave this world. You must understand that you have come to this world promising to serve the Lord… You stay for ten months and ten days in the womb of your mother, with your head facing down and legs facing up (so much suffering!), and all kinds of insects or worms bite your body. You know that pregnant women often like to eat sour things, but when they eat sour things, it increases the acidity inside and blocks nutrition for the baby. Suffering so much in the womb of our mothers, we begin to cry and call out to the Lord. The Lord does not come to every jiva soul. If somebody has sukriti and a great fortune, the Lord can grant His darshan to the soul. He comes and asks,

‘Why have you called Me?’

‘Prabhu,’ the soul pleads, ‘I cannot stay here anymore! Please take me out of here!’

‘I will, but you will come out and forget Me,’ the Lord warns.

‘No, no!’ The soul is suffering so much that it promises, ‘I will not forget You.’

‘I will give you eyes, will you use your eyes to see My Deity? Will you serve Me with your hands? Will you circumambulate My holy abode with your legs? Will you speak about Me with your mouth?’

The soul says, ‘Yes, I will’, ‘Yes, I will’, but then:

bhajiba baliya ese samsara-bhitare
bhuliya rahile tumi avidyara bhare

‘Forgetting that you came to this world saying, “I will serve You”, you remained engulfed in ignorance.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Ignorance’ (avidya) means Maya. Maya creates everything within this illusory world. Whatever you find here – your father, wife, sons, brothers, sisters, all your so-called near and dear – this is all Maya’s samsara (the family world of illusion).

(4/13) Beyond Perverted Comfort Zone

We live in the world of Maya (illusory environment). It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita:

daivi hy esa gunamayi, mama maya duratyaya
mam eva ye prapadyante, mayam etam taranti te

‘My supramundane trimodal illusory potency (alluring those who are averse to Me) is extremely difficult to overcome. However, this insurmountable potency of Mine can be overcome by those who exclusively surrender to Me.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 7.14)

The Lord Himself says that He has created Maya and it is impossible to overcome her because Maya Devi is very strong – her power comes from the Lord Himself. If you put a piece of iron into fire, it will become hot, and if you heat it a little longer, it will become red – after that, if you touch somebody with that iron, it will burn the person. Iron itself does not burn anybody, but when that iron gets some power from fire, it can burn. In the same way, the Lord has empowered Maya Devi: just as iron gets its power to burn from fire, in the same way Maya Devi gets her power from the Lord and becomes invincible – it is impossible to overcome her. What is the solution then? Lord Krishna says that if anybody takes shelter in Him, if anybody surrenders to Him, then He rescues that soul from Maya – Maya Devi runs away from that soul. When you surrender to the Lord, Maya Devi cannot attack you anymore. When such surrender comes, you will feel, ‘This family is not mine – I am only a security guard here.’ Usually, the father says, ‘I am the head (master) of the family’; when the father dies, his son says, ‘Now I am the master of the family’; after that, a grandson takes over, and so on. The truth is that nobody is the master of anything here. Who is the master? The only master is the Lord. Krishna says in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, ‘I existed before, I exist now, and I will always exist in the future.’

The Lord was, is and will always be there, but you will not – you will have to leave this world. As long as we are in this world, we must use this life wisely. What have we come here for? Have we come here to earn money, to eat and to sleep? Who does not do that? There are so many street dogs – do they get no food? Do they get no place to stay at? You can see so many dogs sleeping in the street – they are all alive somehow, and they also get to eat, sleep and do everything. What is the difference between us and dogs then? You know, you can cook nice things, some nice paneer rasa, but if you tell a pig to eat it, it will never eat it – on the other hand, if you give it a bucket of stool or filth, it will enjoy it so much. You can see elephants: they eat banana trees and live happily. But we struggle so much just to get some nice food. You may have seen camels also. Gurudev says that camels eat certain plants that have thorns – even though their tongues bleed eating the thorns, they still continue eating, they do not stop. Just like camels, even though we too live in this material world and struggle so much, we still do not want to give it up. We cannot leave Maya. No matter how much we suffer, we still think, ‘No, it is OK, I will stay here.’

You think you will go and come back to this world again and again, but there is no guarantee that you will get a human life again. You can see so many dogs, cats, goats, chickens, cows and other animals roaming the streets. What makes you think you will be born as a human in your next life? You have already crossed all these species and got this human body now through some good intelligence, but if you misuse this life and become demoted, you will have to go back to all those species again according to your actions (karma).

Lord Krishna says in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, ‘If somebody thinks about Me, if somebody worships Me, then I will personally take care of them.’ Krishna says, ‘My devotees do not know anyone except Me, and I too do not know and do not see anyone except My devotees.’ Therefore, we must become devotees of Lord Krishna. We must want the mercy of Vaishnavs.

We are prepared to do anything for the sake of some trifle gain, for the sake of some trifle interest, but, at the same time, we cannot give up meat, fish and other bad habits. Do you think that people die if they do not eat meat and fish? You are very attached to your food, but then you know that in other countries, people eat cow’s meat, in China they eat snakes, frogs, dogs, and I have also seen some places where people eat raw pork. Raw! In Nagaland, they eat hundreds of kilograms of dog’s meat, and not only that – they have dogs’ corpses lying in the streets, and people eat dogs’ vomit(!!!). There are such people. You feel repulsed at this, but some people eat dogs’ vomit, and that too here, in this very country. So, if we cannot leave some small trifle things, then how will we get great things?

We must return to the Lord – if we do, we will not have to suffer from birth, death, old age and disease, we will not have to keep on coming and going, getting all kinds of bodies (dogs, goats, cats, sheep, etc.). However, in order to attain that, we must give up small things. Some sacrifice is required…

(5/13) What Are Your Plans?

We must practise Krishna consciousness. The Lord comes in this Kali-yuga and brings His Holy Name. The people of Kali-yuga are all conditioned souls ruined by Kali… You know, in Satya-yuga people lived for 100,000 years. Do you think you can live for 100,000 years? In Satya-yuga, people practised meditation for 60–70,000 years, and the mantra was:

narayana-para veda narayana-paraksaram
narayana-para muktar narayana-para-gatih

They would sit and meditate without eating anything (they would ‘eat’ air). Do you think you can do that? You can do that for one day, five days, but not longer. In Treta-yuga, people lived for 10,000 year, and they would practise yajna (fire sacrifices). In Dvapar-yuga, people’s lifespan was 1,000 years, and they worshipped Deities. However, in Kali-yuga, people’s lifespan is only 120 years, and now the situation is such that people eat all kinds of things and nobody lives to 120 years (many live for forty–fifty years, get a stroke and die; a very rare person can live to even one hundred years). However, there is no use getting a lifetime of one hundred years if you do not chant the Holy Name! If you live for only ten years and chant the Holy Name, that is better than living for one hundred years without any use. So, we actually do not need to live for one hundred years – if we are to live for only ten years, we will chant the Holy Name during these ten years. You think that you want to live longer to enjoy longer, but this is not right – you must think, ‘Even if I live for ten years – if I can chant the Holy Name, it is all right.’

kali-kale nama-rupe krsna-avatara
nama haite haya sarva-jagat-nistara

‘Krishna appears in Kali-yuga in the form of His Name, and the entire world is delivered through that Name.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.17.22)

Coming to this world in the form of His Name, the Lord goes door to door telling everyone,

harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam
kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha

‘Chanting the Holy Name, chanting the Holy Name, chanting the Holy Name – there is no other way, no other way, no other way.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.7.76)

There is no other path in Kali-yuga except for chanting the Holy Name of the Lord. To chant this Holy Name, you need to follow four things (four regulative principles). We often say:

aparadha sunye haye laha krsna-nama
achirat tumi pabe krsna-prema-dhana

‘Chant the Holy Name of Krishna without offence and you will quickly get the treasure of divine love to Krishna.’

We must become free from offences. We will not kill any jiva souls. Somebody can say, ‘Oh, you tell not to kill anyone, but you have just cut a lau (gourd) and some sak (spinach).’ Yes, we have cut it, but we are not eating it. Who are we cooking for? We are not cooking for ourselves – we are cooking for Govinda, Gopal. We give what we cook to Govinda, and if Govinda, Gopal leaves any prasadam for us, we will take that. So, who must you cook for? For Govinda. Who do you work for? For Govinda. Who do you drive a car for? For Govinda. Who do you run a business for? For Govinda. Everything is for Him, not for our own enjoyment.

atmendriya-priti-vancha—tare bali ‘kama’
krsnendriya-priti-ichchha dhare ‘prema’ nama

‘The desire to gratify one’s own senses is kama (lust), but the desire to please the senses of Lord Krishna is prema (divine love).’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.4.165)

We are doing everything for the pleasure of the Lord, not for our own pleasure. You must realise, ‘Whatever I do, I will do it for the Lord.’ This is the difference between a devotee and a non-devotee. Devotees cook something at their homes and outside people also cook at their homes, but outside people (non-devotees) cook for their own enjoyment, and devotees cook for the Lord. One is kama or karma (lust or selfish interest), and the other is seva (service).

Karma and seva look the same. Suppose a cat has a kitten and the kitten is cold – the cat will pick the kitten up and carry it to a warm place in its mouth. At another time, that same cat will be also carrying a mouse in its mouth – is that the same thing? Does a cat carry its kitten in its mouth to eat it? No, it does not. It carries the kitten to serve the kitten, to take care of the kitten. Does the cat carry a mouse to look after it? It does not. In fact, the cat clenches its teeth so hard that the mouse dies in its mouth, and the cat will eat that mouse later. So, externally, both actions may look the same, but they are actually not. In the same way, they are cooking here today, and somebody else is cooking in another house next door – in one house, they are cooking for the Lord, and in the other house, for themselves. One is seva, and the other is karma. If you do karma (do something for your pleasure), you will have to get bound by that karma and go to hell, and if you serve the Lord, you will not have to suffer from birth, death, old age and disease and you will come to the Lord without having to return to this world ever again. When you are born, you have to die, and if you are not born, then there is no death, no old age – you will stay with the Lord in His eternal abode in Goloka, Vrindavan.

Anyhow, much has been said. I am going to chant a few kirtans now, and after that I will speak again.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Sri Guru-charana-padma’, ‘Sri Krsna-Chaitanya Prabhu daya kara’, ‘Ohe Vaisnava Thakura’, ‘Nitai-pada-kamala’, ‘Gaurangera-duti-pada’, Hare Krishna maha-mantra.]

(6/13) Life In Lord’s Family

[His Divine Grace resumes the class after kirtans.] 

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj begging him for his causeless mercy, aspiring for his service; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all assembled guru-varga, godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees and all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet and praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

What day is bad for us? A bad day is a day without Hari-katha – in other words, a bad day for us is the day when we cannot hear, cannot speak Hari-katha, the day when we cannot chant and glorify the Holy Name of the Lord.

dinera madhye abala-tabala
kata pachala padite para
tara madhye tumi ki ekbara
govinda balite nara

‘How much nonsense you can talk every day! How many idle talks you have! Can you not say the Name of Govinda even once?’

(Folklore)

How much people speak! When the Lord takes your mouth away, then you will not be able to speak again – He will take your power of speech away and send you to a cow’s body, a dog’s body or a goat’s body. Therefore, we must always chant the Holy Name of Lord Krishna: ‘Krishna, Krishna.’

‘krsna-nama’ kare aparadhera vichara
krsna balile aparadhira na haya vikara

‘The Holy Name of Krishna considers offences: when one who commits ten offences of the Holy Name takes the Name of Krishna, it produces no transformation in them.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.24)

‘Hare Krishna’ cannot come to the mouths of those who are offenders of the Holy Name. When Mahaprabhu went to Kasi after taking sannyas, He saw that Kasi was full of mayavadi sannyasis, and one sanodiya brahman asked Him, ‘Prabhu, there are so many scholars in Kasi – they have studied the Vedas and Vedanta so much, they know all the Vedas, Vedanta and other scriptures by heart – but why does the Holy Name of Krishna not come to their mouths? What is the reason?’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘They are offenders of the Holy Name of Krishna.’ That is why it is said,

‘krsna-nama’ kare aparadhera vichara
krsna balile aparadhira na haya vikara

‘The Holy Name of Krishna considers offences: when one who commits ten offences of the Holy Name takes the Name of Krishna, it produces no transformation in them.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.24)

Somebody can chant the Holy Name, but once you hit them into their stomaches, they will cry, ‘Baba! Ma!’ [‘Father! Mother!]’ – you will not hear ‘Hare Krishna’ from them. So, the Holy Name does not come to everyone’s mouth. That is why Mahaprabhu says, ‘The Holy Name of Krishna always considers who is an offender. Even if an offender chants the Name of Krishna all the time, it produces no transformation within them. The Holy Name cannot come to the mouths of those who are offenders of the Holy Name of Krishna.’ After that, Mahaprabhu asked that sanodiya brahman to invite Prakasananda Saraswati to one gathering. At that time, Mahaprabhu explained all this in the presence of Prakasananda Saraswati, and after a long discussion and debate about some slokas, everyone surrendered to Mahaprabhu.

In the end, Mahaprabhu said, ‘I came to Kasi with a basket of Harinam – I came to sell the Holy Name, but nobody wanted to buy it. I gave the Holy Name freely to anyone and everyone, but they did not want to take it…’ So, not everybody gets an opportunity to take the Holy Name. Not everybody has such sukriti. I was telling you yesterday what sukriti is. It means, ‘Tad vastu tadiya sevaya. His things – for His service.’

Many people have Tulasi trees at home. You can put a Tulasi leaf at the lotus feet of Govinda, you can put a Tulasi leaf on the chest of gurudev and Govinda, and when you offer bhoga, you should also put a Tulasi leaf on the offering. You have heard in one of the kirtans:

chhappanna bhoga, chhatrisa byanjana,
bina tulasi prabhu eka nahi mani

‘The Lord does not accept fifty-six grain offerings or thirty-six vegetable offerings without Tulasi leaves.’

(Sri Chandrasekhara Acharya)

Even if you cook fifty-six dishes, the Lord will not accept it without a Tulasi leaf. You must offer bhoga to the Lord with a Tulasi leaf. That is why, everybody must keep Tulasi in their house.

You can see that they have decorated this place with flowers today. People use so many flowers at sraddha-bari (places where people hold Hindu ceremonies for the deceased, led by hired brahmans, etc.), people use so many flowers at different ceremonies, at weddings, people put flowers on dead bodies before going to the cremation ghat. So, not all flowers have the same kind of fortune – not all flowers get to be used for the service of the Lord. Everything must be used for the service of the Lord. Everything that is created in this world is meant for the service of the Lord, but only devotees can utilise everything in this way. Somebody plants a coconut palm tree and says, ‘I have planted it, I have been watering it!’ but you are not the master who gives life to this palm tree. You cannot save this tree – you can give water, you can take care of the tree, but the only master who gives it life and keeps it alive is the Supreme Lord. That is why,

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana

[Limbs of surrender] ‘Humility, self-submission, accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect.”’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Krishna protects, and Krishna maintains. Krishna takes care, Krishna protects. If He does not protect us, nobody can protect us. The Lord is the Supreme Master, nobody except Him can save one.

You can see ** Prabhu in this house. I have known him since he was a little boy of two–three years. One day, he was walking down the street in the evening with his son and nephew (his sister’s son). A lorry hit them – both small children died, and he was taken to hospital. After much treatment he survived. He struggled so much but survived. So, if the Lord does not protect you, if He wants to take you, He will take you – and if He wants to protect you, He will protect you. ‘Marabi rakhabi, yo ichchha tohara: whether You keep me or kill me, it is up to You’ (Saranagati). If He wants to kill you, He will kill you, and if He wants to keep you, He will keep you.

That Prabhu has much sukriti. His mother was Gurudev’s disciple. When she was alive, she once came to the Math, perhaps, at Gaura Purnima time to do the parikrama. It was before 1999 – before I took sannyas. At that time, she came to me and asked, ‘Prabhu, I know you go to all the big people’s houses, but will you not come to the house of a poor person like me?’ After that, I came to her family house with a few devotees. There was no room for us to stay – they stayed in a thatched house at that time, and somebody even slept on the veranda outside (it was summer, so it was not cold). She arranged for us to stay in another house. So, I have known this family for a long time. They live near Tarakeshwar. We went to their house for preaching when I was a brahmachari, and gradually, many people there became devotees – there appeared many disciples of Gurudev, and now there is a temple there, in Tarakeshwar.

…They have left Maya’s family and come to this path, and they live in Krishna’s family now. Many devotee have come from this area (Basirhat) also as well as from Uluberia and other places. Those who are fortunate come to this line.

(7/13) Not So Fast, Not So Cheap

When I left home and came to the temple, my previous family had not got any message or letter from me – they did not know where I was for twelve–thirteen years. They even did my sraddha ceremony thinking that I was dead. Later, they got to know that I had taken sannyas. Many of them hated me for that. I used to work as a college teacher, and they despised me for quitting that job and joining a temple. My mother heard so much criticism from my brothers. In the end, she left the world and got some peace, but all my aunties suffered so much – they all died crying and suffering because of problems in their families. There is a temple now in that place, a very good thing has been done there. It is said in the scriptures that if at any house a son becomes a sannyasi, twenty-four generations get liberation. When I left my material life and came to the temple, I came to Gurudev wearing just my clothes, and Gurudev has made me so big – I travel all over the world, and the whole world is now in my hand.

It is a great fortune to be able to practise Krishna consciousness.

alpa bhagye seva nahi haya
koti janma thakle bhagya
visaya chhede haya vairagya

‘Service does not come by just a little fortune. It takes ten million births of good fortune to become renounced and give up this material world.’

I am not forcing you to leave your families. I did not have my own family (I did not get married), so I left and came to the temple. Vishnupriya Devi gave up so much in her life, she even gave up Mahaprabhu (Nimai) – she let Him leave…

Today is the day when Mahaprabhu left His home. Do you know what He said? ‘Ami yai yai mane kari, ami yaite nahi pari – maha-maya pichanete dhaya!’ The Lord said, ‘I have decided that I will leave, but I could not! I want to leave this material world, but Maya is always pulling Me back!’ Tomorrow in the morning He will reach the temple of Keshav Bharati. Gurudev told me about the conversation that took place between them on this day. I asked Gurudev once, ‘Keshav Bharati spoke to Mahaprabhu the whole day and night. What did they speak about?’ Then, Gurudev told about it slowly and in detail, chanting the glory of this pastime. That conversation was like that.

‘You have come to take sannyas,’ Keshav Bharati said, ‘but sannyas is prohibited in Kali-yuga. Moreover, You are only twenty-four years old! How can You take sannyas at this age? You should be at least fifty…’

‘Prabhu, all right, let us say I am fifty years old now,’ Nimai Vishvambhar replied.

‘Fifty? Even if You are fifty, You have not conquered the faults of pancha-rasa (five material tastes)!’

These five tastes are the enjoyment of beauty (eyes), taste (tongue), smell (nose), sound (ears) and touch (skin). These five tastes must be always controlled. We are always attracted to beautiful things. Suppose there are two cars going down the road – one is new and beautiful and the other one is old and ugly; which of the cars will your eyes follow? Suppose there are two girls walking down the street, one is dark and another one is a beauty; where will your eyes fall? You will look at the beautiful girl. Is it right or not? Eyes always want to see beautiful things. What is enjoyment through taste? Have you ever seen ants in a tin of gur (molasses)? Sometimes you open a tin and see that there are so many ants in it – they come there on their own, and as they start eating, they think, ‘I will eat more, I will eat more!’ In the end, they eat more and more until they die in the tin. They are destroyed by their own greed for tasty food. Enjoyment through the sound is also like that. I have seen some tamed elephants – people control them through sound. The attraction to touch and smell is also like that.

Then, Mahaprabhu said, ‘All right, I am sixty now.’

‘Even if You are sixty,’ Keshav Bharati said, ‘if You have not conquered the six enemies, You cannot take sannyas.’

What are these six enemies? Kama (lust), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), moha (illusion), mada (madness), matsarya (envy). Lust means you always want more, want more, you always have desires, you want to enjoy more and more. Anger. Who should you be angry with? With those who are against devotees, nothing else. Greed must be only greed for Hari-katha. You can also be greedy for the prasadam of the Lord. Madness means ego – somebody is proud of their money, somebody is proud of their bodily beauty, somebody is proud of their qualities, and so on. We always take untruth for truth. One time, when I was preaching in Bardhaman, I went to one devotee’s house – he had just made a very big two-storey house with marble floors, etc. I was to stay in that house for two–three days, and I told him, ‘Prabhu, many devotees are inviting me to take prasadam at their house,’ but he said, ‘No, no, you must stay at my house the whole day! I will feed you three times a day.’ This is ego. Everybody wants to make a programme at their house in the morning or afternoon – I told him that we could make a programme at his house in the evening, when there would be more people, but he did not like that, ‘No, you must make all programmes here at my house. Come, come, have a look what a beautiful house I have made! I have not taken even one rupee from my father, I have made it all myself!’ Next morning, that devotee went outside to clean the garden, and when he cut some small plant, he saw there was a snake, and it bit him on the hand. There is a hospital three miles from his house, but he did not even get time to reach that hospital. They called an ambulance, put him in the ambulance, but he died before they could reach the hospital. So, if you think, ‘This is my money’, ‘This is my house’, ‘This is my car’ – it is ego. Then, there is also matsarya, envy. The Lord says, ‘I have given a place for everything, but I will not give any place for envy.’ Do you understand what ‘matsarya’ means? It is envy, jealousy. The actual meaning is when you cannot stand seeing others doing good. For example, when a boy passes an exam very well, you are supposed to be happy for him, but instead you get unhappy, or, on the contrary, you feel very happy if he fails. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says, ‘Para-sukha duhkhi – when I see others happy, I feel unhappy, and when I see others unhappy, I get very happy.’ This is our situation. ‘Asesa kamana hrdi majhe mora. I have unlimited desires in my heart.’ We always want more, more, more. ‘Krodhi dambha-parayana. We are angry and very proud.’

asesa kamana, hrdi majhe mora,
krodhi dambha-parayana
mada-matta sada, visaye mohita,
himsa-garba vibhusana

‘My heart is filled with endless desires. Angry, arrogant and vain, I am always intoxicated, mad, engrossed in the material world. Pride and envy are my ornaments.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Always remember this.

Then, Mahaprabhu said, ‘All right, suppose I am ninety now.’

‘If You cannot practise nine kinds of devotional practice (nava-vidha bhakti), You cannot take sannyas even when You are ninety.’

What are the nine kinds of devotion? You know that there are nine islands in Nabadwip. Do you know which island represents which kind of devotion? Sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). Each of these nine kinds of devotion are practised on a corresponding island of Nabadwip. Our old temple in Koladwip is a place of pada-sevanam; and the new temple is now in Godrumdwip (Nrisingha Palli), it is a place of kirtanam. You can see the new book Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala, all this is explained and described there. Nabadwip is an eight-petalled lotus with Antardwip in the middle. You should buy and read this book – if you do not read, then what is the use having this book? Sripad Bhakti Pramode Puri Maharaj said once, ‘You are writing so many books, but people will end up using them to wrap chanachur.’ This is so true. These days people only read their mobile phones. In Midnapore there is a boy who was not even nineteen when he went blind by looking into his phone all the time. People get used to their mobile phones so much that they cannot even chant on their beads after that. You must stop this addiction to mobile phones. Do you understand? Only use your phone when it is necessary.

So, Keshav Bharati said that even at ninety it is not possible to take sannyas. Then, Mahaprabhu said, ‘OK, I am one hundred now!’

‘Even if You are one hundred,’ Keshav Bharati replied, ‘if You cannot control Your ten senses, You cannot take sannyas even then!’

It is necessary to control your ten senses. People are so proud, ‘I have conquered the whole world’ – yes you have, but you cannot even conquer your own self! Have you conquered your eyes? There are five senses that perform action and five senses that acquire knowledge. The five karmendriya are feet, hands, rectum, genitals, mouth (pada, pani, payu, upastha, vak); and the five jnanendriya are eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin (chaksu, karna, nasika, jihva, tvak). So, what Keshav Bharati was saying is that until and unless you can subdue all these senses, you cannot take sannyas.

This is the conversation that took place between Mahaprabhu and Keshav Bharati. Those who can control all this can attain everything.

(8/13) Mano-dharma vs. Bhagavat-dharma

In this world, the number of jiva souls in animal species is very large, but the number of jiva souls in human species is very small. Among people, many say they follow the Vedas (somebody says they follow Rig Veda, somebody says they follow Yajur Veda, somebody says they follow Sama Veda, and somebody says they follow Atharva Veda), but even though they say that they follow the Vedas, they do what is prohibited by the Vedas. Does any of the Vedas say that you can kill jiva souls? There are four principal acharyas in the this world (Vishnu Swami and others), and people say, ‘We belong to this movement’, ‘We belong to that movement’ – for example, there is a group called Haribol who claim that they have conquered everything, but they all eat fish and meat. There is also another group, I have seen them in Mathura, who do not eat meat on Fridays – on Fridays, they offer and take vegetables. What is this? You must chant the Holy Name all the time, constantly, eternally.

‘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 are eternal servants of Lord Sri Krishna – we are not servants for only two days, seven days or one hour!

Some people also say, ‘There are many beliefs, so there are many paths (yata mat tata path)’ or ‘Serve God by loving others (jive prema kare yei jana sei jana sevichhe isvara).’ They say ‘love others’ and write it on big sign boards. It is like somebody puts up a big sign board saying ‘Glass Factory’, but when you go there, you do not find any glass at all. They are liars. They write ‘love others’ on big boards, and if you come inside and see what is happening, you will see that they eat chicken saying that it is good for health! This is their ‘love for others’. Then, there is this ‘There are many beliefs, so there are many paths (yata mat tata path)’ – what is their idea or belief? They do what they want saying that everybody’s belief is different, so paths can be different, but this is wrong. We must live according to what the scriptures tell – we must hear the siddhanta (conclusion) of the scriptures. We must accept and follow the teachings that are given by the Lord Himself. It is not necessary to create any teachings yourself. If a train goes off the track, it will fall over. So, we must follow the real path. Do not get derailed.

That is why it is said that you can find so many gurus in this world. Many say, ‘Eat whatever your soul wants.’ Nonsense! The soul does not want all this! Atma’s duty and desire is to serve Paramatma, and all this food is something that the mind and the tongue want! The soul dwells on the internal plane, and the mind dwells in the external world. You are sitting here at the class, and some are sitting and thinking about a movie they have seen, somebody is sitting and thinking about the money they have kept in their chest – somebody is going to Vrindavan but in the meantime thinks, ‘I wonder if a goat has eaten my lau…’ Mind goes to all these things, because it lives in the external world. However, the soul dwells in the internal world, and it always wants to serve Paramatma, it always hankers to serve the Lord. But you get people who say, ‘Eat whatever your soul wants.’ They teach wrong things. I have told you many times – if I was to tell everyone, ‘Come, you can eat meat and fish,’ there would be a huge crowd of people lining up for initiation; and if I say, ‘No, you must give all this up,’ you will see that nobody will come.

When we go to primary school, we study with so many classmates; when you finish primary school and go to high school, there are fewer pupils there; when you proceed on to college, there are even fewer students; and when you reach university, you will see that only one–two persons from your classmates are there. People fall for fascinating illusions of the world. It is said, ‘Out of ten million workers, you will get one wise person; out of ten million wise people, you will get one liberated soul (who feels no attraction to this world); and out of ten million liberated souls you will get one devotee of Krishna.’ Such devotees always think about Krishna,

ki sayane, ki bhojane, kiba jagarane
aharnisa chinta krsna, balaha vadane

‘Whether you are sleeping, eating or waking up, incessantly think about Krishna and chant the Name of Krishna with your mouth.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.28.28)

The Gaudiya Mission of Mahaprabhu (Gaudiya Math, Chaitanya Math) preaches this pure conception. To tell you the truth, there are very few people in this world who preach such things. You can easily get laukik gurus (family teachers), kaulik gurus (ancestral teachers), but you will not find a paramarthik guru (a bona fide spiritual teacher) so easily…

(9/13) Eternal Values

If a father does not truly bring you to this path of Krishna consciousness, he is not a father to you. If your friends do not truly bring you to this path of Krishna consciousness, they are not your friends. Your greatest friends are those who can give you attachment to the lotus feet of Sri Krishna – your kin, your own are those who bring you to the Lord, who take you out of this world of Maya and engage you in the service to the holy lotus feet of the Lord. You should come to this kind of personalities and serve them. ‘O Vaishnav Thakur! You are the nearest person to me – you are my greatest friend!’

We are sons of nectar. All of us are children of one father – we are sons and daughters of the Lord! We are relatives to each others. You think that I am in Nabadwip, and you are here in Basirhat, somebody else is in Mexico, somebody is in Colombia, somebody is in Venezuela, somebody is in London, somebody is Muslim, somebody is a brahman, somebody is a ksatriya, and so on, but all these distinctions are created by us.

Somebody can wear a brahman thread and say, ‘I am a brahman!’ which means people can wear the thread today and they are brahmans, and if they take it off, they are not brahmans anymore – but is that really so? You must first become a brahman, and one does not become a brahman just by saying so or by wearing a brahman thread.

Therefore, surrender to a bona fide guru and practise Krishna consciousness in your own life. Mahaprabhu is so merciful! He is not an ordinary soul. Choosing Sachi Mata and Jagannath Misra as His parents, He appears in this Kali-yuga and gives this world the transcendental magnanimous love for Supreme Lord Sri Krishna! He tolerated so much in this world, but He did not take up any weapon. Have you read Mahaprabhu’s teachings? They are very beautiful. What teachings did He give to this world? People worship Kali, Durga and many other gods, but they turn God into their servant or a bribe-taker. People say, ‘O Mother Durga, please give me strength’, ‘O Mother Durga, please give me money’, and so on, and in return for that they give Mother Durga some money – she becomes their servant because people expect her to serve them. Devotees do not behave like that; they never say such things to the Lord. When brahmans do their puja during Durga Puja, you can hear them say in loudspeakers, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, varyam dehi, kavitam dehi, sundarim dehi – give me wealth, give me knowledge, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me a poet, give me a beautiful girlfriend.’ ‘Give me this’, ‘Give me that’ – they make gods their servants and in lieu of that they give their gods some bribe (some banana, money, flowers, and so on). You come to worship a demigod but instead of worshipping them, you turn them into bribe-takers and your servants. Mahaprabhu said:

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

prabhu tava pada-yuge mora nivedana
nahi magi deha-sukha vidya dhana jana
nahi magi svarga ara moksa nahi magi
na kari prarthana kona vibhutira lagi

‘O Lord, I am submitting my appeal at Your holy lotus feet. I do not wish for any bodily happiness, knowledge, wealth, friends or followers. I do not wish to attain heaven or liberation, neither do I pray for any supernatural powers.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Devotees do not want heaven. Heaven is temporary. You get to heaven as the result of pious activities, but when the result of those pious activities finishes, you have to come back again to this world. If you perform pious activities, you will go to heaven, and if you commit a lot of sins, you will go to hell, but even if you go to heaven, once your pious credit finishes, you will have to come back to this world. That is why devotees do not desire heaven. Even if you stay there for hundreds of thousands of years, you will still have to come back. Moreover, devotees do not want liberation. What do they want? ‘My Lord, please allow me to have devotion and attachment to Your holy lotus feet birth after birth. Whatever birth I may take, even if I am born as a dog, please allow me to be born as a dog in the house of Your devotee – having taken Your prasad, Your devotee will throw the plate away, and I will take the remnants from that plate’. Devotees do not want to become Brahmas. When Hiranyakasipu asked Lord Brahma for immortality, Brahma said that it was not in his power – he said, ‘Even though I am a disciple of Krishna and I was created by Krishna, I have to die one day, too. I will have to leave this body and go to some other place, too.’ Kali, Durga, Ganesh and other gods live for some days, and then somebody else becomes Kali, Ganesh, Laksmi or Saraswati…

(10/13) Ultimate Word of Scriptures

We cannot serve all 330,000,000 demigods. What do the scriptures say?

‘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)

If you have faith in Lord Krishna, then all other activities and duties are automatically fulfilled – it is not necessary to serve any gods or demigods. Your debts to your father, mother, rishis and demigods are cleared. You are accused of leaving the service to your parents and becoming a sadhu, but

‘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)

If you worship Krishna, then all other duties and debts are fulfilled. If you worship Durga today, then you will not have any money left to worship Kali. If you worship Kali, you will not have any money left to worship Laksmi. If you worship Laksmi or Kartik, you will not have any money left to worship Ganesh. If you worship Siva, Parvati will get angry that you do not worship her. Who will you worship then? That is why it is said that the worship of all gods is automatically fulfilled if you worship Krishna.

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

‘Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

Lastly, this sloka is given in the eighteenth chapter of Srimad Bhagavad-gita. What does it say? ‘Leave all religions – the religion of serving your friends, the religion of serving your father, the religion of serving your mother, the religion of Muslims, the religion of Christians, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on. Leave all religions. (You must leave even the Hindu religion.) Follow My religion – worship Me. I will liberate you from all sins.’ This is the gist meaning of Srimad Bhagavad-gita. If anybody asks you what the gist of Srimad Bhagavad-gita is, you should know that the meaning is this: ‘Leave all religions and surrender to Me, I will save you from all sins.’ This is the last word of Srimad Bhagavad-gita. This is so beautiful.

There is also another sloka in Gita:

api chet suduracharo, bhajate mam ananya-bhak
sadhur eva sa mantavyah, samyag vyavasito hi sah

‘If even a very sinful person serves Me exclusively with devotion, he should be regarded as saintly because his resolve is perfect.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 9.30)

A person can be very bad, a person may have done so many bad things, but if they leave everything and surrender to the Lord, the Lord liberates them from all sins – He takes them on His lap and gives them the right, or qualification, to serve Him. So many nice, beautiful things are expressed in Srimad Bhagavatam and Srimad Bhagavad-gita. If you do not try to understand it, if you do not study what is said in the scriptures, then how will you learn? You must study, you must hear Hari-katha. You do not become educated just by getting enrolled into a school – you must attend the lessons, you must study. If you do not do that, you will fail. Here too, it is the same – you will fail if you do not study and practise Krishna consciousness. If you do not practise properly, if you do not come to the classes, if you do not do anything, you must fail. Practice makes perfect. You must practise kirtan. Wake up early in the morning, and chant five kirtans in the morning and five kirtans in the evening. How many minutes does it take? Fifteen–twenty minutes. Can you not give this time to the Lord? You are busy the whole day! You are gossiping the whole day at the tea store, and women gossip the whole day about what their neighbours, mothers-in-law, daughters-in-law and other relatives have done, but how does this affect your spiritual life? You are wasting your time on gossiping, and the time will pass.

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Death can come at any time. You have some days in your hand, then do not waste this time – practise Krishna consciousness.

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We do not prohibit you to do your work – nobody tells you to leave your home and go stay in a jungle, becoming a naga-sannyasi. Whether you are staying at home or in a forest, always chant the Holy Name.

aparadha sunye haye laha krsna-nama
achirat tumi pabe krsna-prema-dhana

‘Chant the Holy Name of Krishna without offence and you will quickly get the treasure of divine love to Krishna.’

You must make yourself free from offences and chant the Holy Name of Krishna. There is no other way. This is the last word. No matter what one may say, this is the ultimate word.

(11/13) Guided and Misguided

There was an old lady who worked as a servant at the house of Srivas Pandit. Although she was a menial servant, there is nobody like her in this world. Her name was Duhkhi (lit. ‘unhappy’). One day, before Mahaprabhu came to Srivas Pandit’s house, Srivas Pandit told her, ‘Duhkhi, fetch some water from the pond – Prabhu is coming today, He will need water to take a bath.’ Duhkhi thought, ‘My God, I bring water every day, but today the Lord is coming, and I will be bringing water for His bathing! How wonderful!’ Then, Duhkhi went to bring water, and as she was carrying it to the house, tears were flowing from her eyes. Mahaprabhu saw her, and when she paid her obeisances to Him with tears flowing from her eyes, Mahaprabhu asked her, ‘What is your name? Why are you so unhappy?’ She said, ‘My name is Duhkhi…’ Then, Mahaprabhu said, ‘From today, your name is Sukhi (lit. ‘happy’)!’ What service did she do? She did not go to school, she did not know anything, but she did service. What service was that? She brought some water. She only brought some water for the Lord, but through her service she got the Lord.

So, if you want to get some service to the Lord (it can be any service), you must always be alert and think, ‘What do the guru and Vaishnavs need? When do they need it? What pleases gurudev? What does my Lord love?’ Gurudev is the Lord’s close associate. If you write a letter to the Lord, you will not get any reply, but if you send your letter to your gurudev, then he will deliver your letter to the Lord and tell you the news about the Lord – he will tell you where the Lord is staying, what the Lord eats, what the Lord does, and so on. If you surrender to gurudev, you will learn everything about the Lord from your gurudev. You must go to the person from whom you can hear about the Lord.

Suppose you are walking or driving down the street. You ask somebody on the street how to get to the place where you are going, but the person does not know where it is and tells you to go in a wrong direction. You do not believe the person for some reason and decide to ask another person; the other person says, ‘No, go in this direction’, and points in the opposite direction. There are such people in the world – they do not know the way themselves, but they will still give you advice. Meanwhile, if you ask a boy from the Lord’s house where the Lord stays, what the Lord eats, how the Lord lives, he will tell you everything. You must go to a bona fide person.

Therefore, it is necessary to always have good association.

‘sadhu-sanga’ ‘sadhu-sanga’—sarva sastre kaya

lava-matra sadhu-sange sarva-siddhi haya

‘All scriptures keep saying: ‘Good association’, ‘Good association.’ You can attain all perfection even just by a drop of good, saintly association.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.54)

You must listen to what sadhus say. To eat from the same plate with a sadhu or to sleep on the same bed with a sadhu is not sadhu-sanga. Even mosquitos sleep with a sadhu, but do you think they come for association? No, they come to bite and disturb. There are also people who, like mosquitos, do not do anything and only come to disturb sadhus. Those who truly take good association live following the instruction and advice of the sadhus – they listen to what gurudev says and practise it. It is impossible to practise Krishna consciousness without strict adherence (anugatya) to your guru. Sincere practitioners always live in strict adherence to their guru. Otherwise, without anugatya, no matter what you do, you will not get a good result.

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya
kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

‘If a devotee aspires for enjoyment or liberation, Krishna hides the knowledge about pure devotion and dismisses them, giving them enjoyment or liberation.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.18)

If you want money, a house, a car or anything else from the Lord instead of devotion, the Lord will give all this to you, and He will take devotion away from you – He will hide it from you.

Remember everything I have told you today and practise Krishna consciousness in this way.

(12/13) Exclusive Zone

Does anybody have any questions? Have you been able to hear what I was saying? Do not be afraid to ask if you want to know anything.

Question: How many Krishnas are there?

ekala isvara krsna, ara saba bhrtya
yare yaichhe nachaya, se taichhe kare nrtya

‘Lord Krishna is the only supreme controller, and all others are His servants. They dance as He makes them do so.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.142)

For example, there is Mathuresh Krishna, there is Dvarakesh Krishna, and there is Vrajesh Krishna – They are all one, They exist and perform Their pastimes simultaneously. You should try to understand that this is achintya bhedabheda tattva (inconceivable oneness and difference).

Are you trying to say that Krishna is an adopted son of Nanda Maharaj and Mother Yasoda? Srimad Bhagavatam always says ‘Yasoda-atmaja’ and ‘Nanda-atmaja’ (the son of Yasoda, the son of Nanda Maharaj), but for the sake of His pastimes, Krishna appeared from the womb of Devaki.

When Krishna later left Vrindavan, the residents of Vrindavan were overcome with separation. There can be no union without separation. Actually, Krishna never leaves Vrindavan, but His pastime was such that externally He did leave for Mathura. This is the whole idea behind Ratha-yatra. Why does Jagannath come out in His chariot? In Dvapar-yuga, everybody assembled at Kuruksetra on that particular day to bath in the holy river as it was the day of a solar eclipse. Vraja gopis came there too to see Krishna, but when they came and saw Krishna sitting surrounded by all kinds of royal opulence, they became upset, thinking, ‘We do not want this Krishna! We did not come here to see this Krishna. We want Krishna who is a cowherd boy.’ Then, they pulled Krishna away, saying, ‘Come, You must come with us!’ This is how the chariots’ procession took place.

So, there is only one Krishna, but He performs His different pastimes in different places. He performed His pastimes in Dvaraka, Mathura and other places, and we say ‘Dvarakesh Krishna’, ‘Mathuresh Krishna’ and ‘Vrajesh Krishna’. Vraja gopis cry in separation from Krishna – Mother Yasoda cried so much that the tears from her eyes formed a long drain. But we see in the scriptures that although there is Dvarakesh Krishna, Mathuresh Krishna and Vrajesh Krishna, in fact Krishna never leaves Vrindavan.

Are there any other questions?

Question: Why does Laksmi Devi sit in Belvan?

Because she does not accept gopis’ guidance. She thinks, ‘I am more beautiful than Radha, I am Narayan’s sakti and always stay with Narayan in Vaikuntha!’ There are millions of Laksmi Devis in Vaikuntha serving Lord Narayan, but even Maha-Laksmi, the chief Laksmi, could not enter Vrindavan. Why? Because she had no chastity to gopis. Without chastity (anugatya, strict adherence) to the gopis, no one can ever enter the rasa-lila of Vrindavan. However, Sivji Maharaj could enter it because he had accepted chastity to the gopis, but Laksmi Devi did not. That is why, she is sitting in Belvan and crying. To this day, she has not been able to enter there – she still has not earned the right to enter Vrindavan. These are very high things. Even somebody like Laksmi Devi cannot enter there because she thinks, ‘I am very beautiful, I will not accept devotion to Radharani, a mere milkmaid.’ Why is Radharani’s Name ‘Radha’? Because She is the best worshipper of the Lord – She worships (aradhana) the Lord the most. Gopis’ devotion is different from anybody else’s devotion.

We also sometimes think how much devotion Vraja gopis have. Even Lord Brahma, even Siva, even Narada, even the queens who stayed with Krishna in Dvaraka (Rukmini, Satyabhama and many others) do not have as much devotion to Krishna as they do. Krishna says about them, ‘You are staying with Me, you are saying you are My big devotees, but you cannot compare yourself to those who live in Vrindavan!’

(13/13) Insurmountable Devotion

One time, Krishna showed a pastime of being ill – He suddenly had a very strong headache. What medicine was prescribed to Him? While Krishna was lying in the room, showing that He was sick, He Himself came disguised as a doctor and said, ‘Do not worry, Krishna will get well. Here is what you should do – give Him some dust from the feet of His devotees, and He will recover.’ Narad is Krishna’s devotee, Siva is Krishna’s devotee, Brahma is also His devotee, but none of them wanted to give their foot dust – they were thinking about themselves, worrying they would commit a sin and go to hell. But Vraja gopis said, ‘If we commit a sin, let it be – even if our legs burn, if we get leprosy on our legs, if our legs rot, we have no objection as long as our Krishna gets well.’ They gave their foot dust.

Another time, Krishna decided to test and prove Radharani’s chastity. That day, He had a fever – He was lying ill in His room in Nandagram with Mother Yasoda by His side. Disguising Himself as a doctor again, Krishna came and said, ‘Mother, your son’s health is very bad. It is necessary to apply some water.’ Mother Yasoda said, ‘I am putting water on His head, but it is not helping.’ The doctor explained, ‘No, this water will not do. Only She who has never had the darshan of Surya, who has never seen any other man’s face can bring this water. She must bring it from the Yamuna in a clay pot with a hundred holes.’

Neither Jatila nor Kutila could do that. Both of them always criticised others saying, ‘This girl is bad’, ‘That girl is bad’, so Mother Yasoda thought, ‘They always say others are bad, then they must be very chaste themselves.’ She asked Jatila, and Jatila said, ‘How is it possible to bring water in a pot with holes? It is not possible!’ So, she could not do that, then Kutila also could not do that. None of the prominent girls could bring water. In the end, Krishna (in the doctor’s disguise) said to Mother Yasoda, ‘You have gone to the wrong place! Try Radharani.’ Krishna created some illusion, and Mother Yasoda went to look for Radharani. When Mother Yasoda came and explained the matter to Radharani, Radharani immediately understood, ‘Prabhu, this is Your lila.’ She surrendered everything to Krishna, ‘Prabhu, everything will be as You desire. If You want that water to be brought, then it will be brought; and if You do not want it to be brought, then it will not happen.’ (It is necessary to have this kind of surrender – a surrendered soul has no offence.) Then, taking Krishna’s Name, Radharani put the clay pot into the water and, taking Krishna’s Name, took it out – Krishna closed all holes in the pot with a hundred fingers, and She carried the pot to Krishna’s home on Her shoulder. Nobody could see what had happened. Do you think you can see everything with these eyes? You must see with your heart’s eyes. Everybody saw Radharani carrying water in that pot with holes, but no water came out. Everything is possible through devotion. If you want to bind the Lord, you need the rope of devotion. You cannot get the Lord by anything else except devotion. The Lord always stays with His devotees. He does not stay with non-devotees – He can only show them His impersonal form.

When we worship Gopal, we dress Him, we feed Him, we fan Him. If you go to Vrindavan, you will see that there is an A/C installed for the Deities. When it is hot, we suffer and use the A/C, and, in the same way, we also put an A/C in the Lord’s room. We put a chadar on when we feel cold, and, in the same way, we must give a chadar to the Deities also. For example, when it is very cold in Russia, they dress Deities in very thick, blanket-like clothes. It is necessary to adjust to the environment and serve accordingly.

One can understand and know the Lord through devotion. Those who have devotion can understand this. You know, at first Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya said about Mahaprabhu, ‘I do not think that He is the Lord!’ Gopinath Acharya told him in reply, ‘You have no mercy, that is why you do not think so. I have some mercy, so I know that He is the Lord.’

isvarera krpa-lesa haya ta’ yahare
sei ta’ isvara-tattva janibare pare

‘The Lord can be known only by those who have got at least a drop of His mercy.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.6.83)

You cannot understand the Lord without the Lord’s mercy. In the same way, you cannot understand a sadhu without the sadhu’s mercy. We need sadhus’ mercy…

‘Bhaktis tu bhagavad-bhakta-sangena parijayate – you can get devotion through the association of devotees’ (Brihan-naradiya Purana). You can get devotion only through the association of devotees – you will not get devotion by associating with non-devotees. ‘Asat-sanga sada tyaga chhada anya gita-raga – give up bad association and do not listen to material songs and music’ (Srila Narottam Das Thakur). You must give up all other songs, music and other entertainment. You must give up all bad association. Always associate with devotees, sadhus. Giving up bad association (asat-sanga) means we do not do village talks, we do not discuss village news – we do not speak without necessity. You must associate with those who speak only about Krishna. Always avoid and ignore the association of those who speak about all the other things except Krishna. If somebody likes to talk behind other people’s backs, they are called ‘drain inspectors’. Do you understand what a ‘drain inspector’ means? It means somebody always goes to the drain, and when you come to a drain, will you not get a bad smell? Does the place where people pass stool not smell? If you always dig in dirty things – gossiping, criticising about others, talking bad about others – then you will always get a bad smell, you will not get anything good from that. You must give all this up! You have eyes, but you must not see such things – you must close your eyes. You have ears – listen to Krishna-katha with your ears. You have a mouth, and you must always speak about Krishna consciousness, not about anything else.

vaisnava-charitra, sarvada pavitra,
yei ninde himsa kari’
bhaktivinoda, na sambhase tan’re,
thake sada mauna dhari’

‘The character of Vaishnavs is always pure. Bhaktivinod keeps quiet and does not associate with those who are envious of Vaishnavs and who criticise Vaishnavs.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says that whenever he hears any offence of Vaishnavs, he always remains silent and grave, he does not speak about it. Always remember this – always talk about devotional topics and associate with devotees, then you will get supreme benefit.

‘Kabe habe bolo se dina amara: tell me, when will that day be mine?…’

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line16 January 2021

Kolkata (West Bengal)

Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/15) Where Does the Lord Stay?

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim

yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa-kula-churamani Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda Sundar jiu ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Nitai Gaurachandra ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Sri Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Tadiya sakha math-samuha ki jay.
Sri Mather sevak vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Ananta-koti Vaishnav vrinda ki jay.
Sri Gaudiya Acharya vrinda ki jay.
Tridandi-pad-gan ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Nityananda Prabhu ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Mahaprabhu ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar, Giriraj Govardhan ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Samagata sannyasi-vrinda, brahmachari-vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Samagata matri-mandali, bhakta-mandali ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura-bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

vande ‘ham sri-guroh sri-yuta-pada-kamalam sri-gurun vaisnavams cha
sri-rupam sagrajatam saha-gana-raghunath-anvitam tam sa-jivam
sadvaitam savadhutam parijana-sahitam krsna-chaitanya-devam
sri-radha-krsna-padan saha-gana-lalita-sri-visakhanvitams cha

‘I worship the holy lotus feet of my initiating and instructing guru as well as all predecessor gurus, all Vaishnavs, Rupa Goswami, Sanatan Goswami, their dear associates Raghunath and Jiva, Advaita Prabhu, Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Krishna Chaitanyadev along with all His near and dear ones, and Sri Radha-Krishna, along with Their associates headed by Lalita and Visakha.’

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

‘I offer my obeisance to Sri Guru, who has opened my eyes, rescuing me from the illusory darkness of ignorance, by applying the salve of knowledge upon my eyes.’

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam
chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam
govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram
vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

‘I offer my obeisance to him who perfectly fulfils his gurudev’s most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all conceivable and inconceivable aspects of Vedic knowledge; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s line; who is known as “Govinda” (Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj); whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.’

devam divya-tanum suchanda-vadanam balarka-chelanchitam
sandrananda-puram sad-eka-varanam vairagya-vidyambudhim
sri-siddhanta-nidhim subhakti-lasitam sarasvatanam varam
vande tam subhadam mad-eka-saranam nyasisvaram sridharam

‘I worship Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, the bestower of all auspiciousness, my only shelter and the master of all renunciates. He is my Lord who possesses a transcendental form, whose face expression is very grave, who is clad in the holy clothes the colour of the newly risen sun. He is an abode of intense joy; the only genuine master whom one can accept and surrender to; and an ocean of divine knowledge of renunciation. He is a repository of holy scriptural teachings and pastimes of the highest devotion and a great follower of Srila Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad.’

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha
patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

vrndayai tulasi-devyai priyayai kesavasya cha
krsna-bhakti-prade devi satyavatyai namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to Vrinda Devi (Tulasi Devi), who is very dear to Lord Kesava, who bestows devotion to Krishna and is known as Satyavati.’

atha natva mantra-gurun gurun bhagavatarthadan
vyasan jagad-gurun natva tato jayam udirayet

‘Before reciting scriptures that can conquer material world, let us offer obeisances to our initiating guru, to the guru who teaches us the meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam, to Sri Vyasadev and all gurus in the universe.’

jayah sa-parikara sri-sri-guru-gauranga-gandharva-

govindasundar-padapadmanam jayastu

‘All glory to the lotus feet of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva-Govindasundar and all Their associates.’

vande rupa-sanatanau raghu-yugau sri-jiva-gopalakau

‘I worship Sri Rupa Goswami, Sri Sanatan Goswami, Sri Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, Sri Raghunath Das Goswami, Sri Jiva Goswami, and Sri Gopal Bhatta Goswami.’

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrnda

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

We came here last year, and now, more than one year later, we have assembled here again to hear and speak about the Lord. Where does Lord Hari stay (Hari kothay)? In Hari-katha (Hari-kathay) – in talking about the Lord. In which forest (van) does Lord Hari stay? You can find Lord Hari in sravan (when you hear about Him). The Lord becomes pleased when you listen and speak about Him, and especially when you worship Nitai and Gauranga, who perform Their magnanimous pastimes in Kali-yuga, through sankirtan. When you worship Gaura and Nitai through sankirtan, the Lord becomes the most pleased. Remember this. Gaura and Nitai are worshipped through sankirtan, and this sankirtan must be genuine:

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

‘sadhu-sanga’ ‘sadhu-sanga’—sarva sastre kaya

lava-matra sadhu-sange sarva-siddhi haya

‘All scriptures keep saying: ‘Good association’, ‘Good association.’ You can attain all perfection even just by a drop of good, saintly association.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.54)

It is necessary to chant the Holy Name in holy association.

There are sixty-four limbs of devotion, and among them these five are the main:

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana
mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

‘Associate with sadhus, chant the Holy Name of the Lord, listen to Srimad Bhagavatam, reside in Mathura and worship Deities with faith.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.124)

You must keep holy association, you must chant the Holy Name, you must listen to Srimad Bhagavatam, you must live in Mathura, and you must worship Deities with faith. Where is Mathura? Mathura is the place where the Lord appeared, but any place where discussions about the Lord take place is also Vrindavan. Wherever devotees speak about the Lord, wherever there is eternal, daily service to the Lord, this place is non-different from Vrindavan.

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)

When there is practice of Krishna consciousness and worship of the Lord going on in the house, when there is eternal daily service going on in the house, that house is Goloka Vrindavan. These are Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s words.

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)

(2/15) Mahaprabhu’s Advent and Gift

Sriman Mahaprabhu said that there are four varnas, four ashrams and four yugas. The four varnas are brahman, ksatriya, vaisya and sudra. The four ashrams are brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha and sannyas. And the four yugas, or ages, are Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dvapar-yuga and Kali-yuga. The Lord comes in each of the four yugas to this pure land of Bharata (India). Why is this land considered pure? Because there are such rivers as the Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati here; there is Vrindavan, Mathura, Puri Dham, Badarikashram and Kedarnath in this land. Time after time, the Lord came here in Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dvapar-yuga and Kali-yuga. We are living now in Kali-yuga. The duration of this age is 432,000 years, and only about 5,500 years have passed so far.

It is written in Vishnu Purana and Srimad Bhagavatam:

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 Visnu Purana)

We have been born 900,000 times in water as all kinds of aquatics (dolphins, fish, crocodiles, and so on). We have been trees, plants and other immovable entities 2,000,000 times. We were born as insects, spiders and reptiles 1,100,000 times. We flew in the sky 1,000,000 times. We were born as animals 3,000,000 times and, finally, as humans 400,000 times.

We have become humans now, but where have we been born? You can see that there are devotees from Mexico, England, America, Colombia and Venezuela sitting together with us. They left everything and came here, but people from our country always try to go abroad in search of dollars – somebody becomes a doctor, somebody becomes an engineer, and they try to leave this country. Why do these devotees, on the contrary, leave everything and come here? Srila Param Gurudev said: there is a hidden treasure in India. (That is why the English translation of Srimad Bhagavad-gita is called The Hidden Treasure of the Sweet Absolute.) On top of that, when the Lord came in Kali-yuga, He appeared right here in West Bengal – He chose Sri Dham Mayapur in Nabadwip and Sri Jagannath Misra and Sri Sachi Mata and appeared in this age as Gauranga Mahaprabhu. His non-different form, Sri Nityananda Prabhu, also chose Sri Hadai Pandit and Sri Padmavati Devi and appeared in this world in Ekachakra Dham, Virachandrapur.

Why does Sri Krishna come in this Kali-yuga?

sri-radhayah pranaya-mahima kidrso vanayaivasvadyo

yenadbhuta-madhurima kidrso va madiyah

saukhyam chasya mad-anubhavatah kidrsam veti lobhat

tad-bhavadhyah samajani sachigarbha-sindhau harinduh

‘“What is the glory of Sri Radha’s love? What extraordinary sweetness does She see in Me? What happiness does She feel when She is moved by Me?” – yearning to taste these three sentiments, the moon Krishna-chandra arose from the ocean of Mother Sachi’s womb.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.1.6)

‘Why does Radharani cry so much chanting My Name? What sort of happiness does Radharani feel when She serves Me?’ – to taste this, Lord Sri Krishna appeared in this Age of Kali. There is a very beautiful description in Srimad Bhagavatam:

krsna-varnam tvisakrsnam sangopangastra-parsadam

yajnaih sankirtana-prayair yajanti hi su-medhasah

‘In this Age of Kali, intelligent souls will always worship Sri Gaurasundar through sankirtan-yajna (the sacrifice of chanting the Holy Names). He appears as dark-complexioned (Krishna) but with a non-dark, or golden, halo (couched in the heart and halo of Sri Radha). Together with His associates, He searches for Krishna by chanting His Holy Names. His limbs (anga) are Sriman Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Advaita Prabhu; His accessory limbs (upanga) are Srivas Acharya and all pure devotees; His weapons (astra) are the words of the Holy Name; and His associates (parsada) are Sri Gadadhar, Sri Svarup Damodar, Ramananda, Sanatan, Rupa and others.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 11.5.32)

Krishna steals Srimati Radharani’s heart and halo and appears as Gauranga Mahaprabhu. Everybody knows that Gadadhar is Srimati Radharani’s incarnation, but how can it be so if Gauranga Mahaprabhu is the combined form of Sri Radha and Krishna? The answer is simple – a person does not have only a heart and a halo, there is some remainder (the body) also. Krishna takes Srimati Radharani’s heart and halo and appears as Gauranga (the ‘heart’ means Srimati Radharani’s mood of divine separation from Krishna, and the ‘halo’ means the golden hue of Srimati Radharani’s body), and Gadadhar took the remaining body.

When Krishna comes as Gauranga, He has some goals: He comes to taste Srimati Radharani’s ecstasy, and He also appears as the yuga-avatar.

nama bina kali-kale nahi ara dharma

sarva-mantra-sara ‘nama’ ei sastra marma

‘There is no other religion except chanting the Holy Name. The purport of all scriptures is that the Holy Name is the essence of all mantras.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.7.74)

kali-kale nama-rupe krsna-avatara
nama haite haya sarva-jagat-nistara

‘Krishna appears in Kali-yuga in the form of His Name, and the entire world is delivered through that Name.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.17.22)

The Lord’s Name, form, qualities, pastimes, associates, features are completely non-different from the Lord Himself, and the Lord comes personally to grant His Name to everyone (nija Nama kari’ dana).

(3/15) Coming Out of Maya

The Lord comes personally to grant His Name to everyone (nija Nama kari’ dana) – He goes door to door and says:

jiva jaga jiva jaga gorachanda bale
kata nidra yao maya-pisachira kole

‘Sri Gorachand says, “Wake up, souls! Wake up! How much longer will you sleep in the lap of the witch Maya?”’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Jiva souls! Do not sleep! Wake up! You are sleeping in illusory bondage!’ It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita that Maya is created by the Lord Himself:

daivi hy esa gunamayi, mama maya duratyaya

mam eva ye prapadyante, mayam etam taranti te

‘My supramundane trimodal illusory potency (alluring those who are averse to Me) is extremely difficult to overcome. However, this insurmountable potency of Mine can be overcome by those who exclusively surrender to Me.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 7.14)

The poor souls who fall into material bondage think, ‘This is my house’, ‘This is son’, ‘This is my wife’, ‘This is my family.’ Why do they fall into this bondage? Why do they live in this way? Because of Maya. Srila Prabhupad also gave an example: if you place a piece of iron into fire, it will become red, and if you touch somebody with that hot iron, it will burn the person’s body. Where does iron get this power? From fire. In the same way, Maya Devi gets her power from Krishna, and she removes us far away from the Lord’s service. As the result, we forget the Lord. ‘Krsna-bahirmukha jivera nahi Krsna-smrti-jnana – the souls who are averse to Krishna have no knowledge or remembrance of Krishna.’

krsna bhuli’ sei jiva anadi-bahirmukha

ataeva maya tare deya samsaradi-duhkha

‘Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

Why do we suffer when we come to this world? Somebody struggles because they do not have money, but those who have millions suffer even more. There are three kinds of miseries: adhibhautik, adhidaivik, adhyatmik – miseries caused by other souls, by the nature or gods and by our own body and mind. Why do we suffer from all this? Because, as the verse above says, we forget the Lord, and as the result, we have to suffer the agony of these threefold miseries. What must you do to get relief from this situation? The answer is also there in the scriptures. Search for Sri Krishna, Reality the Beautiful. Search for the Lord! There is a small book called In Search of Original Source that was recently translated into Bengali. Where is the source of the world and where is our source? Where have we come from? We are sons of nectar. All of you who are sitting here are relatives of one family because we are all children of the Lord.

We forget that we are sons of the Lord, and we think that we are this-and-this person’s son, this-and-this person’s wife, this-and-this person’s daughter, this-and-this person’s friend.

krsna bhuli’ sei jiva anadi-bahirmukha

ataeva maya tare deya samsaradi-duhkha

‘Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

That is why it is said that ‘Krsna-bahirmukha jivera nahi Krsna-smrti-jnana – the souls who are averse to Krishna have no knowledge or remembrance of Krishna.’ Those who turn away from the Lord have no remembrance of Krishna – they only think about their bodies. Many people rely on their parents, but your parents gave you only this body – they did not give you that which you are. Even science can tell you that. So, where does my soul come from? My soul comes from the Lord. I will leave this body one day, and I will again get another body. I come, I leave, and I have to be born again. If you do not want to suffer from this birth, death, old age and disease (janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi) (Srimad Bhagavad-Gita, 13.9), then you must know what to do. It is said in the scriptures: ‘Bhagavata pada Vaisnavera sthane, ekanta asraya kara Chaitanya-charane – read Bhagavatam under the guidance of a Vaishnav and take exclusive shelter at the lotus feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’ (Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.5.131).

I told you earlier today that there are four varnas and four ashrams, but the scriptures say:

chari varnasrami yadi krsna nahi bhaje

svakarma karileo se raurave padi maje

‘Whatever varna (a priest, fighter, manager or worker) or ashram (a celibate, householder, renouncer of the household life or monk) you belong to, if you do not worship Krishna but engage in your prescribed duties, you will have to fall into a terrible hell.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.26)

If I become a sannyasi but do not serve the Lord, I will go to hell. That is why it is important to practise – an acharya is he who practises, and an acharya is non-different from the Lord Himself (acharyam mam vijaniyan). Lord Krishna told Uddhav Maharaj, ‘You must know acharya to be non-different from Myself.’ Therefore, those who practise can preach in this world. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘We have not come to this world to become brick-layers and carpenters – we are only messengers of the Lord (vani-pion, lit. “postmen delivering messages”).’

You cannot write a letter directly to the Lord. Does anyone know the phone number of the Lord? You cannot dial a number and talk to the Lord, but you can speak to your guru. Gurudev is the Lord’s close associate. The Lord sends gurudev to this world, and we can speak to him. If you try to write to the Lord directly, you will not get a reply, but if you give your letter to the deputy of the Lord (His representative), then you will get a reply. Therefore, we must listen and listen to Hari-katha – we have a chaitya-guru in our hearts, and this chaitya-guru will take us to our mahanta-guru.

We will chant some kirtan now. Actually, I have told you before that I have not come to chant kirtan – I have come to make you chant kirtan. If I come and chant the Holy Name, it will not give you much because you will not practise yourself through that. You do not become a disciple just by taking initiation, just as you do not pass the final exam just by getting admitted to a school. Everybody knows that when you are admitted to a school, you must study. After that, the result of the exams will show whether you have studied or not and how much you have studied. Here too, tests will come, and it will be proved how much you have practised. There is Chitragupta appointed by the Lord who keeps all record of whether you are truly chanting the Holy Name or not, whether you practise Krishna consciousness or not, whether you are thinking about the Lord or not. He is writing a diary for you. He writes down everything – whether you steal, kill or do anything else. The master of everything is the Lord, and He knows everything. You must surrender at His holy feet.

First, it is necessary to have surrender.

daivi hy esa gunamayi, mama maya duratyaya

mam eva ye prapadyante, mayam etam taranti te

‘My supramundane trimodal illusory potency (alluring those who are averse to Me) is extremely difficult to overcome. However, this insurmountable potency of Mine can be overcome by those who exclusively surrender to Me.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 7.14)

The Lord Himself says, ‘I have created Maya, and it is impossible to overcome her, but still, there is a way out: if anyone takes shelter in Me, if anyone surrenders to Me, I rescue such souls from Maya and engage them in My service.’ There is another sloka also in Srimad Bhagavad-gita:

api chet suduracharo, bhajate mam ananya-bhak

sadhur eva sa mantavyah, samyag vyavasito hi sah

‘If even a very sinful person serves Me exclusively with devotion, he should be regarded as saintly, for his resolve is perfect.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 9.30)

If even a very bad person leaves everything and takes shelter in the Lord, the Lord says that He frees this person from all sins and engages them in His service. These are very beautiful words. If you do not read these things, if you do not understand these things, what will you get?

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

[His Divine Grace chants kirtans.]

(4/15) Make Yourself Qualified

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’

svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari

‘To bestow His mercy to jiva souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You know who Sri Krishna Chaitanya is – He is Krishna who came before, in Dvapar-yuga, and who came as Gauranga Mahaprabhu (Nimai, Vishvambhar) now, in Kali-yuga. After Gauranga Mahaprabhu took sannyas from Sri Keshav Bharati, His name became Sri Krishna Chaitanya. Supreme Lord Krishna appears in Kali-yuga to bestow His mercy on all jiva souls (sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’), to rescue such lowly and fallen souls as ourselves, and when He comes, He does not come alone: He comes in this age with all the associates with whom He performed His pastimes in Dvapar-yuga (svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari) to relish His magnanimous pastimes. In Dvapar-yuga, the Lord relishes His sweet amorous pastimes (madhurya-rasa, or madhurya-lila), but in Kali-yuga, He relishes the pastimes of magnanimity (audarya-rasa, or audarya-lila).

atyanta durlabha prema karibare dana
sikhaya saranagati bhakatera prana

‘To distribute the rarest form of divine love, He teaches surrender, which is the life and soul of devotees.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

He comes to distribute the rarest form of transcendental love that even Lord Siva and Lord Brahma aspire for and wait to attain, and He comes to give it liberally, going door to door. He taught everyone surrender. If you read Mahaprabhu’s Siksastakam, you will find there:

chetodarpanamarjanam bhavamahadava nirvapanam

sreyah kairava chandrikavitaranam vidyavadhujivanam

anandambudh ivardhanam pratipadam purnamrtasvadanam

sarvatmasnapanam param vijayate srikrsnasankirtanam

‘The Holy Name of Krishna cleanses the mirror of the heart and extinguishes the fire of misery in the forest of birth and death. As the evening lotus blooms in the moon’s cooling rays, the heart begins to blossom in the nectar of the Name. And at last the soul awakens to its real inner treasure a life of love with Krishna. Again and again tasting nectar, the soul dives and surfaces in the ever-increasing ocean of ecstatic joy. All phases of the self which we may conceive of are fully satisfied and purified and, at last, conquered by the all-auspicious influence of the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.12)

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.17.31, 3.6.239)

Mahaprabhu taught everyone to be humble and tolerant and to give honour to others. It is necessary to be very humble.

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana

[Limbs of surrender] ‘Humility, self-submission, accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

trnadhika hina dina akinchana chhara

apane manabi sada chhadi’ ahankara

‘Give up ego and always consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and wretched.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to be humbler than a blade of grass and more tolerant than a tree. This is how Mahaprabhu distributed the Holy Name in this world. At the same time, He said, ‘Who has the right to chant the Holy Name in this Kali-yuga? Those who have become lower than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who have learnt to give honour to others. Those who have these qualities can chant the Holy Name and can also distribute the Holy Name. Nobody else can.’

We must be humbler than a blade of grass and more tolerant than a tree, and we must give honour to others.

(5/15) Six Limbs of Surrender

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.

‘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:

radha-bhajane yadi mati nahi bhela

krsna-bhajana tava akarana gela

‘If you did not become devoted to the worship of Srimati Radharani, your worship of Krishna was 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 – when Nitai bestows His mercy, you will reach Radha-Krishna in Vraja. Grasp Nitai’s 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 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 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 at Gaura Purnima also, 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 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). Krishna is our protector. ‘Marabi rakhabi, yo ichchha tohara – You can kill me, You can keep me, You can protect me, 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), and the sixth is rejecting everything that is unfavourable to devotion (bhakti-pratikula bhava varjanangikara). 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 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).

(6/15) Sincere and Deep Prayer

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya

kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya be merciful to me? When will I reach the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When will Chaitanya (my chaitya-guru) shower His mercy on me, and when will I be able to take shelter at the lotus feet of Vaishnavs?

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When will I leave all my material ego? People are proud of their money, beauty, friends and family. They think, ‘Why must I go to the class? I am sitting nicely at home and watching TV news, series and soap operas.

When Mahaprabhu went to Ramkeli, he met with Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu and Srila Sanatan Goswami Prabhu, who were very big ministers in the government of Emperor Hussein Sah at that time (one of the brothers was the treasurer, and the other one’s post was similar to that of the chief minister). The brothers came to Mahaprabhu very humbly – that fell at His feet holding a blade of straw in their teeth and showing, ‘We are lower than even cows.’

gala-vastra krtanjali vaisnava-nikate

dante trna kari’ dandaiba niskapate

‘I will stand before a Vaishnav sincerely, with a cloth around my neck and joined palms, holding a straw between my teeth.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Sincerely’ means to come without wanting to show anything to others or wanting to impress others. It is necessary to feel this and to practise spiritual life very deeply, internally, not for the sake of showing anything to others.

gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

loka dekhana gora bhaja tilaka matra dhari’
gopanete atyachara gora dhare churi

‘You put on tilaks and show the whole world that you serve Gora, but secretly you do outrageous things. Gora will catch you out, thief (hypocrite)!’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6–7, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Gora knows what you are doing. You cannot cheat Him or hide anything from Him.

kandiya kandiya janaiba duhkha-grama
samsara-anala haite magiba visrama

‘Weeping, I will tell Vaishnav Thakur about my miserable life and pray for respite from the fire of material existence.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This material life is compared to a fire. We also sing in a kirtan written by Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur:

samsara-davanala-lidha-loka
tranaya karunya-ghanaghanatvam
praptasya kalyana-gunarnavasya
vande guroh sri-charanaravindam

‘I offer my obeisance unto the lotus feet of Sri Guru, who is an ocean of good qualities and auspiciousness and who, as a thick rain cloud of mercy, brings relief to this world devoured by the forest fire of material existence.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

Material family is a blazing fire, and we have fallen into it. Be it a human family, a goat’s family, a dog’s family or any other family in this world, it is all a blazing fire. I have told before that we have got this human birth in this land of India having wandered throughout 8,400,000 species, but we must be careful not to become demoted. Everyone hopes to be promoted, but if you become demoted, you will have to be again born as a cow, dog, cat, jackal or any other species. We certainly do not want this to happen. We have got this human birth and this nice body now. Even it is said about the Lord Himself:

krsnera yateka khela, sarvottama nara-lila,

nara-vapu tahara svarupa

‘The highest form of the Lord is Krishna, who plays His eternal divine pastimes like an ordinary human being.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.21.101)

Lord Krishna and Gauranga Mahaprabhu come to this world assuming a human form, and we have now got a similar human body – we must not lose this opportunity. This body will go away one day. You have not got this body only for sleeping, eating, breeding and fearing. Everyone in this world is worried about their life, and nobody has time to hear Hari-katha. What do scriptures say?

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This life is not eternal!

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Days pass as the sun rises and sets, rises and sets – moment after moment, year after year, our life is passing. We can leave this world at any moment. Because we have not been able to practise Krishna consciousness and serve the Lord, we will have to keep coming back to this world again and again. The only way to get out of this world is to take shelter of the Lord. That is why we sing in this kirtan, ‘Weeping, I will tell Vaishnav Thakur about my endless sorrows and pray for shelter from the fire of material existence.’

suniya amara duhkha vaisnava thakura
ama’ lagi’ krsne avedibena prachura

‘Hearing about my sorrow, the worshippable Vaishnav Thakur will ardently pray to Krishna on my behalf.’

vaisnavera avedane krsna dayamaya
e hena pamara prati habena sadaya

‘Lord Krishna is merciful – hearing the Vaishnav’s appeal, He will take pity on this wretched sinner.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Hearing about my sorrow, Vaishnav Thakur will pray to the Lord for me, ‘O Lord! Please give this devotee some respite from the material world.’ Vaishnav Thakur prays for us to the Lord. That is why we are told that if Vaishnav Thakur is not happy with us, the Lord will not help us. Hearing the prayer of Vaishnav Thakur, merciful Lord Krishna will take pity on such a wretched sinner as myself. What does Srimad Bhagavad-gita say? The Lord says, ‘I know only My devotees (I do not know anyone except them), and My devotees also do not know anyone except Me – they do not know and do not understand anything except Me.’ That is why we must pray to the Lord’s devotees.

vinodera nivedana vaisnava-charane
krpa kari’ sange laha ei akinchane

‘Bhaktivinod prays at the holy feet of Vaishnavs: “Please take this destitute soul with you.”’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Finally, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur prays, ‘Prabhu! I am praying at your lotus feet – wherever you go, please take me with you.’

You should sing these kirtans yourself. I have told you many times – buy kirtan books (the small one is just twenty rupees); read these kirtans in the morning and in the evening. There are prayers (vandana) to Sri Guru, Sri Vaishnav, Sri Pancha-tattva, and so on. Pray to their feet in this way. No tune is necessary – no karatals or mridanda are necessary: you can just clap your hands and sing sweetly, with heart and soul. You must learn what is written in these kirtans – if you read them, you will understand their meanings. These kirtans are very beautiful.

(7/15) Lend Me Your Heart

[His Divine Grace resumes the class after kirtans.]

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim

yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy and aspiring to serve him; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all assembled guru-varga, godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, all the devotees, sannyasis and brahmacharis. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet, praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

A bad day is a day without Hari-katha. Therefore, today is our good day because we have got an opportunity to hear and speak some Hari-katha (to hear and speak about the Lord) today. You are present here at this auspicious assembly, eager to hear about the Lord. Until now, you have been listening to some kirtans, and now please listen to some narratives about the Lord (Bhagavat-katha, Hari-katha). I have one prayer to you all. I want to ask you for one thing: please give me your mind, heart, soul, everything for some time today – submit everything to the Lord – to be able to hear some Hari-katha.

At the beginning of our meeting, I told you about our identity. We are souls (atma) – we all come from the Lord, and we must all come back to the Lord. Back to God, back to home. This human birth is very beautiful. You can get parents, friends and relatives in every single birth, but it is not in every birth that you can get a bona fide guru. Therefore, we have got this precious human body in the Age of Kali, and if we can surrender to a bona fide guru and practise Krishna consciousness, we will get the highest benefit.

The Lord personally came to us in this Age of Kali in the form of a guru – He came as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu – and distributed the Holy Name in this world. We must take advantage of this opportunity and take good, saintly association. This opportunity does not come all the time, but we must spend every day, every moment of our life in holy association, in Hari-katha. It is said in the scriptures: ‘Prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara: you must preach for as long as you are alive.’ When the Lord takes this life away or takes your mouth away, you will not be able to speak about the Lord. If you get another birth, you may be able to use your mouth – you may be able to call out to your mother and father, but you may not be able to utter Hare Krishna anymore. We have got this birth now, and we can chant the Holy Name of the Lord.

sadhu-sange krsna-nama—ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Today, I want to tell you how Srimad Bhagavatam appeared in this world. Srila Guru Maharaj (Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj) gave a very beautiful lecture one day, and I will tell you what he said…

(8/15) Follow the Footsteps of Great Souls

It is said in the scriptures:

prthivite yaha kichhu dharma name chale
bhagavata kahe taha paripurna chhale

’Bhagavatam says that whatever is going on in this world in the name of religion is complete cheating.’

(Based on Srimad Bhagavatam, 1.1.2)

Srimad Bhagavatam is a very exclusive scripture. For example, if you read Srimad Bhagavad-gita, you will get bhakti-yoga, karma-yoga, jnana-yoga, sankya-yoga and many other teachings, but Srimad Bhagavatam is not like that.

One day, Narad came to Vyasadev.

krsna haite chatur-mukha, hana krsna-sevonmukha,
brahma haite naradera mati

‘Through Krishna, Brahma became devoted to Krishna’s service. Brahma inspired Narad.’

(Sri Guru-Parampara kirtan)

Brahma took initiation from Krishna and then created this world and everything that is within it, including various religions, concepts and ideas, on the order of Krishna. Brahma created this world based on what he had heard from Krishna, but somehow he did not hear well, so some discrepancies appeared. That is why we see now that some people worship Kali, some people worship Ganesh, some people worship Laksmi, some people worship Surya, some people worship Parvati, and so on. There are 330,000,000 demigods in this world, and people worship all kinds of demigods. But this is not what is prescribed by the scriptures, in particular, in Srimad Bhagavatam, which is the main scripture. Many ask, ‘Who wrote Bhagavatam?’ The truth is that nobody wrote it. Bhagavatam is printed now as a book, but it was not written by anyone.

Originally, Sri Sukadev Goswami received Srimad Bhagavatam from Srila Vyasadev, and after that, he preached the teachings of Bhagavatam in this world.

One day, Srila Vyasadev met with Sri Narad Goswami, his gurudev, and told him, ‘Prabhu, I do not feel any peace at heart.’ By that time, Vyasadev had written so many scriptures – Agni Purana, Garuda Purana, the four Vedas, Vedanta, Mahabharata and Srimad Bhagavad-gita – but he felt no peace at heart. When Narad Goswami heard this, he said, ‘How will you feel happy? When you cook, you cook various preparations (rice, dal, vegetables, chutney, sweet rice), but when you come to distribute what you have cooked, you mix everything together – can one understand the taste of each preparation like this? You have created all this labra (hotchpotch) and distributed it like khichuri. How will you get the taste? You have made so many scriptures mixing together bhakti-yoga, karma-yoga, jnana-yoga, sankya-yoga and every other possible conception, but you must write a scripture where there will be only bhakti-yoga and through which one can get the Lord.’

One can get the Lord only through devotion – not through karma, jnana or any yoga. It is possible to get the Lord only through devotion. You can ask, ‘Where can one get devotion?’ You cannot get it at any market – you can buy many things (rice, dal, vegetables, and so on) at the market, but you cannot buy devotion there. You can get devotion only from the association of devotees: bhaktis tu bhagavad-bhakta-sangena parijayate (Brihan-naradiya Purana). If you associate with devotees and surrender to devotees, you will get devotion. What does it mean to associate with devotees? It does not mean to sleep with them in one bed, to eat from the same plate with them – mosquitos also sleep together with a sadhu, but do they associate with the sadhu? They do not. They only bite and disturb. Nobody can stand them – as soon as you feel that there are mosquitoes in the room, you immediately plug in Good Night or All Out (mosquito repellents). The same is true for bedbugs (chharpoka) – they sleep with you in the same bed, but they do not associate with you. Associating (sanga) with the guru or a devotee means listening to what is right (sat-patha) and following it. Associating with the guru means listening to what gurudev says and following it in your life. Sadhu-sanga means listening to the sadhu and following what he says. ‘Mahajano yena gatah sa panthah: follow the footsteps of great personalities’ (Mahabharata). We must live in the same way that great personalities lived. This is how you take sadhu-sanga, holy association.

(9/15) Suspicion Leads to Suspension

After Narad Goswami instructed Vyasadev to compose a new, exclusive scripture, Vyasadev wondered, ‘If I write an exclusive scripture about devotion, who will preach it in this world?’ Then he remembered Sukadev, his disciple or son (you can say both).

At that time, Sukadev had been in his mother’s womb for twelve years already. You can see how incredible this pastime is. You may wonder: What is the proof that Krishna is the Supreme Lord? You have children at home – are they born wearing clothes, tilaks and with a garland on their necks? They are not. However, when Krishna was born in Mathura, He appeared assuming a four-armed form, wearing clothes, holding a conch, club, disk and lotus flower. When Krishna’s parents, Devaki and Vasudev, offered their obeisances to Him, He became two-armed, but He remained fully clothed and decorated with ornaments. This is the difference.

So, when Vyasadev remembered Sukadev, he came to the boy, who was still in his mother’s womb, and said, ‘Sukadev, come! You must come out and preach religion in this world!’

‘No, no,’ Sukadev replied (he could speak even though he was in his mother’s womb!), ‘I will not come out!’

‘Why will you not come out?’ Vyasadev asked.

‘Because if I come out, Maya will catch me.’

Then, many sages came there, including Parasara Muni (Vyasadev’s father). They advised Vyasadev, ‘You have much power, you can stop Maya’s work for five minutes.’

‘Will you come out if I stop Maya for five minutes?’ Vyasadev asked Sukadev.

‘Yes, five minutes is enough,’ agreed Sukadev.

As soon as Sukadev Goswami appeared from his mother’s womb, he ran away to the forest! We may sometimes wonder how this is possible. Our cow in Nrisingha Palli had a calf recently, and one hour after the calf was born, it was already running around. If calves can do that, then why not humans? It is necessary to have faith.

‘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)

One time, a man came to me in Nabadwip. He worked at a rice mill and worshipped Kali. He would often be seen with a sindoor mark on his forehead. I asked him once, ‘Who put this sindoor for you?’ and he explained that when he brought some bel leaves to somebody (for puja), they put a sindoor mark on him. A few days after that, something happened, and he suddenly came to me wearing huge tilak marks. He pleaded, ‘Please save me! Please save me! When I saw you, I understood that you can save me!’ One way or another, the Lord gives inspiration to people – whether it is Kali, Durga, Laksmi or Ganesh, they are all under Lord Krishna. It is said in Sri Brahma-samhita:

isvarah paramah krsnah sach-chid-ananda-vigrahah
anadir adir govindah sarva-karana-karanam

‘Krishna, who is known as Govinda, is the supreme controller. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no origin, for He is the prime cause of all causes.’

(Sri Brahma-samhita, 5.1)

Lord Krishna is the cause of all causes! That is why we are told that sraddha means a determined faith that by service to Krishna all actions are accomplished. Your debt to your father, mother, rishis (sages), demigods – all debts are cleared if you serve the Lord.

One time, I was asked what my favourite verse from Srimad Bhagavad-gita was, and I said:

sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja

aham tvam sarva-papebhyo moksayisyami ma suchah

‘Give up all religions and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

‘Give up all religions – the religion of serving your mother, father, friends, the religion of sudras, brahmans, ksatriyas, vaisyas, and so on. Give up all religions and surrender to Me. Do not worry, I will save you from all sins.’ It is necessary to believe this. If you have no faith, how will you understand it? You will think, ‘Oh, Sukadev was just born, how could he run?’

(10/15) Only One Question

When Sukadev Goswami finally appeared from his mother’s womb, he immediately ran away to the forest. Vyasadev ran after him, calling out, ‘Sukadev! Listen! Listen! Wait!’ Sukadev did not hear or see anything except the Lord. He did not even have the eyes to see anything. Eventually, he roamed to the Himalayas. It is cold in the mountains, so girls bath in the mountains without clothes (because it is hard to dry clothes in the cold weather and rain). At that time, Sukadev was already sixteen years old, but when some bathing girls saw him, they did not feel shy – it did not even cross their minds that Sukadev was a youth and they had to cover themselves with some clothes. However, when they saw Vyasadev, a very old man, coming behind Sukadev, they immediately put on some clothes. You can understand how great Sukadev’s glory is. That is why Sivji Maharaj said, ‘Aham vedmi, Suka vetti, Vyasa vetti na vetti va. I know it [the purport of Bhagavatam], Sukadev Goswami knows it, but Vyasadev may or may not know it.’ This Sukadev Goswami roamed forests and hills without seeing anyone or anything.

In the meantime, another event took place. Pariksit Maharaj was cursed by a brahman: according to the curse, he had to die in seven days. He received this advance notice, but we are not as fortunate – who of us will get an advance notice that we will die even in seven minutes? There is no such guarantee for us. However, Pariksit Maharaj has got this kind of guarantee that he would die in seven days. He has got this opportunity and he took advantage of it. Many sages came from all sampradayas and religions and started giving him advice what to do, based on their conception. Suddenly, Sukadev Goswami, a stark naked sixteen-year-old boy, appeared at that assembly of sages.

When Sukadev came, he did not see anyone – so many great sages were sitting at the assembly, but he did not see anyone, did not offer his obeisance to anyone. Even his own father, Vyasadev, and grandfather, Parasara Muni, who were the greatest scholars, were present there, but Sukadev did not see them. When Sukadev came, all the sages said to King Pariksit, ‘Our joint opinion is that we will agree with whatever Sukadev instructs.’ When Pariksit Maharaj offered a seat to Sukadev, Sukadev saw Pariksit and began to speak to him. Beside them was seated Suta Goswami, who had a special gift of memory (he could remember everything he heard). Suta Goswami heard what Sukadev Goswami had told Pariksit Maharaj and later retold everything to 60,000 sages at Naimisaranya.

‘What is your question?’ Sukadev Goswami asked Pariksit Maharaj.

‘Tell me, how can I get benefit?’ Pariksit Maharaj asked.

‘What you have asked is the right question!’ Sukadev replied. ‘There is only one question, and the answer is also only one.’

Those who ask too many questions are under the influence of illusory environment. The question is only one, ‘How can I get benefit?’ As Sukadev explained the answer to this question, the entire Srimad Bhagavatam came out. If you put all Bhagavatam books together (with the commentary), they weight forty kilograms! Such a great scripture came out of that seven-day-long conversation!

This is how Srimad Bhagavatam appeared.

There is no need to ask many questions. The only question is how you can get benefit, and the answer to this question is also one – service to the Lord. If you serve the Supreme Lord, you will get benefit.

(11/15) We Are Neither Enjoyers Nor Renouncers

How will attachment and love for service to the Lord come to us? If we do not associate with sadhus, if we do not practise sravan and kirtan, then this attachment and love will never come to us. Without holy association, you can never serve the Lord. Therefore, we must always remember what Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said in His conversation with Srivas Pandit and what He told Srila Raghunath Das Goswami also. You can remember what happened at Panihati (northern surburb of Kolkata). Srila Raghunath Das Goswami had tried to come to Mahaprabhu again and again, but he did not get His mercy. Only after Sriman Nityananda Prabhu gave His blessing (Nityananda Prabhu is guru-tattva, non-different from the guru) and told him, ‘Now you can go to Mahaprabhu, you will get His mercy’ was Srila Raghunath Das Goswami finally able to come to Mahaprabhu. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami was not interested in family life. His parents had him married to a girl who was as beautiful as an angel, hoping to tie him to the family, but he was always aloof. He had no attachment to the material world.

‘asakti-rahita’, ‘sambandha-sahita’,

visaya-samuha sakali ‘madhava’

‘When you are free from material attachment and establish relationship with the Lord, then you will see that everything around you is Lord Madhav Himself.’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

We must have no attachment to the material world, and we must only know the relationship (sambandha): everything that is created in this world is meant for the service of the Lord. You can see that Tulasi grows everywhere, but not everywhere Tulasi leaves are offered to the Lord. In the same way, not all flowers are offered to the Lord – for example, some flowers are put on dead bodies that are taken to the crematorium. Everyone’s fortune is not the same, but everything in this world is His, and everything is meant for His service (tad vastu tadiya sevaya: ‘His things – for His service’). It is necessary to have sukriti to serve the Lord. There is jnata-sukriti (conscious spiritual merit) and ajnata-sukriti (unconscious spiritual merit). Those who know something can get benefit, and those who do not know can be used for service without knowing it. For example, if you take some flowers, make garlands and offer those garlands to a devotee or the Lord, the flower tree does not know anything about this – it does not know that its flowers are being offered at the lotus feet of Govinda – but this is how ajnata-sukriti comes (the tree gets some benefit if its flowers are used for service).

Therefore, everything is His, and everything is for His service. Everything that is created in this world is created for the pleasure of the Lord, not for our pleasure. Because we have much ego, we think, ‘This is my house, I will enjoy it’, ‘This is my car, I will enjoy it’, ‘This my money, I will enjoy with it.’ That is why it is said: ‘Ahankare matta haina, Nitai-pada pasariya asatyere satya kari’ mani. Maddened with pride, I forgot Nitai’s feet and accept untruth as truth.’

We always think how we can enjoy, what we can do to enjoy, but the truth is that we are neither enjoyers nor renunciates: we want to neither enjoy anything nor renounce anything. What does this mean? It means that we will use everything in Govinda’s service. Many look at me and think, ‘Oh, Maharaj has a nice car’, but this car is not for my enjoyment – I do not use it to go for car rides. You know, I have been staying in Kolkata for many years now, over forty years, but to this day I have never seen the zoo or any museum there. When I go out in the car, I go out for service – I use the car only for service. If I had to go everywhere by train or bus, I would not be able to reach places timely. Therefore, if it is possible to use a car for service, it is good. It is like this with everything that is created in this world. For example, when we sometimes go abroad for preaching, we use planes.

Our duty is to serve the Lord. Devotees do not know anything except service to the Lord. We must submit everything for the Lord’s service, and we must know nothing except service to the Lord. Just as it is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita: devotees do not know or understand anything except the Lord. This is our highest aspiration.

sarvasva tomara, charane sampiya,
padechhi tomara ghare
tumi ta’ thakura, tomara kukura,
baliya janaha more

‘I have offered everything at Your feet and taken shelter in Your home. You are my Master; please consider me Your dog.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘You are my Lord, and I am Your dog.’ You must remember this.

(12/15) False Ego’s Folly

When you come to the temple of Lord Jagannath, there is a place where you can wash your feet before entering the temple (it is a rule that you should clean your feet from dust and dirt before coming in front of the Lord). That place existed in Mahaprabhu’s time also. One time, a Gaudiya devotee from Nabadwip called Kalidas came to Puri, and although he knew that it was prohibited to touch Mahaprabhu’s feet, he put his hands to catch and drink the water that was falling when Mahaprabhu was washing His feet at the entrance to the temple of Lord Jagannath. When devotees noticed what he was doing, they immediately tried to stop him, but Mahaprabhu said, ‘Let him be. Do not stop him.’

Mahaprabhu prohibited everyone to touch His feet, but for this one person He said, ‘Do not stop him. He is a jhanu vaishnav (“a seasoned, crafty Vaishnav”).’ What kind of a Vaishnav was Kalidas? When all the Vaishnavs were invited to take prasadam, he never sat in one line with everyone considering himself very lowly and poor; instead, he stayed far off in the jungle – when all the Vaishnavs finished taking prasadam and threw their plates in some place, Kalidas would come there and lick the plates. Do you understand what kind of a Vaishnav he was? When we see somebody’s prasadam plate, we feel squeamish or shy to touch it because we have ego.

You have heard about Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj also. One time, a very old lady invited him to take prasad at her house, ‘Babaji Maharaj, please come to my house. I will cook something and offer bhoga, and you can take prasad.’ Babaji Maharaj agreed to come and told her to arrange the date with his servitor, Bihari Das. Due to his age, Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj’s back was so bent that he could not walk, so Bihari Das would carry him in a basket. You know, when Mahaprabhu’s birthplace in Mayapur was discovered, he was carried there too, and as soon as he arrived, he jumped out of the basket and began to dance. So, on the way to this lady’s house, some rich man saw Srila Babaji Maharaj and noticed that Babaji Maharaj was wearing torn clothes (he did not actually wear clothes; rather, he would cover his body with some plain cloth). The rich man came to Babaji Maharaj and said, ‘Maharaj, please take this money. You can use it for some service.’ Babaji Maharaj took the money without second thoughts, but having walked three miles, he suddenly told Bihari Das, ‘Let us go back. Take me to the house of that man who gave me this money.’ Bihari Das was surprised (‘But why?’), but Babaji Maharaj only said, ‘Go, go. Let us go back. You will understand it later.’ When they came to the house, Bihari Das called the man saying that Babaji Maharaj wanted to talk to him. The man thought, ‘Oh, he must have come to ask for more money!’ But what did Srila Babaji Maharaj do? He took that money out and gave it back to the man! He said, ‘Listen, I cannot tolerate the burden of this money. I only keep thinking about what I will buy or do with this money. I cannot chant the Holy Name! I only keep thinking about this money!’ Such was Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj.

Finally, when they had reached the house of that lady, it was already late (there were no mobile phones at that time, so they could not call and say, ‘Oh, Babaji Maharaj is coming a little late’). The lady said, ‘It is past lunch time, so everything is ready, please sit and take prasad.’ She told Srila Babaji Maharaj and Bihari Das to sit down and started serving them prasad. Srila Babaji Maharaj ate everything that was on his plate, and the lady thought to herself, ‘It was so hard to invite Babaji Maharaj, but I have not got any prasad – he has eaten everything…’ Then, she started giving more prasad forcefully, ‘Take some more! Take some rice, dal! Take some more subji! Take some more, take some more!’ Srila Babaji Maharaj understood what was going on (he is antaryami, omniscient, so he knows everything – he can see everything). First, he tried to refuse, but then he became grave, thinking, ‘Oh, so you want to take my prasad, that is why you invited me. OK, I will show you!’ When the lady put prasad on Srila Babaji Maharaj’s plate again, Srila Babaji Maharaj took everything again, and this time he also ate the plate!

That is why we sing in the kirtan ‘Krpa kara Vaisnava Thakura’: ‘Nije srestha jani’ uchchhistadi dane habe abhimana-bhara. If I believe that I am the greatest, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego.’ I have seen many gurus who leave half of prasad on their plate and then distribute these remnants to others – people come with stretched out hands, and they sit and distribute their prasad to others. This is ego (guru-abhiman). They think, ‘I am the highest, and everyone is lower than me, so they should take my prasad.’

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada,
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest”, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must become disciples – there is no need to become a guru. These are very beautiful words.

You must read books.

(13/15) Be Sincere and Studious

We have many beautiful holy books. Last Gaura Purnima, we published Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-muka-mala. You should read it. Many people travel to Nabadwip, but they do not go to all nine islands – they mostly go for a walk at ISKCON, drop at Paramatala and go back. That is why I published this book about the glory of Nabadwip Dham. If you read it, you can see what pastimes took place on which island – everything is described beautifully there in plain Bengali. Many cannot read high-flown language or even Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s poem Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya, so I wrote this book in simple language. Read this book, you will get benefit. When you sit at home, you must always read books – you must practise Krishna consciousness and chant the glories of the Lord every single day. Always serve your guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord in this way.

Who is a Vaishnav?

kanaka-kamini, pratistha-baghini,

chhadiyachhe yare sei ta vaisnava

‘Those who have given up money, women, and fame the tigress are the true Vaishnavs.’

(‘Vaishnav Ke?’, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur)

One can give up money, one can give up women, but it is very difficult to give up desire for prestige (name and fame). That is why we sing in one of the kirtans:

chhaya vega dami’, chhaya dosa sodhi’,
chhaya guna deha dase

‘Please subjugate the six urges, rectify the six defects and bestow the six good qualities upon this servant.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

There are six urges: (1) the urge of speech (vakya-vega), (2) the urge of the mind (mana-vega), (3) the urge of anger (krodha-vega), (4) the urge of the tongue (jihva-vega), (5) the urge of the belly (uddhara-vega), (6) the urge of the genitals (upastha-vega). These urges live within the ten senses (indriya). There are five karmendriya (‘action’ instruments – feet, hands, rectum, genitals, mouth) and five jnanendriya (‘knowledge’ instruments – eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin). Do you know how you can handle these senses properly? By living and practising sincerely, with determination (nistha). Whatever you do, you must do it sincerely and with determination.

Nine kinds of devotion reside on the nine islands of Nabadwip. For example, the place where we had our temple before is in Koladwip. Koladwip is aparadha-bhanjana-pat (the place where all offences are forgiven), and this island is the abode of pada-sevanam (service to the lotus feet of the Lord). Mayapur is situated in Antardwip: it is the abode of atma-nivedanam (self-submission). Godrumdwip, where our Nrisingha Palli temple stands, is the abode of kirtan (glorification of the Lord). Simantadwip is the abode of smaranam (remembering the Lord). In this way, each of the nine kinds of devotion resides on a corresponding island in Nabadwip.

The first requirement in spiritual life is faith:

adau sraddha tatah sadhu-sango ‘tha bhajana-kriya

tato ‘nartha-nivrttih syat tato nistha ruchis tatah

athasaktis tato bhavas tatah premabhyudanchati

sadhakanam ayam premnah pradurbhave bhavet kramah

‘First, there is faith; then, saintly association and practising life. After that, unwanted habits gradually go away, spiritual life becomes stable, and spiritual taste comes. Then comes attachment, feeling and, finally, transcendental love. This is how love for the Lord comes to those who practise Krishna consciousness.’

(Sri Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, 1.4.15–16)

These are the nine stages of devotion, and each of them also has a corresponding place on the nine islands of Nabadwip. As I said, the first requirement is faith. There are four kinds of faith: kamala-sraddha (soft, fragile faith), taranga-sraddha (flickering, wave-like faith), drdha-sraddha (strong faith) and sudrdha-sraddha (the strongest faith). At first, your faith is very soft, but it should become strong and stronger. Finally, whatever you do, you must do it with the strongest faith and sincere determination (nistha). If you do not feel the taste for chanting the Holy Name – many do not like to chant the Holy Name – then you must understand that there is a disease inside you. When your body has a fever, you do not feel like eating anything, and when you eat something, you do not feel any taste; in the same way, if you feel no taste when you chant the Holy Name, this is because you have some diseases inside you. That is why you must always practise sravan and kirtan in holy association and try to remove your offences. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur prays:

kabe habe bala se dina amara
aparadha ghuchi’, suddha name ruchi,
krpa-bale habe hrdaye sanchara

‘Tell me, when will that day be mine? When, by the mercy, will my heart become cleansed of offences and the taste for the pure Holy Name arise in it?’

trnadhika hina, kabe nije mani,

sahisnuta-guna hrdayete ani’

‘When will I feel that I am lower than a blade of grass? When will I bring the quality of tolerance into my heart?’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘When will I consider myself lower than a blade of grass? When will the quality of tolerance come to my heart?’ We pray to gurudev also, ‘Gurudev, please give me the strength to tolerate everything, to be patient. If my power of tolerance increases, then I will be able to always serve my guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord, I will be able to always chant the Holy Name – then I will get the supreme benefit.’ We must always remember this. Surrender to the holy feet of the sadhus, guru and Vaishnavs and practise Krishna consciousness – chant the Holy Name, remember and circumambulate the holy dham.

It will be the Nityananda-trayodasi festival soon. I am inviting everyone to Ekachakra Dham. Please come. After that, we will go for Nabadwip Dham parikrama. We do this parikrama together with devotees every year:

gaura amara, ye-saba sthane,
karala bhramana range
se-saba sthana, heriba ami,
pranayi-bhakata-sange

‘In the company of loving devotees, I will behold all the places my Gaura roamed during His ecstatic pastimes.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Mahaprabhu predicted:

prithivite achhe yata nagaradi grama
sarvatra prachara haibe mora nama

‘My Name will spread to every village and town on this earth.’

(Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu)

Mahaprabhu said, ‘My Name will spread to every village and town on this earth,’ but our guru-varga actually went all over the world preaching this Holy Name, preaching about the Lord and the glories of the Lord everywhere. We must surrender to them – if we can always keep them in our hearts and think about them, we will get the highest benefit.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Dayal Nitai Chaitanya bale’.]

dayal nitai chaitanya ba’le nachre amar man

(ekbar) nachre amar man nachre amar man [1]

‘Dance, my mind, dance, chanting, “Dayal Nitai Chaitanya!” Dance, my mind, dance!’

(emana dayala to nai he, mara kheye prema deya)

ore aparadha dure yabe pabe prema-dhan !

(aparadhera vichara to nai he)

takhan krsna-name ruchi habe ghuchibe bandhana

(anurag to habe he) [2]

‘(There is no one as merciful as Them – even when They are beaten, They bestow transcendental love!) Lo, offences will go away, and you will attain the wealth of divine love! (After all, there is no consideration of offences in the Names of Nitai and Chaitanya.) Then you will develop taste for Krishna’s Name and your bondage will be destroyed. (After all, you must get loving attachment to the Lord.)’

takhan anayase saphal habe jivera jivana

(naile jivan to michhe he)

krsna-rati bina jiver jivan to michhe he

sese vrndavane radha-syamer pabe darasana

(gaura-krpa hale he) [3]

‘Then your soul’s life will easily become successful. (Otherwise, life is a farce.) Without attachment to Krishna, your soul’s life is a farce. In the end, you will see Radha-Shyam in Vrindavan (if you get Gaura’s mercy!).’

(14/15) Remembering Mahaprabhu’s Sannyas

Today, Mahaprabhu left Katwa after taking sannyas. He left Nabadwip on the day of Sankranti. On the eve of Sankranti, each of our temples offers lau-payesh (bottle gourd cooked in milk with sugar). Do you know why? Vakreshwar Pandit, Nityananda Prabhu, Srivas Pandit, Sachi Mata, Vishnupriya and all the other devotees from Nabadwip gathered in the evening – at this time, one devotee brought lau (gourd), and another devotee brought milk. Mahaprabhu asked His mother, ‘Mother, please cook this lau’, but Sachi Mata said, ‘Lau? Now? It is cold, how will everyone take it?’ Then, Mahaprabhu said, ‘All right, then make some lau-payesh.’ Mahaprabhu knew that He would leave the next day, swimming across the Ganges, so He wanted to take full prasadam in the evening before leaving. In this way, lau-payesh was cooked that evening, and in remembrance of that, each of our temples makes and offers lau-payesh the day before Sankranti. Many do it wrong and offer lau-payesh on the Sankranti day, but Mahaprabhu left and was walking towards Katwa on the Sankranti day – He took lau-payesh the day before that. Mahaprabhu took sannyas on the first day of Magh month. After that, He did not eat anything for three days as He started walking to Vrindavan – He was not aware of hunger or anything else. However, in the end, pulled by the love of Gaura-Gadadhar’s devotees, He came to the house of Advaita Prabhu in Shantipur.

When Mahaprabhu suddenly saw Advaita Prabhu, He was surprised, ‘How did you know I was here? How did you know I would come to Vrindavan today?’ Advaita Acharya replied, ‘Prabhu, wherever You are, that is Vrindavan! Even the Ganges, in which You are standing, is Vrindavan when You are present.’ When Mahaprabhu saw Advaita Prabhu, He was reciting prayers to the Yamuna, being confident that He had come to the Yamuna in Vrindavan, so when Advaita Prabhu said that He was actually in the Ganges, He exclaimed, ‘What?! Have I come to the Ganges?? Have I come to Gaura Mandal again?!’ Then Mahaprabhu understood that Nityananda Prabhu had tricked Him.

Mahaprabhu came to Keshav Bharati on the day of Sankranti, and they spent the whole night talking. One time, I asked Gurudev what they were talking about. The main reason for that conversation was that sannyas is prohibited in Kali-yuga. Moreover, according to the scriptures, one has to be rather old to take sannyas, but Mahaprabhu was a twenty-four-year-old youth. Because Keshav Bharati objected for these two reasons, Mahaprabhu said to him, ‘All right, suppose I am fifty now.’

‘If the fault of following the five tastes does not go away,’ Keshav Bharati said, ‘then You cannot take sannyas even if You are fifty.’

There is rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (seeking the pleasures of eyes, taste, smell, ear and touch). We are drawn to beautiful things. You can see that when you put on the lights during the Kartik month, so many bugs and flies come – they think they will get nice things, but you can see later that they all die when they come to the lights. We are drawn to the pleasures of taste also. When you buy gur (molasses), you can sometimes see so many ants inside – they think, ‘I will eat more’, ‘I will eat more’, but in the end they eat so much that they die right in the gur. In this way, there are five types of pleasures that we are always drawn to.

Next, Mahaprabhu said, ‘What if I am sixty?’

‘Then’, answered Keshav Bharati, ‘if You cannot conquer the six enemies, You still cannot take sannyas.’

The six enemies are kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya – lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness and envy.

Next, Mahaprabhu said, ‘All right, I am ninety now.’

‘If You do not practise the nine types of devotion, then You cannot take sannyas even when You are ninety!’

I have told you earlier today. There are nine stages of devotion:

adau sraddha tatah sadhu-sango ‘tha bhajana-kriya

tato ‘nartha-nivrttih syat tato nistha ruchis tatah

athasaktis tato bhavas tatah premabhyudanchati

sadhakanam ayam premnah pradurbhave bhavet kramah

‘First, there is faith; then, saintly association and practising life. After that, unwanted habits gradually go away, spiritual life becomes stable, and spiritual taste comes. Then comes attachment, feeling and, finally, transcendental love. This is how love for the Lord comes to those who practise Krishna consciousness.’

(Sri Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, 1.4.15–16)

If you cannot practise these stages, then it is not possible to take sannyas even if you are ninety.

‘What if I am one hundred now?’ Mahaprabhu said finally.

‘If You cannot subdue the ten senses,’ Keshav Bharati replied, ‘then You cannot take sannyas even when You are one hundred!’

This is the kind of conversation Mahaprabhu had with Keshav Bharati. So many things were said that night. The next day, when the decision was taken to give Mahaprabhu sannyas, nobody wanted to shave Mahaprabhu’s head. He had beautiful shoulder-length hair, and nobody agreed to shave it. Finally, one barber stepped forward – he cried so much as He shaved Mahaprabhu’s head that no water was required for shaving.

This is how Mahaprabhu took sannyas. For three days following the day Mahaprabhu left, we offer bhoga to the Deities at the temples, but after the offering is done, everything is mixed together and taken like that, remembering that Mahaprabhu did not eat during those three days. Only when Mahaprabhu came to Shantipur, Sita Devi, the spouse of Advaita Acharya, cooked nicely, and Mahaprabhu ate for the first time in three days…

(15/15) Way Out

When Mahaprabhu came to Sri Advaita Prabhu’s house on the third day after taking sannyas, He ate for the first time after taking sannyas. Soon, Sachi Mata also came there to see Him, but Vishnupriya Devi did not come – you can realise how much she was able to tolerate. She did not come to see Mahaprabhu. On the day of vasanta-panchami, many observe Saraswati Puja, but we observe Sri Vishnupriya Devi’s appearance day. She gave up so much in her life. If she had not given Mahaprabhu to the world, how would we have even known Mahaprabhu? She gave Mahaprabhu for all the jiva souls of this world. After Mahaprabhu left home and took sannyas, she would stay at home chanting Mahaprabhu’s Name, Pancha-tattva’s Name and the maha-mantra, and as she chanted, with every maha-mantra she chanted she would keep a grain of rice aside – in the end, she would cook whatever rice she had kept aside in this way every day and take it with some salt. This is how Sri Vishnupriya Devi lived.

We can also remember Padmavati Devi’s sacrifice. A sannyasi came to her and asked her for alms: he asked her for her only darling son, Sri Nityananda Prabhu. She asked her husband, Hadai Pandit, and they had to agree and give their son to the sannyasi.

Later, when Mahaprabhu met with Nityananda Prabhu, He sent Nityananda Prabhu and Haridas Thakur for preaching:

suna suna nityananda, suna haridasa

sarvatra amara ajna karaha prakasa

prati ghare ghare giya kara ei bhiksa

‘bala krsna, bhaja krsna, kara krsna-siksa’

‘Listen, listen, Nityananda! Listen, Haridas! Make My order known everywhere! Go house to house and beg everyone, “Please chant Krishna’s Name, worship Krishna and practise Krishna’s teachings.”’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavat, 2.13.8–9)

Mahaprabhu ordered them, ‘Preach about Krishna in this world!’ but Nityananda Prabhu thought, ‘Who will understand Krishna in this world? Who will understand the love for Krishna? Who will understand the love of the gopis? This is such a high conception! Instead, I will preach about Gauranga!’ Mahaprabhu revealed the mood of separation in this world. Gopis loved Krishna so much that they even gave their footdust for Him without any second thoughts! What would we do? We worship Krishna, so how would we give our footdust to Him? We would not; but gopis were surrendered to such a great extent that they even gave their footdust, thinking, ‘Let our legs rot, let our legs fall off as long as our Lord is well and happy.’

atmendriya-priti-vancha—tare bali ‘kama’
krsnendriya-priti-ichchha dhare ‘prema’ nama

‘The desire to gratify one’s own senses is kama (lust), but the desire to please the senses of Lord Krishna is prema (divine love).’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.4.165)

Kama (desire, lust) means thinking about your own happiness and enjoyment, but prema (transcendental love) means thinking about the happiness of the Lord, about the happiness of gurudev. The problem is that we never think, ‘What makes gurudev happy?’ – we only think about our own happiness. I wrote in Guidance 4 that we always make the Lord our servant, ‘Give me this’, ‘Give me that.’ People pray, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, varyam dehi, kavitam dehi, sundarim dehi – give me wealth, give me knowledge, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me a poet, give me a beautiful girlfriend, and so on.’ We always think, ‘Give me’, ‘Give me’, ‘Give me.’ You must have seen a husband and a wife who came here today – they pray, ‘May we live in happiness and peace,’ but they never think about the Lord’s happiness. Thinking about your own happiness is not prema – it is kama. Prema means thinking about the Lord’s happiness. We do something, and it looks like service, but if you do not do it on the order of your gurudev, then it is karma. What is the result of doing karma? If you do karma, you will have to fall into material bondage, and the result of material bondage is suffering in hell. That is why many people come to the temple but then leave – they end up making other arrangements for themselves or think of going abroad. This is how karma leads to material bondage, and the result of material bondage is suffering in hell. Always be careful – always watch out that you do not do karma instead of service. Do not turn the Lord into your servant.

At the time of Durga Puja, you can hear people chanting in the microphones: ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, varyam dehi, kavitam dehi, sundarim dehi – give me wealth, give me knowledge, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me a poet, give me a beautiful girlfriend.’ However, Mahaprabhu said:

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

‘I do not want money, I do not want a beautiful wife. What do I want? Whatever birth I may get, I only want to have devotion to Your holy feet.’ We must only pray for devotion. People come to Deities, give them a ten-rupee bribe and say, ‘Give me this’ – they turn the Lord into a bribe-taker! Never do this. Always practise Krishna consciousness. Moreover, we do not even want heaven.

nahi magi deha-sukha vidya dhana jana
nahi magi svarga ara moksa nahi magi
na kari prarthana kona vibhutira lagi

‘I do not wish for any bodily happiness, knowledge, wealth, friends or followers. I do not wish to attain heaven or liberation, neither do I pray for any supernatural powers.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We do not want to go to heaven, we do not want to attain liberation. If you go to heaven, you will have to come back from there because you come to heaven when you accumulate punya (pious merit), but when your punya is exhausted, you will have to come back again to the material world. It is the same as imprisonment – the more crimes you commit, the longer your sentence is, and the fewer crimes you commit, the shorter your sentence is, but, anyhow, you will have to come out one day. For example, if you steal, you will get half a year imprisonment, and if you kill somebody, you can get twelve years in prison. In any case, you will have to come back. So, whether you go to hell or to heaven, you will still have to come back here. Therefore, devotees of the Lord do not want any heaven – they only wish to have devotion.

If you have devotion, you will be able to return to your own home. It is not a happy life to always live in a rented house. Who will like it? You live in one rented house for six months, then some problem happens, you move to another rented house; then again some problem happens, and you again have to move to another rented house, and so on. This is how sometimes we were born in Russia, sometimes in London, sometimes in America; sometimes we were born in a brahman’s house, sometimes in a Muslim house, sometimes in a family of ksatriyas, sometimes in the family of vaisyas, and sometimes we were born in Pakistan or Bangladesh in a Muslim family. Who knows where we have been born before! When you keep changing homes like this, even if you have no money, you will think, ‘Better I make some simple hut and live there, but it will be my own home!’ We must go back to our own home. Where is that home? It is in Goloka Vrindavan. Do you understand what I am saying? If you do not understand something, you can ask questions.

Always think about what I have told you. This is the practice of Krishna consciousness. Nobody wants to live in a rented place – everyone wants to live a settled life. You live in this world now as long as you are destined to live, but once you leave this body, your children and their families will quickly get rid of your body before it starts to decay and smell.

smasane sarira mama padiya rahibe
vihanga patanga taya vihara karibe

‘My body will be left at a crematorium, and birds and insects will heartily enjoy it.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Always remember this.

Does anyone have any questions? One lady have asked me recently to tell a story about Indra, but even Indra, the King of Heaven, had to become a pig! He was cursed by his guru. Vaishnav gurus never curse anyone – only the gurus of demigods and demons can curse someone. If somebody tells you, ‘I curse you’, this is not a guru.

One time, Indra was cursed by Brihaspati, the guru of demigods – Indra, the King of Heaven, who lived surrounded by beautiful angels, had to forget everything, including his own guru, and be born as a pig. When Indra heard it, he began to cry, and Brahma promised him to help him. He said, ‘When you are born as a pig, I will come to help you, and you must do what I will tell you.’ Indra agreed, ‘Yes, yes, I will do as you say.’ Then, Indra was born as a pig and lived in a heap of stool, enjoying and eating all the time. When Brahma came to him, he was appalled, ‘What are you eating?! You used to drink nectar, and now you are eating this stool?!’ But this is what pigs eat. If you bring a pig a plate of nice paneer, will the pig eat it? It will not, but if you give it a bucket of stool, it will eat it happily. So, Indra was enjoying and eating, eating and eating stool. Brahma came to him and said, ‘Hey, listen to me!’ Indra brushed him off, ‘Leave me alone! I am busy!’

You know, when you come to Howrah station and try to give people a book to read, ‘Here, take this book for ten rupees’, they brush you off, ‘Oh, I have no time!’, ‘Sorry, no time!’ They are always on the run – they are always running behind money. We are so busy the whole day – we eat and sleep and work, and we always worry, ‘What will I eat?’, ‘What will I wear?’, ‘Where will I sleep?’ The Lord has sent you to this world, and the Lord has no lack of food – He provides for everyone. You must have faith in this. It is necessary to work, but it is also necessary to remember the Lord. However, people forget the Lord, who is the creator of everything in this world, and only run behind money!

So, Brahma left Indra alone and came back twelve years later. In the end, only after Brahma had killed all his sons (also pigs) did Indra finally listen to him. Brahma explained everything to him

‘You were Indra, the King of Heaven, before!’ Brahma said.

‘Oh, what does he look like?’ the pig asked.

Brahma took out his kumandala and poured out some water – Indra saw his original form and said, ‘Oh, such a beautiful form! Was I this Indra? I was so beautiful!’

After Indra had heard what Brahma had to say, he remembered everything and got back his form as Indra.

You may have also heard the story of a demigod boy who had cut Durvasa Muni’s dreadlock – he was also cursed and had to take birth as a crocodile. When we do Nabadwip Dham parikrama, we tell this pastime. In the end, when that crocodile heard Mahaprabhu chanting the Holy Name, he again got his demigod’s body back.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

I will chant one more kirtan now and finish.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and concludes the class.]

* * *

￼Line Line17 January 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sevak Bhavan, Kolkata

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Hari bol.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktsiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj ki jay.
Sachchidananda Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur ki jay.
Sarvabhauma Sri Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev, Subhadra, Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Tadiya sakha math-samuha ki jay.
Sri Mather sevak vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Ananta-koti Vaishnav vrinda ki jay.
Sri Gaudiya Acharya vrinda ki jay.
Tridandi-pad-gan ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Nityananda Prabhu ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Mahaprabhu ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar, Giriraj Govardhan ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda Sundar jiu ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gaura Nityananda Prabhu ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
All the sannyasi-vrinda ki jay.
All the brahmachari bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Matri-mandali ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

I am very happy to see you all after one week. I can see that all the devotees are here.

I have been doing some preaching programmes lately and came back to Kolkata last night. It is Sunday, and I decided to take a day off today, so today is my holiday [His Divine Grace laughs] – I am taking a little rest. I have not had any time to take rest lately, so I thought that I would take some rest today, and it happened so.

It was Sriman Mahaprabhu’s sannyas day recently, on poila magh (the first day of the Magh month), as we call it here in Bengal, or 15 January this year (the day before yesterday). The date of this day actually never changes. Mahaprabhu’s sannyas day (poila magh) is always on the same date every year. It is not calculated as a tithi (lunar day). Sankranti, which is in the month of Paush, is the day when Mahaprabhu left Nabadwip for Katwa to take sannyas from Srila Keshav Bharati to teach us all, and Srimati Vishnupriya Devi gave her Lord, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, to all fallen souls like us – she showed such a great sacrifice in her life.

This day and time is extremely pathetic for all residents of Nabadwip. Even those who used to criticise Mahaprabhu also cried for Him later – at first, they thought that what Mahaprabhu was doing was not good, but later, when Mahaprabhu left Nabadwip, they thought about it and understood that they had made a mistake, that they had treated Mahaprabhu in a rude way. So, in the end, even those who treated Mahaprabhu bad cried for Mahaprabhu.

In the times of our Param Guru Maharaj, Srila Sridhar Maharaj did not come out of his bhajan-kutir for three days. During these three days, he would take only rice and some subji mixed with dal. He would not take anything opulent. Sometimes, we go out for preaching programmes, and we cannot observe this time properly because devotees make so much prasadam for us… What can we do?

This year, I had to go to Nabadwip on this day. I was in Nabadwip on 15 and 16 January because I have so much service there – I had to start the construction of the Prasadam Hall and see to the construction of the guesthouse. I have bought the land for the Prasadam Hall near the outbuilding kitchen, right next to the temple. Some money was due for that land, and I came to give it to the owner of the land. Now I must start the construction there.

(2/7) Memorable Day In Bamunpara

I remember one time, when Gurudev was in Nabadwip, he asked me, ‘You have made a temple at my birthplace in Bamunpara, but can I go to Bamunpara? A sannyasi is not supposed to go to his birthplace – he can only go there one time, but not more than that. I have already been there once, so can I go there again?’ Then, Gurudev said, ‘But I will not go to my birthplace! You have made a temple there, so I will go to the temple. Can you take me there?’ Then, one morning Gurudev went to Bamunpara. Only Gurudev, his driver, his servant who cooked for him and I went at that time. I sent some vegetables and Gurudev’s favourite rice with another car – I had warned the devotees at the temple in Bamunpara that Gurudev was coming and asked them to prepare his room.

When Gurudev arrived in Bamunpara, he stayed at the temple only a few minutes, after that he said, ‘All right, I want to see Bamunpara village now. When you brought me here at the festival time, it was very crowded, so I could not see the village properly after so many years. I want to see the places where I used to play, and I also want to show you some places.’ I remember Gurudev was standing at the corner of the pond (Nityananda Kunda) next to the temple – pointing at the other side of the pond where there was a large banyan tree, he said to me, ‘Come alone with me.’ We got into Gurudev’s car (Gurudev, his driver, servant and me) and went around the village. Gurudev stopped the car under a banyan tree, got out of the car and told me, ‘You know, this is a very ancient banyan tree. It was here even before Mahaprabhu’s times.’ That tree must be more than five–six hundred years old. Gurudev also told me the following: after Mahaprabhu took sannyas from Keshav Bharati in Katwa, He was going to go to Vrindavan. However, because the residents of Nabadwip (all the devotees from Nabadwip) had much love and affection for Mahaprabhu and also owing to some cleverness and trickery of Nityananda Prabhu, Mahaprabhu instead went first from Katwa to Bamunpara, then directly to Kalna and finally to Shantipur. Nityananda Prabhu knew that Mahaprabhu wanted to go to Vrindavan, but He wanted to keep Mahaprabhu in Gaura-mandal, so when Nityananda Prabhu walked ahead, He was trying to avoid Nabadwip because Mahaprabhu knew all the places and would understand where He was if Nityananda Prabhu led Him there.￼

So, Mahaprabhu took sannyas last Friday (15 January), and He reached Advaita Prabhu’s house in Shantipur at night almost three days later. Gurudev told me that Mahaprabhu went through Bamunpara and then went to Kalna – there, on one bank of the Ganges is Gauri Das Pandit’s house in Kalna and on the other side is Shantipur, Advaita Prabhu’s house. Kalna is situated just opposite Shantipur, across the Ganges. Gurudev showed me the place in Bamunpara where Mahaprabhu passed…

(3/7) Remembering Mahaprabhu’s Sannyas-Lila

Mahaprabhu’s sannyas-lila is described in both Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita and Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata. In Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, it is said that Vakreshwar Pandit, Mukunda and Nityananda Prabhu left Nabadwip together with Mahaprabhu. In Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, it is said that five devotees went with Him. Everything is possible. Three or five devotees knew that Mahaprabhu was going to take sannyas, and both is correct.

One time, Sripad Bhakti Ananda Sagar Maharaj (later known as Svarupananda Prabhu) was composing something based on Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, and he asked me what was correct – Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami said five people knew about Mahaprabhu’s intention to take sannyas, and Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur said three people. What is the truth? Is it five people or three people? I said both was the truth. We cannot deny either of it. It is not a question; everything is possible.

So, when we were in Bamunpara, Gurudev showed me the place that Mahaprabhu passed. After Mahaprabhu took sannyas and left Keshav Bharati’s ashram, He thought He had walked to Vrindavan, so when He came to Bamunpara and saw many cowherd boys, He was very pleased, thinking He was close to Vrindavan. Even now too you can see in some places many cows grazing and some cowherd men walking with them. So, coming to Bamunpara, Mahaprabhu sat under a banyan tree and called some cowherds. (Nityananda Prabhu knew that Mahaprabhu would ask them the way, so He had spoken to them beforehand and asked them, ‘Mahaprabhu will come here – if He asks you whether He was going the right way to Vrindavan, say “yes”.’) As Nityananda Prabhu expected, Mahaprabhu asked the cowherds the same question, ‘Do you know which way is Vrindavan? Am I going the right way?’ As agreed, the cowherds replied, ‘Yes, Prabhu, You are going the right way.’

In this way, Mahaprabhu came to Bamunpara, after that to Katwa and, finally, to Shantipur. He had walked for more than two days, almost three days, and had not eaten anything during this time – He only drank some water, nothing else. When He came to the bank of the Ganges, He thought it was the Yamuna, so He entered the water and, standing in the water in His wet clothes, recited the pranam-mantra of Yamuna Devi. When He finished the prayer and opened His eyes, He suddenly saw Advaita Prabhu in a boat.

‘Advaita, you?’ He asked him, greatly surprised. ‘How did you know I was here? How did you know I would come to Vrindavan?’

‘Prabhu, wherever You are, that is Vrindavan,’ Advaita Prabhu replied.

‘What?! What do you mean wherever I am, that is Vrindavan?! Is it not Vrindavan?’ Then Mahaprabhu understood, ‘Oh, Nityananda Prabhu has brought Me here! I wanted to go to Vrindavan, but instead He has brought Me to Shantipur through Kalna! Now I understand it!’

Sri Advaita Prabhu knew everything because Nityananda Prabhu had sent some devotees to inform Advaita Prabhu that Mahaprabhu was coming to Shantipur, and Sita Devi (Advaita Prabhu’s sakti) had prepared all prasadam and everything else to receive Mahaprabhu at their house. Otherwise, how would he know? There were no telephones, no mobile phones at that time. How could it be possible? So, Nityananda Prabhu had sent a message to Shantipur, saying, ‘Somehow or other, I am taking Mahaprabhu to your house.’ This is how Advaita Prabhu knew about it, and this is how Mahaprabhu reached Shantipur.

Srila Param Guru Maharaj also said that during this time, the sky of Nabadwip was covered with thick clouds – there was no sun in the sky, and everything was very dark. Even the sun cried because the Lord had left Nabadwip. It was such a sad time, everybody felt very deep separation.

One time, I asked Srila Gurudev what Krishna-katha Keshav Bharati and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had talked about the whole night before Mahaprabhu’s sannyas, and Gurudev told me many things about that pastime. How does one take sannyas? The scriptures say that one must practise brahmacharya until twenty-five, then live as a grihastha from twenty-five to fifty, then live as a vanaprastha from fifty to seventy-five, and only then one can take sannyas and practise sannyas from seventy-five to a hundred years old. However, the main conception is that if you cannot control the ten senses (five bodily senses, karmendriya, and five mental senses, jnanendriya), then you cannot take sannyas even if you are a hundred years old. If you cannot control kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy), ahankar (ego) and all other things, then you cannot take sannyas no matter how old you are.

Mahaprabhu explained so many things – He explained why He wanted to take sannyas and what was necessary. The conversation between Keshav Bharati and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went on in this way the whole day and night. In the end, Keshav Bharati understood everything and told Mahaprabhu, ‘You are the Lord Himself, but You are taking sannyas from me – actually, You are giving mercy to me in this way.’ Not only that, Keshav Bharati had actually first taken the sannyas mantra from Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu – he had asked the Lord to teach him that mantra, and then he gave that same mantra to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

(4/7) Ten Days in Shantipur

…When Mahaprabhu came to Shantipur and the news about it spread everywhere, so many devotees started coming there: so many boats full of people came to Shantipur – everybody wanted to see Mahaprabhu…

They came and saw Mahaprabhu in His sannyas clothes, with His head shaven… You know how extremely beautiful His hair was – the barber, Madhu Sila, cried when shaving Him. Usually, when shaving, the barber must use some water to wet the hair, but Madhu Sila did not need any water because he cried so much that the tears from his eyes made Mahaprabhu’s hair wet. Everybody was actually afraid to shave Mahaprabhu, but Madhu Sila has a great sukriti (fortune), so he was able to shave Mahaprabhu for His sannyas.

Mahaprabhu came to Shantipur, and everybody who came there cried to see Mahaprabhu – Mukunda, Nityananda Prabhu and many other devotees danced and chanted the whole day and night. So many things happened there… Anyhow, Mahaprabhu very happily took prasadam – Sita Devi, Advaita Prabhu’s sakti, prepared thirty-two items for Mahaprabhu. Later, Sachi Mata came there too, and she sadly asked Mahaprabhu through Srivas Pandit, ‘I know He will not stay in Nabadwip, in His birthplace; I know He will leave because He has taken sannyas and I cannot cook for Him anymore… but can I cook for Him now, here?’

This is very sad and painful – Mahaprabhu left and took sannyas, and Sachi Mata and Vishnupriya Devi felt so much pain in their hearts. You can see that when Mahaprabhu came to Shantipur, Sachi Mata could at least come to see Him, but Vishnupriya Devi did not come – she controlled herself. She did not even go to see Mahaprabhu in His sannyas garb, sannyas life. Also, she did not want to see that. She stayed at home and cried in her bedroom all the time – she continuously shed tears.

So, when Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu took prasadam at Sri Advaita Prabhu’s house, He was very happy because He had not taken proper prasadam for three days. After taking sannyas, He took prasadam at Srivas Acharya’s house (near Katwa) at noon, and after that He did not take anything until He had reached Advaita Prabhu’s house in Shantipur. When Sachi Devi came there a few days later, she asked Srivas Pandit to ask Mahaprabhu for permission to cook for Him, and Mahaprabhu said, ‘Yes, if My mother wants permission from Me, she can cook. I am still her son, and I will always be her son, there is no doubt about it. Even though I have become crazy and taken sannyas, it does not change anything – I am still her son. So, for as long as I am here, she can cook for Me.’

Mahaprabhu stayed in Shantipur for ten days – first, three days, then two more days, then again five days more. Sachi Mata cooked for Him there. Feeling sympathy for His mother, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said to Srivas Pandit, ‘Srivas, I have chosen two places, Vrindavan and Puri; please ask My mother where I shall stay.’ Sachi Mata thought, ‘Vrindavan is so far from here, but Nabadwip devotees always go to Puri to see Lord Jagannath at Ratha-yatra every year, then I will always get some news about Him. If He stays in Puri, it will be better. First Vishvarup left me, and now Nimai too – I do not know how many more days I will be alive in this world with so much pain in my heart… At least if He stays in Puri, it will be better.’ Mahaprabhu accepted His mother’s word and soon started off for Puri along with Nityananda Prabhu, Mukunda and a few other devotees.

On the way to Sri Puri Dham, Mahaprabhu visited many places because Nityananda Prabhu had been there before and knew them – Nityananda Prabhu had previously travelled all over India with a sannyasi (many say it was Madhavendra Puripad).

This is how the pastime of Mahaprabhu’s sannyas took place…

(5/7) Heart-Breaking Decision

Mahaprabhu had actually beforehand given a signal that He wanted to leave Nabadwip and take sannyas. If He had not taken sannyas, Krishna’s desire would not have been fulfilled.

krsna-varnam tvisakrsnam sangopangastra-parsadam
yajnaih sankirtana-prayair yajanti hi su-medhasah

‘In this Age of Kali, intelligent souls will always worship Sri Gaurasundar through sankirtan-yajna (the sacrifice of chanting the Holy Names). He appears as dark-complexioned (Krishna) but with a non-dark, or golden, halo (couched in the heart and halo of Sri Radha). Together with His associates, He searches for Krishna by chanting His Holy Names. His limbs (anga) are Sriman Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Advaita Prabhu; His accessory limbs (upanga) are Srivas Acharya and all pure devotees; His weapons (astra) are the words of the Holy Name; and His associates (parsada) are Sri Gadadhar, Sri Svarup Damodar, Ramananda, Sanatan, Rupa and others.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 11.5.32)

There is also another sloka in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita:

sri-radhayah pranaya-mahima kidrso vanayaivasvadyo
yenadbhuta-madhurima kidrso va madiyah
saukhyam chasya mad-anubhavatah kidrsam veti lobhat
tad-bhavadhyah samajani sachigarbha-sindhau harinduh

‘’What is the glory of Sri Radha’s love? What extraordinary sweetness does She see in Me? What happiness does She feel when She is moved by Me?’ – yearning to taste these three sentiments, the moon Krishna-chandra arose from the ocean of Mother Sachi’s womb.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.1.6)

Krishna thought, ‘Why does Radharani cry so much taking My Name? Why does She cry for Me so much? I want to taste and relish this kind of mood!’ So, Krishna comes to this world as Gauranga Mahaprabhu, a combined form of Sri Sri Radha-Krishna, and if He had not taken sannyas, this desire would not have been fulfilled.

Besides that, Mahaprabhu understood, ‘Unless I take sannyas, I cannot preach Krishna consciousness properly. Even if I leave Nabadwip, Nityananda Prabhu is there, He can see to this part – Nityananda Prabhu, Srinivas Pandit and other devotees can take care of Gaura-mandal, and I must go to so many other places. I must go to Vrindavan! I have a job there – the pastimes that I performed before are almost all hidden now, so I must go and show those places to everyone. I must show devotees where Radha Kunda is, where Shyama Kunda is, where My birthplace is, and so on. I must also go to South India.’ So, having taken sannyas, Mahaprabhu visited South India, North India, Vrindavan and all other important places.

In this way, Mahaprabhu went everywhere establishing the proper conception, and He personally showed us the example how to practise. He Himself practised sannyas life – He slept on the floor (not on a bed), He followed all the rules and regulations, He did everything. When Krishna is in Vrindavan, He plays with His associates in madhurya-rasa, madhurya-lila – when He is in Mathura and in Dvaraka, He shows other pastimes; and when He is in Nabadwip Dham as Gauranga Mahaprabhu, He shows His love and affection (Krishna-prema) and preaches humility, tolerance and giving honour to others.

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

This is what Mahaprabhu showed all the devotees. Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur describes Mahaprabhu’s decision to take sannyas and what happened in the 26th chapter of Madhya-khanda in Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata. You can find it there, everything is described there very nicely.

Sriman Mahaprabhu told Sriman Nityananda Prabhu,

prabhu bale,—‘suna nityananda mahasaya!
tomare kahiye nija hrdaya nischaya

The Lord said, ‘Listen, Nityananda Mahasay! I want to tell You something and make My heart firm.’

bhala se ailana ami jagata tarite
tarana nahila, ami ailun samharite

‘I came to deliver this world, but I have not done it. I appears that I have come to destroy them.’

ama’ dekhi’ kotha paibeka bandha-nasa
eka guna baddha chhila—haila koti-pasa

‘They were supposed to be freed from material bondage by seeing Me, but they were previously bound by one rope and now they are bound by millions.’

amare marite yabe karileka mane
takhanei padi’ gela asesa bandhane

‘As soon as they decided to beat Me, they were immediately fell in unlimited bondage.’

bhala loka tarite karilun avatara
apane karilun saba jivera samhara

‘I incarnated to deliver the people of the world, but it appears that I am destroying them.’

dekha kali sikha-sutra saba mudai
yabhiksa kari’ vedaimu sannyasa kariya

‘Soon You will see Me shave My head and give up My brahman thread. I will wander about begging as a sannyasi.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.26.127–132)

‘I will take sannyas and go begging door to door, “Krsna bala sange chala! Chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, come with Me!” I will go to the houses of even those who want to kill Me – I will come begging to their door! Seeing My sannyas life, they will have to pay obeisance to Me, so they will not beat Me anymore. Do not be sad that I am taking sannyas. If You want all fallen souls to be rescued, then You will not forbid Me, You will not stop Me from taking sannyas.’ Nityananda Prabhu replied, ‘Yes, Prabhu, as You wish. Who can stop You?’

svatantra paramananda tomara charita
tumi ye karibe, se-i haibe nischita

‘You are independent and full of transcendental bliss, therefore whatever You wish to do will certainly be done.’

tathapiha kaha saba sevakera sthane
ke va ki balaye tahasunaha apane

‘Still You may ask Your servants to see what they have to say.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.26.148–149)

Actually, Nityananda Prabhu knew Mahaprabhu would take sannyas and leave His house, but He always thought about Mahaprabhu’s mother, Sachi Mata. He worried because Vishvarup had already left and now Nimai Vishvambhar was going to leave – how would Sachi Mata bear it? After that, Mukunda also sang many songs, saying, ‘Please do not leave Your mother. Do not take sannyas.’ This is described in the 27th chapter of Sri Chaitanya-Bhagavatam (Madhya-khanda).

jaya jaya visvambhara sri-sachinandana
jaya jaya gaurasimha patita-pavana

‘All glories to Vishvambhar, Sri Sachinandana! All glories to the Golden Lion, the deliverer of the fallen souls!’

‘kotha yaibena prabhu sannyasa kariya
kotha va amara saba dekhibana giya

‘Where will the Lord go after taking sannyas, and where will we go to see Him?’

sannyasa karile grame na asibe ara
kon dike yayena va kariya vichara’

‘If He takes sannyas, He will not return to the village. Who knows which direction He will decide to go?’

prabhu bale, – ‘tomara chintaha ki karana
tumi saba yatha, tatha ami sarva-ksana

The Lord said, ‘Why are you all worried? Wherever you are, I am always there.’

tomara va bhava ‘ami sannyasa kariya
chalibana ami toma’-sabare chhadiya’

‘You are all thinking that I will leave you after taking sannyas.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.27.1, 2.27.3–4, 2.27.7–8)

Mahaprabhu said, ‘I am going to take sannyas, and you are thinking that I will leave you. No. I will always stay with you. Do not ever think that I will leave you. I will always stay with you in your hearts. Because I want to teach common people, I am taking sannyas, but do not think that I am leaving you all.’

Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur also writes what Sachi Mata said when she heard that Mahaprabhu was going to take sannyas:

‘na yaiya na yaiya bapa, mayere chhadiya
papa jiu achhe tora sri-mukha chahiya

‘My dear son, do not leave. Do not leave Your mother. This sinful person is surviving only by looking at Your face.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.27.22)

‘What kind of religion is it to make Your mother miserable?’ Sri Sachi Mata cried so much and tried to dissuade Mahaprabhu in so many ways.

kamala-nayana tora sri-chandra-vadana
adhara suranga, kunda-mukuta-dasana
amiya varikhe yena sundara vachana
na dekhi vanchiba ki se gajendra-gamana

‘How will I survive without seeing Your lotus eyes, Your moonlike face, Your reddish lips, Your pearly teeth resembling kunda flowers, or Your elephant-like gait? And how will I survive without hearing Your words that shower nectar?’

advaita-srivasa-adi tora anuchara
nityananda achhe tora pranera dosara
parama bandhava gadadhara-adi-sange
grhe rahi’ sankirtana kara tumi range

‘Stay at home and happily perform sankirtan in the company of Your followers headed by Advaita and Srivas, Your intimate companion, Nityananda, and Your dear friends (Gadadhar and others).’

dharma bujhaite bapa, tora avatara
janani chhadiba e kon dharmera vichara?

‘You incarnate to preach religious principles, but what kind of religious principle is it to leave Your mother?’

tumi dharma-maya yadi janani chhadi
bake-mate jagate tumi dharma bujhaiba?’

‘You are the personification of religious principles, yet You will leave Your mother? How then will You teach religious principles in this world?’

prema-soke kahe sachi, sune visvambhara
premete rodhita kantha, na kare uttara

‘Sachi was grief-stricken with love as she spoke. As Vishvambhar listened, His throat became choked, and He was unable to answer.’

‘tomara agraja ama’ chhadiya chalilavai
kunthe tomara bapa gamana karila

‘Your elder brother has left me, and Your father has gone to Vaikuntha.’

toma’ dekhi’ sakala santapa pasarilun
tumi gele prana muni sarvatha chhadimu

‘Yet I forgot all grief by looking at Your face. If You leave me, I will certainly die.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.27.23–31)

She said, ‘Your father has already left for Vaikuntha. If You leave too, how will I be able to stay alone?’ Chandrasekhara Acharya, Mukunda and others also knew about Mahaprabhu’s decision. It is written here that five devotees knew about it – Mahaprabhu’s mother, Gadadhar, Brahmananda, Chandrasekhara and Mukunda. Mahaprabhu told Nityananda Prabhu, ‘Nobody except them knows about it.’

There are so many things written about this pastime in Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata. Chapters 26–28 of Madhya-khanda (middle part) describe Mahaprabhu’s sannyas. You can read it, and you will understand it…

Jay Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ki jay.

(6/7) Deceitless Dealings

They have already started vaccinating everyone, but actually it is those who always worry about their lives that go for the vaccine first… We do not think about our life – we rely on the Lord and we think about our service. This is the main thing.

Start preaching, chant the Holy Name and run the Mission together. Everybody should leave their egos. Everything is service, and it is necessary to always do service from your heart. Try to respect everybody, try to respect each other. It is very important. Do not create so many classes, divisions and groups among devotees. Classes and discrimination started appearing even in Mahaprabhu’s time; later, in Srila Prabhupad’s time (in the time of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur) also, many disciples could not tolerate each other, and there appeared so many problems. However, our Param Gurudev and our Gurudev love everybody. Our Gurudev is an example for us. He loves and accepts everyone.

So many devotees, so many good friends came to our Mission from ISKCON, and Gurudev accepted and welcomed them all. This is how they joined our Mission, and this is how our Mission expanded so much by the mercy of Gurudev and by the mercy of foreign devotees who had come from ISKCON. I always remember them – Srila Janardan Maharaj, Srila Ashram Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Sudhir Goswami Maharaj and so many other devotees, including Yudhamanyu Prabhu, Srutasrava Prabhu (Sripad Vaishnav Maharaj), Sripad Tapasvi Maharaj from Brazil and Hasyapriya Prabhu. So many exalted devotees came to our Mission.

I sometimes chastise devotees, but this is how I show my love and affection to them. Gurudev said that I was sometimes very rude to devotees, but he also said, ‘Not everybody can understand your heart, but I can understand your heart, and I know how soft you are.’ The thing is that I do not pretend – showing one thing outside and keeping other things inside, I am not like that. That is called kapatata, deceit. I cannot be like that in my life. If I show that I pay a full dandavat to you, and behind your back I swear you, this is called mukhosh – a ‘mask’, or a ‘disguise’. You are a bad man, but externally you behave and look like a good man. This is a drama. You are not a sadhu, but you pretend to be a sadhu. Such behaviour and life are very bad. If we do one thing, but there is another thing in our hearts, it is a big problem. You cannot progress or proceed in your spiritual life properly if you behave like that. A sadhu will always be saral (simple-hearted). Gurudev says that simplicity is the main quality. Gurudev said, ‘My Guru Maharaj liked me because of my simplicity.’ ‘Saralata’ means ‘vaisnavata’ – simplicity is Vaishnavism. These are Gurudev’s words. It is necessary to be simple, without any deceit.

You know, Gurudev came to the Mission in 1947 – at that time, his name was Gaurendu Brahmachari. Three years later, in 1950, Srila Sridhar Maharaj sent Gurudev back to visit his home. Before that, some villagers had come to the temple and tried to forcefully take Gurudev back to his family life – not to become a grihastha, but to take care of his mother and the family. So, three years later, Srila Sridhar Maharaj told Gurudev, ‘Go and show them how much your spiritual life has increased over these three years,’ and Srila Sridhar Maharaj did not send Gurudev alone – he sent him with a disciple of Prabhupad (Gurudev said that he was not actually Prabhupad’s disciple, he was a disciple of Ananta Vasudev Prabhu, but he claimed to be a disciple of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur). Gurudev was a very clever and naughty boy, and everybody in the village loved him very much. There was one lady in the village whom Gurudev always called ‘jethima’ (auntie). When she saw Gurudev after three years, she was so happy that she hugged him. Gurudev was seventeen–twenty years old at that time, he was like a child to her, so when Gurudev came back after three years, she hugged him out of deep affection. However, the brahmachari who was with Gurudev saw it and reported to Srila Sridhar Maharaj later, ‘You sent me to that village with him, but I saw him hugging a woman!’ Srila Sridhar Maharaj laughed, ‘What kind of conception is that? This boy went to his previous home where he is everybody’s affectionate son, and the lady who hugged him is like his mother, but they still criticise him!’

Those who cannot tolerate Gurudev always find faults with him. I remember Gurudev used to say, ‘Yake dekhte nari, tara chalana banki. Faults are thick where love is thin (lit. “if you cannot stand seeing somebody, their gait will always seem crooked to you”).’ If we cannot tolerate somebody, we always say that they are not walking straight – we always say that they are walking crooked.

Gurudev told so many things. I am remembering some of his pastimes…

(7/7) Deficiency in Practice

Are there any questions from anyone today?

Question: I have been reading about the holy places in Ekachakra Dham, and I have two questions. Is Bankaray also a son of Padmavati Devi and Hadai Pandit?

No, Bankaray is Krishna.

Question: There is a place at Janu Kunda, where a dome is showing, is it Bankaray’s samadhi?

No, it is not correct. Bankaray disappeared there. He was playing there, and after that He disappeared in that pond. Actually, Nityananda Prabhu is non-different from Balaram, and Krishna and Balaram are inseparable – wherever Balaram is, Krishna is always there. Once, some village people noticed that a boy was playing with Nityananda Prabhu at the pond, but later only Nityananda Prabhu came back from that place – the boy had disappeared. Many years later, Jahnava Devi went to the Yamuna River in Ekachakra Dham and found two Deities there. This is how she got Bankaray Krishna’s Deity. So, Bankaray is not a son of Padmavati Devi and Hadai Pandit. In another way, you can say He is their son because even in the pastimes of Krishna and Balaram, both Balaram and Krishna called Mother Yasoda ‘mother’. ‘Eka deha-i, dui rupa’ – Their body is actually one, but They expand themselves into two different forms. Such is the relation between Gaura-Nitai and Krishna-Balaram. So, in one way, you can say that about Bankaray, but Bankaray does not actually come from Mother Padmavati. Bankaray came when Jahnava Devi found the Deities of Krishna and Balaram, many years later.

Are there any other questions?

Question: How can I develop affection for devotees?

You can develop affection through practising Krishna consciousness. All souls in this world are sons of nectar (amrtasya putra). We all belong to one family, to the family of Krishna. You have affection for your mother, father, and you should feel the same affection towards all devotees because they are also your family, as much as your parents are. You should not see any difference between your parents or bodily family and devotees.

…You are very fortunate because you have got the association of devotees. You are present now in this zoom meeting, and you are getting association of so many devotees. It is very nice to see you, I am very happy. You are a very fortunate soul because you have come to this programme from very far away. You can join again and again, and if you have any questions about Krishna consciousness, you can ask them.

Question: Who can avoid death?

Death is not just the death of this body – death means you leave this family and go to another family life, and next life you will again face death. It is necessary to overcome this kind of death – not just the death of this body, but the life of repeated births and deaths. We do not want to face this. It is possible to overcome this situation, but we need to practise properly – we must serve devotees, we must preach for devotees, we can give some message to devotees. These are the main things. Practise very nicely. Krishna is always with you, and I also always think about you. Do not worry.

Question: If a devotee wants to leave the temple and asks me to help them leave the temple, should I support them?

You can give them some advice, explain to them that it is not necessary to move out of the temple; they can speak to the senior devotees also. You can ask the leader or the temple manager in your area to help. It is necessary to consult with senior devotees in such cases.

Question: How can I identify whether I am ready to take the second initiation?

It is not necessary for you to ‘identify’ that. The guru is always the one who will identify whether you are ready or not. Your guru can understand that. If you want to engage in puja and cooking services more, or if you want to learn puja, cooking and other services related to Deity worship, if you have this desire, then you can take the second initiation. If you only show you have taken the second initiation but after that do not practise properly, it is not good. After you take the second initiation, you must recite the gayatri mantras every day, you should cook and do puja services. This is what the second initiation is mainly necessary for. If you feel, ‘I should do some puja, I should offer bhoga to the Deities on my altar’, then it is necessary to take the second initiation.

Taking the second initiation or taking sannyas only for the sake of taking it is meaningless. It is meaningless if you take sannyas and do not preach but instead always think about your health and about your own things. Sannyas means constant preaching. This is the main service of a sannyasi. Even brahmacharis should also always take this position – they must be determined to preach Krishna consciousness. Even householder devotees who have taken the second initiation must first learn to do puja themselves and then teach others how to do it. It is very important. I have seen so many devotees who have taken the second initiation, but one, two, five, etc. years pass, and they cannot even remember the gayatri mantras, they have not learnt how to do puja, and they cannot even say the Jay Dhvani. There are so many deficiencies in devotees. It is necessary for everyone to learn and practise.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line24 January 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sevak Bhavan, Kolkata

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/7) Increasing Preaching Scope

Hari bol. Dandavat.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Sri Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev, Subhadra, Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay!.
Srila Bhakti Kusum Ashram Maharaj ki jay.

Srila Bhakti Pavan Janardan Maharaj ki jay.
Sripad Bhakti Nandan Sadhu Maharaj ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

I went to Nrisingha Palli for a short time yesterday because I had some job there, and after that I came back here to Dum Dum Park the same day. Tomorrow I am again going for preaching for five days in Bankura and Bardhaman.

In the meantime, Sripad Sajjan Maharaj is doing book distribution here in Kolkata. There are two small books in Bengali, Prakrita Utser Sandhane (In Search of the Original Source) and Parama-ananda-maya Dhamer Dhan (Gift of Transcendental Abode). These two small books are two full lectures that Gurudev gave in Mexico and Australia. I printed 5,000 copies each (10,000 total), and Sripad Sajjan Maharaj distributes a hundred copies every day. There is my phone number in the books, and all people are calling me now and asking so many questions – I have to answer their questions. Sripad Sajjan Maharaj does not speak Bengali or English, but he distributes a hundred books every day – despite his old age, he is doing so well. Every day, he goes to the Diamond Plaza on Jessore Road and stands there. Many people go there to buy things – there is a large Big Bazar store there – and he distributes books to all shoppers. He is a very nice distributor; and he goes out to distribute books every day, he does not stop. He went out even during the lockdown period – he is not afraid of corona…

Many people are very afraid of corona. I have sent Sripad Niriha Maharaj, two brahmacharis and one or two more devotees (five–six devotees in total) with Sripad Ashok Prabhu, and they are now doing preaching in Bardhaman villages. I have given Sripad Niriha Maharaj some of the preaching service – he has now taken over preaching in the places where Hari Charan Prabhu and I used to preach. Sripad Niriha Maharaj is now preaching about Gaura Purnima, and he says that some people are afraid – they do not give them place to stay, fearing, ‘Oh, maybe corona will come!’

You must understand one thing. Birth and death are not in our hands. The date when we will leave our body is already written for us. It is not necessary to be afraid. ‘Prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara – you have life, you are alive, then you must preach.’

(2/7) Distribute Krishna Consciousness!

‘Prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara: you must preach for as long as you are alive.’ I saw some photographs from Singapore yesterday – they had a very nice programme, attended by many young devotees, and Sripad Ravindra Krishna Prabhu was explaining the guru-parampara to them. I heard him give the lecture – he was saying, ‘This line comes from Krishna to Brahma, from Brahma to Narad, from Narad to Vyasadev, from Vyasadev to Madhvacharya’, and so on. I like seeing what kind of lectures devotees give – I like listening to it because I want to see how expert they are in Krishna consciousness and preaching. It is very important to preach because when you take initiation, your spiritual life does not finish there.

Even Srila Sridhar Maharaj at first wanted to live a quiet life without preaching, but then he heard a message from Srila Prabhupad in the sky one day. Srila Sridhar Maharaj was living in Nandagram, thinking, ‘Now that my gurudev has left and I have been ousted from Sri Chaitanya Math, I have come to Vrindavan and will stay here for the rest of my days.’ Such was his desire, but Srila Prabhupad did not want that. Srila Prabhupad wanted him to preach, so he sent a message from the sky to Srila Sridhar Maharaj, saying, ‘Have you come to this world only to eat yourself and not share with anyone? You have taken initiation and do you think you will go to Goloka Vrindavan or Vaikuntha without taking anyone with you? There are so many fallen souls in this world, what will you do for them? You must go to Nabadwip – stay there in one place on the bank of the Ganges and start preaching from there.’ This is how Srila Sridhar Maharaj came to Nabadwip and started the mission of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in 1941. After that, many of his godbrothers found him and came to stay with him.

A few years after that, our Srila Gurudev came. He had very much energy and inspiration, so he started to preach and take Srila Sridhar Maharaj out of Koladwip to various places (the ‘chara-dham’, the four holy abodes – Sri Vrindavan and others). Srila Gurudev took Srila Sridhar Maharaj everywhere for preaching. This is how Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math appeared, but now the preaching is going on all over the world by the mercy of Gurudev because after Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad left his body, so many foreign devotees came to Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math and took shelter of Srila Sridhar Maharaj. Srila Sridhar Maharaj was actually a little hesitant to accept them, but then he gave everything, including all foreign devotees, into the hands of our Gurudev., and this is how our Mission has expanded all over the world; we are all a big family now – a big family of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math.

I would like to tell something to all the devotees all over the world.

It does not matter where you live (for example, because of their financial condition and a very bad situation in the country, many devotees left Venezuela and went to many different countries), but wherever you are, when you go to some country, you must go there not only to live, sleep and enjoy! Whatever country you go to, you must preach there. If ten devotees go to ten different countries, they must increase their preaching (there must be more and more preaching) in those ten countries. It is necessary to do this. Try to understand it.

There are so many villages in this world, so many people live in various corners of the world…. You must read the biography of Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad – he went to America alone, but how big the mission of ISKCON has become now! Read it, and you can understand this. It is necessary to try, to make an effort – if you have a great desire to preach, then people will come. Srila Prabhupad said that in this world, not so many people will come to Krishna consciousness, but you must not be disheartened – you are not alone.

There are so many people suffering in this world: they too are searching for the main source, they too are searching for the hidden treasure. They wait for somebody to come and distribute it to them. Go and distribute this hidden treasure to everyone!

Wherever you go, even if you go to the market, to work or anywhere else, keep some books in your bag. You can talk to people and give them a small book. If they read it, they can realise something, they can ask some questions. I see Sripad Sajjan Maharaj distributing small books – people read those books, and they call me, they say they want to see me, they want to join me. You must distribute Krishna consciousness. You cannot sit in one place and only do Deity puja – you do only mangal-arati and then sit all day in one place. Go and preach. Whether you are a sannyasi, a brahmachari or a householder, it does not matter. Go door to door! It is necessary for you and necessary for everyone.

You can see my example – to this day, I am still going door to door. I have just returned from one preaching programme, and tomorrow, I am going for preaching again. I go door to door and invite people to come for Gaura Purnima. Why did Srila Prabhupad start Sri Nabadwip Dham Pracharani Sobha (Sri Nabadwip Dham Preaching Assembly)? Because he wanted to preach the glories of Sri Nabadwip Dham. Make some small programmes for ten–twenty people, speak about Sri Nabadwip Dham, and if somebody has a great fortune, they will come and join Gaura Purnima – and those who come must join Krishna consciousness because once you go for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, you cannot forget it…

You know, in this Age of Kali, you can reach your real home just by chanting the maha-mantra. This is a very, very high thing! It is not the time of Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga or Dvapar-yuga! Before, people had to practise so much austerity to reach spiritual perfection, but in this Age of Kali, all you must do is practise chanting the Holy Name and preach Krishna consciousness. People suffer so much eating meat, fish and other wrong things – even just in terms of their health, they suffer so much. In general, people like vegetarian food, but only vegetarian food is not sufficient – if you can give them some prasadam, then it will give them benefit.

Follow what I am saying, preach in this way, and it will be very nice. You can preach very nicely if you follow this.

(3/7) Offering Bhoga on Ekadasi

Today is a very auspicious day – I see so many devotees are here. Today is also an ekadasi day. Everybody must follow ekadasi. Is everybody following ekadasi?

Question: When we are offering bhoga to the Deity on ekadasi, should we offer something that is non-ekadasi (grains, etc.) as well?

Yes, it is necessary to do that. If somebody lives with you and does not follow ekadasi, what can you do? You can give them some sweets or some ekadasi savoury. Sometimes, devotees live in their houses – if they offer rice, dal or khichuri on ekadasi, how will they take it? They do not want to throw away food, so they do not offer grains on this day. If you offer non-ekadasi preparations, then you must give what you cannot take to somebody else, you must think of some place. However, if it is a temple with Deities, then we must offer everything, both ekadasi and non-ekadasi preparations. The same applies to the places where Gurudev’s Deity is established. For example, I have installed Gurudev’s Deity in Venezuela, Govardhan, Nabadwip and Siliguri, and we offer Gurudev rice, dal, subji, etc. even on ekadasi.

Whether you do it on your personal altar or not, it is not a problem. Both ekadasi and non-ekadasi must be offered to Deities, it is a strict rule, but if you have an altar where you keep a photograph of the Deities, then there is no emergency to follow this rule so strictly. You can offer rice, dal and subji, and if you have some small children in the house who cannot follow the rules and regulations properly, you can give it to them (the children who cannot follow ekadasi can take it). That is also possible.

(4/7) Sri Jagadish Pandit

It is ekadasi day today, a very nice day, and it is also the appearance day of Sri Jagadish Pandit today.

Sri Jagadish Pandit was older than Mahaprabhu, and he was a great devotee. Born in Guwahati, Assam, Sri Jagadish Pandit came to live in Nabadwip, but when Mahaprabhu took sannyas, Sri Jagadish Pandit left Nabadwip and settled in Chakdaha. There is a house (sripat) of Sri Jagadish Pandit in this place – later, Srila Bhakti Dayita Madhav Goswami Maharaj established a temple there. Chakdaha is situated between Kolkata and Krishnanagar – when you go to Nabadwip through Krishnanagar, you pass it on the way.

One time, Mahaprabhu took some rice in Sri Jagadish Pandit’s house on an ekadasi day. At that time, Mahaprabhu was a very small boy, and He was crying because it was ekadasi and His mother had not cooked any rice – she had cooked only ekadasi food. So, Mahaprabhu started to cry and shout very much. Then, His father, Jagannath Misra, took Him to Sri Jagadish Pandit’s house.

Hiranya and Jagadish are two brothers, you may have heard their names mentioned in Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata. Sri Jagadish Pandit is a very nice devotee.

When Mahaprabhu took sannyas, Sri Jagadish Pandit could not tolerate it, so he left Nabadwip. Sri Kavi Karnapur writes that Jagadish Pandit was a yajna-patni in Dvapar-yuga. Yajna-patni means a wife of a brahman engaged in performing fire sacrifices. You know this pastime of Lord Sri Krishna and Balaram.

One time, Lord Sri Krishna, together with Lord Balaram and other cowherd boys (Sridam, Sudam, Vasudam, Subal, Madhumangal and others), went to graze the cows. Somehow, they came to a forest where there was nothing to eat – they could not even find any fruit. Krishna (the Lord Himself!) got very hungry, so He sent Balaram and others to bring some food from the brahmans’ houses, ‘Listen, we have come to a village of brahmans. Go to them and ask them for some food on My behalf!’

In the meantime, the brahmans were doing a fire sacrifice – they were chanting the mantras, ‘Om svaha, Om svaha, Om svaha’… The boys came and saw that they were busy with the fire sacrifice, so they sat nearby and waited, waited, waited. When the yajna finished, they asked the brahmans, ‘Give us some fruit! Give us some some sweets! We are very hungry!’ The brahmans became very angry, ‘What?! How dare you, cowherds, come here and disturb the fire sacrifice! We have not even made the offering for Lord Narayan yet, and you dare come here and ask us for food?! Get out of here!’

The boys came back to Krishna and complained, ‘Oh, we went there, but they chased us away! They say we will not get anything from them because we are cowherd boys and do not know any rules and regulations – they scolded us for asking for food before the puja was done!’ Krishna replied, ‘You went to a wrong place! You should go to those brahmans’ houses! Their wives are at home, cooking so many things for the Lord. Go and ask them, tell them I am hungry.’

So, the boys went to the brahmans’ houses and asked the wives of the brahmans for some food. Hearing Krishna’s Name, the wives became very happy, ‘Oh, Krishna has sent you to get something to eat?’ They began to run around, ‘What do we have? What can we give to Him?’ They were still cooking at that time, so they gathered everything they had – what was cooked and what was not cooked – and went with the boys. They were very anxious to see Krishna. Seeing their wives going out, the brahmans were very angry, ‘They do not obey us! They have left home without even asking us for permission! On top of that, they are going with those cowherd boys! What is this?!’

Anyhow, the brahmans’ wives brought so much food to the forest – so many pancakes, so much paneer, butter, cake, curd, cheese and other preparations. Krishna was very happy. He and all the boys, all His friends, also took the food that the brahmans’ wives had brought.

‘OK, now you can go home,’ Krishna said after they finished eating.

‘We did not come here to go!’ the brahmans’ wives objected. ‘We have come to stay here with You!’

‘You are brahmans’ wives,’ Krishna tried to reason the ladies, ‘and I am a kayastha. It does not look right for you to stay here – people will start talking nonsense. It is better if you go.’

‘No, no, no. Our husbands are very angry, they will not take us back. They will kick us out of our homes…’ said the ladies.

Then, Krishna created some illusion – some Maya Devi came – and the brahmans felt much attachment to their wives, so when the evening came, they started worrying, ‘Where have our wives gone? Why are they not coming back?’ When their wives finally came home, they accepted them as if nothing had happened.

Actually, there are many things described in Srimad Bhagavatam – there was a long conversation between the brahmans’ wives and Krishna. Krishna told them, ‘You do not have to stay with Me. Make My murti (vigraha, or Deity) and worship Me at home.’ The brahmans’ wives said, ‘Oh, You only like the Vraja-gopis, You do not like us! OK, then we will become the gopis’ servants and serve them!’ Hearing this, Krishna thought, amused, ‘They are very clever! They want to become servants of the gopis! They want to stay here one way or another.’ In the end, Lord Krishna created some illusion to arrange for the brahmans’ wives to return to their homes, and everything continued as before. This is how the yajna-patnis got the Lord’s mercy. After that pastime, they started worshipping Bala-Gopal at their homes.

This month (Magh month, according to the Bengali calendar) I am going to a place in Basirhat where all housewives do Gopal puja. They say that every year one thousand Gopals come to that programme, which means one thousand families will be joining this programme, and every family will bring their Gopal – devotees will offer bhoga and make a sankirtan programme there. They told me to fix the date and to come this year – every year, another (sahajiya) sampradaya came to this festival, but this year they asked me to come…

…So, Sri Kavi Karnapur writes that Sri Jagadish Pandit and Sri Hiranya were two yajna-patnis, two wives of those brahmans. In another book, it is also written that Sri Jagadish Pandit is Chandrahash (a dancer) and described now he became renowned as ‘Nritya-vinodi’ (‘she who pleases with her dance’) Jagadish Pandit.

As I have already told you, the birthplace of Sri Jagadish Pandit is in Guwahati, Assam. His father was a brahman called Sri Kamalaksa Bhatta. Sri Jagadish Pandit also had a brother called Sri Mahesh Pandit. Sri Jagadish Pandit and Hiranya lived together on the bank of the Gages, near Sri Jagannath Misra’s house, and Mahaprabhu would often come to visit them.

It is written in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita that Sri Gaurasundar once told Jagadish Pandit, ‘You can come to Nilachal and preach about the Holy Name of Krishna there.’ Following the Lord’s order, Sri Jagadish Pandit came to Puri. He came to see the temple of Lord Jagannath and prayed to Lord Jagannath, and when he came back to Chakdaha, he saw that there were Deities of Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra in his house! Those Deities are served at his house to this day. He also established a Deity of Gaura Gopal there.

Sri Gaurasundar and Nityananda Prabhu often came to the village of Yasor (Chakdaha) and chanted and danced at the house of Sri Jagadish Pandit. There are many pastimes described in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata and Sri Gopal-champu. Sri Jagadish Pandit and Hiranya were two dear friends of Sri Jagannath Misra, and both of them knew that the Lord Himself was born in Jagannath Misra’s house. That day when Mahaprabhu cried a lot and His mother and father took Him to the house of Sri Jagadish Pandit, Sri Jagadish Pandit and Hiranya said, ‘We were making an offering to the Lord, and now we see that Krishna Himself has come to take our offering!’ When Mahaprabhu came and took that offering, they actually had the darshan of Bal-Gopal (baby Gopal) at that time. Seeing the beautiful form of the Lord, Sri Jagadish Pandit and Hiranya began to chant, ‘Hari bol! Hari bol!’

Every year, when Gaudiya devotees went to Sri Puri Dham, Sri Jagadish Pandit would go with them. Also, when Nityananda Prabhu came to Panihati for the festival of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, Sri Jagadish Pandit was present there.

These are some of the glories of Sri Jagadish Pandit that I wanted to tell you about today…

(5/7) Be Strong and Straight

I am going for preaching to the Bankura Temple. We will take prasadam in the afternoon at the temple, and in the evening there is a programme outside the temple, in a village near Bankura; and the next day there will be the anniversary (Deity installation) festival at the temple. They make this festival every year, but this year they could not make it at the usual time because of the pandemic situation. The Bankura Temple has the Kaikhali Deities installed – Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Radha-Raman. Bankura is about fifty kilometres from Bardhaman; it is the village where Sripad Bhakti Kiran Giri Maharaj stayed, and it is also very close to the birthplace of Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj.

The house where Sripad Giri Maharaj stayed in Bankura was later given to Gurudev. Somebody had also donated a nearby land to Sripad Giri Maharaj, but he could not do anything with that land, and it was soon possessed by some local gundas. I managed to rescue that land, and it is now used for cultivation. It is a very nice piece of land, more than five or six acres. The house where Sripad Giri Maharaj lived was first occupied by a school teacher, but when he met with Gurudev, he decided to give it to him. Gurudev said he was too old and could not do anything with the house, so he requested the school teacher to transfer the land in my name. Now this land is a very good temple, our Bankura Temple. There are four or five cows now there and also the cultivation land. ** Prabhu from Ukraine stayed there and did the puja for more than six months last year, starting shortly before Gaura Purnima. He liked it there and wants to come there again…

The people in that area are very simple-hearted, not like here in Kolkata – here, people show you one thing but have something else inside. There, people are very simple-hearted. So, there is an outside programme tomorrow night, then the anniversary festival, and after that I will make programmes in the areas near Bankura and Bardhaman, both districts together. I will be going out for preaching for the next five days.

[Addressing one of the devotees.] Where have you got the golden chain on your neck? Oh, it is headphones… OK, good. I thought you have forgotten your Tulasi beads and are wearing a golden necklace now.

Devotee: No, the Tulasi beads are on my neck, it is just headphones.

Oh, OK. But I am thinking you would probably like to have a golden chain…

Devotee: No, it is not really my style…

OK. It is necessary to be a brahmachari. Stay in brahmachari life, it is good. The problem is that it is very difficult to stay as a brahmachari in the West. There are too many kamini-kanchana (temptations of women and wealth). Is it not so? Yes… Yes! Kamini-kanchana is there. If they see saffron clothes, they start joking…

[Addressing another devotee] I know that ** has already left the temple because he wants to be a householder. I want to see you live as a proper householder. It is necessary to live a proper householder life.

When you live at the temple, you engage only in sravan and kirtan, you take prasadam, and when you live in your house, you must engage yourself in the same way – even if you live as a householder, you should still do everything that we do at the temple. As a householder, you must provide income for the family – you must go to work or do some business, and when you earn money, you must give something to the temple, you cannot use everything for your family only. This is the duty of every householder. Help the temple as much as you can, according to your capacity, and you must also join the temple programmes at the weekend or when you have time. You must do something to maintain your spiritual practice.

It is not a problem if you get married, but it is necessary to be properly married, do not just move in and live together. This is illegal, and it is not good. It is necessary to get properly married. I do not like it when you take a wife, use her and then throw her away. I do not like such things. I know many devotees do that – they change wives or husbands in the same way that they change their clothes every day. I am saying harsh words, and not everybody can digest it, but Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj used even worse words, the words that I cannot even repeat. He would always say, ‘Rascals!’ I cannot use this word, but I have heard from our Srila Gurudev that Srila Swami Maharaj would use it.

It is necessary to harmonise with your wife or husband. Stay with your husband/wife until death. That is good. If you get married, it is not a problem. I am not saying that it is illegal or prohibited to get married. You can have a householder life. I know it is very difficult to live as a brahmachari or sannyasi in foreign countries, especially when you are young. You know, I have seen one old devotee who got married many times, and his last wife (he has already died) was younger than his granddaughter! They do not think. In their old age, at sixty–seventy, they get married and make children, but if they die when the child is five–six years old, who will take care of this child? They do not think about it. They think that ‘everything happens by the wish of the Lord’!

[Addressing a devotee] I see how much service your father, Sripad Sajjan Maharaj, does for the temple – he lives here and does a lot of service. As his son, you must become an example for others too.

Question: What rites should be performed for devotees when they die? Should they be cremated with their kanthi-mala and japa-mala?…

Before cremation, you must bath the body properly with water, then smear (massage) some ghee on the body, put on tilaks, the kanthi-mala should be there. It is not necessary to keep the japa-mala with the body – do not cremate the body with the japa-mala (you can keep that mala and remember that devotee, that will be good). Other than that, everything can be used – kanthi-mala, tilaks, etc. This is how we do it. I saw many devotees leave their bodies in Nabadwip in Gurudev’s time, and this is what Gurudev told to do. The body can be cremated with the kanthi-mala if that is the question.

Are there any other questions?

Question: If a devotee leaves the temple or leaves their service, is it because of the offences they have committed or is it because of their lack of faith?

Because of seva-aparadha. Sometimes, we say that somebody left because of this or because of that, but actually Gurudev says that when somebody leaves it is natural because some seva-aparadha comes, and the person leaves their service. This is the work of Maya Devi – she always wants to take us away and use us in her own service. This is Maya Devi’s duty. So, whenever somebody leaves their service, it happens only because of seva-aparadha. When seva-aparadha happens, service automatically leaves. That is why I tell everybody – if you have got an opportunity to do some service, do not leave that service, always continue doing your service.

One time in Nabadwip, I was very disturbed (it happened in Gurudev’s time), so I left the temple and went to Bamunpara, Gurudev’s birthplace. At that time, there were no mobile phone, so nobody could reach me. I stayed away for one day, twenty-four hours, and I felt very much disturbance – many bad things came to my mind. At night, I dreamed Gurudev was calling me back, and I went back to the Nabadwip temple the next day. This happened in my life only once – I left my service for twenty-four hours (I had no service in Bamunpara, but I left Nabadwip and went there that day). Those twenty-four hours were a very difficult time for me – not just one Maya Devi, so many Maya Devis attacked me at that time. This is my experience. I can share that with you. When I left my service, I felt very much disturbance… It was an exam for me – Gurudev was testing me, and it is a question whether I passed or failed it. Anyhow, I came back to Nabadwip within twenty-four hours…

(6/7) Mission’s Sustenance

Somebody lives a brahmachari life and later thinks, ‘Oof, it is very difficult to remain a brahmachari! I would rather become a grihastha!’ They go to grihastha life and now they repent, ‘What have I done! What a mistake it was…’

I thought before that ** would be a brahmacharini because I had taken her for preaching and she knew good Hari-katha, but after that she entered householder life… Now they can understand how much austerity there is in that householder life. First, they think it is very sweet, but after that everybody sooner or later realises that it is actually very bitter. I spoke to two girls yesterday. Both are quite young, one is twenty-five or twenty-six, and the other one is twenty-three or twenty-four; both are graduates. One of them was married on the Ratha-yatra day last year at one devotees’ house, but after that she could not tolerate her married life. She said that she was not allowed to do anything at her husband’s house – she could not cook there or even make garlands – so she left that house and joined the temple. Both of them now cook at the temple (one cooks and the other one helps – she is not fully initiated). They have already understood how austere the householder life is.

One time, Gurudev’s servant (koka) had made some mistake and wanted to leave. Gurudev told him with folded hands (I saw Gurudev pleading him), ‘Please, koka, forget the mistake you have made. I can manage it, it is not a problem. Please do not leave your service.’ He did not listen – he left his service, went abroad and made many babies, then that woman kicked him out, and he got married again! What kind of life is this? And he is an Indian boy…

To be able to stay within service full-time is very rare – it is necessary to have a very great fortune to be able to serve from childhood. I am also trying to make full-time servitors from some boys… I gave sannyas to two brahmacharis when they were very young (Sripad Niriha Maharaj and Sripad Vishnu Maharaj) – they were not even twenty-four at that time – but they are still serving very nicely. They do proper service and follow all rules and regulations properly. Now they go for preaching and are doing it very well. There are two more brahmacharis – one of them, Abhay Charan Prabhu, is a very good boy. He was the pujari at the Tarakeshwar temple; now he is preaching, and he is very happy to preach. There are two more new devotees who came to Nrisingha Palli, I initiated them yesterday. Another boy came from ISKCON – he says he is not interested ISKCON, he likes Gaudiya Mission and Gaudiya Math more, so he came to our temple and does service there.

Proper soul will come – Krishna will send somebody from His place to serve this mission. I am becoming old day by day, but I still have to watch everything to this day – to this day, I have to see to all the kitchen needs (I must see how much oil is necessary, how much rice is necessary, and so on). I have to do everything with my own hands.

Gurudev also wanted a helping hand – he needed somebody on whose shoulders he could transfer the burden. When I joined the temple in 1992, Gurudev told me, ‘I am making you the security guard – take care of my temple. My Guru Maharaj placed me in charge of this Mission in 1985 and left in 1988. Four–five years have passed now, and many foreign devotees want me to visit their countries, but I could not go before because I worried who would take care of this temple.’ So, when I came to the temple, Gurudev kept me there as the security guard of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, and to this day, I still think that I am a security guard of devotees.

I sometimes chastise you, but who can chastise one? Only a family member, only the guardian of the family can chastise one. I sometimes chastise devotees – I tell them what is bad, what is good. If I do not chastise you as your younger brother, elder brother, as your father or as your guardian, who will chastise you then? I sometimes say some harsh words to you, but actually when I tell you something, I tell it to you for your benefit, for your own good. I want all Gurudev’s devotees, all Gurudev’s family members to be good and to be going in the proper way because they are the ones who will carry the flag of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math all over the world, in every country of the world. That is my vision. I have not taken up any other flag – Gurudev gave me his flag, and I am proceeding and going everywhere carrying that very flag.

When an opportunity comes, I will also visit foreign countries. I want to reach out to everyone, I want to see devotees in every country. I only went abroad to Australia, Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico in 2009 or 2010, but I have not visited Colombia, South America, many countries in Europe, Turkey, Mauritius, South Africa and many other places. I want to go to every country and preach. Everything depends on the mercy of Gurudev, on the will and mercy of devotees. How many days I will be alive in this world depends on the Lord, depends on Gurudev, but I know that for as long as Gurudev keeps me in this world, I will try my best to preach and serve Gurudev’s Mission. That is my desire.

(7/7) Learn to Tolerate

It is necessary to have much tolerance when you are young. I also was a university student, I also thought about different things. I have seen university life, I also had many friends, but Krishna has taken me from there.

My parents did not want me to come to Krishna consciousness and become a sannyasi. I started reading Srimad Bhagavad-gita when I was twelve years old, and my father always hid the book, he did not allow me to read it. From my childhood, I knew a lot about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He is famous in the area where I was born, so in my childhood, we staged some pastimes (did some drama) about Nimai, Gaurasundar. I knew and liked Gauranga very much in my childhood.

I used to read Srimad Bhagavad-gita, but I did not understand it so much, but when I came to Gurudev, I heard some very nice explanation of Srimad Bhagavad-gita. Even Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita is a very hard book, but Gurudev explained ‘Sri Raya Ramananda sambad’ (the conversation between Mahaprabhu and Ray Ramananda), explained how Srila Sanatan Goswami and Srila Rupa Goswami left their kingdom and joined Mahaprabhu, and how many problems Srila Raghunath Das Goswami had to face before he finally reached Mahaprabhu. All this gives me very much enthusiasm in my life. The pastimes of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami give me very much inspiration in my life. Srila Gurudev also told me about his own life. When he left his house, he was giving twenty rupees per month to his mother, and when he came to the temple, his family and his mother came to the temple to take him back. When his mother tried to pull him forcefully by the hand, Gurudev held onto some window bars with his other hand and refused to go. This also gave me a lot of inspiration.

So many problems come – you will have to face so many things – but it is necessary to tolerate everything. It is necessary to have much patience to be able to stay in a temple. If you live alone, you do what you like, but when you live in a temple, you have to follow all the rules and regulations properly, and that should give you more example, more benefit in your spiritual life. That is why I pray to devotees to come and stay longer. You come for the Gaura Purnima festival from time to time, stay for a few days and immediately get a return ticket, but you should try to stay here for some time. We have opened many temples and branches, you can stay in any of the temples and do some service there for at least one–three months, it will be good for you. If you come only for four–five days at Gaura Purnima and then immediately leave, you will not be able to learn to be an example for others.

You can see the example – there is a Colombian boy, Amrita Krishna Prabhu. He has been here for more than a year now, and he is doing very nice cow seva. He sends me photographs from Nrisingha Palli every day. His wife, Dharitri Didi, also cooks very nicely. Even I can give you the example of Sudevi Didi. When I first went to Venezuela, I did not have a good cook with me, and I could not tolerate some food there, but now Sudevi cooks so well that no Indian lady could cook like her. She could defeat anybody, any best cook in India. She made fried rice and chilli paneer on Gurudev’s appearance day – I can say that no one can cook it in such a way. Perhaps, some professional cook at a hotel or a restaurant can cook like this; otherwise, nobody can compete with her. Even when Krishna Sundari Didi cooked sweet rice, it was incredible sweet rice, and it has become very famous now. So many sannyasis came from various Gaudiya Maths, and they said that they had never tasted such sweet rice before. They have many temples – they all came from various temples – but they kept asking me, ‘Who has cooked this? We know Nimai cannot cook like this!’ I did not tell them Krishna Sundari Didi’s name or Sudevi Didi’s name – I had to say that I had cooked it because if I had told them the truth, they would squirm thinking they are mlechhas, and they may not have taken it also. They have this mentality – they can say, ‘Oh, they come from the West, they are mlechhas, so we will not take anything from their hands!’ When Srila Swami Maharaj Prabhupad opened the Mayapur Temple, many foreign devotees had come at that time, but Gaudiya Maths did not join the inauguration…

All right, I am paying my full obeisance to you all. I was very happy to see you all. Please forgive my offence – I am chastising you today a lot about householder life…

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur said:

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Life is very short and life is very uncertain – so many problems will come, but we will not bow our head down at the lotus feet of Maya Devi. We must do our service properly.

All right, thank you very much. Jay Srila Gurudev.

Oh, I have not seen ** for a long time. Where has he gone? Send him a message, say that I am searching for him, OK? We need everybody – we do not want to lose anyone. Sometimes, it is necessary to chastise, and sometimes, it is also necessary to harmonise with everyone…

Devotee: I do not think he is angry. He just lives far from the temple…

No, he is not angry, but he is a little sad. We must learn to tolerate and to have patience. Sometimes, we can neither digest nor vomit some things; it happens like that sometimes. What can we do? It is necessary to tolerate… Anyway, my dandavat to you all. Thank you so much.

* * *

￼Line Line25 January 2021, p.m.

Betur Area (West Bengal)

Evening Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/5) Religion of This Age

Today, we have got this opportunity to meet and hear some Hari-katha. This opportunity does not come all the time. You always hear many kinds of kirtans – lila-kirtan, pala-kirtan, and so on – but:

sadhu-sange krsna-nama—ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Please listen carefully to what I will say now, and after the class, there will be an arati.

I have not come here to chant kirtan – I have come here to make you chant kirtan. It is a very rare fortune to chant the Holy name in the association of sadhus. We hear in the scriptures that a cloudy day is not a bad day – a bad day is a day without Hari-katha. In other words, the day when we do not get to hear any Hari-katha, when we do not get to chant the Lord’s name is a bad day for us. Therefore, today we have got this great day when we have an opportunity to hear and speak about the glories of the Lord that come from the holy mouths of our guru, Vaishnavs and sadhus. Where (kothay) does Krishna stay? He is in Hari-katha (Hari-kathay). In which forest (vane) does Krishna stay? Krishna is in service (sevane). You can get Krishna by serving Him (sevane) and by hearing about Him (sravane). From whom should you hear about Krishna? We must hear about Lord Krishna from the holy mouths of those who have left everything in this world (who have left all personal happiness and interests) and surrendered to the Lord, their guru and Vaishnavs.

There are four ages (Satya, Treta, Dvapara, Kali), there are four varnas (brahman, ksatriya, vaisya, sudra), and there are four ashrams (brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha, sannyasa). It is said in the scriptures:

chari varnasrami yadi krsna nahi bhaje

svakarma karileo se raurave padi maje

‘Whatever varna (a priest, fighter, manager or worker) or ashram (a celibate, householder, renouncer of the household life or monk) you belong to, if you do not worship Krishna but engage in your prescribed duties, you will have to fall into a terrible hell.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.26)

Whatever varna or ashram you belong to – even if you take sannyas – if you do not worship and serve Krishna, you will fall into a terrible hell. You worship various gods and goddesses (you worship Kali, Durga, Laksmi, Ganesh, and so on), but there are 330,000,000 gods, and we cannot worship all of them. Suppose you worship Kali today, but if you worship Durga tomorrow and do not worship Kali, then Kali will be unhappy. If you worship Siva and do not worship Parvati, then Parvati will be unhappy. However, if we worship Krishna, then all kinds of worship are automatically accomplished:

‘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)

It is necessary to have faith (sraddha, visvas).

chari varnasrami yadi krsna nahi bhaje

svakarma karileo se raurave padi maje

‘Whatever varna (a priest, fighter, manager or worker) or ashram (a celibate, householder, renouncer of the household life or monk) you belong to, if you do not worship Krishna but engage in your prescribed duties, you will have to fall into a terrible hell.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.26)

‘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)

It means that your debts to your father, mother, rishis (sages), demigods – all debts are cleared if you serve the Lord. If you water the root of the tree, you do not have to water the tree’s trunk, branches, leaves and every other part separately. Suppose you plant some wheat – if you do not water the soil, the seeds will dry out, and if you water it too much, the seeds will rot. Sahajiyas, who do not understand anything, transgress their rights (enter where they have no right to enter) by wanting to serve the Divine Couple (the yugala-murti of Sri Sri Radha-Krishna). Service to the Divine Couple is not such a simple thing! Attempting to do it is transgression of our rights – it means we want to follow that other line, but we have no right to enter there. This is how some water their seeds too much, and the seeds rot. This is bad too. We must serve according to our right and qualification.

I have told you just now that there are four ages. In Satya-yuga, the duration of life was 100,000 years, and people would meditate for 60,000–70,000 years to attain God. In Treta-yuga, people lived for 10,000 years and attained God through fire sacrifices. In Dvapar-yuga, people lived for 1,000 years and attained God through Deity worship. However, in Kali-yuga, people live only for 120 years, so the religion of this age is Nama-sankirtan (congregational chanting of the Holy Names). Although life is so short in Kali-yuga, the Lord Himself comes in this age:

kali-kale nama-rupe krsna-avatara
nama haite haya sarva-jagat-nistara

‘Krishna appears in Kali-yuga in the form of His Name, and the entire world is delivered through that Name.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.17.22)

There is a Holy Name, and there are letters of the Holy Name. They are not the same thing. There is no difference between the Name (Nama) and He whose Name it is (Nami). The Lord’s Name, beauty, qualities, pastimes, associates and features are completely non-different from the Lord Himself. Unless we chant the Holy Name of the Lord in this Age of Kali, we will not be able to escape this illusory world. It is necessary to chant the Holy Name. The Lord Himself comes as the Holy Name to this world. We sing in one of the kirtans:

emana durmati, samsara bhitare,
padiya achhinu ami
tava nija-jana, kona mahajane,
pathaiya dile tumi

‘I have fallen into this wicked material world, but You have sent a great soul, Your associate, to me.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(2/5) Know Thyself

Our spiritual practice is different from what is practised by other people in this world. Truly, among millions of selfish people, you will find one wise person; among millions of wise people, you will find one liberated person; and among millions of such liberated people, you will find only one devotee of Krishna. It is very rare to find a devotee of the Lord in the world, but one such devotee can deliver the whole universe.

Outside people worship Deities and say, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, kavitam sundarim dehi – make me rich, make me clever, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me a poet.’ Do we come to this world only to eat and wear clothes?

ahara-nidra-bhaya-maithunam cha
samanyam etat pasubhir naranam
dharmo hi tesam adhiko viseso
dharmena hinah pasubhih samanah

‘Eating, sleeping, breeding and defence – these four principles are common to both human beings and animals. The distinction between human life and animal life is that man can search after God but an animal cannot. Therefore, those who do not feel any urge to search for God are no better than animals.’

(Hitopadesh, 25)

When I was a dog, I ate so many things; when I was a cat, I ate so much raw fish; when I was a pig, how many heaps of stool I finished! This is ahara, eating. Nidra means sleeping. Bhaya means fear – we are always afraid of something. Maithunam means breeding, or increasing your posterity. Pigs also do these things, dogs also do these things, goats also do these things, cats also do these things, and humans also do these things, then what is the difference between humans and animals? The difference is actually what we do not do – the difference is spiritual life, service to the Lord, but we do not do it. We do not truly associate with sadhus. It is necessary to genuinely associate with sadhus – there are rules and regulations for this kind of association, and sadhus always tell us about that. It is necessary to read scriptures. There is Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Srimad Bhagavatam.

sadhu-sange krsna-nama – ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

It is necessary to chant the Holy Name in the association of sadhus.

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

It is impossible to chant the Holy Name in bad association, that is why it is necessary to have sadhu-sanga. As you associate and associate with sadhus, all dirt from your heart will be removed. Otherwise, where will you keep the Lord? Where will He sit? You have many things in your heart – there is much kanak, kamini, pratistha (desire for money, women and fame), there is much kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy), there are six urges (the urges of speech, mind, anger, tongue, belly and genitals), there are six faults (excessive eating, materialistic endeavours, useless talks, inability to follow instructions, bad association, fickle-mindedness). We have all this inside us – we are full of rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (desire to enjoy through our eyes, tongue, nose, ear and skin). We are calling out to the Lord, but we say, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, kavitam sundarim dehi – make me rich, make me clever, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me a poet.’

There are three kinds of devotion: karma-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with material desires), jnana-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with the pursuit of knowledge) and jnana-sunya suddha bhakti (pure devotion without any pursuit of knowledge). It is said in the scriptures that most people practise karma-misra bhakti. Karma-misra bhakti means we say, ‘O Lord, I am worshipping You, please give me something in return.’ It means turning gods and goddesses into bribe-takers and our menial servants. In exchange of worship, we say, ‘O Lord, may I have a good health’, ‘May my children be well’, ‘May my son find a good job’, ‘May my daughter get married into a good family.’ We make the Lord work for us and give Him orders. Listen carefully to what I am saying.

Sadhus do not serve the Lord in this way. Devotees serve the Lord selflessly – they do not want to get anything in return. Rather, they always think, ‘What makes the Lord happy?’, ‘What makes the Lord’s devotees happy?’, ‘What can make Radharani happy?’, ‘What can make gurudev happy?’ Sri Gurupadpadma is non-different from Srimati Radharani (in madhura-rasa) and Nityananda Prabhu (in sakhya-rasa).

radha-bhajane yadi mati nahi bhela

krsna-bhajana tava akarana gela

‘If you did not become devoted to the worship of Srimati Radharani, your worship of Krishna was in vain.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘If you did not become devoted to the worship of Srimati Radharani, your worship of Krishna was in vain’, but most people say, ‘Krishna, Krishna’ – nobody says, ‘Radhe, Radhe.’ Moreover, the miracle is that the combined form of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna appeared right here in this land of India!

bharata-bhumite haila manusya janma yara
janma sarthaka kari’ kara para-upakara

‘One who has taken birth as a human being in the land of India should take advantage of this birth by bringing benefit to others.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.9.41)

What does it mean to ‘bring benefit to others’? Does it mean to give somebody a blanket in the winter? If I give a blanket to somebody, they will throw it away and come to ask me for another one. People’s desires cannot be appeased by that. Some man does not have a house, so he builds a one-storey house, but soon after that, he will want a two-storey house, a three-storey house, and so on. Desires never stop.

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya
kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

‘If a devotee aspires for enjoyment or liberation, Krishna hides the knowledge about pure devotion and dismisses them, giving them enjoyment or liberation.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.18)

If you want something from the Lord, the Lord will give it to you, but He will not give you devotion – He will hide it from you (your devotion to the Lord and faith in the Lord will be slowly destroyed). It is necessary to have faith. When you are born, you do not know who your father is, but when your mother tells you, ‘This is your father’, you believe her. In the same way, when our guru and Vaishnavs say something, we must believe it.

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana

[Limbs of surrender] ‘Humility, self-submission, accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must be humble, we must submit ourselves to the Lord, we must know that the Lord is our maintainer, and we must have faith that Krishna will certainly protect us. This is also Mahaprabhu’s teachings.

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

trnadhika hina dina akinchana chhara
apane manabi sada chhadi’ ahankara

‘Give up ego and always consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and wretched.’

vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana
pratihimsa tyaji’ anye karabi palana

‘Practise forgiveness like that of a tree; do not be vindictive, nurture others.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If somebody chastises me or speaks bad to me, it means they have a problem, that is why they can do that, but I do not need to say anything in reply, just as a tree says nothing when it is being cut. Moreover, when you cut a branch of a tree, the tree not only does not say anything but it also gives you shelter after that. It is necessary to have this kind of tolerance and patience. We must also be humble (‘I do not know anything, I have no qualification, I do not understand anything’), but somebody thinks that they have become a great Vaishnav.

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I think that I have become a Vaishnav, I will not be able to give honour to others. We pray to gurudev, ‘Sakale samman karite sakati deha natha yatha-yatha – please give me strength to give everyone proper honour,’ but when will we understand all this? Actually, we will be able to understand this when we learn our real identity. The problem is that we do not know who we are.

When somebody asks you who you are, you say, ‘My name and title are so-and-so,’ but this is the identity of your body. First, you must know what your identity is. Who am I? If I say, ‘I am so-and-so Maharaj’, this is not my identity – this is the identity of my body, this is not who I am. I am a soul.

‘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)

My father and mother did not produce that which I am – they gave me this body, but they did not give me life. One day, life will leave this body, and nobody can tell you when that time will come. Pariksit Maharaj was fortunate – he received a seven days’ notice; but we do not know if we will get even a seven-minute notice. We do not know whether we will die or not in the next seven minutes, but we are very proud of ourselves. We make all kinds of plans, thinking, ‘I will do this’, ‘I will do that’, but the fact is that we can leave our bodies at any minute!

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When you learn who you are, you will know your proper identity. We identify yourselves with our bodies now (we think that we are these bodies), that is why we say that ‘this is my hand’, ‘this is my head’, ‘these are my ears’, ‘these are my eyes’, ‘these are my legs’, but who am I? The answer is there in the scriptures. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita says:

jivera ‘svarupa’ haya—krsnera ‘nitya-dasa’
krsnera ‘tatastha-sakti’ ‘bhedabheda-prakasa’

‘By its intrinsic nature, the soul is an eternal servant of Krishna. Souls come from the marginal energy of Krishna and are simultaneously one with and different from the Lord.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.108)

Always remember this.

We will have the evening arati now – everyone must please stand up. Join the arati, do the Tulasi parikrama, after that we will chant some kirtans and speak again. Please stay, take the darshan of the Lordships’ arati – you can see how the Lord is worshipped. We will offer arati and chant kirtan now…

(3/5) Qualification for Chanting Holy Name

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’

svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari

‘To bestow His mercy to jiva souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

atyanta durlabha prema karibare dana
sikhaya saranagati bhakatera prana

‘To distribute the rarest form of divine love, He teaches surrender, which is the life and soul of devotees.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Before Mahaprabhu took sannyas, His Name was Nimai, and after He took sannyas, His Name became Sri Krishna Chaitanya – it means that He has given consciousness (chetan) to all jiva souls of this world. He personally comes from Sri Goloka Vrindavan in this Age of Kali to show kindness to all jiva souls, to rescue such lowly and fallen souls as ourselves. He said:

harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam
kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha

‘Chanting the Holy Name, chanting the Holy Name, chanting the Holy Name – there is no other way, no other way, no other way.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.7.76)

In this Age of Kali, except for chanting the Holy Name, there is no other way, no other way, no other way. Who has the right, or qualification, to chant the Holy Name? Who can chant it? It is written very beautifully:

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana

[Limbs of surrender] ‘Humility, self-submission, accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Mahaprabhu comes to teach us surrender to the Lord. ‘Dainya’ means it is necessary to be very humble, to feel that you are very low. ‘I am a servant – I am an eternal servant of the Lord. I am a servant of Vaishnavs, I am a servant of all devotees of Krishna!’ Next is ‘atma-nivedana’ – you must submit yourself, you must sacrifice and throw yourself at the lotus feet of the Lord. ‘Goptrtve varan’ means feeling that ‘Krishna is the maintainer’, ‘Krishna takes care of everything.’ ‘Avasya raksibe Krsna’ means having faith that ‘Krishna will definitely protect.’

bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava–varjanangikara

‘[Surrender means] engaging only in what is favourable to devotion and rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

sad-anga saranagati haibe yanhara
tanhara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

‘Lord Krishna hears the prayers of those who surrender in six ways.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

The last two limbs of surrender are very important. It is necessary to accept that which is favourable to devotion, and it is necessary to reject that which is unfavourable to devotion. Suppose you do a fire sacrifice. If you put one spoon of ghee and then one spoon of water, can you do a fire sacrifice like this? You cannot. If you drink both alcohol and milk, alcohol will destroy all good properties of milk. It is the same as having difficulty breathing and smoking or having acidity or gas and eating anything and everything. It is necessary to accept what is healthy and give up what is unhealthy. In the same way, it is necessary to accept what is favourable to devotion and reject what is unfavourable to devotion.

rupa-sanatana-pade dante trna kari’
bhakativinoda pade dui pada dhari’

‘Holding a straw between his teeth, Bhaktivinod falls before Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu and Srila Sanatan Goswami Prabhu, clasping their feet.’

kandiya kandiya bale, ami ta’ adhama
sikhaye saranagati karahe uttama

‘Crying and crying, he prays, “I am very low! Please give me the highest qualification by teaching me surrender”.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(4/5) Come for Nabadwip Dham Parikrama

We have come today here as part of our Nabadwip Dham Pracharani Sobha programme. We have come to call you to Nabadwip Dham parikrama. If you want to get relief from the roaming of this material world (samsara-parikrama), you must circumambulate Sri Nabadwip Dham. You have heard the kirtan:

sri-gauda-mandala-bhumi yeba jane chintamani
tara haya vraja-bhume vasa

‘Those who always think about Sri Gauda Mandal reside in the land of Vraja.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

The parikrama is five days, so try to come for seven days. This year, the parikrama duration was increased by one day. Everyone can come with us – we walk during the parikrama, but some come by rickshaw or toto also if they cannot walk.

People mostly go to Mayapur only, but actually Nabadwip consists of nine islands (nata dwip), with Antardwip (Mayapur) in the centre and eight other islands around it. Each of the nine kinds of devotion resides on a corresponding island. For example, our temple is situated in Nrisingha Palli – it is Godrumdwip, the place of kirtan (where the Lord’s glories are chanted). Simantadwip is the island of sravan, the place of hearing Hari-katha. Antardwip, the central island, is Mayapur – it is the place of atma-nivedanam (self-submission). Koladwip, where our old temple is, is the place of pada-sevanam (service to the lotus feet of the Lord). There is Rudradwip near Simantadwip, Madhyadwip near Godrumdwip and three more islands that are formally part of Bardhaman district (Ritudwip, Jahnudwip and Modadrumdwip). We walk to all these places. Prasadam is prepared every day. We sit down at about 1 p.m. every day, take prasadam and then continue our way, returning to the temple in the evening. We return to our temple by buses – usually, about one thousand people come, so we rent ten–fifteen buses.

We have a book called Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala. It describes all the different places we go to during the five days of the parikrama. When we come to each place, we sit down and speak and chant the glories of the place, and this book was compiled based on those talks. It is written beautifully. At the beginning, there is some poetry, you may not understand it, but the main book is written very nicely in plain Bengali.

When we go to Ritudwip, we speak about Samudragad. When we come to Jahnudwip, we remember Jahnu Muni – how, when the Ganges dried up, he released her from his thigh. Everything is described very beautifully in this book. There is also Ayodhya within Modadrumdwip. We cannot go to Ayodhya (the place of Lord Ramachandra’s pastimes), but when we come to Modadrumdwip on the last day, we can get the result of visiting Ayodhya. When Rama and Sita lived in exile, they came to that island of Nabadwip. It is a beautiful pastime. Ritudwip is also a very beautiful island…

So, the nine islands form Nabadwip, and each of the nine kinds of devotion reside on the corresponding island; therefore, if you want to practise the nine kinds of devotion, you should come for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. We circumambulate the nine islands in five days, starting off in the morning and coming back in the afternoon or sometimes in the evening. We walk during the parikrama, but those who have pain in their legs and cannot walk can take some transport. I know there are some ninety-year-old(!) ladies who have been coming for this parikrama for thirty–forty years already, and they walk all the way every year. When I see them, I feel enthusiasm. You know, when you walk chanting the Holy Name, you can walk so far without even looking back. We go on the parikrama with drums and karatals, chanting and walking.

The so-called ‘dol’ day is Mahaprabhu’s appearance day, and the following day, there is a great festival celebrating Mahaprabhu’s appearance in the house of Sri Jagannath Misra and Sri Sachi Devi. We celebrate it with great joy, and thousands of people come to the temple and take prasad on this day. For those who stay at the temple (usually, one–two thousand people), prasad is arranged three times a day. When we do parikrama, we stop in some field or some place, and prasad is brought there in trucks. For example, in the morning, we usually take muri with ghugni (whole pea) and potato. After prasad, we take some rest and then continue walking. We do not walk continuously the whole day – sometimes, we stop and sit down for a while in some places because it is necessary to talk about the pastimes of all the different places. We live in Kali-yuga – because we are conditioned souls, many of us do not know what Nabadwip is. Many people come to Nabadwip in a bus, do sightseeing and go, but this is eye-exercise…

Practice makes perfect. Do we learn to sing in our mothers’ wombs? We do not. You can see some foreign devotees here. They come from Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico – they come from so far and learn to chant kirtans. Have you seen them chanting in Bengali? They have books where all kirtans are written in English – they chant reading their books and in this way learn all kirtans by heart. Practice makes perfect. It is necessary to always practise.

Except for fortunate souls, nobody can understand these things. Only fortunate souls can hear about the Lord and can chant the Lord’s glories.

(5/5) Live Sincere Devotional Life

Only fortunate souls can chant the kirtan of the Lord.

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)

Roaming around the universe, we somehow, by some fortune, have come to the holy feet of our gurudev. Devotees come here from so far, travelling thousands and thousands of miles. There are now 140 branches of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, and Srila Gurudev would often say, ‘The sun never sets on Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math’ (when the sun is setting here, it is rising in other branches). I have been to places where there is no night. They have daytime the whole day – the sun sets only for ten minutes and then rises again. When I went to that place again in winter, I saw that they had only night the whole day – the sun does not rise in winter, so it is dark the whole day (the night lasts 23 hours 45 minutes). There is a six–ten-feet layer of snow on the streets that is cleared by machines so that cars can go; the ocean gets frozen, and people walk on it; and when the temperature is below zero, it is so cold that when you breathe, your breath comes out and turns into ice in the air. We have a temple even in such a place. The whole world is flooded with Mahaprabhu now.

Mahaprabhu said:

prithivite achhe yata nagaradi grama
sarvatra prachara haibe mora nama

‘My Name will spread to every village and town on this earth.’

(Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu)

Mahaprabhu predicted this, and our guru-varga turned it into reality – going to every country, they gave the Holy Name to all those people who did not understand anything, and now even people from our country do not know as much as they do. You could see that during the arati just now somebody came wearing shoes – people cannot understand anything… When they worship Saraswati or Kali, they made a disco party in front of the Deities and dance to music. Is this how Deities are worshipped? When you worship a Deity, you must do it selflessly, with heart and soul – not to impress others.

‘gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

You have seen that we offered obeisances, offered arati, and so on. We have been doing this for so many days and years.

loka dekhana gora bhaja tilaka matra dhari’
gopanete atyachara gora dhare churi

‘You put on tilaks and show the whole world that you serve Gora, but secretly you do outrageous things. Gora will catch you out, thief (hypocrite)!’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.7, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

You show off that you have put some tilaks, put on a mala, put on some sadhu’s clothes – it is very easy to dress as a sadhu, but it is very hard to become a sadhu. In this world, most people are only dressed as sadhus. That is why we are told that it is impossible to recognise a sadhu with your eyes – you must see the sadhu with your ears. It is necessary to listen with your ears what the sadhu or the guru says. Only saying ‘I have become a devotee’ will not do. Moreover, if somebody says that they have become a Vaishnav, they are not a Vaishnav. Vaishnavs always say, ‘I am your servant.’ That is why we always call each other ‘Prabhu’ – we address even an uninitiated child as ‘Prabhu’. Even if I am eighty years old and some small boy took initiation yesterday, I must give him respect and address him as ‘Prabhu’ because the Lord resides within him. The Lord is our Lord. How should I see you? I must not see you as human beings – I must see you as souls, particles of the Lord. You are only born in this human body – your body grows slowly, slowly, becomes old, and then one day you leave it to get another body. We get one body after another. It is necessary to give honour to the soul. That is why we give honour and pay obeisances to each other.

kama-krodha-adi chhaya, batapare deya bhaya,
avasana haila asi’ bela

‘I am attacked by the six highway robbers (lust, anger, etc.), and my life is coming to an end.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Our six enemies are kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya: lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy. ‘Mada’ (‘madness’) means ego, or pride: people are proud of their wealth, knowledge, family or friends, beauty, merits, and so on. Everybody has some ego. That is why it is said: ‘Ahankare matta haina Nitai-pada pasariya, asatyere satya kari mani – maddened with pride, I forgot Nitai’s feet and accept untruth as truth.’

‘samsara’ ‘samsara’ kari’ michhe gela kala
labha na haila kichhu, ghatila janjala

‘Time has passed as I have been busy with my material life, and the result is nothing – only garbage.’

kisera samsara ei chhayabaji praya
ihate mamata kari vrtha dina yaya

‘What sort of world is this? It is only a trick, a show. While I affectionately take it as my own, days pass by in vain.’

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I wish everyone lived without pain and sadness. I am thinking that farmers work so hard to grow potato, but they are not getting a good price to sell it now because people from other places sell it at a much cheaper price (nobody wants to pay a higher price for the local produce). They work so hard to earn a living, but it is all in vain:

hari hari! viphale janama gonainu
manusya-janama paiya radha-krsna na bhajiya
janiya suniya visa khainu

‘O Lord! My life has passed in vain. I have got a human birth, but I have not served Radha and Krishna. I have been consciously drinking poison (I know it, and I have heard about it from others, but I still drank it).’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

People consciously drink poison – they know it is poison, they have heard that it is poison, but they are still taking it… We must practise Krishna consciousness.

There is a festival at our Betur temple tomorrow, please come. I will speak there as today from 10 a.m. Please come, I am inviting everyone. There will be kirtan and Hari-katha from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., then there will be bhoga-arati and the arati of the Deities, and after that, everyone will be given prasad. The cook is coming from Nabadwip, so prasad will be cooked very nicely. There is a lot of cabbage in winter, so they will cook cabbage with potato, some cauliflower rasam, sak, patol, chutney and sweet rice. Everyone will get this prasad tomorrow. ‘Prasada-seva karite haya, sakala prapancha-jaya – the entire material world can be conquered by honouring the Lord’s prasad’ (Saranagati). Please come for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama also – you will like it very much, you will see.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’, recites Sri Jaya Dhvani and concludes the evening class.]

* * *

￼Line Line26 January 2021, noon

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Bankura (West Bengal)

Temple Anniversary Festival

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/13) Remembering Guru-Varga

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my godbrothers and sisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Today is the grand annual festival in honour of establishing the temple and the inauguration anniversary of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Radha-Raman.

Many of you know that our Guru-varga Pujyapad Srila Bhakti Kiran Giri Maharaj stayed at the house of Sripad Ramanath Prabhu (he works as a school teacher). Srila Giri Maharaj was a surrendered disciple of Pujyapad Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj, and he took sannyas from our temple, from our Guru Maharaj, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. He was a very senior preacher.

He was a very strong-built and even cultivated the land himself. When he was young, he would eat three kilograms of rice every day – one kilogram in the morning, one kilogram at noon and one kilogram in the evening. He was very strong. I heard from him that even bulls and cows would be scared of him – when the cows grazed or roamed around, they would always keep close to him, and nobody could understand why.

Later, Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj got a land in Mayapur, and Srila Giri Maharaj lastly stayed there (after Srila Goswami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Suhrid Akinchan Maharaj became the acharya of the temple). As I have already mentioned, Srila Giri Maharaj took sannyas from Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj (he had a family before that, but he left everything).

Patrasayer (Bankura) is also the birthplace of Srila Giri Maharaj’s guru, Pujyapad Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj. After Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur left this world, Srila Goswami Maharaj came back to this area. His name was Sri Aprakrita Prabhu at that time (later, when he took sannyas, his name became Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj). Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur gave him shelter, but when Srila Prabhupad left, Srila Goswami Maharaj was devastated – seeing all the fighting and problems at the temple, he came back to his home. Soon after that, Srila Sridhar Maharaj came to his house. [Opening Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala, His Divine Grace remarks, ‘There is a short article in honour of Srila Giri Maharaj and his photograph included in our book Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala.’] When Srila Sridhar Maharaj came to Patrasayer, he told Srila Goswami Maharaj, ‘Prabhu, you are a senior preacher – you must preach Prabhupad’s teaching. What will happen if you stay in your family? Will you be following Mahaprabhu’s teachings? We all came in Prabhupad’s time, and we must continue his line.’

You know, in his youth, Srila Prabhupad vowed to chant ‘sata-koti Nama-yajna’ – he made a promise to chant a billion Holy Names. During this time, Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Giridhari came to him and told him to preach Mahaprabhu’s teachings. Srila Prabhupad said, ‘I am alone, how will I preach?’ and the Lordships replied, ‘You do not need to worry about that. I will send My own associates.’ This is how so many big, great acharyas came to this world, including the Founder Acharya of ISKCON Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad, our Param Guru Maharaj Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj (Kunja Babu), Srila Bhakti Dayita Madhav Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Prakash Aranya Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Sambal Bhagavat Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Gaurav Vaikhanash Maharaj, later Srila Bhakti Srirup Puri Maharaj also came and many others.

(2/13) Sacrifice For Preaching

After Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur left, many sannyasis gathered at Devananda Gaudiya Math, founded by Srila Bhakti Prajnan Keshav Maharaj (previously, Vinod Bihari Brahmachari), and preached from there. Srila Prabhupad’s last sannyasi disciple was Srila Jajavar Maharaj. Srila Bhakti Kumud Shanta Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Kiran Giri Maharaj, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj took sannyas later (after Srila Prabhupad’s disappearance). Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj also took sannyas later, from Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. Srila Bhakti Prajnan Keshav Maharaj also took sannyas from Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, and Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj took sannyas from Srila Keshav Maharaj (on the order of Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj).

When Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj bought the land and was going to open the ISKCON temple in Mayapur, he invited all Gaudiya Maths, but none of them came. Only Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj came – the others thought that Srila Swami Maharaj had gone abroad and become polluted by foreigners. They criticised and fussed about these small matters. Srila Swami Maharaj went abroad and did everything for preaching, he even took their prasad for the sake of preaching. For example, people invite us for some programmes, and sometimes we do not like to take prasad from the hands of certain people, but if we refuse to take it, the host will be dissatisfied, so we have to taste a little. Sometimes, it is necessary to do this.

One time, somebody offered Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur to open a temple and a hostel in London. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘Yes, and if necessary, you can supply non-vegetarian food also.’ One sannyasi objected, saying, ‘What is the use of making this hostel if we supply meat, eggs, and so on?’ In reply, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘I already thought about it a thousand lives ago!’ So, when Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj went for preaching to America, he would cook something in the morning before going out for the whole day because he did not know if he would be able to have anything to eat during the day, and in the evening there could be some preaching programme or some people could come to meet him. So, Srila Swami Maharaj cooked in the morning and kept some prasad for the evening in the same fridge where the man at whose house he stayed kept beef – he tolerated it for the sake of preaching.

In his brahmachari days, Srila Sridhar Maharaj went with a few other devotees to Kashmir for preaching (his name was Ramendra Sundar Prabhu at that time). One day, feeling very hungry, the devotees tried to find a place where they could eat; finally, they managed to find a Hindu hotel. They ordered some rice, dal and fried potato, but when the food came, they saw there was onion in the dal. One of the devotees said, ‘What is this smell? Can you not feel it?’ Srila Sridhar Maharaj replied, ‘Mahaprasadam has come!’ and started reciting the prayers before taking prasadam. His vision was like that.

(3/13) Loving Interactions

Every year, Pujyapad Sripad Giri Maharaj joined and managed the Nabadwip Dham parikrama party of Srila Sridhar Maharaj. Later, when he grew old and could not walk so much, he would go by rickshaw, but he would still give lectures at all the places.

Sripad Giri Maharaj’s diksa-guru, Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj, had very much affection for Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. One time, Srila Sridhar Maharaj went for Vrindavan parikrama together with Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj and his disciples. The parikrama was during the niyom-seva month, and on one of the days during the parikrama, it was Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s Vyasa Puja (appearance day). Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj personally offered a full arati (including 108 ghee lamps) to Srila Sridhar Maharaj during the celebration. Although they were godbrothers, he personally offered worship to Srila Sridhar Maharaj. Srila Goswami Maharaj’s disciples were astonished to see and realise how much respect Srila Goswami Maharaj had for Srila Sridhar Maharaj.

Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj always invited Srila Sridhar Maharaj to every festival of his own appearance day, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj attended it every time in Mayapur (at Nandan Acharya Bhavan). Srila Goswami Maharaj always gave whatever presentations and donations he had got on that day to Srila Sridhar Maharaj. However, one year, Srila Sridhar Maharaj could not come, and Srila Goswami Maharaj said at that time, ‘Srila Sridhar Maharaj has been coming every year, and every year I would get one more year of life, but this year my sannyas-guru could not come, so I think that I will not be alive next year.’ His words came true – he left his body that year.

Anyhow, we have assembled here today to celebrate the anniversary of the Deity installation and the temple inauguration. As some of you may have heard before, in Gurudev’s time, there was a Deity of Mahaprabhu installed at our temple in Kolkata, and after some time Sri Sri Guru Gandharva Radha-Raman were installed. Because at present that service is not running properly, I have brought the Deities here – I have installed these Deities here, giving Them the same names. I have ‘taken’ Dum Dum Park Deities to Tarakeshwar (Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Madan-mohan) and Kaikhali Deities to this temple here in Bankura (Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Radha-Raman). ‘Gandharva’ means Radharani, and ‘Radha-Raman’ means Krishna. I have heard many call Them ‘Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Raman’, but this is not correct. The correct name is Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Radha-Raman. ‘Radha-Raman’ means He who attracts Radha – it is a name of Krishna. These are very high things. Radharani is an expert dancer, that is why Her name is Gandharva, or Gandharvika. For example, the name of Srimati Radharani’s Deity installed in Chaitanya Math (Mayapur) is Gandharvika.

(4/13) A Hole In Surrender

You can see how nicely Sevak Bhavan has turned out here. There is also a goshala here. You have everything arranged here – by the will of the Lord, everything is good – but there is one shortage. There is a lack of sincerity, or service with firm determination (nistha).

We are doing so much service, but instead of devotion, our efforts turn into karma-misra bhakti. Everybody has some devotion, but the problem is that our devotion is karma-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with material desires). It means we serve the Lord, but inside we expect to get something in return. For example, many like to speak about the glory of ekadasi – they hear what result one can get by following each particular ekadasi, and they follow it just to get something. This is also a material desire. However, in our line, we follow ekadasi because Mahaprabhu, Gurudev and Guru Maharaj have told us to follow it. If you follow ekadasi hoping to get something, it is not what ekadasi is for. Ekadasi is not for your pleasure.

Our ideal is Vraja gopis’ service, and their service is niskama (selfless). There is niskam-bhakti, and there is sakam-bhakti. ‘Niskam’ means you have no desire for anything, and ‘sakam’ means you want to get something. People worship various gods, but instead of actually worshipping them, they turn them into bribe-takers. Suppose you work somewhere – if you take a bribe, then both the bribe-giver and you, the bribe-taker, are criminals. In the same way, you come to the Lord and, giving Him some rice or money, think, ‘I am giving You one kilogram of rice because I know that later I will get two kilograms in lieu of that.’ Somebody has a coconut tree at home, and when they offer coconut to the Lord, they think, ‘If I offer a coconut to the Lord, I will get more coconuts on that tree!’ It is the same with jackfruit and other trees. People think, ‘If I give one jackfruit to the Lord, more jackfruits will grow on my tree!’ When you have such desires, it means that you turn the Lord into a bribe-taker and make Him your menial servant. People pray, ‘O Lord, give my son a good job’, ‘O Lord, please let my daughter marry well’, ‘O Lord, please keep me in good health.’ This all is karma-misra bhakti.

People pray, ‘O Lord, please keep me in good health,’ but it is the Lord’s matter (or duty) to keep your body well because this body is His. You can remember Srila Sanatan Goswami’s example. He is a great pandit, an extremely educated person, but even he thought at some point, ‘I will commit suicide. I have come to this world to serve the Lord, but my health is very bad – because I have this bad skin disease, I cannot serve the Lord with this body anymore. It will be better if I throw myself under the wheels of Lord Jagannath’s chariot during the Ratha-yatra procession.’ He came all the way from Vrindavan to Puri with this idea in mind. What did Mahaprabhu say? Mahaprabhu chastised him, ‘Are you not ashamed of yourself?! How can you spoil others’ property?! Do you think this body is yours?’

diksa-kale bhakta kare atma-samarpana
sei-kale krsna tare kare atma-sama

‘Devotees submit their entire being when they take initiation. At this time, Krishna accepts them as His very own.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.192)

‘When you have already surrendered to the Lord, how can you think that this body is yours?’ (These are such beautiful words!) ‘How can you destroy this body? You want to destroy this body by committing suicide, but when you took initiation, you gave this body to Me! You told me, “Use this body as You please, Prabhu. I am Your sacrificial goat – You can cut my neck, You can cut my leg, You can cut my head. Do as You please.”’ This is what surrender (saranagati) is. So, Mahaprabhu told Srila Sanatan Goswami,’You have given this body to the Lord, then how can you now want to commit suicide?’…

(5/13) Have a Heart for the Temple

You can stay here at the temple.

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara
sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

‘May I have the same love and attraction to Your holy feet that I now have for material things.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must feel and say that this place is your home. You can continue working in the field, you can continue earning some money, and if anything is required to be repaired or purchased for the temple, you can use the money to pay the worker to repair it. It is important to have a heart for the temple. You are staying in a room, and you must think that this is your own room – you must take care of it as your own room. This is how love comes. Many blame others – they say, ‘I have told him to do it, but he has not done it.’ You must never look for faults in others. Always look for faults in your own self. I have told you before – you can be doing so much service, but if there are holes (shortcomings), then all result will come out through those holes. If you pour water into a pot with holes, all water will fall through the holes. Gurudev also told me, ‘You are making so many temples, but you should also prepare somebody.’ I am trying to do that – I am looking for a fit person. I am already training some devotees, but I have not got the right person yet. It is impossible to keep water in a pot with holes… I will give all charge to the person who can hold and take care of everything.

A father also thinks, ‘I have many sons, but I will give charge for the land to the son who can protect and take care of it. When I see that any of my sons is fit for this, I will give all charge for taking care of the family to him.’ Sometimes, even while still alive, the father can give all charge to one of his sons. It does not matter who is elder – sometimes the younger brother or the middle brother works well, then he can get all responsibility. It is necessary to give charge to those who are qualified for it.

The problem is that many do not practise. I wrote books in clear Bengali, and if somebody still cannot understand it, then what can I say? It is necessary to read. One person can read, and others can hear. Do not keep water in a pot with holes (you must close the holes – remove anarthas and practise properly).

One time, some paint had come off in some place in front of the nat-mandir, and Gurudev said, ‘So many people stay at the temple – has no one noticed before that it has to be painted? It came off a long time ago, and Vinod [His Divine Grace’s brahmachari name] has brought workers to get it painted. Everybody can see it in front of them, then how come only Vinod noticed it and nobody else did?’ Everybody can see that there is some leakage near the door – am I the only one responsible for fixing everything? You can take care of everything yourself. You must understand this.

(6/13) Power of Service

The name of Lord Krishna’s Deity here, at the Bankura temple, is Radha-Raman. Those of you who have been to Vrindavan know that there are a lot of Deities in Vrindavan, but not all Deities there are original. When Muslims and mlechhas were breaking Hindu temples, devotees took all big Deities to Jaipur or Karauli. You can see now that all old temples’ tops in Vrindavan are broken – they would come from Agra and break the domes of all high temples. So, among all the Deities in Vrindavan, Radha-Raman is the only original Deity that stayed there.

When we go for the parikrama, we often go wearing socks not to get hurt by some stones or something sharp on the street, but when you come to the temple of Radha-Raman, it is a rule that everyone must take off not only their shoes but also their socks. You also cannot sit cross-legged (on a chair) there – they start scolding you a lot; and they do not allow anyone to take photographs also. The temple is very strict. This Radha-Raman Deity manifested Himself through the service of Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami, who is one of the six goswamis:

jaya rupa sanatana bhatta raghunatha
sri-jiva gopala-bhatta dasa raghunatha

‘All glory to Sri Rupa, Sanatan, Raghunath Bhatta, Sri Jiva, Gopal Bhatta and Raghunath Das!’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

(These are the six goswamis, and the seventh goswami is Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur.)

Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami worshipped twelve salagram-silas in a very strict and determined way. He followed all the rules of Sri Hari-bhakti-vilas that nobody can follow. For example, when we observe the niyom-seva month (Kartik), we say that we should not eat certain things (eggplant, patal, and so on), but Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami said that one must eat ‘go-gras’ way during this time. It means you must eat directly from the ground, like a cow (‘go’) – without using your hands. Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami was very strict and followed all rules. He also said that it is necessary to observe a complete fast on ekadasi (without taking any food or water).

So, one day when Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami was offering arati to his twelve silas, a man came to the temple. The man paid his obeisance and handed Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami a parcel with some Deity ornaments and clothes, saying, ‘Please take these, you can put them on your Deities.’ Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami said, ‘All right, I will do that,’ and took the parcel. When he finished the arati, he opened the parcel and saw that it was a Deity outfit (the same as offered to all Deities of human-like form). Seeing this outfit, he thought, ‘The man has given me these Deity clothes, but how will I put them on my Deity? I do not have a human-form Deity – I worship salagram-silas. How will I put it on a sila? I have taken it from the man, but I cannot use it for service! What will happen now, O Lord? I have made an offence!’ Anyhow, he took prasadam and went to rest…

The next day, he woke up, took a bath, applied tilaks, etc. and came to do the mangal-arati. Suddenly, when he came into the temple room, he saw that there was a human-form Deity standing among the salagram-silas. It was Radha-Raman. There were originally twelve salagram-silas, but when he counted the salagram-silas that morning he saw there were only eleven. Where did the twelfth one go? Then he saw that there was a mark in the shape of a magnet on the back of Radha-Raman’s Deity – the twelfth salagram-sila had turned into a Deity.

Do you see? Nothing is impossible in this world through the service of the Lord…

(7/13) Origin of Bhagavatam (1)

What I have been telling you today are the words of Srimad Bhagavatam, and I have printed a small book about the history of Srimad Bhagavatam’s appearance in this world. My Gurudev, Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, spoke this lecture in Australia, and I translated it into Bengali. Sripad Sajjan Maharaj takes these small books and distributes one hundred copies a day in Kolkata. He does puja, offers bhoga, takes prasadam and then goes to the Diamond Plaza or the market every day to distribute books. Many take prasadam at noon and go to sleep, but he goes out and returns only in the evening. Every day one hundred books are distributed. He gives people a book and collects some money – somebody gives one rupee, somebody gives ten rupees, somebody gives fifty rupees (people give as much as they want to). So, this one book we published contains the history of how Srimad Bhagavatam appeared.

Many people say, ‘Bhagavatam says this’, ‘Bhagavatam says that’, but who wrote this book? When we print books, we always write the author’s name, but Bhagavatam has no author. One day, sixty thousand rishis heard this Bhagavatam from Suta Goswami at Naimisaranya, and this is how Bhagavatam was first written down, but where did this Bhagavatam come from? Who did Suta Goswami hear it from? He heard it from Sukadev Goswami when he spoke Bhagavatam to Pariksit Maharaj. Please listen carefully what I am going to tell you.

How did Srimad Bhagavatam appear? Who wrote Srimad Bhagavad-gita?

Devotee: It existed before, nobody wrote it. The Lord says in Gita, ‘This yoga existed before, and I am telling it to you now.’

Yes, it is true, but how did the book appear?

Devotee: Vyasadev wrote it down.

Yes, correct. Vyasadev wrote all Vedas, Agni Purana, Garuda Purana, Srimad Bhagavad-gita. The author of all principal scriptures is Vyasadev. We sing in one of the kirtans,

krsna haite chatur-mukha, hana krsna-sevonmukha,
brahma haite naradera mati
narada haite vyasa, madhva kahe vyasa-dasa,
purnaprajna padmanabha gati

‘Through Krishna, Brahma became devoted to Krishna’s service. Brahma inspired Narad. Narad inspired Vyasadev. Madhvacharya is a servant of Vyasa. Thus, the line continued through Purnaprajna (Madhvacharya) and Padmanabha.’

(Sri Guru-Parampara kirtan)

Narad Goswami is Vyasadev’s guru. Having written all the scriptures, Vyasadev felt disturbed in his mind. Although he had written so many scriptures (Vedas, Puranas, etc.), he felt no happiness. Then, Narad Muni came to his ashram in Badarikasram, and Vyasadev told him about his situation. Narad Muni said, ‘How can you feel happiness? You have composed so many scriptures, but you have turned it into a hotchpotch!’ When we serve people rice, dal, subji, chutney, sweet rice, they always mash and take everything separately – people do not eat mixing everything together. If you mix everything and eat it like that, you will get some taste, but you will not feel the taste of each preparation. So, Narad Goswami continued, ‘You have composed so many things, you even wrote Bhagavad-gita, but when you wrote it all, you mixed devotion with other things (karma-yoga, jnana-yoga, sankhya-yoga and every other possible kind of yoga)! You have made a hotchpotch! Write a scripture where only devotion will be presented.’

Vyasadev agreed. Then, wondering who will be able to present this exclusive devotional scripture in this world, Vyasadev remembered Sukadev Goswami…

(8/13) Origin of Bhagavatam (2)

…Vyasadev remembered his son, Sukadev Goswami, who was at that time in the womb of his mother (Vyasadev’s wife). At that time, Parasara Muni (Vyasadev’s father, who was a great scholar, expert in all scriptural knowledge) and many other rishis from various sampradayas came to Vyasadev and asked him to speak to Sukadev. They said, ‘Please talk to him. He has been sitting in his mother’s womb for twelve years already!’ Vyasadev agreed and went to speak to his son.

Sukadev Goswami could speak from his mother’s womb. Can you imagine it? Many people say that Krishna is a mortal human; they like to ask, ‘What is the proof that Krishna and Mahaprabhu are the Supreme Personalities of Godhead?’ When you have a child, is the child born wearing clothes? It is not, but Krishna appeared fully dressed, with tilaks, kanthi-mala, peacock feather, bracelets and many other ornaments. Mahaprabhu also appeared in this way. Ordinary human children are never born like this. This is the proof.

So, when all the rishis came to Vyasadev and asked him to call Sukadev, Vyasadev came to his wife and asked Sukadev, ‘Come out! Please come out of your mother’s womb!’ Sukadev replied, ‘I will not. If I come outside, I will be attacked by Maya and forget everything.’ It is true – once the soul emerges from the womb, it forgets everything:

krsna bhuli’ sei jiva—anadi bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsara-duhkha

‘Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

Then, all the rishis offered Vyasadev, ‘Listen, you have the power to stop Maya. Maya is created by the Lord, but you can stop her action for five minutes.’ Vyasadev asked Sukadev, ‘If I stop Maya’s action for five minutes, will you be able to come out then?’ Sukadev agreed. Then, Vyasadev stopped Maya’s action in this world for five minutes, and during this time, Sukadev came out of his mother’s womb.

What did Sukadev do first thing when he appeared? He immediately ran to the forest! Think about it – our children do not even start walking until two years old, but Sukadev, who was already twelve years old at that time, ran out of his mother’s womb. On the other hand, when a cow delivers a calf, the calf can already stand after two hours. The Lord can create anything. So, if a calf can learn to stand and walk just two hours after its birth, why cannot the Lord make it so that Sukadev could run?

(9/13) Origin of Bhagavatam (3)

When Sukadev came out of his mother’s womb, he immediately ran away. Vyasadev ran behind him, calling out to him, ‘Sukadev, listen! Listen!’ Sukadev did not notice anything. He could only see the Lord. Devotees of this high level do not see anything in this world – they do not see any trees, plants, great houses, big rooms – they only see the Lord. Sukadev and Vyasadev kept walking and running through jungles and, in the end, appeared in the Himalayas.

There were some girls bathing in the river naked (it is cold in the mountains, and clothes do no dry so fast, so they bathed without clothes), but when they saw Sukadev, they did not even think that a young man was walking by and that they were naked – they had seen Sukadev before, and they knew that Sukadev had no eyes. (Even later, when Sukadev Goswami came to the meeting of Pariksit Maharaj, he did not see anyone in front of him.) So, the girls did not bother when they saw Sukadev coming, but when they saw Vyasadev coming behind him, they quickly threw some clothes on to cover their bodies. Such was Sukadev’s nature.

In the meantime, a brahman cursed the king Pariksit Maharaj, saying, ‘You shall die in seven days!’ As the result of this curse, gurus from all kinds of sampradayas came to Pariksit Maharaj and started giving him advice. Each of them advised him according to their conception. Eventually, Sukadev Goswami came to that assembly. When he came, he did not even pay obeisance to anyone. He did not see anyone. His father, Vyasadev, was there, but he did not see even him. His grandfather, Parasara Muni, was also there, but Sukadev did not see him.

[To a devotee in the audience] Are you sleeping? Why are you sleeping? If you sleep during Hari-katha, it means you have other desires. It means you have nowhere to keep the Lord inside you – you have other desires taking your heart. If you feel sleepy, say ‘Hare Krishna’, then sleep will go away.

So, when Sukadev Goswami came to the assembly of Pariksit Maharaj, all the great scholars and experts of all scriptures said, ‘O King, you are very fortunate because Sukadev Goswami has come to your assembly today! We will all agree with whatever spiritual insight he gives. We have nothing to say beyond what he has to say.’ Then, Pariksit Maharaj gave a nice asan for Sukadev Goswami to sit down on, and having seated himself on the asan, Sukadev Goswami asked Pariksit Maharaj, ‘What is your question? What do you want to know?’ Pariksit Maharaj said, ‘What is good for me? How can I get real benefit?’ Sukadev Goswami said, ‘Yes, you have asked the right question. Those who ask many questions in this world belong to the illusory world, that is why they have many questions, but those who are true seekers have only one question: What is my real benefit? There is only one question, and there is only one answer. The answer to your question is that you must surrender at the holy lotus feet of the Lord, then you will get the supreme benefit.’ After that, Sukadev Goswami explained and described how one surrenders to the Lord and how one can come to the Lord. This is what then became Srimad Bhagavatam.

Suta Goswami was present at that assembly, and he heard what Sukadev Goswami had said. Suta Goswami is srutadhar, or srutasrava – he could remember everything after hearing it just once. When Krishna spoke Srimad Bhagavad-gita to Arjuna, Suta Goswami was also present there, and he could hear and remember everything.

So, this is how Srimad Bhagavatam appeared in this world. Sukadev Goswami spoke Srimad Bhagavatam to Pariksit Maharaj during seven days, and this conversation became a very big book – all volumes put together (with the commentary) weigh nearly forty kilograms. You must remember this: there is only one question, and there is only one answer.

(10/13) Lacking or Slacking?

Anyhow, much has been already said today – I have told you about Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami and how Sri Radha-Raman appeared in this world through his service. When He appeared, Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu, Srila Sanatan Goswami Prabhu and many other Vaishnavs came and arranged a Vaishnav festival.

ananyas chintayanto mam, ye janah paryupasate
tesam nityabhiyuktanam, yoga-ksemam vahamy aham

‘I bear the responsibility of acquiring and protecting the necessities of My fully dependent devotees who are always absorbed in thoughts of Me and worship Me in every way.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 9.22)

The Lord says, ‘When someone has no other thoughts or worries and surrenders to Me alone, I take care of all their necessities, including even their food.’ The Lord is the master of everything, but we have forgotten Him, as the result of which we are suffering in this world from the three-fold miseries.

When Mahaprabhu went to Gaya and saw His guru for the first time, He said:

‘samsara-samudra haite uddharaha more
ei ami deha samarpilana tomare’

‘Please rescue Me from this ocean of material existence! I am surrendering Myself to you.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.17.54)

‘Please rescue Me from this ocean of material existence! I have surrendered My mind, heart, soul, everything to you.’ We also sing in one of the kirtans:

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya
kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya be merciful to me? When will I come to the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We think that we need so many things, that we lack so many things, so we leave the temple and go to stay at home. Rich people become proud, ‘I do not need anything, I am rich! I have so many things! There is no lack of anything in my life.’ What is this? Do you think you can take anything with you? You will have to leave everything in this world…

Rich people earn millions, and they give only one rupee to the Lord. I have told you before – gurudev knows everything, he knows what one does or does not do. He can understand everything, and it is not like gurudev will always accept your faulty service. You go to the market and steal some money from what was given to you for the bhoga, or you were sent to the market, but you do not want to go (you want to do something else instead), and you think that because you are in Govardhan, nobody will know it if you do not go to the market. You may not go or you may steal, but how many days do you think gurudev will tolerate your faulty service? Why does service go away? When you ask, ‘Why did I lose my service?’ The answer is only one – you must think, ‘It is my own fault. I have made some offence to service, that is why the Lord has taken this service from me.’ Take the calendar and read it – there are thirty-two kinds of seva-aparadha (offences of service) and ten kinds of offences of the Holy Name.

(11/13) Feeling Hungry?

There are four kinds of sadhu-ninda (offences to the saints). For example, we may judge somebody based on the person’s caste – we may say, ‘He comes from a low caste.’ Sometimes, somebody does something wrong, and we go around telling everyone about it. The person who makes the mistake commits an offence, but those who speak about it are committing an even greater offence. The person made a mistake once, but if you go and tell ten people about it, you make ten offences (your offence becomes ten times bigger).

Another offence is to judge about somebody’s previous bad habits. Suppose somebody used to take alcohol, smoke or drink tea (many people have the habit of drinking tea at home), but when they take initiation, they give up these habits. If you say, ‘Oh look at him, he used to smoke/drink tea/etc., but now he has become a sadhu!’ Many of us used to eat pork, beef, but now we are chanting the Holy Name. It is an offence to bring up others’ past and criticise the person because of that. When somebody has become a surrendered soul, it is an offence to look at their past.

[His Divine Grace notices that there are not so many people, and asks one of the temple devotees] Where are people? Have you not invited anyone? When are they coming? Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur wrote an article about poor people, where he asks: Do people come begging for food (bhojan) or for Krishna consciousness (bhajan)? I will read it to you:

One time, there started an annual festival at Sri Gaudiya Math. Many preachers of exclusive genuine religion, exemplary sannyasis and brahmacharis came to the temple from all over India. Many invited respectable gentlemen and ladies also came to the festival, yearning to hear about the nectarean devotion to the Lord. Endlessly jubilant and endowed with sincere service mood, all selfless, pious servitors were ready to enrich everyone – the invited, the uninvited, devotees, non-devotees, materialists and strict renunciates who are averse to service – through Hari-kirtan (glorification of the Lord). There was Krishna-katha heard everywhere, and everyone’s hearts rejoiced and soared to hear narratives about Krishna, to hear songs extolling Krishna’s qualities resounding all around them. Even surprised passers-by, drawn by the festival, became stunned and forgot where they were going.

At this time, somebody had the guts to come and ask me, ‘Hey, listen, when are they going to feed the poor here?’ What must I reply! Alas, hearing this question, I felt completely at a loss. I looked within my own heart, and started to reason with it:

Listen, foolish mind! Let us see the truth: What kind of a beggar are you? What do you lack? What do you want? Alas! You seem to only wish to gratify your material senses; you feel you lack the capricious pleasures and happiness that your senses have a wayward, mischievous hunger for, and not being able to attain that sufficiently, you consider yourself a beggar! Is that not the truth? ‘When will they feed the poor? When can I enjoy various auspicious paraphernalia and first-class ingredients?’ This is all you are looking for! You have come to a tree with very ripe and beautiful juicy fruit, but you are searching for ripe amla [Indian gooseberry, which is very sour]! You know it. Your tongue is drawn to amla’s taste. You think that your hankering will be satisfied by that – you think the appetite you have lost because of sickness will come back and, as you eat amla, you will slowly recover, but you are wrong! You are making a great mistake! Do you not think that this unhealthy bitter juice of amla will only erode your teeth and you will become even sicker? You will not be able to get the taste of any other food – you will die! If, overcome by the desire to enjoy, you see maha-prasad as just some food meant to bring you enjoyment or happiness, then you will only get the result of eating! Foolish mind, your search for the end of your poverty is futile here! What you beg for is available even on the street – even animals enjoy that. Why do you need to come to the temple for that? O dear! Do the great servitors surrendered to Krishna call you to this temple, a great place of pilgrimage, invite you to this temple, to satisfy your material senses with material flavours? To feed her child the medicine that will cure the disease, a clever, loving mother will entice the child with a laddu (sweet ball), but is laddu the point? It is not, it really is not! The main substance is hidden within it! Here too, at this holy abode of the Supreme Lord, at this greatest place of pilgrimage, the very gist of maha-prasad ‘food’ (bhojan) – the nectar from the holy mouth of Sri Gaura – is actually permeated by service (bhajan) to Mahaprabhu! This is the main thing for the entire world, the main necessity! So, I am telling you: come, dear mind, come! If you want to get benefit, come – come not as a beggar for food (bhojan), but come as a beggar for spiritual life in service to the Lord (bhajan) and roll at the holy feet of the supremely merciful devotees of the Lord, placing on your head their feet dust, the water that has washed their feet and the remnants of their food:

bhakta-pada-dhuli ara bhakta-pada-jala
bhakta-bhukta-sesa – ei tina sadhanera bala

‘The dust from devotees’ feet, the water that has washed devotees’ feet and the remnants of devotees’ food – these three are the sole strength of one’s spiritual life.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.16.60)

Srila Prabhupad wrote such beautiful words, but who will understand it?

(12/13) Main Target

Our main goal, our main target is pure devotion. There is devotion mixed with material desires (karma-misra bhakti), devotion mixed with pursuits of knowledge (jnana-misra bhakti), and pure devotion free from pursuits of knowledge (jnana-sunya suddha bhakti). When Mahaprabhu spoke to Ramananda Ray and Srila Sanatan Goswami, He discussed it with them. Mahaprabhu told Srila Sanatan Goswami, ‘This body was given to you by the Lord – how can you want to spoil a body that does not belong to you?!’ Why did Mahaprabhu say this? Because Srila Sanatan Goswami thought, ‘I have come to do some good, but it turned out just the opposite – I have come to serve the Lord, but instead, I am only making offences because this body is diseased.’ After Mahaprabhu left, Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami went to Vrindavan. Mahaprabhu told them, ‘I will do much work through your bodies – I will serve Vaishnavs and devotees through your bodies, and I will recover so many holy places and compose so many books through you two.’ Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami composed many beautiful holy books. We must always remember their teachings.

You can read Sri Rupa-Siksa (‘Mahaprabhu’s Teachings to Srila Rupa Goswami’) and Sri Sanatan-Siksa (‘Mahaprabhu’s Teachings to Srila Sanatan Goswami’). Srila Sanatan Goswami asked Mahaprabhu five questions: (1) ‘Who am I?’ (2) ‘Why do I suffer?’ (3) ‘How can I get benefit?’ (4) ‘What is the highest goal?’ and (5) ‘How can I attain the highest goal?’ In a nutshell, the answer is this: ‘Bhagavata pada Vaisnavera sthane, ekanta asraya kara Chaitanya-charane – read Bhagavatam under the guidance of bona fide Vaishnavs and take shelter at Mahaprabhu’s lotus feet! That is your benefit.’ We must read Bhagavatam at the holy lotus feet of Vaishnavs (to hear it from Vaishnavs or read it strictly on the order of Vaishnavs); otherwise, we will not be able to understand its meaning or we will understand it in a wrong way. It is necessary to hear Bhagavatam from a Vaishnav and to take shelter at the holy lotus feet of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

Mahaprabhu personally came in this Kali-yuga:

krsna-varnam tvisakrsnam sangopangastra-parsadam
yajnaih sankirtana-prayair yajanti hi su-medhasah

‘In this Age of Kali, intelligent souls will always worship Sri Gaurasundar through sankirtan-yajna (the sacrifice of chanting the Holy Names). He appears as dark-complexioned (Krishna) but with a non-dark, or golden, halo (couched in the heart and halo of Sri Radha). Together with His associates, He searches for Krishna by chanting His Holy Names. His limbs (anga) are Sriman Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Advaita Prabhu; His accessory limbs (upanga) are Srivas Acharya and all pure devotees; His weapons (astra) are the words of the Holy Name; and His associates (parsada) are Sri Gadadhar, Sri Svarup Damodar, Ramananda, Sanatan, Rupa and others.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 11.5.32)

Krishna stole Srimati Radharani’s heart and halo. It is said in the scriptures that Gadadhar Pandit is Srimati Radharani’s incarnation in this Kali-yuga, but then somebody can ask, ‘If Gadadhar Pandit is Srimati Radharani’s incarnation, then how can Gauranga Mahaprabhu be Radha-Krishna’s combined form?’ Krishna has taken Radharani’s heart and halo – if you take someone’s heart and halo, something will still remain from that person. So, when Krishna takes Srimati Radharani’s heart and halo, the remainder becomes Sri Gadadhar Pandit Goswami. This is the answer. That is why Gadadhar Pandit always stayed near Mahaprabhu; they were very intimate. Gadadhar Pandit would read Bhagavatam, and Mahaprabhu would come and listen to him reading it. One time, Gadadhar Pandit was going to make some spinach. He knew that Mahaprabhu liked wild spinach very much, and he decided to test Mahaprabhu, ‘If I cook spinach but do not invite Mahaprabhu, will He come Himself?’ When Gadadhar Pandit finished cooking, he saw that Mahaprabhu had come – Mahaprabhu came to him even without an invitation.

Gauranga Mahaprabhu, a combined form of Sri Sri Radha-Krishna, comes to this world, on the one hand, to relish the divine separation mood of Srimati Radharani and Vraja-gopis, and, on the other hand, to establish and propagate the religion of this age – Sri Harinam-sankirtan. He went house to house, begging everyone, ‘Say “Krishna”, follow Krishna’s teachings!’ Mahaprabhu teaches everyone that it is necessary to accept and follow the teachings of Lord Sri Krishna.

First, it is necessary to become a devotee of Gauranga, Nityananda, a servant of gurudev. Sri Vasu Ghosh wrote very beautifully:

yadi gaura na ha’ta, tabe ki haita,
kemane dharitam de
radhara mahima, prema-rasa-sima,
jagate janata ke?

‘If Gaura had not come, what would have happened? How would we have lived? Who would have revealed to the world Radha’s glory and the extremes of Her ecstatic divine love?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

If Gauranga Mahaprabhu had not come to this world, who would have been able to tell this world about the glory of Srimati Radharani? Nobody except Him can do it. Therefore, if you are to know the glory of Srimati Radharani, you must first worship Gauranga. You cannot worship Radha-Krishna unless you worship Gauranga. So, worship Gauranga, worship Nityananda…

(13/13) Determination and Surrender

[Noticing a young boy in the audience, His Divine Grace remarks] It is necessary to practise Krishna consciousness from this young age. Everyone must eat vegetarian food and fast on ekadasi. You must try to practise. Try to explain to your parents also. You are chanting the Holy Name, do your parents say anything to you? Do they not prohibit you to chant? Parents usually get scared that their child will become a sannyasi and go away. My parents were also angry. Do you know what my father did? When I was little, I would wake up in the morning, take a bath, and then I would put on my father’s dhoti and go to a small temple we had near our house to read Srimad Bhagavad-gita for one hour. My father was not at home at that time, so he did not see me. Actually, he did not live at home most of the time – he worked in another place and would return home from time to time. One day, he came home and noticed that somebody had been using his dhoti. He asked my mother about the dhoti, and she said that I was reading Gita every day. Then, my father said, ‘Disaster!’ and wanted to tear the book. My mother hid the book because she understood it is an offence to tear Gita. My parents obstructed me in many ways. Later, I ran away from home without telling anyone, and they did not know for thirteen years that I had come to the temple. They only learnt about it after I took sannyas. They even did my sraddha at home, thinking that I was dead. Well and good. If I felt sorry for them, I would not have been able to come to this line.

asakti-rahita, sambandha-sahita,
visaya-samuha sakali madhava

‘When you are free from material attachment and establish the relationship with the Lord, then you will see that everything around you is Lord Madhav Himself.’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’ Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur)

Those who criticised me and mocked me (‘Oh, look at him, he has become a sadhu!’) suffered very much in their lives. Somebody became a school master, somebody became a college professor, somebody became a doctor, but they do not look after their parents. Their parents lived with one of the sons, and the daughter-in-law abused them; they went to another son’s house – the same story; then, to the third son’s house – again suffering. All my aunts died suffering, but my mother died peacefully. The Lord says, ‘If you think about Me, I will think about you.’ Lord Krishna says in Gita, ‘I do not know anyone apart from My devotees, and My devotees also do not know anyone apart from Me.’

sad-anga saranagati haibe yanhara
tanhara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

‘Lord Krishna hears the prayers of those who surrender in six ways.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must have full surrender. Unless you become fully surrendered, the Lord will not hear your prayer. People pray to the Lord because they have some desires, but we do not think, ‘What makes the Lord happy?’ We think, ‘I like paneer, so I should cook paneer’, but the truth is that we must cook for the Lord, for the devotees – not for our own mouths. We sing in one of the kirtans:

sarvasva tomara, charane sampiya,
padechhi tomara ghare
tumi ta’ thakura, tomara kukura,
baliya janaha more

‘I have offered everything at Your feet and taken shelter in Your home. You are my Master; please consider me Your dog.’

tava nija-jana, prasada seviya,
uchchhista rakhibe yaha
amara bhojana, parama-anande,
prati-dina habe taha

‘Every day I will with great joy have whatever remnants Your devotees leave behind after honouring Your prasad.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

These are very beautiful words. We must eat the remnants of Vaishnavs’ food every day with great joy. We must not eat for our own happiness.

atmendriya-priti-vancha—tare bali ‘kama’
krsnendriya-priti-ichchha dhare ‘prema’ nama

‘The desire to gratify one’s own senses is kama (lust), but the desire to please the senses of Lord Krishna is prema (divine love).’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.4.165)

If you do something for the pleasure of your own senses, it is kama (lust, material desire for enjoyment). We must do everything for Krishna’s happiness. We must spend every single moment for Krishna’s satisfaction and happiness. I will study, labour, go to work or run a business for the Lord. We must do everything for the Lord. When somebody calls me, I always tell them to do some service, I never tell anyone to do anything for my own self. I never worry about myself – I never even think that I need a toothbrush, some phone airtime, socks or anything else. Some devotees give me some money, but I never think, ‘Oh, I will buy a toothbrush or a pair of shoes with that money.’ I never think about all these things.

[Noticing the chants coming from a nearby mosque, His Divine Grace remarks] It is said in the Quran that you can kill a jiva soul only if you can give life to a jiva soul. Can anyone give life to another soul? So, you cannot kill any jiva souls. Muslim and Hindu people sacrifice goats and observe what is called ‘asura nidhan’ (slaying of demons). The true meaning of this ritual is to kill the demon within you – if you kill a goat, does that make you a better person? Vedas say that you must sacrifice all demoniac propensities within your heart – you cannot sacrifice a goat instead to please your own senses. Gurudev also told a funny story. There was a man who used to make a goat sacrifice every year at his house. One year, he did not make this sacrifice, and when Gurudev heard about it, he said, ‘Oh, I know why. The owner of the house where they held that sacrifice does not have any teeth now!’ No scripture, no Veda says that we can kill other jiva souls. We say we follow Vedas, but at the same time, we do what is prohibited by the Vedas.

[The time has come to offer the noon bhoga] All right, I am finishing here. We will chant the kirtan now.

* * *

￼Line Line29 January 2021, noon

Kolkata

Vaishnav Seva Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/9) Vaishnav Rites

vande ‘ham sri-guroh sri-yuta-pada-kamalam sri-gurun vaisnavams cha
sri-rupam sagrajatam saha-gana-raghunath-anvitam tam sa-jivam
sadvaitam savadhutam parijana-sahitam krsna-chaitanya-devam
sri-radha-krsna-padan saha-gana-lalita-sri-visakhanvitams cha

‘I worship the holy lotus feet of my initiating and instructing guru as well as all predecessor gurus, all Vaishnavs, Rupa Goswami, Sanatan Goswami, their dear associates Raghunath and Jiva, Advaita Prabhu, Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Krishna Chaitanyadev along with all His near and dear ones, and Sri Radha-Krishna, along with Their associates headed by Lalita and Visakha.’

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

‘I offer my obeisance to Sri Guru, who has opened my eyes, rescuing me from the illusory darkness of ignorance, by applying the salve of knowledge upon my eyes.’

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam
chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam
govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram
vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

‘I offer my obeisance to him who perfectly fulfils his gurudev’s most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all conceivable and inconceivable aspects of Vedic knowledge; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s line; who is known as “Govinda” (Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj); whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.’

devam divya-tanum suchanda-vadanam balarka-chelanchitam
sandrananda-puram sad-eka-varanam vairagya-vidyambudhim
sri-siddhanta-nidhim subhakti-lasitam sarasvatanam varam
vande tam subhadam mad-eka-saranam nyasisvaram sridharam

‘I worship Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, the bestower of all auspiciousness, my only shelter and the master of all renunciates. He is my Lord who possesses a transcendental form, whose face expression is very grave, who is clad in the holy clothes the colour of the newly risen sun. He is an abode of intense joy; the only genuine master whom one can accept and surrender to; and an ocean of divine knowledge of renunciation. He is a repository of holy scriptural teachings and pastimes of the highest devotion and a great follower of Srila Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad.’

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha
patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

vrndayai tulasi-devyai priyayai kesavasya cha
krsna-bhakti-prade devi satyavatyai namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to Vrinda Devi (Tulasi Devi), who is very dear to Lord Kesava, who bestows devotion to Krishna and is known as Satyavati.’

atha natva mantra-gurun gurun bhagavatarthadan
vyasan jagad-gurun natva tato jayam udirayet

‘Before reciting scriptures that can conquer material world, let us offer obeisances to our initiating guru, to the guru who teaches us the meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam, to Sri Vyasadev and all gurus in the universe.’

jayah sa-parikara sri-sri-guru-gauranga-gandharva-

govindasundar-padapadmanam jayastu

‘All glory to the lotus feet of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva-Govindasundar and all Their associates.’

vande rupa-sanatanau raghu-yugau sri-jiva-gopalakau

‘I worship Sri Rupa Goswami, Sri Sanatan Goswami, Sri Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, Sri Raghunath Das Goswami, Sri Jiva Goswami, and Sri Gopal Bhatta Goswami.’

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrnda

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Today, by the mercy of Vaishnavs and by the mercy of gurudev, we are present here at this function in honour of the departure of Sripad Manoranjan Das Adhikari Prabhu’s mother. You all Vaishnavs are present here today on this occasion. I see that many familiar devotees, my dear family, have come today. Supreme Lord Sri Krishna said, ‘I do not know anyone except My devotees, and devotees do not know anyone except Me.’

We come to the association of Vaishnavs as a result of a very great fortune:

vaisnavera guna-gana, karile jivera trana,

suniyachhi sadhu-guru-mukhe

‘Singing the glories of Vaishnavs rescues and protects the jiva soul – I heard this from the mouths of sadhus and my guru.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Because Sripad Manoranjan Prabhu has come to this line, his mother’s departure rites (paralaukik kriya) are observed according to the Vaishnav tradition. There is one beautiful letter written by Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. Once, one of this disciples’s father died, and on this occasion, he wrote a letter to Srila Prabhupad, saying, ‘My father has died. What will be now? What should I do?’ Srila Prabhupad replied:

‘When I received your letter, I had understood everything. I understood your father had passed away. One of the sons who is initiated should give maha-prasad as pindu after ten days (on the eleventh day), and they must serve prasad to pure devotee brahmans, general brahmans and Vaishnavs. When somebody chants the Holy Name, the scriptures do not say that they should think of their parents as being possessed by ghosts or perform common funeral rites. [His Divine Grace remarks: Hoping that the dead person will go to heaven, people perform various rites – for example, they apply fire to the mouth of the dead during the cremation because they are afraid a ghost can possess the body.] Smartavadis arrange all the rites according to their own qualification. Particularly, if one performs the sraddha rites for their mother or father according to the smarta rules, then the father, the mother, as well as the person who does this sraddha for them, will have to again be born in the womb of a mother. [His Divine Grace remarks: Do you understand this? This is why we do not do all this. Gurudev said that even if you cannot make a fire sacrifice, you must give some prasad to Vaishnav brahmans. This is what we do. We are making a fire sacrifice (“hom yajna”) and doing the sraddha ceremony according to the Vaishnav tradition.] The devotees of the Lord do not accept the rules and teachings of the smarta brahmans. Your eternal well-wisher, Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati.’

I have printed a book that can be followed to make sraddha ceremonies, and this letter is printed there. Anyhow, this had to be said, and I have said it to you. Many create a lot of problems out of this – they say that this is necessary, that is necessary. Do you know why they do this? I wrote this small book, but there are many big, big books: those who do sraddha ceremonies for money take 10–25,000 rupees for the ceremony and ask you to buy clothes, pillows and so many other things. We do not do all this. What will those who cannot afford it do? Brahmans say, ‘If you chant the Holy Name, then the fire sacrifice will be pure.’ They must chant the Holy Name, but they do not do it, but when we come, we do parikrama, chant kirtan and the Harinama maha-mantra. This is the rule. Not all fire sacrifices are pure, but if you chant the Holy Name, then the sacrifice will be pure. It is necessary to chant the Holy Name; otherwise, if you only chant ‘Om svaha’, your fire sacrifice will not work.

Have you not heard about the yajna-patnis? When Krishna was herding cows, He suddenly felt very hungry. At that time, some brahmans were doing a big fire sacrifice with fruit and many other choice ingredients. So, Krishna sent His friends to ask those brahmans for something to eat. When the boys came and tried to get some food, the brahmans became angry and chased them away, ‘Hey, where do you think you are going?! So what Krishna is hungry? We have not finished the fire sacrifice! What made you think that we must give you something to eat??’ He for whom they were doing that big sacrifice – Lord Narayan Himself – came there, asking, ‘Please give Me some fruit, give Me some prasad’, but they chased Him away and could not recognise Him…

Anyway, I will chant some kirtans now, and after that I will start the class.

(2/9) Disciple’s Life

[Following kirtans, His Divine Grace resumes the class.]

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy and aspiring for his service; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all assembled guru-varga, godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees and all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet and praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Today is the day of the last rites for Sripad Manoranjan Prabhu’s mother. [Clamour in the background.] ‘Sevonmukhe kaha Krsna Nama – do service with your hands and chant “Krishna, Krishna” with your mouths.’

dinera madhye abala-tabala
kata pachala padite para
tara madhye tumi ki ekbara
govinda balite nara

‘How much nonsense you can talk every day! How many idle talks you have! Can you not say the Name of Govinda even once?’

(Folklore)

How much we yak every day! We talk all sorts of nonsense and cannot even once take the Name of Govinda! We talk so much! We only think about money and food, we only think about our own happiness – we do not think about service to the Lord. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur said:

nija sukha lagi’, pape nahi dari’,
daya-hina svartha-para
para-sukhe duhkhi, sada mithya-bhasi,
para-duhkha sukha-kara

‘I am not afraid to commit sins for my own happiness. I am merciless and selfish. I always lie. I feel unhappy to see others happy, and I feel happy to see others sad.’

asesa kamana, hrdi majhe mora,
krodhi dambha-parayana
mada-matta sada, visaye mohita,
himsa-garba vibhusana

‘My heart is filled with endless desires. Angry, arrogant and vain, I am always intoxicated, mad, engrossed in the material world. Pride and envy are my ornaments.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We do not have the mood or inclination to engage ourselves in service the whole day. ‘Now aged, we have become afflicted by the five-fold diseases (avidya, asmita, raga, dvesa, abhinivesa: ignorance, false identification, misdirected love, aversion to anything that goes against one’s enjoyment, being unable to give up unfavourable habits).’ How will we practise Krishna consciousness? If we think we have become Vaishnavs, how will we serve Vaishnavs then?

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I think, ‘I have become a Vaishnav,’ I will not be able to give honour to others. Who has the right to chant the Holy Name? Who can chant the Holy Name? Mahaprabhu said:

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

trnadhika hina dina akinchana chhara
apane manabi sada chhadi’ ahankara
vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana
pratihimsa tyaji’ anye karabi palana

‘Give up ego and always consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and wretched. Practise forgiveness like that of a tree; do not be vindictive, nurture others.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must be humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree.

jivana-nirvahe ane udvega na dibe
para-upakare nija-sukha pasaribe
dainya, daya anye mana, pratistha-varjana
chari-gune guni hai’ karaha kirtana

‘Live without causing anxiety to others; do good unto others, forsaking your own happiness. Humility, compassion, respecting others and giving up prestige – become enriched with these four qualities and chant the Holy Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka Giti, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must be humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree – then you can earn the right and qualification to chant the Holy Name. We must learn to be humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, and we must learn to give honour to others. We pray to gurudev:

sakale sammana, karite sakati,
deha natha yatha-yatha
tabe ta’ gaiba, hari-nama sukhe,
aparadha habe hata

‘Master! Give me the strength to give everyone appropriate honour, then I will happily chant the Holy Name and all my offences will be destroyed.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

As you practise and practise Krishna consciousness, as you serve more and more, your ego will go away.

There are some sampradayas that say that you must first become a devotees of Krishna: they will give you a mala and say, ‘You have become a Krishna-bhakta (devotee of Krishna),’ but Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘If there are a thousand Vaishnavs, there may be only one devotee of Krishna among them.’ We say that we must first become devotees of Gauranga. If you first become a devotee of Krishna, where does that take you?

radha-bhajane yadi mati nahi bhela

krsna-bhajana tava akarana gela

‘If you did not become devoted to the worship of Srimati Radharani, your worship of Krishna was in vain.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to first worship Gauranga. Moreover, ‘Nitaiyer karuna habe Vraje Radha-Krsna pabe – when you get Nitai’s mercy, you will reach Radha-Krishna in Vraja.’ What can you get without the mercy of Nitai, without the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma?

Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said: if you send a letter to the Lord, will you get a reply? Do you know the mobile number of the Lord? How many digits is His number? You know many phone numbers, but do you know Krishna’s phone number? We have no right, no qualification to know it, but we know our Gurupadpadma, our gurudev. If you send a letter to gurudev, you can get news about Krishna. What do you say to that? If you send a letter to gurudev, you can get news about Krishna – you can hear back from Krishna. Unless you send your letter to gurudev, you cannot get any news from Krishna. We must first send our letter to the guru. We must keep in touch with gurudev – if you do not keep in touch with your guru, what is the use then? Many of us have taken initiation, and many of us think that when you take initiation, this is it, but it is not so. In his last days, Gurudev asked me: ‘Maharaj, you have been going village to village, and you have brought so many people to me. So many have taken initiation from me, but can you say how many have become disciples?’ One does not become a disciple just by taking the mantra. I wrote about this in Guidance 4, you can read about it there. One does not become a disciple just by taking the mantra.

(3/9) Sincere Spiritual Life

If I am admitted to a school, does it mean I have passed the final exam? No. When you get enrolled in a school, you must study. The spiritual life is the same. What does it mean to study? It means to engage yourself in sravanam (listening to the Hari-katha of sadhus) and kirtanam (chanting the Holy Name and the glories of the Lord). Many people go to Nabadwip – they take a bus, come to see Mayapur and return. What did Srila Sridhar Maharaj call it? Eye-exercise. When people say, ‘I have been to Nabadwip’, they mostly mean Mayapur, but Mayapur is just one island, Antardwip. There are nine islands, with Antardwip in the middle. We have a book, Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala, it is written very beautifully and there are pictures also in it. [His Divine Grace shows the cover of the book, featuring the lotus of the nine islands of Nabadwip.] You can see here there are eight islands all around, and there is Antardwip in the middle. Our Chaitanya Saraswat Math (‘jal mandir’) temple is in Koladwip, in the ‘aparadha-bhanjaner pat’ (‘the holy place where offences are forgiven’), and our temple in Nrisingha Palli is in Godrumdwip. There is also Simantadwip above Mayapur, Rudradwip; there is Madhyadwip near Godrumdwip (they both form one area); finally, there is Ritudwip, Jahnudwip and Modadrumdwip. These are the nine islands, but when you ask someone if they have been to Nabadwip, they say, ‘Yes, I have been to Mayapur many times.’ That is why it is said:

kaya bara eli kaya bara geli
tabu tattva na sikhili
nijer matha nije khaili
e dosa dibe kare bhai?

‘Coming and going, coming and going, you never learnt anything! You have been eating your own brain – who will you blame for this, brother?’

(Folklore)

How many times have we been coming and going to this world?

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 Visnu Purana)

You all know this sloka from Vishnu Purana. We have been born 900,000 times in water; we have been born 2,000,000 times as various trees, plants, hills and other nonmoving species; we have been born 1,100,000 times as various spiders, insects and worms; we have been flying as birds 1,000,000 times; we have been born 3,000,000 times as cows, goats, sheep, cats, pigs and other animals; and we have been born 400,000 times as humans. Having wandered through all these 8,400,000 species, we have finally got this human birth here in Bharata-bhumi (India):

bharata-bhumite haila manusya janma yara
janma sarthaka kari’ kara para-upakara

‘One who has taken birth as a human being in the land of India should take advantage of this birth by bringing benefit to others.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.9.41)

That is why the Vaishnav residents of temples incessantly spread the nectar of the glories of the Lord (mathera vaisnava-gana kare sada vitarana Hari-guna-kathamrta bhave). What do they distribute? They distribute that getting which all our desires can be removed. We have so many desires – we hanker for money, women and fame the tigress (kanaka, kamini, pratistha-baghini).p – but Vaishnavs distribute only Hari-katha, Bhagavat-katha. This is what service to jiva souls is.

What is bhajan (spiritual life)? What is Krishna consciousness? You know a few kirtans, you know some Hari-katha, you have learn a couple of slokas by heart, and you think you have become a Vaishnav, so you tell others, ‘Come, take my prasad.’ Vaishnavs never give their prasad to others.

You must have heard that Srila Jagannath Das Babaji not only did not give his prasad to anyone, but he actually once ate all prasad along with the banana leaf plate! Somebody invited him to Dhatrigram (a village near Kalna) for prasad. On the way to that place, some man saw Srila Jagannath Das Babaji walking down the street. Seeing that Babaji Maharaj’s uttariya was torn and he had no shoes, the man gave him some money. Srila Jagannath Das Babaji took the money, but having walked three kilometres, he suddenly said to his servant, Bihari Das, ‘Let us go back to the house of that man.’ Bihari Das asked, ‘But why?’ Srila Jagannath Das Babaji did not explain anything, he only said, ‘Come, let us go back!’ When the man saw Srila Jagannath Das Babaji coming, he thought, ‘Oh, I gave him some money earlier today – he must be coming again to ask for more.’ However, Srila Jagannath Das Babaji gave that money back to the man, saying, ‘Please, take this money back. I cannot tolerate the burden of this money! I cannot chant the Holy Name! This burden is too much for me!’ He gave that money back and left. They started walking again and finally reached that house in Dhatrigram. The lady who lived at that house said, ‘You are late, so I have already finished cooking. Please offer the bhoga.’ Then, the bhoga was offered, and she served prasad to Srila Jagannath Das Babaji and Bihari Das. Srila Jagannath Das Babaji finished taking prasad (he ate everything that was on his plate), but the woman thought, ‘It was so hard to invite Babaji Maharaj, but he has not left any prasad for me…’ So, she started pushing Babaji Maharaj, ‘Please take a little more, take a little more.’ Babaji Maharaj refused, but she kept insisting, ‘Please take a little more.’ Then, Babaji Maharaj understood why she was forcing him to eat – he took some rice and dal again, but this time, he not only ate everything on the plate, he also ate the banana leaf plate! Bihari Das thought then, ‘I will never accept such invitations again! I have made an offence. I have given so much trouble to Babaji Maharaj – because of me, he had to eat a plate! This is a vaishnav-aparadha!’

(4/9) Eternal Servants

There is a kirtan where it is written very beautifully: ‘Sisya thakiba sarvada – I will always be a disciple.’ The other day, I got a call from abroad.

‘Maharaj’, the person said, ‘I have some good news today!’

‘What news?’ I asked.

‘I have given initiation to one person today!’ he said.

‘Oh?’ I replied, ‘You have given initiation, Maharaj? Then, will you give initiation to me?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I am always a disciple, and I always want to remain a disciple,’ I replied.

I have no desire to be a guru.

sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite
abhimana hau dura

‘I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the true relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When it comes to vaishnav-seva, we must remember that ‘Chhadiya vaisnava-seva nistara payechhe keba – you cannot get relief without service to Vaishnavs’ (Srila Narottam Das Thakur). If you cannot serve devotees, if you have not served Vaishnavs and your guru, then your life has passed in vain. Srila Guru Maharaj said: How many people become disciples? Being a disciple means being able to tolerate and accept gurudev’s chastisement and mould yourself according to his chastisement, but we do not have such qualities. People come to the temple and complain that they are not given nice food, that they are not given nice clothes or other things. We are told that even if somebody steals and eats prasad, they commit a sin, but if you see it and go tell about it to others, this is an offence. These are Srila Prabhupad’s words. If you see somebody steal prasad and eat it, you must not tell others about it – if you tell about it to others, it is an even greater offence than stealing. That is why we are told:

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

Do not talk about mundane things, do not discuss mundane news. There is no need for any fancy food, there is no need for any fancy arrangement for bathing or anything else. We are always busy with eating, sleeping, fearing and breeding. ‘I will eat well, I will wear nice clothes, and I will take very good care of my health’ – always worrying about this, we waste our time.

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Our days and time pass as we are forever busy working and sleeping, but we do not know when we will leave this world (we can leave at any moment). We have not got any understanding of who we are – we think that this body and ‘I’ are the same thing. We do not know who we are. When we are asked about our identity, we say, ‘I am so-and-so Ray’, ‘I am so-and-so Biswas’, ‘I am so-and-so Sarkar’, ‘I am so-and-so Das.’ We think that this is who we are, but when will our heart and mind become clean? When will we think ‘I am an eternal servant of Lord Krishna’?

‘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 always forget that we are eternal servants of Krishna – we only remember it for a few moments and then forget about it again. One man took initiation from Gurudev and had lived in Vrindavan for ten–twelve years. In the end, he told me, ‘I do not want to stay at the temple anymore, please take this service from me.’ I told him, ‘Prabhu, when you took initiation from Gurudev, you took the beads saying you are an eternal servant of Lord Krishna. Are you a servant of Lord Krishna for ten years only?’ You have taken the beads – are you a servant of Lord Krishna or are you an eternal servant of Krishna? Which?

We are eternal servants of Lord Krishna – this is what we forget, and as soon as we forget it, Maya attacks us. What is Maya? Maya is that which is not eternal, that which is not true (asat). That is which is eternal, pure and true is not Maya. The problem is that we take false things (asat) for the truth (sat). Where does Maya get her power? From the Lord. Her duty is to take us away from the service to the Lord and engage us in her own service (make us her servants). When you put a piece of iron into fire, the iron becomes hot, and if you keep it longer in the fire, it becomes red – after that, if you touch that red iron to someone’s body, it will burn the body. Before, the iron did not burn, so why does it burn now? Because there is fire inside it. Where does the fire come from? The iron gets its power (fire) from the original fire. In the same way, Maya also gets her power from the Lord and then removes us from the Lord’s service. This is how we end up always thinking, ‘My house’, ‘My room’, ‘My son’, ‘My family’ – always floundering amidst all this, we live in the prison of Maya. However, there is a way out…

(5/9) The Answer Is One

There is a way to escape. ‘There is only one question, and there is only one answer.’ Who said this? Sukadev Goswami. I will tell you this story very briefly. We have printed it in a small book recently. There are two new small books. One is about the knowledge of the self (atma-jnana) – it is a lecture that Srila Gurudev gave in Mexico. There were some policemen present at that lecture, and after they heard it, they took initiation from Gurudev! Gurudev originally gave that lecture in English, and I have translated it into Bengali. The other book is about the history of Srimad Bhagavatam’s appearance.

When Parasara Muni, Vedavyas and many other great sages gathered at the assembly of Pariksit Maharaj, Sukadev Goswami came to that assembly stark naked (he lived on the transcendental plane and was not conscious of the external world). He asked Pariksit Maharaj, ‘What is your question? What do you want to know?’ Pariksit Maharaj answered, ‘How can I get real benefit?’ Hearing it, Sukadev said, ‘What you have asked is the right question, Pariksit! There is only one question, and there is only one answer.’ Then, answering that question, Sukadev Goswami spoke the whole of great Srimad Bhagavatam.

Sri Sukadev Goswami spoke for seven days. Suta Goswami heard it at that assembly and later told it to the sixty thousand sages who were doing a fire sacrifice in Naimisaranya. After that, Srimad Bhagavatam was written down as a book. It was not originally written by anyone. People often ask who wrote Bhagavatam, but nobody wrote it.

When Vyasadev felt disturbed in his mind, Narad Goswami, his guru, came to him in Badarikashram, and Vyasadev told him, ‘Gurudev, I do not feel peace at heart.’ Narad Goswami said then, ‘How will you get peace? You have produced so many scriptures, including Bhagavad-gita, Puranas and Vedas, but this is all khichuri (a hodgepodge)!’ You know, they are cooking here so many things – rice, dal, subji (vegetables), shukta (a bitter preparation), chutney, sweet rice – if you mix it all together, will you get the taste? So, for example, you read Gita: yes, it is the primary scripture, but there is karma-yoga, sankya-yoga, jnana-yoga and then bhakti-yoga. There are many teachings inside it. So, Narad Goswami said, ‘Think of such a scripture where there would be only bhakti-yoga and by reading which people will be able to reach the Lord.’ You cannot get the Lord through any karma, jnana or any yoga – you can get the Lord only through devotion (bhakti). Following the order of Narad Goswami, Vyasadev created an exclusive scripture, which later became Srimad Bhagavatam.

Sukadev Goswami had spent twelve years in the womb of his mother. When he was asked to come out, he said, ‘I will not come out because if I do, I will be attacked by illusion.’ Then, some sages came and suggested Vyasadev, ‘You have the power to stop Maya (illusion), so why do you not stop illusion for five minutes to let him come out?’ Vyasadev asked Sukadev, ‘Will five minutes do? Will you come out then?’ Sukadev agreed, ‘Yes, five minutes is enough.’ When Vyasadev stopped Maya for five minutes, Sukadev came out and immediately ran to the forest – he did not see anyone around him. He was as if blind – he had eyes, but he did not see anything in this world; he only saw the Lord and simply went wherever his glance fell. Even some girls bathing naked in the river in the Himalayas felt nothing when Sukadev passed by, but when they saw Vyasadev coming, they quickly threw some clothes on to cover themselves.

Moreover, Sivji Maharaj said, ‘Aham vedmi, Suka vetti, Vyasa vetti na vetti va – I know it, Sukadev Goswami (the son of Vyasadev) knows it, but Vyasadev himself may or may not know it.’ So, Vyasadev gave such a great power to Sukadev that Sukadev could give everything to this world – that is Bhagavatam Katha. If we follow this Bhagavatam – if we have this kind of high thinking, if we think about that kind of highest attainment – then we will realise that we are all children of nectar. We all have one father – the Lord.

isvarah paramah krsnah sach-chid-ananda-vigrahah
anadir adir govindah sarva-karana-karanam

‘Krishna, who is known as Govinda, is the supreme controller. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no origin, for He is the prime cause of all causes.’

(Sri Brahma-samhita, 5.1)

This is who we must think about, and if we can leave this world thinking about the Lord, then we will leave the bondage of illusion.

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya,
sadhu-guru-krpa bina na dekhi upaya

‘It is impossible to conquer illusory environment and become released from it. I see no other way to get relief except by the mercy of saints and Sri Guru.’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

We must become surrendered.

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant enquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

We must have a complete, full surrender. We sing every morning:

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’ – visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava – varjanangikara
sad-anga saranagati haibe yanhara
tanhara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion. Lord Krishna hears the prayers of those who surrender in these six ways.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You think that if you wear beads on your neck, you are a devotee, but if you wear neck beads and do both what is favourable to devotion and what is not favourable to devotion, how can you be a devotee? It is the same as thinking, ‘I will drink alcohol, and I will drink milk’ – if you do this, you will not get any benefit from drinking milk. We must accept that which is healthy and wholesome, and we must reject that which is unwholesome and harmful. People will say, ‘Oh, I can give up everything, but I cannot give up fish.’ They cry, ‘There is such nice fish in the pond, how can I resist it?’ Gambling, intoxication, illegal sex and meat-eating are unfavourable to devotion – these things must be given up. You saw we were doing a fire sacrifice just now: if I put one spoon of ghee into the fire and then one spoon of water, you tell me if it is possible to do a fire sacrifice like this or not. We must only offer ghee – if we put only ghee, then we can do a fire sacrifice. Yet, there are people who think, ‘I will eat meat, fish, everything, and I will chant the Holy Name!’ That is why it is said:

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

Such chanting may sound like the Holy Name, just as karma and service look the same. When a cat is carrying a mouse in its mouth and when it is carrying its kitten in its mouth, it looks the same, but when the cat is carrying its kitten, it is taking it, for example, to some warm place, but when it is carrying a mouse, is it carrying it out of affection? Of course not. So, chanting the letters of Holy Name and chanting the pure Holy Name, just as service and karma, may look the same, but these two are completely different things. You should always remember this.

(6/9) ‘Give Me These Alms’

Practise Krishna consciousness properly. I have only one prayer to you all. I am a beggar, so I have come to you all to beg some alms. This is what I am begging from you:

You are all Vaishnav Thakurs – please always give me your mercy, please cry to the Lord for me.

vaisnavera avedane krsna dayamaya
e hena pamara prati habena sadaya

‘Lord Krishna is merciful – hearing the Vaishnav’s appeal, He will take pity on this wretched sinner.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Please give me your mercy so that I can serve Vaishnavs birth after birth. This is my prayer, and this is what I am begging you all for. I am a beggar, and beggars always beg for alms. I am begging you all for such alms that I may have devotion to the Lord and serve Vaishnavs in this world.

There is one more thing I will beg you for. ‘Krsna bala, sange chala, ei matra bhiksa chai – I am begging you for one thing only: come with us and chant “Krishna”!’ Please chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.

I am asking you all to please not leave Krishna consciousness no matter what dangers or obstacles may come. Guru Maharaj often said: when were elephants, we ate so many trees (we enjoyed so much), so why are we still running after material things? Gurudev gave one more example. You can see this mobile phone here – it works through the medium of ether, and you can even talk to somebody in America with its help. Somebody called me today from America – it was morning here, and it was the evening of the previous day for them. How great the distance is – it is thousands and thousands of miles! America is on the other end of the globe, but through the medium of sound, we can talk to somebody even on the other end of the globe. So, in the same way, when we chant kirtan and pronounce the sound of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, why cannot we reach the Lord through this medium (provided we chant it without offences)? Why cannot we? Tell me.

Once, somebody asked me, ‘You said yesterday that when Sukadev Goswami came out of his mother’s womb, he ran away, but our children cannot even walk until two years old. How can that be then?’ I replied, ‘You can see calves – when they are born, they start running after one hour. How can that be?’ What is the point answering such questions? Somebody else asked me, ‘Maharaj, what should I say when people ask me why I wear tilaks?’ I said, ‘When somebody asks you, “Why do you wear tilaks?” you should answer, “Why are you not wearing tilaks?”’ That is the question. If they do not understand anything, if they cannot understand the glory of the Lord, then you can just tell them, ‘Why are you not wearing tilaks?’’

(7/9) Remembering Haridas Thakur

We have assembled today to commemorate a disappearance day, so on this occasion, I want to tell something from Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita about the disappearance of Srila Haridas Thakur. I will tell it to you briefly. You all know that Haridas Thakur’s disappearance is on the day of ananda-chaturdasi.

You also know that Mahaprabhu was staying in Gambhira (‘a room, or a chamber, within a room’) at the house of Kashi Misra. Do you know who Kashi Misra was before? A woman called Kubja. She wanted Krishna to stay at her house, and Krishna promised her to fulfil her desire in Kali-yuga. So, Mahaprabhu stayed and performed His intimate, internal pastimes (antaranga-lila) at Kashi Misra’s house during many years. At the same time, Mahaprabhu told Haridas Thakur, ‘When I come to stay in Nilachal (Sri Puri Dham), you must come with Me.’ When Mahaprabhu came to Puri, He told Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya to arrange for a room, and when Srila Haridas Thakur came to Puri, he stayed in that room, at a place that later became known as Siddha Bakul, and worshipped the Lord from there. He would always loudly chant the Holy Name. What prasad did he take? When Jagannath prasad came and Mahaprabhu took it, the remnants of Mahaprabhu’s prasad was sent to Haridas Thakur (Govinda, Mahaprabhu’s servant, would bring it to him every day). Haridas Thakur himself never entered Jagannath Temple.

Haridas Thakur chanted three lakh Holy Names (300,000 Holy Names) every day, and when he rescued Laksmihira, he was chanting even more than that – he had vowed to chant ten million Holy Names that month (that is why when she came to him, he told her, ‘You will have to wait, I have not finished chanting the Holy Name’).

Anyhow, one day, Haridas Thakur showed the pastime of illness. He was lying down, and when Govinda brought prasad for him, he said, ‘Aji langhimu – today I will break the rule…’ We break the rules so often, but he said, ‘Today, I will break the rule…’ Why did he say it? Because he had not finished chanting the Holy Names. He said, ‘How can I send prasad back and how can I take it without completing my chanting of the Holy Names?’ Then, he finally said, ‘All right, Prabhu has sent prasad, I cannot ignore it. I have to take it.’ He took a little from that prasad and told Govinda to go.

Govinda came back to Mahaprabhu and told Him the news. He said, ‘Haridas is not well. He is chanting the Holy Name softly.’ Mahaprabhu immediately came to Haridas.

‘Haridas, what has happened to you? What is wrong with your health? What disease do you have?’ Mahaprabhu asked.

‘Prabhu, my body is not sick – my mind is sick,’ answered Haridas.

How beautiful these words are. Our minds are sick. If we think, ‘I will lie down today,’ we lie down; if we think, ‘I will sit up,’ we sit up; if our mind tells us, ‘I will go to hear kirtan today,’ we go and listen to kirtan. We are servants of our minds. However, satisfying the whims of your mind is not Krishna consciousness. Many say, ‘Eat whatever pleases your soul.’ The soul’s duty is to serve Paramatma. The soul lives on the internal plane, and the mind lives on the external plane. This is the difference between the mind and the soul. The tongue and other senses will want to do whatever the mind tells them to do, that is why we end up thinking, ‘I want to eat nice things’, ‘I want to wear nice things’, and so on. These are all desires of our naughty minds. Therefore, Haridas Thakur said, ‘My body is not sick – my mind is sick.’

‘You have become old now, Haridas,’ Mahaprabhu said affectionately. ‘You are Namacharya (“the teacher of the Holy Name”)! You do not have to chant so many Holy Names now.’

‘Prabhu, please take a seat’, Haridas Thakur said softly. ‘You have shown me many pastimes – You have shown me Your birth pastime, You have shown me Your childhood and adolescent pastimes, You have shown me Your householder pastimes, and You have also shown me Your sannyas pastime. I know that You will not stay in this world much longer now, so it is my desire that You do not show this last pastime to me. I will not be able to tolerate this pastime. I want to ask You for something, Prabhu…’

‘What is it?’ Mahaprabhu asked.

‘Let me leave this body before You.’

In this world, people want to live as long as possible, but Gurudev said: even if you live only for ten years, it is good provided you chant the Holy Name during this time, but if you live for one hundred years and do not chant the Holy Name, then there is no use carrying this body around for one hundred years. People are proud, ‘My father lived 120 years!’ but there is no use – it is better if you live just ten years but chant the Holy Name.

‘What are you saying, Prabhu?’ Mahaprabhu replied. ‘I have done everything together with you. What will I do without you?’

‘Prabhu, please do not worry about it. I wish to see Your lotus face with my eyes, I will hold Your holy feet on my chest, and I will chant Your Name with this mouth…’

‘All right…’ Mahaprabhu replied in the end. ‘The Lord fulfils the desires of His devotees, so He will certainly fulfil your desire.’

The next day, Mahaprabhu came to Haridas Thakur together with all the devotees.

‘Haridas, what is the news?’ He asked, coming into Haridas Thakur’s room.

‘As you wish,’ Haridas Thakur replied.

Then, Mahaprabhu told the devotees to start chanting and circumambulating Haridas Thakur. Haridas Thakur caught Mahaprabhu’s hand and made Him sit beside him. He held Mahaprabhu’s feet on his chest, and, looking at the holy lotus face of Mahaprabhu, he chanted, ‘Sri Krishna Chaitanya, Sri Krishna Chaitanya, Sri Krishna Chaitanya.’ As he chanted it, his soul left the body.

This is how Srila Haridas Thakur left his body. I have told you about this pastime briefly.

(8/9) Poverty of Mind

There is one more thing I want to say. I did not see so many people in the morning, but now everyone is starting to crowd. Do you know why? I will read you what Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur says. In this country, people have the cult of feeding ‘Nara-Narayan’ (feed people thinking they are personification of Lord Narayan), but can a human (nara) ever be Narayan (the Supreme Personality of Godhead)? We call feeding people ‘service to poor Narayan’, but you tell me – can Narayan, who is the original master of Laksmi Devi (goddess of wealth and prosperity), be poor? He is the master of the whole world, He is the owner of all wealth in this world, and they call Him ‘poor Narayan’! It is an offence to say this. Never utter such things.

One time, when Srila Prabhupad had finished Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama from Chaitanya Math, there was a big festival – all the sadhus, devotees, brahmacharis and sannyasis had come from all temples. At this time, one man came to the temple and asked, ‘When will they give food to the poor?’ Any of us would feel pain to hear this. ‘Tell me, dear mind, are you a beggar for food (bhojan) or are you a beggar for spiritual life (bhajan)?’ We sing in Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s song ‘Sarvasva tomara charane sapiya’:

tava nija-jana prasada seviya
uchchhista rakhibe yaha
amara bhojana parama-anande
prati-dina habe taha

‘Every day I will with great joy have whatever remnants Your devotees leave behind after honouring Your prasad.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We say this, but when prasad is distributed, they take paneer out and keep it aside, giving mostly juice to others. What is this? I asked once, ‘What is all this paneer doing here?’ They said, ‘Oh, we have kept some in case nothing is left for us after prasad distribution.’ This is what they do, but they sing in the kirtan, ‘Every day I will with great joy have whatever remnants Your devotees leave behind after honouring Your prasad’…

You can remember the example of Kalidas. He never even sat together with Gaudiya Vaishnavs. He would hide in the forest when Vaishnavs were taking prasad, and when all the Vaishnavs finished taking prasad and threw their plates away, he would come and lick those plates. Later, Mahaprabhu gave him a certificate. It was generally prohibited for anyone to touch Mahaprabhu’s feet. (We also tell everyone, ‘Do not touch our feet.’ Why do we say this? Because we think, ‘Why will you, the highest Vaishnavs, touch the feet of a lowly soul such as myself with your pure hands?’ That is the rule. On the other hand, what should devotees think? ‘Gurudev, I am a lowly soul, how can I touch your feet?’ You must remember this.) You know that when you enter Jagannath Temple through the Lion Gate, there is a place where water is coming and where you can come and wash your feet. One time, when Mahaprabhu was washing His feet there, Kalidas came and, touching Mahaprabhu feet, drank the water from His feet. Everybody rushed at him, ‘Do not touch Prabhu’s feet! Do not touch the feet!’ However, Mahaprabhu stopped them, ‘Do not prohibit him.’ Why? Mahaprabhu explained, ‘Because he has become a “jhanu vaishnav” (“a seasoned, or crafty, Vaishnav”) – he took all the Vaishnavs’ remnants and have become a seasoned Vaishnav.’ Why did Mahaprabhu say this? Because Kalidas never sat in one line with Vaishnavs to take prasad, but he took everyone’s remnants. How much humility he has! We must learn from his example.

(9/9) ‘Come, Dear Mind, Come’

This short article was written by Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur:

One time, there started an annual festival at Sri Gaudiya Math. Many preachers of exclusive genuine religion, exemplary sannyasis and brahmacharis came to the temple from all over India. Many invited respectable gentlemen and ladies also came to the festival, yearning to hear about the nectarean devotion to the Lord. Endlessly jubilant and endowed with sincere service mood, all selfless, pious servitors were ready to enrich everyone – the invited, the uninvited, devotees, non-devotees, materialists and strict renunciates who are averse to service – through Hari-kirtan (glorification of the Lord). There was Krishna-katha heard everywhere, and everyone’s hearts rejoiced and soared to hear narratives about Krishna, to hear songs extolling Krishna’s qualities resounding all around them. Even surprised passers-by, drawn by the festival, became stunned and forgot where they were going.

At this time, somebody had the guts to come and ask me, ‘Hey, listen, when are they going to feed the poor here?’ What must I reply! Alas, hearing this question, I felt completely at a loss. I looked within my own heart, and started to reason with it:

Listen, foolish mind! Let us see the truth: What kind of a beggar are you? What do you lack? What do you want? Alas! You seem to only wish to gratify your material senses; you feel you lack the capricious pleasures and happiness that your senses have a wayward, mischievous hunger for, and not being able to attain that sufficiently, you consider yourself a beggar! Is that not the truth? ‘When will they feed the poor? When can I enjoy various auspicious paraphernalia and first-class ingredients?’ This is all you are looking for! You have come to a tree with very ripe and beautiful juicy fruit, but you are searching for ripe amla [Indian gooseberry, which is very sour]! You know it. Your tongue is drawn to amla’s taste. You think that your hankering will be satisfied by that – you think the appetite you have lost because of sickness will come back and, as you eat amla, you will slowly recover, but you are wrong! You are making a great mistake! Do you not think that this unhealthy bitter juice of amla will only erode your teeth and you will become even sicker? You will not be able to get the taste of any other food – you will die! If, overcome by the desire to enjoy, you see maha-prasad as just some food meant to bring you enjoyment or happiness, then you will only get the result of eating! Foolish mind, your search for the end of your poverty is futile here! What you beg for is available even on the street – even animals enjoy that. Why do you need to come to the temple for that? O dear! Do the great servitors surrendered to Krishna call you to this temple, a great place of pilgrimage, invite you to this temple, to satisfy your material senses with material flavours? To feed her child the medicine that will cure the disease, a clever, loving mother will entice the child with a laddu (sweet ball), but is laddu the point? It is not, it really is not! The main substance is hidden within it! Here too, at this holy abode of the Supreme Lord, at this greatest place of pilgrimage, the very gist of maha-prasad ‘food’ (bhojan) – the nectar from the holy mouth of Sri Gaura – is actually permeated by service (bhajan) to Mahaprabhu! This is the main thing for the entire world, the main necessity! So, I am telling you: come, dear mind, come! If you want to get benefit, come – come not as a beggar for food (bhojan), but come as a beggar for spiritual life in service to the Lord (bhajan) and roll at the holy feet of the supremely merciful devotees of the Lord, placing on your head their feet dust, the water that has washed their feet and the remnants of their food:

bhakta-pada-dhuli ara bhakta-pada-jala
bhakta-bhukta-sesa – ei tina sadhanera bala

‘The dust from devotees’ feet, the water that has washed devotees’ feet and the remnants of devotees’ food – these three are the sole strength of one’s spiritual life.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.16.60)

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Manasa Deha Geha’ and Hare Krishna maha-mantra and recites Sri Jaya Dhvani, concluding the preaching programme.]

* * *

￼Line Line31 January 2021, a.m.

Bangaon (West Bengal)

Vaishnav Seva Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/13) In Search of Hidden Treasure

vande ‘ham sri-guroh sri-yuta-pada-kamalam sri-gurun vaisnavams cha
sri-rupam sagrajatam saha-gana-raghunath-anvitam tam sa-jivam
sadvaitam savadhutam parijana-sahitam krsna-chaitanya-devam
sri-radha-krsna-padan saha-gana-lalita-sri-visakhanvitams cha

‘I worship the holy lotus feet of my initiating and instructing guru as well as all predecessor gurus, all Vaishnavs, Rupa Goswami, Sanatan Goswami, their dear associates Raghunath and Jiva, Advaita Prabhu, Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Krishna Chaitanyadev along with all His near and dear ones, and Sri Radha-Krishna, along with Their associates headed by Lalita and Visakha.’

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

‘I offer my obeisance to Sri Guru, who has opened my eyes, rescuing me from the illusory darkness of ignorance, by applying the salve of knowledge upon my eyes.’

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam
chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam
govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram
vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

‘I offer my obeisance to him who perfectly fulfils his gurudev’s most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all conceivable and inconceivable aspects of Vedic knowledge; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s line; who is known as “Govinda” (Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj); whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.’

devam divya-tanum suchanda-vadanam balarka-chelanchitam
sandrananda-puram sad-eka-varanam vairagya-vidyambudhim
sri-siddhanta-nidhim subhakti-lasitam sarasvatanam varam
vande tam subhadam mad-eka-saranam nyasisvaram sridharam

‘I worship Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, the bestower of all auspiciousness, my only shelter and the master of all renunciates. He is my Lord who possesses a transcendental form, whose face expression is very grave, who is clad in the holy clothes the colour of the newly risen sun. He is an abode of intense joy; the only genuine master whom one can accept and surrender to; and an ocean of divine knowledge of renunciation. He is a repository of holy scriptural teachings and pastimes of the highest devotion and a great follower of Srila Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad.’

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha
patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

vrndayai tulasi-devyai priyayai kesavasya cha
krsna-bhakti-prade devi satyavatyai namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to Vrinda Devi (Tulasi Devi), who is very dear to Lord Kesava, who bestows devotion to Krishna and is known as Satyavati.’

atha natva mantra-gurun gurun bhagavatarthadan
vyasan jagad-gurun natva tato jayam udirayet

‘Before reciting scriptures that can conquer material world, let us offer obeisances to our initiating guru, to the guru who teaches us the meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam, to Sri Vyasadev and all gurus in the universe.’

jayah sa-parikara sri-sri-guru-gauranga-gandharva-

govindasundar-padapadmanam jayastu

‘All glory to the lotus feet of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva-Govindasundar and all Their associates.’

vande rupa-sanatanau raghu-yugau sri-jiva-gopalakau

‘I worship Sri Rupa Goswami, Sri Sanatan Goswami, Sri Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, Sri Raghunath Das Goswami, Sri Jiva Goswami, and Sri Gopal Bhatta Goswami.’

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrnda

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

We are present here today by the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma. It is a very auspicious day, a day of vaishnav-seva. Today is also the appearance day of Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami Prabhu and the disappearance day of Srila Ramachandra Kaviraj. There are six goswamis, and Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami is one of them. We have gathered here in this village today on the invitation of Sri Malini Devi Dasi to speak some Bhagavad-katha.

It is our great fortune that sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs come here. Without a great fortune, you cannot come and meet with the sadhus, Gurus and Vaishnavs. You can hear all kinds of things in this world – there are so many talks, so many discussions, so much criticism going on in this world, but there is a dire scarcity of Bhagavad-katha (discourses about the Lord), and there is a dire scarcity of devotees who would speak and hear this Bhagavad-katha.

mahanta-svabhava ei tarite pamara
nija karya nahi tabu yana tara ghara

‘It is the innate nature of great souls to deliver vile fallen souls. Great souls never come to their homes for any personal purpose.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.8.39)

These great souls – devotees of Lord Krishna, devotees of the Supreme Lord, devotees of Sri Guru – come to people’s houses to help us and bring us some benefit.

karitechchha upakara, yate para upakara,
labhe jiva sri-krsna-sevaya

‘Your benevolant kindness is such that receiving it, souls get the benefit of attaining service to Lord Krishna.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Devotees render such help to others that as a result of that help, conditioned jiva souls who are situated within the bondage of illusory environment can take part in the service of Lord Krishna.

Many people help in many ways – they give others money, they give others blankets and do other charitable work. However, what is the food (the necessity) of the soul? Many can give you food for your body – dal, rice, vegetables, and so on, but is it real help? You gave somebody five kilograms of rice yesterday, the person is happy, but if you do not give them anything today, they will chastise you. On the other hand, if you give them too much rice, it will rot and get wasted, but if you give them too little rice, they will abuse you. Problems never end. However, the gift that Mahaprabhu and devotees gave to this world – the gift that our guru-varga has given – is an extremely hidden treasure! Hearing the news of this hidden treasure, people from all over the world (you can see that there are Mexican, Venezuelan, Colombian, American devotees sitting here in front of me) come to this land of India to find it.

The people of this country always want to go abroad in search of dollars, euros and wealth – they wander around looking for dollars, but people from all those covetable countries, on the contrary, come to this country to search for the wealth that is kept within India. As the saying goes, there is always some darkness underneath a candlelight. We live in India, but we dismiss and throw away that very wealth that is right here in our own country – we do not search for that priceless wealth. We only live in fear, always thinking about eating, sleeping and enjoying. This is how we spend our entire life. We have got this human birth, but we are dismissing its value. We never think about the meaning of this birth – we do not try to know what this life is for and how to fulfil its meaning. We only worry about the same things that even animals eat, about the things that even animals look for – eating, sleeping, and so on. If people live in the same way as animals, then there is no difference between humans and animals.

ahara-nidra-bhaya-maithunam cha
samanyam etat pasubhir naranam
dharmo hi tesam adhiko viseso
dharmena hinah pasubhih samanah

‘Eating, sleeping, breeding and defence – these four principles are common to both human beings and animals. The distinction between human life and animal life is that man can search after God but an animal cannot. Therefore, those who do not feel any urge to search for God are no better than animals.’

(Hitopadesh, 25)

It is said in the scriptures that people who live without any religious principles (without any dharma) are equal to animals. This is how we have become like animals – we live always worrying about eating, sleeping fearing and breeding, but we do not look for that which is real.

(2/13) Know Your Own Identity First

There is a small book called In Search of the Original Source. I have translated it from English into Bengali and printed recently. Where should one look for that original source? The problem is that we do not even know who we are. We are stricken with the disease of ignorance. Ignorance means material knowledge – it means we have no knowledge of the self, and we perceive this body through mundane intelligence. In other words, we cannot understand that I and this body are not the same thing. If I ask you, ‘Who are you?’ You say, ‘I am so-and-so Sarkar’, ‘I am so-and-so Biswas’, ‘I am his mother’, ‘I am her father’, ‘I am their aunt’, and so on. This is what we always say, but this is wrong. We do not know our own identity. It is ignorance, and it is a disease. If we do not remove this ignorance – if you do not learn the true knowledge, but instead call ignorance knowledge, then what is the point? Whatever knowledge this world gives us is actually ignorance.

jada-vidya yata, mayara vaibhava,
tomara bhajane badha
moha janamiya, anitya samsare,
jivake karaye gadha

‘All mundane learning is a manifestation of illusion (maya) and an obstacle to Your service. It brings about infatuation with the temporary world and turns the soul into an ass.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

These are Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s words. We have become asses (donkeys) because we do not know our own identity. While I am within this body, everybody will call this body, ‘Such-and-such Maharaj’, but when I leave this body, nobody will call it ‘Maharaj’ anymore. Therefore, this body is temporary. Therefore, we must first know who we are – we must first understand our own identity. This body is not I. Identifying yourself with the body is ignorance. You must forget it. We sing in one of the kirtans:

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Many of us think, ‘Oh, I am a disciple of Srila Sridhar Maharaj’, ‘I am a disciple of Srila Govinda Maharaj’, ‘I am senior, you are junior’, but those who say this do not understand the main thing. It is necessary to know the knowledge of the relationship. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that you must offer obeisances even to a five-year-old boy or a five-year-old girl if they practise Krishna consciousness. You took initiation sixty years ago, but you cannot think that you are senior to them and they are junior to you. If you think like that, it means you have not got the knowledge of the relationship. What did Srila Prabhupad say? He said, ‘All you who are sitting here are my gurus. Everyone is my guru, and I am your servant.’

‘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)

What is our mistake? Our mistake is that we have forgotten that we are eternal servants of Krishna. We think, ‘I am this person’s husband’, ‘I am this person’s wife’ or, ‘I am this person’s son/daughter’, but we have forgotten that we are actually all eternal servants of Krishna. As a result of this forgetfulness, Maya (illusion) attacked us and pulled us into her family; this is how we end up floundering in this material world – Maya Devi engages us in her own service. The scriptures say, ‘Krsna-bahirmukha jivera nahi Krsna-smrti-jnana – souls that are averse to Krishna have no knowledge or remembrance of Krishna.’ Such souls forget Krishna. That is why we pray, ‘Krpa kara Vaisnava Thakura: O Vaishnav Thakur! Please be merciful to me!’

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must serve the Lord knowing the true relationship. It is necessary to know what the nature of the relationship is. You think, ‘Oh, he is my son,’ but if you have the knowledge of the relationship, then even a father will pay obeisance to his child.

(3/13) Sambandha Jnana: Launching Pad

The Lord is there within everyone. I am speaking now, moving my hands, moving my legs, but when I leave, this body will fall off, and I will know, ‘I have left this body’ – that which is inside this body will leave this body. When the soul leaves the body, everyone says, ‘This is a dead body,’ and they will throw it into the Ganges because a dead body has no value, but now we speak, we move our hands, we move our legs, we do so many things.

It is necessary to know this relationship. Avidya and asmita are two main diseases. We sing on ekadasi days:

prasada-seva karite haya,

sakala prapancha jaya

‘The entire material world can be conquered by honouring the Lord’s prasad.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Prapancha means pancha-rog, the five diseases. Among these five diseases, the first disease is avidya, ignorance (thinking that you are the body). Asmita means attachment to the gross body. People are very deeply attached to their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends – they are attached to this perishable body and all that is related to it. This is what asmita is. If we can leave these two diseases (ignorance and material attachment), we will get benefit. It is necessary to eradicate these two diseases from ourselves.

Even Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, the seventh goswami, said, ‘Bardhakye ekhana, pancha-roge hata, kemane bhajiba bala – I am now old and ruined by the five diseases. How shall I serve You?’ How can I practise Krishna consciousness now that I have gone so old? I have become a victim of the five diseases!

saisava-yauvane, jada-sukha-sange,
abhyasa haila manda
nija-karma-dose, e deha haila,
bhajanera pratibandha

‘I enjoyed in my childhood and youth, and as the result, I have developed bad habits. Because of my previous actions, this body has now become an obstacle to practising spiritual life.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

From our young days, we developed bad habits – you like to sleep on a nice bed, in a nice room, you get your wife to massage your feet, fan you and serve in every possible way. These are all bad habits! What does this lead to? We have been enjoying this material world, developing all kinds of bad habits, and now these habits prevent us from practising Krishna consciousness. For example, we cannot wake up early in the morning. You know, I am going to give the weekly Sunday evening online class today, and many devotees wake up at 2 a.m. for this class; yet, on the other hand, you can see that although the scriptures prescribe everyone to wake up at 4 a.m., many householders or even devotees at the temples cannot do it here – they sleep till late. How will they wake up if they do not have this habit? Those who worship the Lord at four in the morning get up at three – they wake up, go to the bathroom, take a shower, then they enter the temple or the prayer/altar room. However, when your habits are bad, you will lament, ‘O Lord, how will I worship You?’ This is how our habits, which we developed from a young age while enjoying material happiness, prevent us, obstruct us from practising Krishna consciousness.

Remember these things. You must learn it by heart: ‘I am a soul. My identity is that I am an eternal servant of Krishna.’ We have forgotten that we are eternal servants of the Lord.

‘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)

I am a jiva soul, and every living entity has a jiva soul. There is a soul within me, within a Tulasi tree, within a mango tree, within a mosquito, a fly or any other creature. All living entities have the same soul as we all have. This is what ‘I’ is – we must know this. The function of the soul is service to the Supersoul: the soul always wants to serve the Supersoul (Paramatma).

Just as you eat to nourish your body, your soul also needs nourishment. You can understand how much people are attached to food and to nourishing their bodies if you see what some people do when it is ekadasi. Some people like to eat a lot the day before – they eat a lot, put on one kilogram; the next day, they fast and lose that kilogram; and after ekadasi (on dvadasi), they eat rice full stomach and put on one kilogram of weight again. All vegetables and plants are the food of the body, but it is also necessary to provide food for your soul. The food of the soul is Hari-katha (discourses about the Lord) – the soul always wants to hear about Krishna. We sing in one of the kirtans:

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya
kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya be merciful to me? When will I come in the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When will I get the mercy of Sri Chaitanya and come to the shade of the holy lotus feet of Vaishnavs? When will Sri Chaitanya bestow his mercy on me? There is chaitya-guru in your heart, and he takes us to our mahanta-guru. Without the mercy of this chaitya-guru, we cannot come to the mahanta-guru. That is why we hanker for the mercy of Sri Chaitanya. We want the mercy of the guru within our hearts.

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When, when will I give up this material ego? Everybody has some ego, and ego always destroys everything. What is this ego? We are proud of our wealth, knowledge, beauty, friends, family and so many other things, but we must pray:

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must sing five kirtans in the morning and give kirtans in the evening. I will now chant some kirtans and then again speak some Hari-katha. At the end, we will offer arati to the Lord and do Tulasi parikrama, then the bhoga will be offered, and everyone can take prasad.

(4/13) Utter Desperation

[Chanting ‘Gurudev bada krpa kare’ and ‘Kabe Sri Chaitanya more’, His Divine Grace remarks]

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya
kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya be merciful to me? When will I come in the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

gala-vastra krtanjali vaisnava-nikate

dante trna kari’ dandaiba niskapate

‘I will stand before a Vaishnav sincerely, with a cloth around my neck and joined palms, holding a straw between my teeth.’

kandiya kandiya janaiba duhkha-grama
samsara-anala haite magiba visrama

‘Weeping, I will tell about my miserable life and pray for respite from the fire of material existence.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must cry and tell Vaishnav Thakur about our unhappiness, about our austerities. What austerities? These are not some bodily austerities, it is not about a lack of affection or love – all this does not make you a beggar. What beggar are you? Do not come as beggars for food (you can get money, food, clothes and other material things everywhere on the street), but come as beggars for spiritual life – come as a beggar for Hari-katha, come begging to hear about the Lord, sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs. May your mind become a beggar for that.

It is very sad that we speak so much nonsense and have so much nonsense in our mind.

dinera madhye abala-tabala
kata pachala padite para
tara madhye tumi ki ekbara
govinda balite nara

‘How much nonsense you can talk every day! How many idle talks you have! Can you not say the Name of Govinda even once?’

We should submit our application to Vaishnav Thakur. What does the Lord say in Srimad Bhagavad-gita? ‘I do not know anyone except My devotees, and devotees also do not know anyone except Me.’ Therefore, we must come to devotees and tell them about our unhappiness, ‘Prabhu, when will I get relief from the fire of this material life? I keep burning and coming to this material world, but how can I become rescued from it all?’ We pray to Vaishnav Thakur about this. ‘When will we get some respite from the fire of this material life?’ Many times, I have heard people say, ‘Oh, Maharaj, I will retire from my job, then I will come to live at the temple.’ I always say, ‘When you retire, you will forget everything – your grandchildren will grow up and you will want to get them married first, and after that you will kick the bucket. You will not get time later.’

That is why Gurudev says: there is no use living one hundred years in this world – you can live just ten years, but if you can practise Krishna consciousness during this time, you will be successful. If you live one hundred years but spend this time on material life, then there is no use living so long. What will you get by living for one hundred years if you do not practise Krishna consciousness? Always remember this. These are Gurudev’s words.

When will we get some respite from this material life? We keep coming and going to this material life, but when will we be saved from this agony? When will we return to our own home? Once we return to our own home, we will never have to return here. We are living now in a rented house. You can understand it easily. If you stay in a rented house and there is some problem, you will have to move to another place – you move to another place, there is some problem again, and you again have to move to another place. One day, you will think that even if you buy a small plot of land and make a thatched hut, it is better than living house to house all the time. So, when you can reach your own house, you will get such peace and happiness that you can never find here no matter how much you seek it.

We must give up material desires for this world. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami gave up everything like stool and urine. When you eat, you enjoy and fill your stomach, relishing the food, but once that food is digested and you pass stool, you do not even want to look at it – you hold your nose not to feel the stench. This material world and all the pleasures of this world are stool. We must give it all up like stool and urine.

asakti-rahita, sambandha-sahita,
visaya-samuha sakali madhava

‘When you are free from material attachment and establish the relationship with the Lord, then you will see that everything around you is Lord Madhav Himself.’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’ Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur)

We must know the relationship and see that everything here is meant for the Lord. It is necessary to remember this.

kandiya kandiya janaiba duhkha-grama
samsara-anala haite magiba visrama

‘Weeping, I will tell about my miserable life and pray for respite from the fire of material existence.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

So, when you pray to Vaishnav Thakur in this way, what will Vaishnav Thakur do next? Vaishnav Thakur will pray for me to the Lord. If you go directly to the Lord, your application will not be granted. It is necessary to go through Vaishnavs…

suniya amara duhkha vaisnava thakura
ama’ lagi’ krsne avedibena prachura

‘Hearing about my sorrow, the worshippable Vaishnav Thakur will ardently pray to Krishna on my behalf.’

vaisnavera avedane krsna dayamaya
e hena pamara prati habena sadaya

‘Lord Krishna is merciful – hearing the Vaishnav’s appeal, He will take pity on this wretched sinner.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Vaishnav will appeal to Krishna on my behalf, and Krishna will take pity on me. He will give me shelter at His feet and engage me in His service. When we appeal to Vaishnavs, they will come asking, ‘Have you called me?’ Then, we must pray, ‘Yes, gurudev. Please engage me in the service of the Lord.’ After that, gurudev will teach us how we can serve the Lord and Vaishnavs, how we should live and practise. Mahaprabhu Himself taught by His own example. That is why Krishna told Uddhav Maharaj, ‘Acharyam mam vijaniyan – know that the guru (acharya) is non-different from Me.’

Is what I am saying entering anyone’s mind? If you truly hear this, if all these things enter your mind and heart, then nobody will be able to keep you in the bondage of this world anymore. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami had a wife who was beautiful like an angel, he possessed enormous wealth, but he gave it all up like stool and urine. His father gave him a wife of angelic beauty, made him the owner of thousands of acres of land, but could that stop him and keep him there?

At first, Mahaprabhu told him, ‘Go back home. Go and live with your family, do not become crazy.’

markata-vairagya na kara loka dekhana
yatha-yogya visaya bhunja’ anasakta hana

‘Do not show your false renunciation to impress people. Use whatever material things you require, but without attachment.’

se chhala se-kale krsna sphurabe tomare
krsna-krpa yanre, tanre ke rakhite pare

‘When time comes, Krishna will reveal to you the trick how you can come to Him. Who can stop you if you have received Krishna’s mercy?’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.16.238, 241)

When Krishna bestows His mercy on someone, nobody can stop them.

vinodera nivedana vaisnava-charane
krpa kari’ sange laha ei akinchane

‘Bhaktivinod prays at the holy feet of Vaishnavs: “Please take this destitute soul with you.”’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(5/13) Path to Qualification

[His Divine Grace continues chanting kirtans]

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If you do not become a Vaishnav, it is a problem, and if you think you have become a Vaishnav, it is also a problem. Both is not right. You must become a servant of Vaishnavs, a servant of your guru. The road to hell is open – if you think you have become a Vaishnav, you will go to hell. When you plant something, you have to take care of the seed and protect it from both heat and cold. When it is hot, you must water the seed twice a day; at the same time, if you pour too much water, it will rot. Sahajiyas are those who get ‘rotten’ in this way – they eat too much and end up in trouble. That is why we are told, ‘Never associate with any of the thirteen apa-sampradayas – aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, ativadi, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari.’

So, if you think, ‘I have become a Vaishnav’, pratistha will come to you. You will think, ‘I am a Vaishnav, so why must I offer obeisances to others?’ The path to hell is cleared and open for such people (they themselves clear it).

tomara kinkara, apane janiba,
‘guru’-abhimana tyaji’

‘I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

The ego of a guru must be given up. Do not take worship from anyone. Many like to say, ‘I am the acharya, so you must offer me arati, you must wash my feet, you must worship me every day.’ This is the ego of a guru – as a result, such ‘gurus’ become very heavy and sink (just as a boat sinks if you overload it). Many think, ‘Oh, gurudev has given me sannyas, so I have become a guru!’ It is not so easy to become a guru! It is said here (in the kirtan we are chanting) that ‘I will consider myself your servant and give up the ego of a guru. I will always live on your remnants.’

tomara uchchhista pada-jala-renu
sada niskapate bhaji

‘I will always earnestly worship the remnants of Your food, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.’

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest”, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We will always remain disciples. It is not necessary to become a guru. Remember this. It is not necessary to become a guru – you must become a servant of your guru. Those who become gurus without first becoming disciples are in a very difficult and dangerous situation – such people have the road to hell cleared for them. That is why it is said, ‘I will always remain your disciple: I will not become a guru – I will become a disciple.’ We must give honour to everyone and not desire honour for ourselves, then the Lord will give us the right to chant His kirtan.

How does one get the right to chant the Holy Name of the Lord?

sri-krsna-kirtane yadi manasa tohara
parama yatane tanhi labha adhikara

‘If you are determined to chant the Name of Krishna, then try your best to become qualified for that.’

trnadhika hina dina akinchana chhara
apane manabi sada chhadi’ ahankara
vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana
pratihimsa tyaji’ anye karabi palana

jivana-nirvahe ane udvega na dibe
para-upakare nija-sukha pasaribe

‘Give up ego and always consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and wretched. Practise forgiveness like that of a tree; do not be vindictive, nurture others. Live without causing anxiety to others; do good unto others, forsaking your own happiness.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka Giti, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If you are determined to chant the Name of Krishna, then try your utmost to become qualified to do so. We must give honour to others and give up our own honour. When you pay an obeisance, you say ‘jay’, and the more you pay obeisances, the more you will chant the Lord’s Name. When Srila Raghunath Das Goswami was in Vrindavan, he would pay obeisances to Vaishnavs every time he saw them – even if he met someone five times during the day, he would offer his obeisance to that person five times.

Many people want to practise yoga, or various yoga-asans, but if you just go down on the floor offering your obeisances ten times a day, you will get all the exercise you want. Our yoga-asan is pranam and sastanga-pranam.

So, it is said in this kirtan: ‘I will always remain your disciple and never accept worship from anyone.’ When will Vaishnav Thakur give me the right to chant the Holy Name? When I learn to give honour to everyone.

amani manada, haile kirtane,
adhikara dibe tumi
tomara charane, niskapate ami,
kandiya lutiba bhumi

‘When I become free from the desire for honour and learn to give honour to others, you will give me the right to chant Your kirtan. Rolling on the ground, I will earnestly cry at Your holy feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(6/13) Sincere Devotion

It is necessary to become a sadhu, not just dress yourself as one. You know, when people pay obeisances in Midnapore, they tweak your feet – one time, they tweaked my feet so hard that my feet began to bleed! Can you imagine how they ‘practise’ spiritual life like that? It is necessary to practise sincerely, without any duplicity. You fall flat on the ground in a sastanga-dandavat, but when gurudev tells you to bring him something, you say, ‘Sorry, I cannot, I have no time.’ This is their ‘sincerity’. Actually, this is what insincerity is. One day people will grab and squeeze your feet so hard, and when you come to them another day, they do not even pay an obeisance. What kind of rules do they follow? Sometimes, when you have a programme at somebody’s house, they will grab your feet and cry, but it is a show. Have you heard of a phrase ‘crocodile tears’? Crocodiles always live in water, so sometimes you can see some water glitter in their eyes and you think the crocodile is crying, but it is not tears – it is just water. In the same way, some people will shed gallons of tears, but this is not real – it is deceit. This is deceitful devotion (kapata-bhakti). I have written about it in Upadesh 4 (Guidance, Volume 4).

suddha bhakta-palana, suska-jnana-tadana,
chhala-bhakti-dusana-rama

‘Gauranga Mahaprabhu is the maintainer of pure devotees. He drives away dry knowledge and destroys the wickedness of false devotion.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We sing this kirtan every morning. Do you remember this song? What does ‘dry knowledge’ (suska-jnana) mean? It is the knowledge of mayavadis: their knowledge has dried up. They want to become one with Brahman – they want to become Gods (they think everything comes from Brahman, so they consider themselves Brahman). You may have seen also that when sahajiyas pay obeisance, they say, ‘Guru Brahma Guru Visnu Guru Devo Mahesvara (guru is Brahma the Creator, guru is Vishnu the Maintainer, guru is Maheshwar the Destroyer).’ You will never hear us say this. We always say:

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

‘I offer my obeisance to Sri Guru, who has opened my eyes, rescuing me from the illusory darkness of ignorance, by applying the salve of knowledge upon my eyes.’

This a very beautiful prayer. Guru applies the ‘kajal’ of divine knowledge to remove the darkness of ignorance from my eyes. If somebody understands the meaning of this sloka, their mind can never go in any other direction. We must always think in this direction. It is said in the scriptures that those who have sincerity, who have chaste and firm devotion to Sri Gurupadpadma have the power to rescue the entire universe. It is necessary to have sincere devotion to Sri Gurupadpadma.

Srila Lochan Das Thakur composed a very beautiful kirtan about Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. We mostly sing Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur’s and Srila Narottam Das Thakur’s kirtans (Nitai-pada-kamala, Parama-karuna pahu dui jana Nitai Gaurachandra and others), but there are also beautiful kirtans composed by Srila Lochan Das Thakur (Nitai-guna-mani amara Nitai-guna-mani, Akrodha-paramananda and others).

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Nitai mora jivana dhana’ and ‘Yadi Gaura na haita.’]

(7/13) Highest and Rarest

We have heard about so many scriptures: Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Garuda Purana, Agni Purana, Vishnu Purana, Padma Purana, there is also a Purana about Sivji Maharaj. We have seen so many scriptures, we have heard so many scriptures, and we have also read so many scriptures, but somebody can ask, ‘You say that Bhagavatam is the highest scripture, but why is there no mention of Srimati Radharani’s glories in it? Why is Her Name not even mentioned in it?’ Do you know that there is no mention of Srimati Radharani’s Name anywhere in Bhagavatam? Her devotion is so high that when Sukadev Goswami was speaking Bhagavatam, he became reserved and did not mention Her Name, thinking that it was not good to have this kind of topic written or spoken in public. Although Sukadev did not mention Her Name, he did speak about the great devotion of Prahlad Maharaj.

madhura vrnda, vipina-madhuri,
pravesa chaturi sara
varaja-yuvati, bhavera bhakati,
sakati ha-ita kara?

‘Who would have had the great expertise required to enter into the sweet forests of Vrindavan? Who would have shown the power of Vraja-gopis’ ecstatic devotion?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

The devotion of the Vraja gopis is incomparable – it is impossible to even utter anything about it. If Gauranga had not come, who would have known about it? If we were not worshipping Gauranga, we would have known nothing about the devotion of the Vraja gopis, and we would have not understood anything about the madhurya-lila of Krishna (the pastimes and glories of Sri Radha and Sri Krishna). That is why it is said: Who is capable of telling about all this? Only He who has taken Radharani’s heart and halo has this power, nobody else. Gauranga Mahaprabhu came to this world having taken Sri Radha’s heart and halo, and He is the one who revealed the glory of Radharani in this world. There is nobody except Him who has ever done it or could have done it.

Among the Vraja gopis, there are first gopis, then sakhis and, finally, manjaris. The devotion of manjaris (Rupa Manjari, Lavanga Manjari and others) is exceptional – they are young girls, younger than nine years old, and their love for Krishna is absolutely exclusive. However, even they never cross Radharani. That is why it is said:

madhura vrnda, vipina-madhuri,
pravesa chaturi sara
varaja-yuvati, bhavera bhakati,
sakati ha-ita kara?

‘Who would have had the great expertise required to enter into the sweet forests of Vrindavan? Who would have shown the power of Vraja-gopis’ ecstatic devotion?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

Who has the power to speak about the devotion of the Vraja gopis? Vasu Gosh Thakur’s words in this song are very nice. The devotion of the Vraja gopis is extremely high. They do not know and do not even want to know any personal happiness. ‘Nija sukha bhuli’ sudina-hrdaya’: they consider themselves very poor, forgetting their own happiness.

[Clamour coming from the kitchen.] They are cooking and talking, and their spit is falling on what they are cooking. So, all Vaishnavs will now take their remnants. Very good… You must keep quiet when you are cooking. You can only chant ‘Krishna, Krishna’ quietly. The problem is that you cannot concentrate your mind on anything. As the saying goes, too many cooks spoil the broth (ati sannyasite gajan nasta; lit. ‘too many sannyasis spoil the festival’)…

(8/13) Rivet Yourself to Sadhu-Sanga

Devotee: Maharaj, we were singing this in ‘Nitai mora jivana dhana, Nitai mora jati’. What does this line mean?

ye dese nitai nai, se dese na yaba
nitai-vimukha janava mukha na heriba

‘I will never go to a place where Nitai has not been to. I will not look at the face of people who are averse to Nitai!’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

Yes, it is true. We will not go to the place where Nitai is not worshipped. It means that you must not associate with those who do not worship Nitai. At the same time, if you think like this and say, ‘I will not go to preach abroad – there is no Nitai there!’ this is not right. We go abroad to spread Nitai’s mercy. Gurudev is supremely merciful, he is Vaishnav Thakur – he comes to all the countries to rescue such fallen souls as us.

[His Divine Grace resumes kirtans, chanting, ‘Yasoda-nandana Krsna’ and the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, and then continues the class.]

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy and aspiring to serve him. Next, I am offering my full obeisance to all the assembled guru-varga, godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees and to all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet and praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Today is a very auspicious day. A day without Hari-katha is a bad day. It is not a cloudy day that is a bad day – a bad day is the day without any Hari-katha. We have got this opportunity to sing some kirtan, which we have just been doing now, and now we can speak some Bhagavad-katha (we can speak about the Lord). We start by offering our obeisances and prayers to Sri Guru and Vaishnavs. There is no other way for us except for praying to them – we can only pray, ‘Please, Prabhu, forgive my offences.’ I have been an offender for many lifetimes, and I pray that Gurudev and Vaishnavs may forgive me.

sakti-buddhi-hina ami ati dina,
kara more atma-satha

‘I have no strength, no intelligence, I am very poor. Please hijack me!’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Please hijack me – take me away from this illusory world – and throw me at the lotus feet of the Lord, so that I can spend this life serving my guru and Vaishnavs.’ This is the only prayer to the guru and Vaishnavs, this is our only desire. We are averse to Krishna souls – we have forgotten the Lord:

krsna bhuli’ sei jiva—anadi bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsara-duhkha

‘Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

Because we have forgotten the Lord, we are now suffering from the burning agony of the three-fold miseries. If you want to escape this world, the only way to do it is to take shelter at the holy lotus feet of the Lord. That is why we must serve pure devotees – we must surrender at the lotus feet of Sri Guru and Vaishnavs.

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Be humble, surrender yourself and always aspire for the association of pure devotees.

‘sadhu-sanga’ ‘sadhu-sanga’—sarva sastre kaya

lava-matra sadhu-sange sarva-siddhi haya

‘All scriptures keep saying: ‘Good association’, ‘Good association.’ You can attain all perfection even just by a drop of good, saintly association.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.54)

You can never get any result or any perfection without saintly association (sadhu-sanga). Good, saintly association is our only path, our only way.

(9/13) Genuine Benefit

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya,
sadhu-guru-krpa bina na dekhi upaya

‘It is impossible to conquer illusory environment and become released from it. I see no other way to get relief except by the mercy of saints and Sri Guru.’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Maya, the illusory environment, is very strong. We fell into the bondage of this illusory environment and forgot Krishna – we have forgotten our Supreme Father. We are all sons of nectar. You, I – all of us sitting here – are one family. Somebody may be from America, somebody may be from Bengal, somebody may be from Uluberia, somebody may be from Kolkata, somebody may be from this area, but this is not our true identity. We are all sons of nectar – we come from the Lord, and we must go back to the Lord.

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 Visnu Purana)

We have been born in water 900,000 times (as fish, crocodiles, sharks and other species); we have been born as trees, plants, mountains and other nonmoving entities 2,000,000 times; we have been born as worms, insects, spiders, and so on 1,100,000 times; we have been born as birds and flew in the sky 1,000,000 times; we have been born as various animals (cows, goats, sheep, cats, and so on) 3,000,000 times; and we have been born as humans 400,000 times, but:

bharata-bhumite haila manusya janma yara
janma sarthaka kari’ kara para-upakara

‘One who has taken birth as a human being in the land of India should take advantage of this birth by bringing benefit to others.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.9.41)

‘Benefit to others’ means distributing Krishna consciousness (the consciousness of Krishna) to the souls who forgot Krishna. This is why when Nimai took sannyas at the ashram of Keshav Bharati, His name became Sri Krishna Chaitanya. In the time of Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami, there were four more goswamis:

jaya rupa sanatana bhatta raghunatha
sri-jiva gopala-bhatta dasa raghunatha

‘All glory to Sri Rupa, Sanatan, Raghunath Bhatta, Sri Jiva, Gopal Bhatta and Raghunath Das!’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Today is Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami’s appearance day. He composed a book called Sat Kriya Sara Dipika (for the sraddha [funeral and last rites] ceremonies) and several important scriptures. He was a great scholar. He wrote how Vaishnavs must be worshipped. The appearance and disappearance days of Vaishnavs are non-different from each other. In this world, people either live or die, but for Vaishnavs, there is no difference between appearance and disappearance – their appearance (avirbhav) and disappearance (tirobhav) are one and the same. When a Vaishnav’s pastimes are completed in this world, we say it is tirobhav, and when a Vaishnav’s pastimes begin in this world, we say it is avirbhav, but both days are actually the same – we must worship Vaishnavs on both their appearance and disappearance days.

Since time immemorial we have been averse to the Lord Krishna, and as the result of forgetting the Lord, we are now burning in the agony of the three-fold miseries: adhibhautik, adhidaivik, adhyatmik (miseries caused by other souls, by the nature and by one’s own mind). There are three types of suffering in this world. You think you have no money and you suffer, but those who have money suffer even more! There is no happiness, there is no peace in this material world! We are only suffering from various miseries. If we surrender to the Lord, we will not like anything in this external world anymore, but the problem is that we are unfortunate:

durlabha manava janma labhiya samsare
krsna na bhajinu duhkha kahiba kahare?

‘I have got a very rare human life in this world, but I have not worshipped Lord Krishna. Whom will I tell about my misery?’

‘samsara’ ‘samsara’ kari’ michhe gela kala
labha na haila kichhu, ghatila janjala

‘Time has passed as I have been busy with my material life, and the result is nothing – only garbage.’

kisera samsara ei chhayabaji praya
ihate mamata kari vrtha dina yaya

‘What sort of world is this? It is only a trick, a show. While I affectionately take it as my own, days pass by in vain.’

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Pariksit Maharaj was very fortunate because he got a seven days’ notice – he was told that he would leave his body in seven days. Many sages, many great scholars came to him and started offering him various advice, but nothing touched him – the dirt in his heart did not go away by hearing all that. However, when Sukadev Goswami told him about the path of genuine benefit, Pariksit Maharaj listened to it in one go – he left everything behind and did not even think about his food, clothes, sleep or anything else. This is how Pariksit Maharaj listened to Srimad Bhagavatam from Sukadev Goswami during seven days. There was no book called Srimad Bhagavatam at that time – what Sukadev Goswami spoke at that meeting of Pariksit Maharaj was later written down and became known as Srimad Bhagavatam. Sukadev Goswami said that our real benefit is in following the path of exclusive devotion. This kind of devotion is described in Srimad Bhagavatam.

(10/13) Greatest Gift

Guru Maharaj gave a very beautiful lecture about the wealth from the abode of greatest happiness (Paramananda-maya Dhamer Dhan).

Narad Goswami, Vyasadev, Vyasadev’s father, Parasara, who is a great authority in scriptures, were present at the assembly of Pariksit Maharaj. All the assembled personalities were actually the highest authorities in their scriptural schools. Atri Rishi, Vasistha Rishi, Chyavan Rishi, Saradvan Rishi, Aristanemi, Bhrigu Rishi, Angira Rishi, Gabastinemi and many other great personalities were sitting at that assembly when Sukadev, a young boy of sixteen, walked in naked, without any sense in his eyes (he could not see anything in the material world). Pariksit Maharaj asked him, ‘Please, tell me what is good for me. I have only seven days to live, I must die any time within seven days from now, but I do not know what is good for my life. Everybody respects you, please advise me about the supreme goal of life. I am king, but I do not want all this happiness – please guide me, tell me how I can reach the highest attainment.’

In reply to this request, Sukadev gave Pariksit Maharaj guidance, which took him seven days to describe. What guidance was it? First, it is necessary to know what or who you are, why you are suffering, and how you can get relief. Those who have not seen themselves – those who do not know themselves – have thousands of questions. Those who know who they are do not have questions – their only question is how their soul can get benefit.

There is only one question. Those who have not seen themselves have thousands of questions in their minds, but those who can understand their true form as a soul have only one question: ‘How can I get from this mundane world to my real home as quickly as possible?’ There is a beautiful verse in Srimad Bhagavatam:

srimad-bhagavatam puranam amalam yad vaisnavanam priyam
yasmin paramahamsyam ekam amalam jnanam param giyate
tatra jnana-viraga-bhakti-sahitam naiskarmyam aviskrtam
tach chhrnvan su-pathan vicharana-paro bhaktya vimuchyen narah

‘Srimad Bhagavatam is the spotless Purana. It is most dear to Vaishnavs because it describes the pure and supreme knowledge of the paramahamsas. This Bhagavatam reveals the means for becoming free from all material work, along with the processes of transcendental knowledge, renunciation and devotion. Anyone who seriously tries to understand Srimad Bhagavatam, who properly hears and chants it with devotion, becomes completely liberated.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 12.13.18)

nigama-kalpa-taror galitam phalam
suka-mukhad amrta-drava-samyutam
pibata bhagavatam rasam alayam
muhur aho rasika bhuvi bhavukah

‘O expert and thoughtful men, relish Srimad Bhagavatam, the ripe fruit of the desire tree of Vedic literatures. This fruit has emanated from the lips of Sri Sukadev Goswami, so it has become even more tasteful, although its nectarean juice was already relishable for all, including liberated souls.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 1.1.3)

Nobody wrote this holy scripture of Srimad Bhagavatam with a pen. Srimad Bhagavatam is a narrative that came out of Sukadev Goswami’s holy mouth. The highest liberated souls reject heaven as something temporary and undesirable and desire to only always (eternally) serve the Lord.

‘O sons of nectar, sons of nectarean ocean! Please listen to this matter of subjective evolution, which is the transcendental devotion to the Divine Master and Lord Sri Krishna. It has come down from Goloka Dham to Narad Goswami, from Narad Goswami to me and has now appeared in this mundane world for you all through Sukadev Goswami. When it is Sukadev Goswami himself who is distributing it, it is becoming sweeter and sweeter. Take it, be happy, be joyful and get love for Krishna, the wealth of your transcendental life.’ This is how Vedavyas describes Srimad Bhagavatam.

At the end of Srimad Bhagavatam, on its last page, he described the identity of Srimad Bhagavatam in this way: ‘When liberated souls (who have no attachment to this mundane world) practise this, they will get supreme happiness, joy, ecstasy and attachment and service to Krishna. This is the actual fruit of practitioners’ life.’

srimad-bhagavatam puranam amalam yad vaisnavanam priyam
yasmin paramahamsyam ekam amalam jnanam param giyate
tatra jnana-viraga-bhakti-sahitam naiskarmyam aviskrtam
tach chhrnvan su-pathan vicharana-paro bhaktya vimuchyen narah

‘Srimad Bhagavatam is the spotless Purana. It is most dear to Vaishnavs because it describes the pure and supreme knowledge of the paramahamsas. This Bhagavatam reveals the means for becoming free from all material work, along with the processes of transcendental knowledge, renunciation and devotion. Anyone who seriously tries to understand Srimad Bhagavatam, who properly hears and chants it with devotion, becomes completely liberated.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 12.13.18)

‘After you hear it, read it and realise it, you will get supreme happiness of the transcendental world.’ This is the expression Vedavyas uses – ‘supreme happiness.’

This is how the knowledge of Srimad Bhagavatam has come down to this world, and this knowledge is the main goal of life for everybody, not only liberated souls:

atmaramas cha munayo
nirgrantha apy urukrame
kurvanty ahaitukam bhaktim
ittham-bhuta-guno harih

‘Although all atmaramas [those who take pleasure in atma, or the spirit self], especially those established on the path of self-realisation, are free from all kinds of material bondage, they desire to render unalloyed devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, which means that the Lord possesses such transcendental qualities that He attracts everyone, including liberated souls.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 1.7.10)

The Lord attracts even liberated souls! If you realise this, you will understand why it is necessary to study Bhagavatam.

I have written two very beautiful books, Upadesh Volume 3 and Volume 4. The entire gist of the conception presented in Bhagavatam is there. Read these books at home, study the scriptures.

The highest attainable wealth is Krishna – if you serve Him, you do not have to serve anyone else; if you see Him, you do not have to see anything else; if you hear about Him, you will not want to hear anything else. To distribute this Krishna-katha, Krishna personally comes in this Kali-yuga as Gauranga Mahaprabhu. There is no other religion except the gift of transcendental love, and there is no one else except Sri Gauranga who has ever given anything like this in this world!

sri-krsna-chaitanya-daya karaha vichara
vichara karile chitte pabe chamatkara

‘Just consider Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mercy! If you do, you will feel astonished in your heart.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.15)

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has given such a great gift to this world that if anyone accepts this gift, they will know no want – everything will become fulfilled for them.

(11/13) Enter the Land of Faith

[His Divine Grace chuckles] How much people talk! When the Lord takes your mouths away, what will you do then? People yak so much. You always ask, ‘How are you?’, ‘How are you keeping?’, but when you die one day, nobody will ask you about it anymore. These are all material talks, talks about this material world… I am a virakta-sannyasi: when I hear such talks, I become annoyed (virakta). Mahaprabhu was a virakta-sannyasi (a strict sannyasi who gets annoyed at anything that is related to the material world), and I am a virakta-sannyasi too: I do not like such talks. Mahaprabhu said: ‘Do not talk village talks, do not hear village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Worship Radha-Krishna in your heart.’

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour for yourself and give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

Criticising others, talking about other people, talking about material news – all this is not good.

parama karuna, pahu dui jana,
nitai gaurachandra
saba avatara-sara siromani,
kevala ananda kanda

‘Nitai and Gaurachandra are two most merciful Lords. They are the best, the crest-jewels of all incarnations of the Lord and the only source of joy.’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

‘Visaya-katha parihari, mukhe bala Gaura Hari – give up taking nonsense, give up material talks and only say “Gaura Hari!”’ You must leave material talks.

Srimad Bhagavad-gita says (15.6), ‘Yad gatva na nivartante, tad dhama paramam mama – if you come to My abode, you will not have to ever return from there; you will be very pleased to be there.’ Once you enter there, you will not have to come back, but the main question is how do you enter there? Guru Maharaj about the people of this world – he said that we dilute rice powder in water and drink it thinking it is milk. Do you think you can get the benefit of milk in this way? ‘Srnvantu visve amrtasya putra – you are all sons of nectar!’

Those who are not satisfied with this world become renounced and try to attain liberation. We have many things in this world, but there is no happiness, is there? We try to practise sadhu-sanga, but there is one very important matter. If you want to develop a proper mood in this good, saintly association, you have to enter the land of faith – when you practise something, you must have faith. Just as when students study something, they must have faith because if they have no faith in their teacher, they will not be able to learn anything. It is necessary to believe that ‘What my teacher is saying is correct.’ If you have doubts (‘Is it true or not?’), you will not be able to learn anything. Faith is the main thing for us.

(12/13) Unchaste Faith

Faith can be of different types. For example, there is faith in Christianity. What does Christianity say? ‘Sin the whole week, come to church once a week, and all your sins will be removed.’ Those who do like that turn God into their menial servant. Hindus who worship various gods also do this. What do they say? ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi: make me rich, make me clever, make me beautiful, give me a good wife.’ ‘I want wealth’, ‘I want knowledge’, ‘I want beauty’, ‘I want money’, ‘I want my son to have a good job’, ‘I want my daughter to have good in-laws’ – people come to the Lord with all these requests and turn Him into their menial servant. ‘God, give me all this’, ‘God, give me that’ – devotees of Lord Krishna never want anything. They know that it is not necessary to want anything. This is called jnana-sunya bhakti (devotion that is free from any pursuit of knowledge).

On the one hand, Krishna says: ‘People come to worship Me, desiring material happiness (to settle their children’s marriage, to get a house, to get a car, to get money, to get a job, and so on), but I am not a fool – why will I give them material things? I will give them My feet instead and make them forget about all material things.’ On the other hand, it is also said that the Lord does not give Himself so easily – He gives material things instead:

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya
kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

‘If a devotee aspires for enjoyment or liberation, Krishna hides the knowledge about pure devotion and dismisses them, giving them enjoyment or liberation.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.18)

If you come and ask Krishna for something all the time, He will say, ‘All right. Here, take it!’ – He will give you cars, houses, money (whatever you want) and gradually remove, or hide, devotion from you.

You know, one time, a disciple of Srila Sridhar Maharaj sent him a letter with a large sum of money for the Math, saying that he was running a restaurant beside a slaughterhouse (the restaurant served beef). Srila Sridhar Maharaj said, ‘It is very difficult to digest his money.’ Can you imagine that? A restaurant beside a slaughterhouse! What did that person learn from his guru? Does your guru ever tell you to have anything to do with cow’s meat? This is how people think that they can sin and then just chant the Holy Name in the evening (or go to church once a week), and all sins will go away…

What do the scriptures say?

chari varnasrami yadi krsna nahi bhaje

svakarma karileo se raurave padi maje

‘Whatever varna (a priest, fighter, manager or worker) or ashram (a celibate, householder, renouncer of the household life or monk) you belong to, if you do not worship Krishna but engage in your prescribed duties, you will have to fall into a terrible hell.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.26)

People have no chastity. I have seen some sannyasis from Rama Krishna Mission – they worship Durga, Kali, Dhatri, Annapurna, Bharat Mata and a host of other gods. They chant the Holy Name and say ‘Bharat Mata ki jay!’ [Bharat Mata is a deified personification of India; lit. ‘Mother India’] They have no chastity. This earth will be demolished one day – He who was, is and will be is the Supreme Lord:

isvarah paramah krsnah sach-chid-ananda-vigrahah
anadir adir govindah sarva-karana-karanam

‘Krishna, who is known as Govinda, is the supreme controller. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no origin, for He is the prime cause of all causes.’

(Sri Brahma-samhita, 5.1)

You make the Supreme Lord your menial servant and turn Him into a bribe-taker. Sometimes, people bribe some officials to get a job, but the person who gives a bribe and the person who takes the bribe are both criminals. What do people do? They come to worship Durga Devi with some fruit or rice and say, ‘Here, Devi, take this! Please send me money in return.’ They turn Durga Devi into a bribe-taker. Remember this. Instead of serving the Lord, we turn the Lord into our menial servant. ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, yasam dehi: make me rich, make me clever, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me famous’ – people like to ask all this, but what did Mahaprabhu say?

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

‘I do not want any wealth, I do not want any followers, I do not want a beautiful wife. I only want to have causeless devotion to Your lotus feet, birth after birth.’

prabhu tava pada-yuge mora nivedana
nahi magi deha-sukha vidya dhana jana
nahi magi svarga ara moksa nahi magi
na kari prarthana kona vibhutira lagi

‘O Lord, I am submitting my appeal at Your holy lotus feet. I do not wish for any bodily happiness, knowledge, wealth, friends or followers. I do not wish to attain heaven or liberation, neither do I pray for any supernatural powers.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This is Mahaprabhu’s conception. It is necessary to study His Siksastakam. ‘I want to have causeless devotion to You, O Lord, birth after birth. Even if I am born as an insect, may I be Your devotee. I do not want to become Brahma, I do not want to be the king of heaven, Indra. I do not mind being some insect, bug or a dog, as long as I am a dog at Your devotee’s house.’ Remember this.

‘Bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi’ means we only want causeless devotion to the Lord – we do not want any knowledge, wealth or followers.

(13/13) A Test of Faith

People pray to Saraswati:

om sarasvati mahabhage vidye kamalalochane
visvarupe visalaksi vidyam dehi namostute

‘O great Goddess Saraswati, the personified knowledge possessing large lotus eyes! I offer obeisance to you, please give me knowledge.’

They pray to Saraswati, ‘Give me knowledge.’ They pray to Laksmi, ‘Give me money.’ What for? People do charity work, saying, ‘We serve “poor” Narayan.’ Can Narayan ever be poor? Narayan can never be poor, neither can a poor man ever be Narayan – it is offensive both ways. This is jihva-lalasa, the greed of the tongue. People say, ‘Jiva-seva-i Siva-seva. Serving to people is service to Siva.’ They make up all kinds of bogus sayings.

Devotee: They also say ‘Jive prema kare yei jana sei jana sevichhe isvara – serve God by loving others.’ They call this love for the souls!

Yes, there is also a popular saying, ‘The man is above all, there is nothing above him (sabara upare manusa satya, tahara upare nai),’ but we will say, ‘The Lord is above all, there is nothing above Him.’

‘Serve God by loving others (jive prema kare yei jana sei jana sevichhe isvara)’ – what does ‘loving others’ mean? It means showing compassion for others – love God by showing compassion to others. Krishna serves those who are compassionate to others. The Lord says, ‘If you look after My devotees, I will look after you, you do not need to worry about yourself, but if you are self-sufficient and take care of yourself, then I will not look after you.’ You think that you are your own protector, but what did Draupadi get by thinking like this? When she was being disrobed, she was holding her clothes with one hand and calling the Lord with other hand, but the clothes were still being taken off – only when she realised that she could not do anything, she started calling the Lord with both hands upraised, and then she saw that her clothes were extended (Krishna Himself appeared within her sari). When Radharani went to bring water in a pot with a hundred holes, She went to the river chanting Krishna’s Name, and Krishna closed the holes in the pot with His one hundred fingers. Could anyone see it? Only those who had eyes could see it.

It is necessary to leave everything to Krishna. This is what faith is, that is what surrender is. You say, ‘Who can bring it?’, ‘How will I bring it?’ But you do not do anything! Many say, ‘Oh, gurudev has given me this service, but how will I be able to do it?’ You do not do anything – gurudev does everything! He will do it through you. Gurudev has given you some service, and it is for gurudev to understand whether you have the qualification to do it or not – gurudev can understand whether you can or cannot do it. That is called faith. Faith is the main thing.

There are many kinds of faith – kamala-sraddha (soft, fragile faith), taranga-sraddha (flickering faith), drdha-sraddha (strong faith), sudrdha-sraddha (the strongest faith). For example, you can see that many do not put tilaks, do not wear neck beads because they are shy – this a symptom of weak faith.

You say, ‘I cannot do it,’ but gurudev thinks you are fit to do it and tells you to do it, then you must do the service, you must try your best, and gurudev will do everything. On the other hand, you must not get proud, ‘Oh, if I do not do it, then this service will not be done.’ Gurudev serves with ten bodies.p, so even if you do not do some service, it will still be done. Baladev serves Krishna with ten bodies, and Baladev is gurudev. Service will never be disrupted – if you do not do it, it will still be done through somebody else by hook or by crook.

Anyhow, much has been said today.

[Concluding the programme, His Divine Grace chants ‘E-ghora samsare’, ‘Ke yabi ke yabi re bhai’ and the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, followed by the evening Gaura Arati and recital of Jaya Dhvani.]

* * *

￼Line Line31 January 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sevak Bhavan, Kolkata

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/7) ‘I Want to Surrender’

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev Subhadra Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Sri Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Tadiya sakha math-samuha ki jay.
Sri Mather sevak vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Ananta-koti Vaishnav vrinda ki jay.
Sri Gaudiya Acharya vrinda ki jay.
Tridandi-pad-gan ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Nityananda Prabhu ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Mahaprabhu ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar, Giriraj Govardhan ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Everything is going on well by the mercy of Gurudev. We are all meeting today this morning, it is a very nice day, and I would like to sing a little bit now. Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay. Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur writes, ‘Gurudev, you have been so merciful to me – you have given me a place in Godrumdwip.’ I have also left Koladwip, and I am now staying in Nrisingha Palli, Godrumdwip…

gurudeva!
bada krpa kari’, gauda-vana-majhe,
godrume diyachha sthana
ajna dila more, ei vraje vasi’,
harinama kara gana

‘Gurudev! Bestowing great mercy on me, you have given me a place in Sri Godrumdwip amidst the forests of Gauda. You ordered me: “Reside in this abode that is non-different from Vraja and chant the Lord’s Name.”’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘You have ordered me to stay in this Vraja-dham (Nabadwip is non-different from Sri Vraja-dham, Vrindavan) and chant the Holy Name.’

kintu kabe prabho, yogyata arpibe,
e dasere daya kari’
chitta sthira habe, sakala sahiba,
ekante bhajiba hari

‘But when, O Master, will you mercifully grant this servant the qualification to do this? Then my heart will become steadfast, I will tolerate everything, and I will serve the Lord exclusively.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

But I ask gurudev, ‘Gurudev, when will you give me the qualification to chant the Holy Name? When will you give me your mercy so that I can chant the Holy Name?’ It is not possible to chant the Holy Name without the qualification of being humble, tolerant and giving honour to others. It is necessary to have this qualification. When will gurudev give this qualification to me? When will my mind become steady? My mind is always fickle, I cannot concentrate it. When will I be able to give my full attention, my everything to chanting of the Holy Name? My mind is always fickle, and I cannot tolerate anything. When I learn to tolerate everything, my mind will become quiet and I will be able to chant the Holy Name…

saisava-yauvane, jada-sukha-sange,
abhyasa haila manda
nija-karma-dose, e deha haila,
bhajanera pratibandha

‘I enjoyed in my childhood and youth, and as the result, I have developed bad habits. Because of my previous actions, this body has now become an obstacle to practising spiritual life.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

In my young age, in my childhood, I acquired so many bad habits. When some material happiness comes, we enjoy it, and this is how we develop very bad habits. It is all my fault! It is my fault that I have got this body! I enjoyed material happiness and developed bad qualities at an early age, and now this body has become an obstacle to worshipping the Lord, chanting the Holy Name and practising spiritual life…

vardhakye ekhana, pancha-roge hata,
kemane bhajiba bala’
kandiya kandiya, tomara charane,
padiyachhi suvihvala

‘I am now old and afflicted by five-fold material diseases. Tell me, how shall I serve? Crying incessantly, I have fallen at your feet, utterly bewildered.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Now I have become old, and I am suffering from five diseases (pancha-roga). These are not material diseases, these are spiritual diseases. There are many material diseases in this world, such as cancer, stomach problems, and so on, but there are five spiritual diseases – avidya (ignorance), asmita (false identification), raga (misdirected love), dvesa (aversion to anything that is against my enjoyment) and abhinivesa (being unable to give up unfavourable habits). (1) Avidya means ignorance. We think that we are this body, and we do not know that we are a jiva soul. (2) Asmita means too much attachment to the material body, to the family life, to your wife, husband, father, mother and other material objects. (3) Raga means too much attachment to that which is favourable to the body. For example, you think, ‘Oh, I need so many things for the body!’ (4) Dvesa-buddhi means you do not like to always accept that which is favourable to devotion. (5) Instead, we are always attached to that which is favourable to the body (abhinives). These are the five diseases that we are always attacked by.

Now I am crying, ‘Prabhu! I am falling down at your lotus feet! I want to surrender to you because without you I have no other way, you are my only hope! Only you can rescue me from this situation!’ We always pray to gurudev like this. Jay.

(2/7) Our Plight and Plea

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya
kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya be merciful to me? When will I come in the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

gala-vastra krtanjali vaisnava-nikate

dante trna kari’ dandaiba niskapate

‘I will stand before a Vaishnav sincerely, with a cloth around my neck and joined palms, holding a straw between my teeth.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We have a chaitya-guru in our heart, and we constantly pray to him, ‘When will Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu give some mercy to me? When will I get the shelter of the guru and Vaishnavs?’ It is not possible to reach the Lord (our real home) without the guru and Vaishnavs.

‘Kabe ami chhadiba e visaya-abhimana? When will I leave this material ego?’ Everyone has some ego (abhiman), even I also have ego. Those who have much wealth and property have ego; those who are very beautiful have ego; those who are very educated have ego. There are so many kinds of ego in this world, and actually we must have ego, but what ego should we have? Our ego should be ‘I am an eternal servant of the Lord! I am an eternal servant of my guru and Vaishnavs!’ It is necessary to have this kind of ego. If somebody thinks, ‘I am a guru!’, ‘I am an acharya!’ that is also ego. Srila Narottam Das Thakur says, ‘Sisya thakiba sarvada. I will always remain a disciple.’ We always want to be a disciple, not a guru.

‘Kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana?’ When will I give respect to all Vaishnavs? When will I stand in front of Vaishnavs with much humility (‘gala-vastra krtanjali’), taking grass into my mouth like a cow (‘dante trna kari’’) and without any deceit (niskapate)?…

kandiya kandiya janaiba duhkha-grama
samsara-anala haite magiba visrama

‘Weeping, I will tell about my miserable life and pray for respite from the fire of material existence.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We always want to get respite from family life (from samsara anala, the wild fire of material life). Sometimes, those who do some government service say, ‘Oh, Maharaj, I will join Krishna consciousness after I retire.’ The truth is that when they finally retire, they end up more and more involved with their family life. Yet, we cry for some respite. What is our sadness? We do not know anything, we cannot worship Lord Krishna properly, we cannot worship our guru properly, we cannot practise properly, we cannot chant on our beads properly, we cannot chant our gayatri three times a day properly – that is our sadness, and this is true sadness. People become sad, worrying, ‘Oh, I cannot eat properly’, ‘I cannot sleep properly’, ‘Oh, I have this problem’, ‘Oh, I have that problem’, ‘This happened’, ‘That happened’ – we always grumble and worry about such things. Yet, our real problem, our real sadness is that we cannot get respite from the fire of material existence. That is why we pray to Vaishnavs. If you approach the Lord directly, the Lord will not listen to what you are saying – the Lord will not accept your prayer. However, if you submit your appeal, or application, to Vaishnavs, if you tell them what you need, then your application will be accepted. Vaishnav Thakur is very merciful – he will pray to the Lord for you.

suniya amara duhkha vaisnava thakura
ama’ lagi’ krsne avedibena prachura

‘Hearing about my sorrow, the worshippable Vaishnav Thakur will ardently pray to Krishna on my behalf.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If Vaishnav Thakur accepts my application, he will pray to the Lord for me, and hearing a request of a Vaishnav, Krishna, who is very kind, will listen to their prayer. Krishna says in Srimad Bhagavad-gita that He knows only His devotees, and His devotees also know only Lord Krishna. ‘Devotees’ means Vaishnav Thakur. So, if Vaishnav Thakur gives us his mercy, the Lord will grant our application.

vaisnavera avedane krsna dayamaya
e hena pamara prati habena sadaya

‘Lord Krishna is merciful – hearing the Vaishnav’s appeal, He will take pity on this wretched sinner.’

vinodera nivedana vaisnava-charane
krpa kari’ sange laha ei akinchane

‘Bhaktivinod prays at the holy feet of Vaishnavs: “Please take this destitute soul with you.”’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(3/7) Wealth of Nanda Maharaj’s Yard

It is very nice to sing kirtan in the morning. You must worship the Lord through sankirtana-yajna. Practise singing devotional songs, it is good for you. Try to understand it. Always remember the Lord and His devotees. Sing five songs in the morning, five songs in the evening – practise in this way, and it will be very good for you, it will give you much energy for service. You must understand this. Practice gives energy. For example, we sing every morning:

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’

svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari

‘To bestow His mercy to jiva souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode.’

atyanta durlabha prema karibare dana
sikhaya saranagati bhakatera prana

‘To distribute the rarest form of divine love, He teaches surrender, which is the life and soul of devotees.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

That love and ecstasy, that paramour love that even Lord Brahma and Lord Siva always aspire for but cannot get – that very love and paramour love are found in the yard of Nanda Maharaj, in the yard of Sachi Mata and Jagannath Misra; and the Lord comes personally to distribute that kind of Krishna-prema. It is very rarely attainable, it is not so easy to get it, but Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu distributes this Krishna-prema to everybody, going door to door. He comes and teaches us saranagati – He teaches us what surrendered mood is:

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to have the strongest faith. ‘Sraddha-anusari bhakti-adhikari – the quality, or degree, of your devotion depends on your faith.’ If you have much faith, then your devotion is high, and if you have no faith, then you have no devotion. Somebody may be a very young or junior devotee, but if they have a very strong faith, then they have more devotion than even those who may be externally senior to them by age or position.

There are three main types of devotion (bhakti) – karma-misra bhakti, jnana-misra bhakti and jnana-sunya bhakti (devotion mixed with material pursuits, devotion mixed with intellectual pursuits and devotion free from intellectual pursuits). Accordingly, there are also three kinds of devotees – kanistha-adhikari (those who have little faith), madhyam-adhikari (those who have more faith) and uttam-adhikari (those who have the greatest faith). So, one’s devotion does not depend on seniority or juniority.

Somebody may be senior – somebody may have got initiation fifty-sixty years ago – but if they do not practise properly, if they do not have a proper faith, then they actually have no proper devotion, and one day they will lose their faith and devotion. Srila Gurudev always tells about it.

Here in India, people sometimes like to boast, ‘Oh, my father lived 120 years!’, ‘Oh, my father lived 130 years!’ but what for were they alive for 120 or 130 years?! You can live just ten years, and that can be sufficient – if you chant the Holy Name for just ten years, then even ten years is sufficient. However, if somebody lives 120 years, but their life is like hell, then what is the benefit of this life? What is the use getting this human body then? It is useless! You may live only ten years – you can be even a small girl or a small boy – but if you chant the Holy Name, if you worship the Lord, if you practise Krishna consciousness, it is good. If you live for ninety or a hundred years but do not practise, then what is the benefit living in this world for a hundred years? There is no value. It is very easy to understand this.

‘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)

Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita also says:

chari varnasrami yadi krsna nahi bhaje

svakarma karileo se raurave padi maje

‘Whatever varna (a priest, fighter, manager or worker) or ashram (a celibate, householder, renouncer of the household life or monk) you belong to, if you do not worship Krishna but engage in your prescribed duties, you will have to fall into a terrible hell.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.26)

It does not matter to which formal order of life you belong to – you can be a brahmachari, a grihastha, a vanaprastha or even a sannyasi (there are many mayavadi-sannyasis in this world) – if you do not worship the Lord, then you are simply paving your way to hell! This is said very strictly in the scriptures.

chari varnasrami yadi krsna nahi bhaje

svakarma karileo se raurave padi maje

‘Whatever varna (a priest, fighter, manager or worker) or ashram (a celibate, householder, renouncer of the household life or monk) you belong to, if you do not worship Krishna but engage in your prescribed duties, you will have to fall into a terrible hell.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.26)

Raurav means one kind of hell. There are many types of hell. I have written about it in the third volume of Guidance (Sri Upadesh).

(4/7) Pure Sambandha

Devotional life does not depend on whether one is senior or junior.

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Somebody thinks, ‘Oh, he is junior, and I am senior’, ‘I am Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s disciple!’, ‘I am Srila Prabhupad’s disciple!’, ‘Why will I pay obeisance to him?’ Such people do not know the relationship (sambandha). What is the relationship? Even a father will pay a full obeisance (dandavat) and give respect to his son because he will see that his son has the qualities that he himself does not have. A father should respect his son. This is sambandha. Sambandha means, ‘I give you full respect – you are my master, and I am your servant.’ It is very important to understand this, but the problem is that we always forget it.

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I pay obeisances to junior devotees, then my ego will be removed; otherwise, my ego will not go. That is why, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said: ‘Nobody is my disciple – everybody is my guru, and I am their servant.’ It is necessary to understand this, otherwise your ego will not go away. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur also says that when you see each other first thing in the morning, you must pay dandavat to each other, you must greet each other, ‘Dandavat, Prabhu.’ In this way, ‘Bhajite bhajite abhimana hau dura. By worshipping you, my ego will go away.’ This is a nice song, a very beautiful prayer to Vaishnav Thakur. I always sing it.

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to establish yourself in the proper relationship. What is sambandha? We know the relationship that ‘I am Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s disciple’ – or ‘I am Prabhupad Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj’s disciple’ – ‘and you are a disciple of Srila Govinda Maharaj, so you are junior!’ This is the relation that we know, but this is not the actual sambandha. The true sambandha is, ‘You are my master, and I am your servant.’ When we realise this sambandha, then our ego will go away, but the problem is that we hold onto our ego – we think, ‘I am Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s disciple, you are Srila Govinda Maharaj’s disciple’ or ‘You are Srila Acharya Maharaj’s disciple’, ’You are Srila Ashram Maharaj’s disciple’, and so on. We discriminate and make such divisions. We cannot see, ‘He is my master, and I am his servant’ because we do not have this kind of eyes – our eyes are full of material dust, full of ego, full of all kinds of illusion and illusory dust. We think we are Vaishnavs.

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I think that I have become a Vaishnav, then I will not be able to respect others.

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Then, pratistha will come to me, and I will go to hell.

tomara kinkara, apane janiba,
‘guru’-abhimana tyaji’

‘I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must renounce and reject all guru-abhiman, acharya-abhiman (ego of a guru, ego of an acharya) – you must only know, ‘I am your servant!’

tomara uchchhista, pada-jala-renu,
sada niskapate bhaji

‘I will always earnestly worship the remnants of Your food, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We cannot take others’ remnants, it is very difficult for us, but Kalidas did that! There is a washing place in front of Jagannath Temple where all devotees, including Mahaprabhu Himself, would wash their feet before entering the temple. One day, when Mahaprabhu went to Jagannath Temple and was washing His feet at the entrance, Kalidas suddenly came there and touched Mahaprabhu’s feet, trying to wash them. Everybody jumped at him, ‘No, no, no! Do not touch Mahaprabhu’s feet!’ but Mahaprabhu said, ‘Do not stop him.’ Mahaprabhu knew the story of Kalidas and Jhadu Thakur – He knew that Kalidas was a perfect Vaishnav because he had taken everybody’s remnants at Vaishnav festivals. Kalidas would never sit with everyone in one line to take prasad; instead, he hid in some place and after everyone had finished taking prasad, he went to the place where they threw their plates and took everybody’s remnants. This is Kalidas’s example.

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada,
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest”, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If we start distributing our food remnants and other things, then so much ego will come to us. Sometimes, people become gurus and say, ‘Oh, you must worship me every day!’, ‘You must do an arati for me every morning and evening!’, ‘You must give me a garland every day!’ Why is all this necessary? We must not take puja (worship) from others.

amani manada, haile kirtane,
adhikara dibe tumi
tomara charane, niskapate ami,
kandiya lutiba bhumi

‘When I become free from the desire for honour and learn to give honour to others, you will give me the right to chant Your kirtan. Rolling on the ground, I will earnestly cry at Your holy feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When we become humble and tolerant, then Vaishnav Thakur will give us the right to chant the Holy Name. Do you understand what is said here? This is a very nice song. If you sing such songs every day, you will understand perfect things. All right?

(5/7) Blessing In Disguise

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 some 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 to 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 some 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. Yet, Krishna brought me back to life, and I understand why He did that – 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 have a 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 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 life without him. They have to go through this austerity, and they must tolerate it. You can say this is a test. Austerity will always come:

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Krishna will give us so much austerity, but ‘sukhe duhkhe bhule 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 had 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 and you had no connection with each other. So, there is no need to show too much attachment for each other. You must try to understand all this.

(6/7) Unconditional Life

Question: Is it proper to make an offering with some prayer if I do not have an altar in my 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 at the altar is part of devotional practice. You must have an altar in your house, I tell it to everyone all the time. Find some place in your house and make 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.

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’ (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 you can make the same offence day after day, and, as gurudev is merciful, he will forgive all offences, 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 (ghuskhora) – 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, although 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 – 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 – I will just chant some Holy Name in the evening, and all my sins will be removed!’ This is called ‘Nama bale papachara – to sin and chant.’

(7/7) Jewel of Sincerity

…I have heard that two boys and two girls have run away from the temple [in the West]. They left because they say that they are searching for Sri Krishna, but in lieu of that, they are searching for boyfriends or girlfriends. These are very hard words for me to say. They think, ‘If you join Krishna consciousness, you will get a beautiful wife or a beautiful husband.’ If you want a wife, go outside and take some girl from outside, why do you do this at the temple? Marry some non-devotee and turn them into a devotee: in this way, one more person will come to Krishna consciousness, which is good. Do you understand what I am saying?

Recently, two young Bengali girls have come to Nrisingha Palli. They are staying at the temple now. One of them was married for six months, and the other one was going to get married, but she refused. She told me, ‘I know what family life is, I do not want to go to hell. I am fine as I am, I do not want to get married. Save me, gurudev.’ I said, ‘Yes, I can save you – if you do not want to get married, then come and join full-time, you can stay at the temple.’ She received initiation many years ago, and now her parents wanted to arrange her marriage. I told her that she was twenty-five years old, so it was ultimately her decision. I was ready to help them arrange her marriage – I had given initiation to one family and already agreed with them about the marriage, but then she refused. She came to me and cried, ‘Gurudev, please save me! Why are you throwing me into family life? I have come to you to beg you to save me, but you are throwing me into family life…’ What can I do? I stopped her marriage, and now she is doing the best service – she is cooking at the temple very nicely. Both girls are living now at the temple. I have told them: if any brahmachari or sannyasi disturbs them, if they say anything untoward to them, I will not hesitate to change their clothes (to take their brahmacharya or sannyas away). Srila Prabhupad did not hesitate to do so, neither will I. Gurudev told me that Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur once took back one devotee’s sannyas. Guru can give one the sannyasi or brahmachari clothes, and guru has the power to take them back also.

…I feel very sad because foreign devotees are apparently unable to come for Gaura Purnima this year… The Indian government stopped giving visas, and this law is extended until the end of February now. I do not know if they will extend it again after that or not, but they have not been giving visas to anyone this whole month. It looks like we will have to make the parikrama without foreign devotees this year. Srila Ashram Maharaj comes for this parikrama every year, and we will mainly miss him this year. Anyhow, try to come, even if it is at the last moment – if Krishna gives the visa, you can quickly buy the ticket and come. This year, we are doing the parikrama during five days because we are going to visit Rudradwip…

…Please forgive my offence. I have told you too many strong words today, but I am telling you this for your benefit – what I have said is very good for your spiritual life. I practised proper brahmachari life, and I am telling you about my experience. It is very necessary to hear this. Follow this properly in your life, and it will be very good.

I remember that Mahalaksmi Didi used to worry about Doyal Nitai because he was naughty at the beginning, but now he is a very quiet boy – he does not say or ask anything. He has grown to be a very good boy. When I visited Rajeswari Didi’s house, Doyal Nitai came there at that time, and I saw that he was very naughty, but now he is a very quiet, a very gentle boy. I told his mother at that time that she should not worry. He is not only a good mridanga player – he has sincerity. When we did Govardhan parikrama, he walked several kilometres, and even though he was exhausted and nearly crying, he did not stop – he kept walking. I saw it and took him into my car with the mridanga…

All right, I am finishing for today. Thank you very much, I was very happy to see you all.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line3 February 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Evening Class

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/9) Have You Forgotten?

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my godbrothers and godsisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

We have spent here, at Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Nrisingha Palli, two–three days in a very good way. ‘Vaisnava sangete mana anandita anuksana – my mind is always joyful in the association of Vaishnavs.’ We must always stay in the association of Vaishnavs, in the association of sadhus and within Krishna-kirtan. We must engage our heart, our mind and entire being in service. It is necessary to serve the Lord, the guru and Vaishnavs with all your heart. This is the main thing. How many people can serve their guru, can serve their Lord in this way? What we do is mostly karma instead of service. You should not do that which does not please your guru (which your guru does not like).

Service and karma look the same. When a cat is carrying a mouse in its mouth, and when a cat is carrying its kitten in its mouth, both actions look the same, but one is karma (done for one’s own pleasure), and the other one is service (done for others’ benefit and pleasure). If you do service, you will get not only devotion (Krishna-bhakti): you will actually get transcendental love for the Lord (Krishna-prema).

‘Bhaktis tu bhagavad-bhakta-sangena parijayate – you can get devotion through the association of devotees’ (Brihan-naradiya Purana). It is necessary to always associate with devotees.

I always sing one very beautiful kirtan:

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to know what sambandha (relationship) is. Unless you know the relationship, your ego will not go away. What does sambandha mean? We look at each other, and we know that we are human beings, but it is said in the scriptures that every jiva soul is an eternal servant of Lord Krishna. Therefore, I am an eternal servant of Krishna, and everyone is my master. This is how we must see ourselves. Everybody is my master, and I am a servant. It is necessary to think in this way. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur also said to his disciples, ‘Daso ‘smi – I am your servant.’

‘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 we are eternal servants of Krishna…

(2/9) Morning Shows the Day

We are very fortunate to be here, in Sri Nabadwip Dham, in Godrumdwip. This is a very beautiful place – Devapalli. All 330,000,000 demigods always stay here. Lord Nrisinghadev appeared in South India, but He came here and took some rest after slaying Hiranyakasipu.

Even gopis say, ‘Prahlad Maharaj has so much devotion – we do not have that kind of devotion, we have not got there.’ Prahlad Maharaj is a very great devotee of shanta-rasa. He tolerated so much torture from his demoniac father, Hiranyakasipu, starting from being fed snake poison when he was five years old… He had to undergo so many tortures: he was thrown into fire, he was thrown into water, he was tied to an elephant’s leg, and so on. Prahlad Maharaj tolerated everything silently – he only remembered the Lord.

We must always remember the Lord.

adau sraddha tatah sadhu-sango ‘tha bhajana-kriya

tato ‘nartha-nivrttih syat tato nistha ruchis tatah

athasaktis tato bhavas tatah premabhyudanchati

sadhakanam ayam premnah pradurbhave bhavet kramah

‘First, there is faith; then, saintly association and practising life. After that, unwanted habits gradually go away, spiritual life becomes stable, and spiritual taste comes. Then comes attachment, feeling and, finally, transcendental love. This is how love for the Lord comes to those who practise Krishna consciousness.’

(Sri Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, 1.4.15–16)

This is how attachment to service must gradually come in this way. The feeling must come to you, ‘If I do not do service, I do not feel well.’ Such attachment must come. When will it come? When the diseases that we have inside us go away, then transcendental attachment will come. What are these diseases? We were just singing in the kirtan: pancha-roga hata, we are ruined by five diseases. The five disease are avidya, asmita, raga, dvesa, abhinivesa. Avidya means ignorance, identifying yourself with this gross material body. When you think that you are this body that is made of five material elements (pancha-bhautik: earth, water, fire, air and ether), that is called ignorance. Basically, avidya means attachment to the material world. It is a disease, and until and unless this disease is removed, we will not become detached. First, it is necessary to have nistha, sincerity – ‘I will do this service, and I will do it every day.’ I will wake up early in the morning, come to the mangal-arati, chant kirtan. I will start each day well from the very morning. I remember a poem that we learnt in childhood:

sakale uthiya ami mane mane bali
sara dina ami yena bhalo haye chali

‘When I wake up in the morning, I tell myself that I must behave well all day…’

(From a children’s poem about good behaviour)

Although this is written in common, material literature, our life is also like that. When we wake up, we stand before the Lord, we think about the Lord. We must always think about the Lord, we must always do service, always take the Name of the Lord. This is what I do. We sing:

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I think that I have become a Vaishnav, I will not be able to give honour to others. This is a very beautiful kirtan. If you try to explain it gradually, line by line, you will see how beautiful it is. It is necessary to sing kirtans nicely, in the proper mood and attentively.

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara
sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

‘May I have the same love and attraction to Your holy feet that I now have for material things.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must use everything for the Lord. Every single thing must be used for the Lord’s service. This is how you can very beautifully take part in the service of the Lord.

(3/9) Genuine Surrender

First, it is necessary to become surrendered. We sing in the kirtan:

sad-anga saranagati haibe yanhara
tanhara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

‘Lord Krishna hears the prayers of those who surrender in six ways.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Among the six limbs of surrender, first is humility (always be very, very humble; even when you ask questions, you must be humble).

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

trnadhika hina dina akinchana chhara
apane manabi sada chhadi’ ahankara

‘Give up ego and always consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and wretched.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must be lower than a blade of grass, and we must leave all ego.

vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana
pratihimsa tyaji’ anye karabi palana

‘Practise forgiveness like that of a tree; do not be vindictive, nurture others.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Somebody can be envious of me, somebody can ill-treat me, but I will not do that towards anyone.

jivana-nirvahe ane udvega na dibe
para-upakare nija-sukha pasaribe

‘Live without causing anxiety to others; do good unto others, forsaking your own happiness.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I will not give any austerity, any pain to other jiva souls for my own benefit. We must throw away our happiness for the happiness of others. Do not think about your own happiness – whichever way the Lord keeps you, you must accept it and respect that. ‘In whichever way the Lord keeps me, I must practise Krishna consciousness (worship the Lord) in any situation.’ We are our own friends, and we are our own enemies. Our enemies are not outside – we have six enemies within us: kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy). We have six urges: vakya-veg, mana-veg, krodha-veg, jihva-veg, udar-vega, upastha-veg (the urges of speech, mind, anger, tongue, stomach, genitals). We sing in the kirtan:

thakura vaisnava-gana, kari ei nivedana,
mo bada adhama durachara

‘O worshippable Vaishnav Thakur, I offer this prayer to you. I am very fallen and wicked.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

kama-krodha-adi chhaya, batapare deya bhaya,
avasana haila asi’ bela

‘I am attacked by the six highway robbers (lust, anger, etc.), and my life is coming to an end.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

These six enemies (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy) pull us in different directions and remove us from spiritual life. They always work for Maya Devi. Receiving her power from the Lord, Maya Devi uses it to remove us from the service of the Lord and keep us submerged in the ocean of material life. That is why we wake up in the morning and sing Gurvastakam that was composed by Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur:

samsara-davanala-lidha-loka
tranaya karunya-ghanaghanatvam
praptasya kalyana-gunarnavasya
vande guroh sri-charanaravindam

‘I offer my obeisance unto the lotus feet of Sri Guru, who is an ocean of good qualities and auspiciousness and who, as a thick rain cloud of mercy, brings relief to this world devoured by the forest fire of material existence.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

Because we always live amidst blazing fire, we always chant kirtan and pray to Vaishnavs.

emana durmati, samsara bhitare,
padiya achhinu ami
tava nija-jana, kona mahajane,
pathaiya dile tumi

‘I have fallen into this wicked material world, but You have sent a great soul, Your associate, to me.’

(ek bar) daya kari’, more patita dekhiya,
kahila amare giya
ohe dina-jana, suna bhala katha,
ullasita ha’be hiya

‘Seeing me so fallen, he took pity on me and came to me, saying: Poor soul, listen to this good news, it will make your heart rejoice.’

tomare tarite, sri-krsna-chaitanya,
navadvipe avatara
toma hena kata, dina-hina jane,
karilena bhava-para

‘Sri Krishna Chaitanya has appeared in Nabadwip to deliver you! He has already taken many poor souls like you to the shore of the ocean of material existence.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(4/9) In Search of Hidden Treasure

This Nabadwip Dham is an extremely pure land. So many great Vaishnavs, beginning from Srila Prabhupad, stayed here. All the Vaishnavs (Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu, Sri Nityananda Prabhu and many others) came to this land. When Mahaprabhu left, all the devotees did Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama together with Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu and Sri Nityananda Prabhu. When they did this parikrama, Nityananda Prabhu showed everyone where which place was. Who can understand this?

sri-gauda-mandala-bhumi yeba jane chintamani
tara haya vraja-bhume vasa

‘Those who always think about Sri Gauda Mandal reside in the land of Vraja.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Who can understand this Gaura Mandal? Those who were born here cannot understand anything, but thousands and thousands of people from all over the world come here from millions of miles away. Why? What do they want to find here? Srila Sridhar Maharaj said that there is a ‘hidden treasure’ here. You can see devotees who have come from so far (from America, Russia, London and many other countries) – they come and sit here. Why? Because they come for the ‘hidden treasure of the Sweet Absolute’ that is kept here in Nabadwip.

We are forever suffering in the bondage of material, illusory suffering.

maya-jale baddha ha’ye, achha michhe kaja la’ye
ekhana-o chetana peye, radha-madhav-nama bala re

‘Bound in Maya’s net, you work in vain. While you are still conscious, chant the Name of Radha-Madhav!’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Bound in Maya’s net, we are sitting and working here in vain, but you have got some consciousness now! Chant the Lord’s Name at least once! This life will finish one day. We are not as fortunate as Pariksit Maharaj, so we will not we get any notice when we have to die, but death will come one day – we all have to leave this world one day. What have we got this human birth for? Only to eat, sleep, defend and breed? Only to get money, food, a good house and some good clothes? No, not for this. We have come here to worship our Supreme Father, the Lord.

gora pahu na bhajiya mainu
prema ratana-dhana helaya harainu
visaya-visama-visa satata khainu
gaura-kirtana rase magana na hainu
keno va achhaye prana ki sukha lagiya
narottama-dasa kena na gela mariya

‘I did not worship Gora, I did not care for the jewel treasure of the divine love and have lost the chance. I always took the deathly poison of the material world and have never been attracted to the kirtan of Gaura. Why am I still alive? What joy is there? Oh why did Narottam Das not just die?…’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

‘Instead of worshipping Gaura, I have being only dying…’ when Mahaprabhu went to Gaya to perform the last rites for His departed father and met His guru there, He said:

‘samsara-samudra haite uddharaha more
ei ami deha samarpilana tomare’

‘Please rescue Me from this ocean of material existence! I am surrendering Myself to you.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.17.54)

How beautiful this is. ‘I have given you everything – my body, mind, heart, everything. Please rescue me from this material existence.’ We must submit ourselves at the Lord’s lotus feet.

This abode of Mahaprabhu is non-different from Vraja Dham, and we can stay here only as a result of a very big fortune. Such fortune does not come all the time. Although we have to go to so many places for preaching and do so many things, there is no other place in the world that could compare to the purity of this land. Sri Nabadwip Dham is non-different from Sri Vraja Dham. Among the nine islands of Nabadwip, the place where we are sitting now is kirtanakhya-dham – it is an abode of kirtan, so it is necessary to chant kirtan here.

Wake up in the morning, chant kirtans. Try. Practice makes perfect. None of us came out of our mother’s womb and immediately learnt to chant kirtans. [To a new devotee] Try to chant, even if you make some mistakes, there is nothing to be afraid of – there are no tigers, no bears here, nobody will do anything to you. Practise Krishna consciousness, worship the Lord with a free heart. Stay here peacefully. You do not need to think about food, clothes or anything else – only chant the Holy Name and serve the Lord, this is your duty. There is no other duty. Only do service attentively. This temple and everything in it are yours – some think I am the owner, but the owner is the Lord, He is sitting over there at the altar. He is the proprietor of everything, and I am only looking after His property.

They kicked me out of Nabadwip Math, but Gurudev has kept me here, and I am here now. I had done so many things at our old temple, but now they have destroyed everything… Anyhow, now we have a big building here too. We had to struggle at first, but I never stopped the parikrama – even when the Deities had not been installed yet, we still did the parikrama that year, and about four hundred devotees came. Many slept on the floor, the building was not painted properly, but since then we have made more rooms and arrangements. I have also started building a prasadam hall and want to make another two–three floors above it for Bengali devotees…

Engage your mind only in the service to your guru and the Lord. Do what your guru tells you to do. Satisfying the whims of your mind is not spiritual life – spiritual life means following your guru and Vaishnavs, serving your guru and Vaishnavs and satisfying them. This is how you must practise Krishna consciousness. We sing every morning:

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Take shelter of the Holy Name and worship the Lord. These are very beautiful words. I have also written several books, read them. Guidance 4 has very, very beautiful things written in it. Guidance 3 is also very nice, and there are some important questions and answers at the end of the book.

(5/9) Humility and Dedication

If you send your letter to the Lord, you will not get a reply from Him, and you do not become a disciple just by taking the mantra. To become a disciple, you must first take initiation from a guru that belongs to a proper guru-parampara (discipline succession); after that, you must follow what your guru says, and you must be able to tolerate his chastisement.

I feel that I myself have not been able to become a disciple yet, and it is my aspiration to always be one: ‘Sisya tava thakiya sarvada – I will always remain your disciple.’ These words are from one of the kirtans (‘Krpa kara Vaisnava Thakura’). We must feel that everyone in this world is my master, and we must always behave as disciples. Even when somebody comes to take initiation from me, I feel that this person is coming to give their mercy to me. This is how initiation must be given. Gurudev must never think, ‘I will make somebody my disciple.’ No. He will always think, ‘This person is coming to give me mercy.’ Such humility must be there.

Mercy is followed by service – if you have mercy, you will have service, and if you have no mercy, then you will have no service. It is necessary to remember and practise this.

You must follow ekadasi. Next Monday is ekadasi.

suddha-bhakata-charana-renu,

bhajana-anukula

bhakata-seva, parama-siddhi,

prema-latikara mula

‘The dust of pure devotees’ feet is favourable to devotion. Serving the devotees is the supreme fulfilment and the root of the creeper of divine love.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must serve pure devotees. Unless you serve pure devotees, you will not get achieve anything.

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)

When you do service, you have to exert yourself. You know, when I was doing the construction of Govinda Kunda in Nabadwip, I lost seven kilograms. Later, when I left Nabadwip, I put on weight again. At that time, two–three hundred trucks came every day to take out soil, and fifteen tractors were excavating the ground. So much soil was taken out.

tomara sevaya, duhkha haya yata,
seo ta’ parama sukha

‘No matter what unhappiness comes in Your service, it is all a source of great happiness.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Whatever unhappiness comes when I serve you, it is my happiness.’ When you serve the Lord, you have to struggle, you have to exert yourself.

…Muri is Bengalis’ favourite food – if there is no muri, many will not say anything, but they will get hungry in the afternoon. I have seen in Nabadwip that all devotees kept muri in their rooms – they ate muri in the afternoon. Anyway, what is the problem? There is no lack of food. We must always keep some muri in the temple. You can keep some in the storeroom, and devotees can take some to their rooms also. People are used to eating muri in the afternoon, this is their habit, and I also sometimes eat muri in the afternoon. Just yesterday, I took some muri with mustard oil and green chilli. I do not eat outside food – I do not like all that chanachur and similar things.

suddha-bhakata-charana-renu,

bhajana-anukula

bhakata-seva, parama-siddhi,

prema-latikara mula

‘The dust of pure devotees’ feet is favourable to devotion. Serving the devotees is the supreme fulfilment and the root of the creeper of divine love.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(6/9) Jnana-Sunya Bhakti

As I said earlier, you do not become a disciple just by taking the mantra. Initiation means getting enrolled into a school, but after getting enrolled, you must practise.

First, it is necessary to have faith (adau sraddha).

‘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)

Faith can be of different kinds: kamala-sraddha, taranga-sraddha, drdha-sraddha, sudrdha-sraddha (soft, lotus-like faith; fickle, wave-like faith; strong faith; and the strongest faith). ‘Sraddha-anusari bhakti-adhikari: the quality of your devotion depends upon the quality of your faith’ (Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.64). Everybody’s devotion is not the same because everybody’s faith is not the same. Some have karma-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with the pursuit of material gain), some have jnana-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with the pursuit of knowledge), and some have jnana-sunya bhakti (general devotion that is free from any desire for knowledge). Karma-misra bhakti means you serve the Lord, thinking, ‘I will get something in return.’ Even if you think, ‘If I serve the Lord, I will go to Goloka,’ that is also a desire. It is not good to be like that. Gurudev told to chant the Holy Name with faith, and that is sufficient – what I will get or not get, gurudev and the Lord will take care of that. Such a mood is part of jnana-sunya bhakti. This is the rule. It is not my business to know what I will get or not get, what result I will get or not get. Gurudev told me to chant the Holy Name and do service, and that is what I am doing. Gurudev knows what will happened to me (whether I will go to Goloka, heaven or hell) – I will only do what gurudev told me to do. Remember this.

Karma-misra bhakti also means:

krsna kahe,—“ama bhaje, mage visaya-sukha
amrta chhadi’ visa mage,—ei bada murkha
ami—vijna, ei murkhe ‘visaya’ kene diba?
sva-charanamrta diya ‘visaya’ bhulaiba”

‘Krishna says, “They worship Me desiring material happiness – leaving aside nectar, they ask Me for poison. They are big fools, but I am intelligent: Why will I give these fools material things? Instead, I will give them the nectar of My lotus feet and make them forget the material world.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.38–39)

The Lord says, ‘They worship Me praying for some material happiness. They want something from Me.’ Such people turn the Lord into a bribe-taker and a menial servant. ‘God, give me this’, ‘God, make so that my daughter marries well’, ‘God, help my son get a good job’, ‘God, helps me get a good harvest’, ‘God make so that my business runs well.’ There are so many people with such desires. This is karma-misra bhakti. Krishna says, ‘I am not a fool, I know better than them. Why will I give them material happiness? No, I had better give them My feet, and they will forget all about the material world.’ At the same time, in another place in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Krishna says:

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya
kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

‘If a devotee aspires for enjoyment or liberation, Krishna hides the knowledge about pure devotion and dismisses them, giving them enjoyment or liberation.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.18)

‘When somebody comes to Me and asks Me for enjoyment or liberation (somebody wants money, somebody wants a car, somebody wants a house, and so on) instead of devotion, I give them all they want and take devotion away from them. I will not give them devotion.’

Mahaprabhu’s teachings (Siksastakam) are also like that. If you read His Siksastakam, you can understand it. We chant kirtans about His teachings during the month of Kartik, and it is said there:

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

Outside people say, ‘Give me wealth’, ‘Give me knowledge’, ‘Make me beautiful’, ‘Give me a good wife’, ‘Make me a poet’, and so on, but Mahaprabhu says, ‘I do not want wealth, I do not want followers, I do not want a beautiful wife, I do not want to be a poet. I only want causeless devotion to Your holy lotus feet. Give me that kind of devotion to Your lotus feet that I may serve You life after life. I do not want any followers, friends or family, I do not want any wealth. I only want to have devotion to Your holy lotus feet.’

nahi magi deha-sukha vidya dhana jana
nahi magi svarga ara moksa nahi magi
na kari prarthana kona vibhutira lagi

‘I do not wish for any bodily happiness, knowledge, wealth, friends or followers. I do not wish to attain heaven or liberation, neither do I pray for any supernatural powers.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We do not pray even for any supernatural perfections.

(7/9) Taking a Stand Against Maya

We have a disciple of Gurudev in Begumpur who has received two bighas of land (1.2 acres) – he plants vegetables in that land himself and runs his family with that. They also have two sons, they study at school… He is working so hard to maintain his family. Their family had six bighas of land, and there are five brothers and their father. The father took initiation and stayed with his initiated son, so the devotee ended up getting two bighas of land. I know how hard it is to do agriculture. I used to cultivate the land too. Every year, I planted rice (two times), mustard (one time), and also some wheat around the perimeter (the yield was 14–15 maund, or 560–600 kg). It also gave straw for the cows at the temple. Here, at Nrisingha Palli, it is difficult with the cows. One man had told me, ‘I will come in Paush (January–February),’ but then his wife came for him, and after that his sons came for him…

It is not so easy to practise Krishna consciousness. You must know where your interest lies and be selfish in this sense. My own parents cried so much for me, but I still ran away. That man told me, ‘I will never run away, I will come in January/February,’ but I told him, ‘You will not be able to come…’ and this is what happened. His wife beat him, and he wanted to come here, but when he came, his wife showed some affection to him, and he went back. Such is the pull of material life… His son also cried for him. So, it is not so easy to come to this line – you must have fortune to practise Krishna consciousness. First, there must be sukriti. You cannot practise Krishna consciousness without sukriti. Yes, they will cry, so what? Let them cry. Your mother, father, brother, sister, relatives, sons, daughters – let them all cry! You must be hard with them, ‘No, I will practise Krishna consciousness! By hook or by crook, but I will practise Krishna consciousness. I will not surrender to Maya and run behind any desires.’ You must always try to be like that; otherwise, you cannot practise Krishna consciousness…

Later, this determination will bring you a good result. You must have patience. That is why it is said, ‘Chitta sthira habe, sakala sahiba, ekante bhajiba hari – my heart will become steadfast, I will tolerate everything, and I will serve the Lord sincerely’ (Saranagati). You must tolerate everything – tolerate all unhappiness, all struggles, all austerities. Practise Krishna consciousness exclusively – be one-pointed.

Those who stayed at the temple but then went back to their homes got much austerity later. For example, there was one disciple of Srila Sridhar Maharaj who lived at the temple as a brahmachari. His parents forcefully took him away and got him married. He had three daughters, and he had managed to get only his youngest daughter married when he had a stroke. Later, his daughters took initiation from me. So, at least it is good that his daughters are practising Krishna consciousness, but their father’s life finished… so, when you are not strong enough, such a situation comes to your life that you receive retirement from spiritual life – you become cheated and lose your service to your guru. We must be always very careful. You must know what you want in life – you must know where your interest lies.

(8/9) Be One-Pointed

You must practise Krishna consciousness properly. Always stay within service and always engage in sravan (hearing) and kirtan (practising, chanting). This is our life every day. Do your service and engage in sravan and kirtan. Those who practise sravan and kirtan, gradually become firm and fixed in their spiritual life and service, and they get taste for service (for practising spiritual life, chanting, and so on). There is no need to worry about anything. Practising sravan and kirtan (listening to Hari-katha, chanting the Holy Name and practising what is preached) removes all unwanted elements. This is the main result. When unwanted elements leave, you will feel peace. As long as you have unwanted, inauspicious elements within you, you will not know peace…

Vraja gopis have very much respect for Prahlad Maharaj. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur also spoke about Prahlad Maharaj when he was at Radha Kunda. Prahlad Maharaj’s devotion is extremely exclusive and one-pointed. He did not know or understand anything except the Lord. Such mood must be there: ‘I do not know anyone except the Lord.’ The Lord also says in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, ‘I know only My devotees, and My devotees also know only Me.’ Krishna Himself says that.

We always recite verse 18.66 from Srimad Bhagavad-gita:

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

‘Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

Krishna says: Leave all religions – father’s religion, mother’s religion, friends’ religion, demigods’ religion, rishis’ religion, sannyasis’ religion, brahmacharis’ religion, householders’ religion, ksatriyas’ religion, vaisyas’ religion, sudras’ religion. Leave all kinds of religion and only practise Krishna consciousness one-pointedly. ‘Leave all religions and surrender to Me, I will look after you.’ Always remember this. ‘I will take care of you.’

(9/9) A Word of Warning

[His Divine Grace reads from Guidance 4]

It is written here about what is unfavourable to devotion (bhakti-pratikul). Do you know what is unfavourable to devotion? The six urges, gossiping about others and criticising others.

kahare na kare ninda, ‘krsna krsna’ bale,
ajeya chaitanya sei jinibeka hele

‘Those who do not criticise anyone and always chant the Holy Name of Lord Krishna conquer the unconquerable Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.10.312)

Never criticise anyone.

‘Those who do not practise even one of the devotional practices (hearing, chanting, remembering, Deity worship, and so on) are non-devotees – you should keep away from them.’

‘You cannot get sadhu-sanga without giving up asat-sanga: you cannot get holy association without giving up inauspicious, unholy association.’ Always reject bad association.

‘There is less possibility to have bad association at the temple, but if somebody gossips, talks too much, criticises others, discusses others, then their association is bad and must definitely be given up. They are greatly unfortunate – they sin and commit offences, that is why they do not feel enthusiasm to practise devotional life, they only suffer from depression, melancholy, danger and trouble.’

‘If you have no feeling of any relationship with your gurudev, there is no spiritual benefit – there is only devilry and wickedness. It is impossible to practise spiritual life or serve the Lord without becoming a proper disciple, neither can you get the Lord if you do not become a disciple. When you start practising and developing the relationship with your gurudev, you will attain spiritual benefit and progress on the path to the transcendental world.’

We must give advice to ourselves, not to others. If you keep hearing about these things and keep saying these things, then you will start thinking about your own qualification.

What is the use living a very long life? Do you know what Gurudev says? He says that even if you live only ten years, you must live and practise Krishna consciousness – if you live a long life but do not practise Krishna consciousness, there is no use living a hundred years.

You can see how some people practise Krishna consciousness. What sort of taste do they feel? They go to outside people’s houses to eat nice food, but those outside people are not initiated. It is said in the scriptures:

visayira anna khaile malina haya mana

malina mana haile, nahe krsna-nama grahana

‘If you eat food that comes from materialistic people, it will contaminate your mind. And if your mind becomes contaminated, you will not be able to chant the Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.278)

They go to outside people’s houses, but they cook meat and fish there. I also sometimes come to such houses for preaching, but I never eat there – I do not even take their water, I come with my own bottle of water. This is the prescription of the scriptures. If you go everywhere and eat randomly, then the scriptures say that your mind will become contaminated and you will forget Krishna consciousness. What for will you go there? You go there because your tongue is greedy, but if you indulge yourself, it will only increase your desires.

jihvara lalase yei iti-uti dhaya
sisnodara-parayana se krsna nahi paya

‘Those who, subservient to their tongues, run here and there and are devoted to satisfying their genitals and bellies cannot attain Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.227)

If you follow the urges of your tongue and stomach, your mind will always be fickle, and you will always want to eat more.

‘If you run down the path of devotion at a very high speed, you can meet an accident, and all your ten years’ practice will be destroyed. A car can be going at a very high speed, but if it meets an accident on the road, it will be crushed to pieces. Similarly, it is very difficult to progress on the path of devotion – it is very easy to go down the hill, but it is difficult to go uphill. It takes so much time to go up, but you can go down within a moment.’

We are wasting our time. It is said in the scriptures:

chari varnasrami yadi krsna nahi bhaje

svakarma karileo se raurave padi maje

‘Whatever varna (a priest, fighter, manager or worker) or ashram (a celibate, householder, renouncer of the household life or monk) you belong to, if you do not worship Krishna but engage in your prescribed duties, you will have to fall into a terrible hell.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.26)

Time is going, but people are attached to fish and meat. They only know how to eat. There are so many wonderful vegetarian dishes, but they do not like to eat that.

‘Srila Prabhupad used to say, “You have been given a ticket to Delhi, but before reaching Delhi, you get off in Bardhaman. This is your loss. If you come to practise Krishna consciousness but cannot get the result, this is your loss. You leave your home and come here, but if you cannot get love and devotion, if you cannot serve properly, then your life passes in vain.”’

‘Gurudev can save his disciple from fire. It is difficult to understand how and when one does service, but if a disciple comes across some thorns, this is very distressing. Vaishnav-aparadha is a great hindrance on the path of devotion. Can you recognise who is a Vaishnav and who is not? Therefore, if you behave inappropriately with Vaishnavs, you will face thorns on the path of devotion. What will there be left if you commit an offence at the feet of gurudev? Your devotional life will burn to ashes.’

Always remember this.

ekala isvara krsna, ara saba bhrtya
yare yaichhe nachaya, se taichhe kare nrtya

‘Lord Krishna is the only supreme controller, and all others are His servants. They dance as He makes them do so.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.142)

‘Sri Krishna is everyone’s object of service – He is the only worshippable Person, everybody is striving to serve Him. Some pick flowers, some make flower garlands, some worship the Deity, some cook, some chant kirtan, some go on collection, some sweep, some wash the dishes, some distribute prasad – everyone contributes to His happiness. Everyone does different kinds of service according to their individual qualification and taste. All jiva souls are His servants and maidservants, and everyone engages in different services of the Lord, that is why there is no conflict among servitors.’

‘There is no quarrel, rivalry, envy and jealousy towards each other. Vrajendra-nandan Sri Krishna is the Lord of all Lords, and all are His servants. If everyone has such a vision, then there will be no rivalry, envy, fighting and quarrelling. “All are the Lord’s servants.” Therefore, do not criticise or offend anyone, do not be jealous of anyone, do not hate, envy or spite anyone. Those who have become firmly fixed in servitude to Krishna do not have any kind of separate vision. Vaishnavs think that everyone is a creature of the Lord. The King of Heaven Indra, the God of Moon Chandra, the God of Sun Surya, the God of Wind Varuna, et al. all serve the Lord. “Prabhura arati kare chandra o tapana. Moon and Sun do the arati of the Lord.” There are so many demigods and demigoddesses, but their purpose is one. However, everybody’s function is not the same. Demigods, demigoddesses, Brahma, Siva, governors of different planets, et al. – they all do their appointed service.’

Many forget this. They think that somebody makes cow dung patties or washes the dishes, and they laugh at them, but this is wrong. They are also servitors. If you remember this, you will not be able to criticise anyone. You should never criticise anyone.

‘Sri Radharani does the puja of Krishna pretending that She is doing the puja of Surya. She does not show disrespect to Surya (the God of Sun) – She prays to Surya for Krishna-prema. Vraja-basis and Vaishnavs do not dismiss Lord Siva – they pray to him, “O Sambhu! You always chant the Holy Name of Krishna with your five mouths. You have so much devotion and love for Krishna, please give us such love too.”’ Vaishnavs worship Siva too.

Read this book. Did you not like what you have heard? Is what is written here not true?

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Sarvasva tomara’ and ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and recites Sri Jaya Dhvani, concluding thus the evening class.]

* * *

￼Line Line5 February 2021

Singur (West Bengal)

Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/13) Honouring Hari-Prasad

We have got an opportunity to come and make a programme in this district after a long time. A day without Hari-katha is a bad day: the day when we cannot speak Hari-katha, cannot practise sravan (cannot hear Hari-katha) is a bad day for us. We do not want to stay even one day without Hari-katha, and we must not also stay without hearing or speaking Hari-katha even one day.

ki sayane, ki bhojane, kiba jagarane
aharnisa chinta krsna, balaha vadane

‘Whether you are sleeping, eating or waking up, incessantly think about Krishna and chant the Name of Krishna with your mouth.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.28.28)

When you are sleeping, when you are eating, when you are sitting or when you are doing anything else – always chant the Holy Name. There are no rules and regulations about chanting the Holy Name. Wherever you are, in whatever state or situation you are – whether you are wearing good clothes, whether you are wearing dirty clothes, even if you are in a contaminated state – you can always chant the Holy Name.

Through the Holy Name such souls as ourselves, who have forgotten Krishna (we have all forgotten Krishna, our Original Primeval Father), can awaken their consciousness. We can cure our disease through the Holy Name of the Lord. We suffer from five kinds of disease – avidya (ignorance), asmita (false identification), raga (misdirected love), dvesa (aversion to anything that goes against our enjoyment), and abhinivesa (inability to give up unfavourable habits). For as long as we have these diseases within us, we will not be able to find any relief from this material world.

Avidya (ignorance) is our real disease. We are ignorant – we have no knowledge. The knowledge that you find in this world, the knowledge that people roam around the world in search of is not real knowledge – it is actually all ignorance. We will not be able to free ourselves from this ignorance until we have awakened ourselves to the realisation that we are not this body. We think, ‘This is my body’, ‘This is my son’, ‘This is my wife’, ‘This is my relative’, ‘This is my friend’, ‘I am my own master’ – for as long as we think like this, the taste for the Holy Name will not come to us (in other words, we will not like chanting the Holy Name).

We have got this day in our lives as a result of a great fortune. Today is the disappearance day of Srila Lochan Das Thakur. Vaishnavs’ appearance and disappearance days are the same, they are non-different from one another. It is only because of our material vision that we see that somebody has come or has left. Our respectable host has called me and you all today not only to take prasad. We have come here to take Hari-prasad – to honour the prasad of Hari-katha. This is the only prasad that you must take – always listen to Hari-katha. We have come here today only for this reason – we only wish to say a few words and to hear something about the Lord, about Sri Krishna.

Where is Krishna? Krishna is in Krishna-katha. In which forest (van) does Krishna stay? In sravan. If you hear about Krishna, you will find Krishna…

(2/13) Exclusive Path

Many of us have taken initiation, but not many of us have been able to become a disciple. Yes, we have taken initiation, but one does not become a disciple just by taking initiation. Nobody passes the final exams at school just by getting admitted to a school – you must fail if you do not study. In the same way, the first step in Krishna consciousness and spiritual practice is guru-padasraya – taking shelter of the holy lotus feet of Sri Guru. Once we surrender at our guru’s holy lotus feet, we can start serving him.

If we do not take proper good association of great devotees (sadhu-sanga) and Vaishnavs (Vaishnav-sanga), if we do not practise the nine kinds of devotional practices (sravan, kirtan, and so on), if we do not practise the panchanga (the five main devotional practices – sadhu-sanga, Nama-sankitana, Bhagavat-sravana, Mathura-vasa, sraddhaya sri-murtir sevana – living in the association of saints, chanting the Holy Name, hearing about the Lord, residing in a holy abode of the Lord, worshipping the Lord’s Deities with faith), we will be removed from devotion. We may have entered the path of devotion or the world of devotion, but it does not take long to get removed from there. You should remember that it is very difficult to progress down the path of devotion, but it is very easy to get removed from it. One gets removed because of vaishnav-aparadha, seva-aparadha, dhama-aparadha, nama-aparadha. Always keep far from any vaishnav-aparadha, seva-aparadha, dhama-aparadha, nama-aparadha (offences to devotees, service, holy places, and the Holy Name). You must be very careful about it and always try to avoid offences until your last breath.

We have been averse to Krishna since time immemorial. Outside people worship many demigods and demigoddesses, they can understand very well who is their father, mother, friends, relatives, wife, daughter, son, son-in-law, and so on, but they do not understand who a guru is, who the Lord is. Do you know what Lord Krishna says in Srimad Bhagavad-gita? He says, ‘My devotees do not know anybody except Me, and I also do not know anybody except My devotees.’ These are Krishna’s own words. Exclusive, one-pointed devotees do not know anything or anyone except Krishna – they become crazy taking the Name of Krishna. So, this very Krishna has taken the heart and halo of Srimati Radharani and appeared as Gauranga Mahaprabhu right next to your door here in Sri Nabadwip Dham. He went door to door telling everyone:

jiva jaga jiva jaga gorachanda bale
kata nidra yao maya-pisachira kole

‘Sri Gorachand says, “Wake up, souls! Wake up! How much longer will you sleep in the lap of the witch Maya?”’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘O souls! Stop sleeping! Wake up! How long more are you going to sleep on the lap of Maya?’

Maya Devi always removes us from the service of the Lord – she gets her power from the Lord Himself, and using that power, she always tries to remove and keep us far from service. Maya Devi always conspires against us and throws us into the desires of enjoyment and liberation. However, if you want to get the Lord, you will never get Him through any material activities (karma), any knowledge (jnana), any mystic practices (yoga) or attempts to get liberation (mukti) – no matter how much you may practise all these methods, you can never get the Lord through any of them. If you want to get the Lord, you must have devotion. There is no other way to get the Lord except through devotion. No matter how wise you are, no matter how much knowledge you have, you will not get the Lord through that. If you are to get the Lord, you need devotion. You know, Srimati Radharani never went to any university – She only ‘studied’ at the University of Devotion. She worshipped (aradhana) the Lord through Her devotion, that is why Her name is Radharani – ‘She who worships the Lord the most’; and that is why She is the highest among all gopis, She is the crest-jewel of all gopis.

So, taking the heart and halo of this Srimati Radharani, Krishna appears in this Kali-yuga as Gauranga Mahaprabhu. He wanted to know, ‘Why does Radharani cry so much taking My Name? What sort of happiness does She feel when She is serving Me?’ Lord Sri Krishna comes in Kali-yuga to taste all these things as Gauranga Mahaprabhu, a combined form of Sri Sri Radha-Krishna.

sri-radhayah pranaya-mahima kidrso vanayaivasvadyo
yenadbhuta-madhurima kidrso va madiyah
saukhyam chasya mad-anubhavatah kidrsam veti lobhat
tad-bhavadhyah samajani sachigarbha-sindhau harinduh

‘’What is the glory of Sri Radha’s love? What extraordinary sweetness does She see in Me? What happiness does She feel when She is moved by Me?’ – yearning to taste these three sentiments, the moon Krishna-chandra arose from the ocean of Mother Sachi’s womb.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.1.6)

(3/13) Lord’s Messenger

The Lord sometimes comes Himself and sometimes sends His associates as the guru. Krishna told Uddhav Maharaj, ‘Acharyam mam vijaniyan. Know the guru (acharya) to be non-different from Me.’ Acharya is a person who practises (achar) and preaches (prachar), and acharya is non-different from the Lord.

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 so by pious souls, but who is also no doubt the Lord’s dear associate.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

We chant this kirtan written by Srila Visvanath Chakravarti every morning:

samsara-davanala-lidha-loka
tranaya karunya-ghanaghanatvam
praptasya kalyana-gunarnavasya
vande guroh sri-charanaravindam

‘I offer my obeisance unto the lotus feet of Sri Guru, who is an ocean of good qualities and auspiciousness and who, as a thick rain cloud of mercy, brings relief to this world devoured by the forest fire of material existence.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

The only way to save yourself from this material existence is to take shelter at the holy lotus feet of Sri Guru. Only if he saves us and engages us in the service of the Lord, can it be possible for us to get relief. At the same time, there must make an effort on our part – we must try. You cannot do nothing and think that the guru will do everything for you. Always be alert and careful that you may not be removed from Krishna consciousness at any time.

We must serve Sri Hari, guru and Vaishnavs. The true religion consists of three aspects: jive daya, Name ruchi, vaishnava-seva (be kind to other souls, have taste for the Holy Name and serve devotees of the Lord). Jive daya means we must be kind to other jiva souls – it means that we must bring souls who are averse to Lord Sri Krishna to this path. Such souls have forgotten the Supreme Lord – they have forgotten their own father and address – and have fallen into illusory bondage.

We come to this world again and again – life after life, we stay in a hired place, and life after life, we are forced to leave one hired place and go to stay in another hired place. Somebody hires a place for fifty years; somebody, for thirty years; somebody, for eighty years; but for as long as you stay in a hired place, you will not know any peace or happiness. What happiness is there in such a life? If you have no place of your own, if you keep on hiring a place to stay in – if you stay in some place for six months, one year or two years and keep moving from place to place – you will think one day that it is better to buy your own land and live in a thatched hut rather than keep on moving like that. We too – every single one of us – are staying in this hired place here, but we must try to reach our own home. Our home is in Goloka Vrindavan, where the Lord resides, where we all come from. We left our home and have been wandering throughout 8,400,000 species or even more than that – 8,400,000 species is minimum, because if somebody is unfortunate, they will wander through even more species before they finally get this human body.

bharata-bhumite haila manusya janma yara
janma sarthaka kari’ kara para-upakara

‘One who has taken birth as a human being in the land of India should take advantage of this birth by bringing benefit to others.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.9.41)

Brahma took initiation from Krishna and created this material universe according to the realisation that he had got from the Lord, and we now anyhow live in this world – somebody worships Durga, somebody worships Kali, somebody worships Laksmi, somebody worships Vishnu, somebody worships Narayan, so many people worship various gods and goddesses. However, it is said in the scriptures:

chari varnasrami yadi krsna nahi bhaje

svakarma karileo se raurave padi maje

‘Whatever varna (a priest, fighter, manager or worker) or ashram (a celibate, householder, renouncer of the household life or monk) you belong to, if you do not worship Krishna but engage in your prescribed duties, you will have to fall into a terrible hell.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.26)

Even if you follow the four varnas (brahman, ksatriya, vaisya, sudra) and four ashrams (brahmachari, grihastha, vanaprastha, sannyasi), you will still have to go to hell again and again. I have written in the third volume of Guidance how much suffering we undergo in hell. We suffer here in so many ways, but sadhus, Gurus and Vaishnavs are very merciful – they come right to our door. These close associates of the Lord come and try to send us back to the Lord…

(4/13) ‘Managing’ Your Life

I have been preaching in Hooghly for many days now – by Gurudev’s mercy, I have been coming to this area for more than twenty-five years now. I have been coming to this particular house because the hosts, Gopal Prabhu, his wife (Manorama Devi Dasi) and his mother-in-law, were initiated many years ago by Srila Gurudev, so I have always felt that I must come here on that account. When I started coming, Manorama Didi would take me to different houses of her relatives and other people, and they would also gradually come to this path. Then, Manorama Didi’s daughter passed away, it is very sad, but what can we do? Everybody has their lifespan written for them, so everyone lives as long as they are meant to live. This is how it happened so that the daughter passed away and the mother stayed alive…

We are all here in this world only for a short time. We all have to leave this world one day, and nobody will come and tell you, ‘You are going to die tomorrow.’ You will not get any notice. There are some fortunate souls like Pariksit Maharaj, who had got an advance notice that he would die in seven days. Hearing this, he did not waste time on any gramya-katha, gramya-varta – he did not worry how this family and household would run after him. This is actually how you all must live, but you cannot. That is why we chant every day:

emana durmati, samsara bhitare,
padiya achhinu ami

‘I have fallen into this wicked material world!’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Even when people retire from their material life, they do not stop worrying about their families… I have told Gopal Prabhu today, ‘What is there for you in this family life? Come to the temple.’ He replied, ‘I cannot, I am managing the household.’ I said, ‘Who are you to manage anything? The Lord is the manager!’ He should understand it now that the Lord has taken his wife too, but he still cannot dedicate his full-time to serve the Lord. I told him to come and stay at the temple, to chant the Holy Name and do service. Even if he comes and only makes flower garlands, that is also service. You can understand it yourself too – when you stay at the temple, you can give full-time to service, but is it possible to do that when you are staying at home? Never. You have to look after your cows and goats, sons and daughters and so many other things. I am giving you an opportunity – I have opened many temples where even old people can come and practise Krishna consciousness full-time.

What is the use living for one hundred years? I can live only ten years, but if I can give full-time to the service of the Lord, that is sufficient. I keep telling you this, but you tell me, ‘Who will look after my cows, calves and goats? Who will look after my children?’ The Lord is the only master, but we have forgotten Him – we only give our full-time to the material life, to the family life. I have seen many people who come and practise Krishna consciousness at first, but then they fall into material bondage and leave to serve their old parents. What can you say? The scriptures say:

‘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)

Your debt to your father, mother, rishis (sages), demigods – all debts are cleared if you serve the Lord. I tell it to you time and time again. Because we have no faith in this we are not able to progress along the path of devotion. Your devotion depends on your faith. ‘Sraddha-anusari bhakti-adhikari: the quality of devotion depends upon the quality of one’s faith’ (Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.64).

You can often see that somebody took initiation at the temple a short while ago and is progressing in Krishna consciousness practice, and there are also some who have been staying at the temple for a long time, but they have not progressed. Why is it like that? There is no question of seniority or juniority in devotion. You cannot judge one’s seniority or juniority based on anyone’s age. The criterion of seniority is one’s devotion. It can be a small ten-, five-, or six-year-old girl, but if she is practising Krishna consciousness – if she pays obeisance to the guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord, if she is devoted to the Lord, chants kirtans, and so on – then you must pay obeisance to her and respect her. On the other hand, you can also see an old eighty-year-old lady, but you will only hear gramya-katha (village talks), gramya-varta (village news) and other nonsense talks from her mouth (what her daughter-in-law has done to her, what this daughter-in-law did, what that daughter-in-law did, and so on – she goes everywhere and only talks about her daughters-in-law). In this case, there is no use living for eighty or a hundred years in this world. But if a small ten-year-old girl only practises Krishna consciousness, chants the Lord’s Name and serves the Lord, then you must pay obeisance to her and have much respect for her.

(5/13) Internal Purity

We sing the kirtan, ‘Krpa kara Vaisnava Thakura’:

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

First it is necessary to know the real relationship (sambandha). If you worship the Lord knowing the true relationship, your ego will go away. If one knows the spiritual relationship and worships the Lord, then even a father will offer obeisance to his son. This is a rule. If the son is very advanced in Krishna consciousness and serves the Lord, then even his father must pay obeisance to him and address him as ‘Prabhu’ (Master). Generally, people think, ‘I am his father, he is junior to me! He is my son!’ This ego is not good. If you know the real relationship and practise Krishna consciousness, your ego will go away. This is the meaning of these lines from the kirtan. Do you understand their meaning?

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Somebody thinks, ‘I have become a Vaishnav!’ or ‘When did you take initiation? I took initiation long before you, why must I pay obeisance to you?’ If you think that you have become a Vaishnav, you will not be able to give honour to others. We must give honour to everyone – somebody can be young, somebody can be old, it does not matter – we must offer obeisances to everyone. Srila Prabhupad often said, ‘All of you seated here are my gurus. You taking initiation from me means you have given me mercy.’ These are very beautiful words. A real guru will never say, ‘I have given you mercy by giving you initiation.’ No. On the contrary, you are giving mercy to me by taking initiation from me. A guru must have this kind of mood. This is called humility.

dainya, daya, anye mana, pratistha varjana
chari-gune guni hai’ karaha kirtana

‘Humility, compassion, giving honour to others and giving up desire for name and fame – become qualified with these four qualities and chant the Holy Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Who has the right to chant kirtan? Those who have humility, who have a heart for others, who can treat others with respect, and who reject any name and fame – those who have these four qualities have the right to chant kirtan. This is the way how one must practise Krishna consciousness. I am saying all this here, but I am in fact saying this all to myself – I am saying all this now to teach my own self. I am not saying it for you only, I am saying it for my own self also. I too must practise all this. I also pray, ‘O Lord, please let me be like this. O gurudev! Please give me some intelligence so that I can become humble, kind, so that I may respect others and leave all desire for prestige.’ I am saying this now so that I too can become like that – if I keep speaking about it, then one day I can become like this. I am not coming to give advice to you – rather, if I keep speaking about this, then I believe that one day these qualities will come to me. We must think in this way.

dainya, daya, anye mana, pratistha varjana
chari-gune guni hai’ karaha kirtana

‘Humility, compassion, giving honour to others and giving up desire for name and fame – become qualified with these four qualities and chant the Holy Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(6/13) Pray To Be One-Pointed

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

[His Divine Grace chants kirtans.]

gurudev!
bada krpa kari’, gauda-vana-majhe,
godrume diyachha sthana
ajna dila more, ei vraje vasi’,
harinama kara gana

‘Gurudev! Bestowing great mercy on me, you have given me a place in Sri Godrumdwip amidst the forests of Gauda. You ordered me: “Reside in this abode that is non-different from Vraja and chant the Lord’s Name.”’

kintu kabe prabho, yogyata arpibe,
e dasere daya kari’
chitta sthira habe, sakala sahiba,
ekante bhajiba hari

‘But when, O Master, will you mercifully grant this servant the qualification to do this? When will my heart become steadfast? When will I tolerate everything and exclusively serve the Lord?’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Our mind and our heart are always fickle. They cannot sit still – we are not able to concentrate them on the Holy Name. Mind is always fickle – as soon as there is some disturbance, we say, ‘I will stop chanting!’ Many live in their families, and when some trouble comes (for example, somebody dies or gets sick, or some other problem comes), people lose interest in chanting the Holy Name, and they give it up. People cannot tolerate anything. Do you remember Prahlad Maharaj? How much austerity Prahlad Maharaj suffered! His worshippable father (Pita Thakur) threw him into fire because he was serving the Lord and chanting the Lord’s Name! He tied Prahlad Maharaj to an elephant’s leg! He threw Prahlad Maharaj from a ten-thousand-feet mountain! He threw his ten-year-old son into water, trying to drown him! This is the kind of austerity Prahlad Maharaj had been getting from five years old, and he tolerated everything. Does anyone give us so much austerity? No. Nobody throws us into fire, nobody throws us from a mountain, nobody ties us to an elephant’s leg. If a five-year-old boy could tolerate all this, then why cannot we tolerate a little? We must learn from his example.

We pray, ‘When will my heart become fixed? When will I be able to tolerate everything?’ You know, there is a Bengali proverb, ‘Bend the bamboo while it is green’ – if you try to bend a bamboo tree when it matures, it will crack (kanchaya na nayale vamsa, pakle kare thasa thasa – equivalent to English ‘strike the iron while it is hot’). Learn from a young age – you can bend the bamboo when it is green, but if you try to bend it when it is mature, it will not bend – it will break. Somebody says, ‘I will practise Krishna consciousness when I get old.’ Do you think you will be able to? When you grow old, your health will be bad, and your legs will pain, your back will pain. You think you will chant the Holy Name when you are old, but when you grow old, your fingers will pain? So many kinds of pain and problems will come in old age – how do you think you will practise?

How beautiful these words are – ‘When will my heart become steadfast? When will I tolerate everything and serve the Lord exclusively?’ When will I be able to concentrate my mind and make it one-pointed? It is necessary to become a one-pointed, exclusive devotee – the mind must be fixed at the lotus feet of the Lord, at the lotus feet of Sri Guru. We pray that we may know and understand our guru well. We know well who our mother, father, brother and friends are – in the same way, we must understand our relationship with the guru and the Lord.

saisava-yauvane, jada-sukha-sange,
abhyasa haila manda
nija-karma-dose, e deha haila,
bhajanera pratibandha

‘I enjoyed in my childhood and youth, and as the result, I have developed bad habits. Because of my previous actions, this body has now become an obstacle to practising spiritual life.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I was small, then I grew up, but I never woke up for the arati. I ate in the afternoon and went back to sleep. I should have woken up in the afternoon to offer some fruit to the Lord, but I did not do this. (Those who do puja must be alert – they cannot only eat and sleep till the evening. It is necessary to wake the Deities up and give Them bhoga at four in the afternoon.) This is how, from a very young age, we have got into bad habits under the influence of bad association, and now this body has become an obstacle to spiritual practice. This body is not favourable to devotion life; rather, it has become unfavourable. It is all our own fault – this is the result of our own actions.

If I had come to this path in my childhood, if I had practised Krishna consciousness from an early age, then my body would not have become like this. If I had been waking up for the mangal-arati from my childhood, if I had been doing service from my childhood, then my habits would be good now. Man is a slave to his habits. If our habits are bad, then what will become of us? We find ourselves amidst all kinds of bad habits, and now we pray to gurudev for mercy. We have become ruined by the five diseases:

vardhakye ekhana, pancha-roge hata,
kemane bhajiba bala’
kandiya kandiya, tomara charane,
padiyachhi suvihvala

‘I am now old and afflicted by five-fold material diseases. Tell me, how shall I serve? Crying incessantly, I have fallen at your feet, utterly bewildered.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(7/13) Mahaprabhu’s Gift

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’

svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari

‘To bestow His mercy to jiva souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode.’

atyanta durlabha prema karibare dana
sikhaya saranagati bhakatera prana

‘To distribute the rarest form of divine love, He teaches surrender, which is the life and soul of devotees.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

What does it say here? ‘Sri Krsna Chaitanya Prabhu jive daya kari.’ Who is Sri Krishna Chaitanya? Mahaprabhu. When Mahaprabhu took sannyas, His Name became Sri Krishna Chaitanya because He is Krishna who comes to this world to awaken the consciousness (chetan) of all living souls. Out of mercy to the souls, He comes to this world along with His associates (sva-parsada). All the Vraja gopis with whom He performs His pastimes in Dvapar-yuga come again together with the Lord in this Kali-yuga. Advaita Prabhu, Haridas Thakur, Nityananda Prabhu, Gadadhar Pandit – they all come in this Kali-yuga as the Lord’s associates. What do they come for? ‘Atyanta durlabha prema’ – they come to distribute the rarest divine love that nobody can ever attain. Brahma, Siva and many other exalted personalities always think, ‘When will I get this Krishna-prema?’ They always cry for this Krishna-prema, they always call out to the Lord, ‘O Lord, when will I get pure divine love for You?’ Mahaprabhu comes to this world and personally goes door to door distributing this very Krishna-prema to everyone.

Somebody can ask, ‘Why is Radharani’s Name not mentioned anywhere in Srimad Bhagavatam?’ Srimad Bhagavatam is not man-made, it is not written by anyone by pen or by anyone’s hand. Initially, Sukadev Goswami spoke it in front of Pariksit Maharaj – later, Suta Goswami, who was present during their conversation and heard it, spoke it again at Naimisaranya forest in front of sixty thousand rishis. This is how Bhagavatam appeared in this world. Nobody wrote it originally. Srimad Bhagavatam was spoken by Sukadev Goswami, a young boy of about sixteen years old. The book we all see now was later written by Srila Vedavyas – he recorded what had been spoken by Sukadev Goswami. That is why Lord Siva said, ‘Aham vedmi, Suka vetti, Vyasa vetti na vetti va – I know it, Sukadev knows it, and Vyasadev may or may not know it.’ Vyasadev gave such mercy to Sukadev that Sukadev could know everything, even what Vyasadev himself may or may not have known. These words of Sivji Maharaj are very beautiful. So, why is there no mention of Srimati Radharani’s Name anywhere in Srimad Bhagavatam? For example, Srimad Bhagavatam contains an extensive description of the devotion of Sri Prahlad Maharaj – we know that his devotion is very high, but the devotion of Srimati Radharani is much higher than his, so why is Her Name not mentioned? The answer to this question is this. Sukadev Goswami felt, ‘I cannot preach it in this world – I cannot speak in front of everybody about that highest transcendental mood of Srimati Radharani. I cannot show it to the world.’ Her devotion is so much higher!

matala hari-jana kirtana-range
pujala raga-patha gaurava-bhange

‘We will worship the path of raga-marga (spontaneous loving service) from afar and live in adherence to the Vedic rules and regulations.’

(Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur)

We must keep the raga-patha in our hearts – we will not show it in front of everyone. That is why Sukadev Goswami felt that he could not describe it to the whole world. Although Srimati Radharani’s devotion is so much higher, Sukadev Goswami neither described nor even mentioned it in Srimad Bhagavatam.

This great devotion found in Vraja should be the eternal object of our meditation. One time, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu asked Ramananda Ray, ‘Among all kinds of mediation, which is the greatest?’ Ramananda Ray replied, ‘The highest meditation is the meditation on the holy lotus feet of Sri Sri Radha Krishna (meditation on the yugala-murti of Sri Radha and Sri Krishna).’ This is written in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. If you read it, you will find it there. It is also written there, ‘Who is the richest person?’ ‘One who is enriched with the wealth of Krishna is the richest person!’ In other words, one who has Krishna-prema is the richest person.

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu roamed this land, going door to door and searching whom to give this very Krishna-prema: ‘Who wants to buy it? Who wants to take it?!’ He distributed this Krishna-prema to the whole world going door to door. Those who had some good fortune opened their doors, and those whose fortune was bad kept their door closed. What does ‘door’ mean here? It is the door of your heart. You must open your heart (hriday), your very being (prana) – you must invite the Lord with your heart and give Him a place to sit in your heart.

Sri Vasu Ghosh wrote:

yadi gaura na ha’ta, tabe ki haita,
kemane dharitam de
radhara mahima, prema-rasa-sima,
jagate janata ke?

‘If Gaura had not come, what would have happened? How would we have lived? Who would have revealed to the world Radha’s glory and the extremes of Her ecstatic divine love?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

If Gauranga had not come, who would have known the glory of Srimati Radharani?

varaja-yuvati, bhavera bhakati,
sakati haita kara?

‘Who would have shown the power of Vraja-gopis’ ecstatic devotion?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

‘Who would have been capable of revealing the ecstatic devotion of the young girls of Vraja if Gaura had not come?’ These are such beautiful words, written by Sri Vasu Ghosh.

This is the kind of gift Mahaprabhu descends to give together with His associates. Then, it says:

atyanta durlabha prema karibare dana
sikhaya saranagati bhakatera prana

‘To distribute the rarest form of divine love, He teaches surrender, which is the life and soul of devotees.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Mahaprabhu taught surrender. You can read Mahaprabhu’s Siksastakam and see the third and fourth verses, then you will understand what Mahaprabhu’s teachings are. The third verse is this:

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

Be humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, and give honour to others – if you can be like this, then you will get the right to chant the Holy Name. It is necessary to earn the qualification, or right, to chant the Holy Name of the Lord.

sri-krsna-kirtane yadi manasa tohara
parama yatane tanhi labha adhikara

trnadhika hina dina akinchana chhara
apane manabi sada chhadi’ ahankara
vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana
pratihimsa tyaji’ anye karabi palana

jivana-nirvahe ane udvega na dibe
para-upakare nija-sukha pasaribe

‘If you are determined to chant the Name of Krishna, then try your best to become qualified for that. Give up ego and always consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and wretched. Practise forgiveness like that of a tree; do not be vindictive, nurture others. Live without causing anxiety to others; do good unto others forsaking your own happiness.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka Giti, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must give up your own happiness for the sake of others’ happiness. Be humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and give honour to others. ‘Vrksa-sama ksama-guna’ means you must be forgiving (ksama) – if somebody makes an offence and you cannot forgive the person, then what kind of a Vaishnav are you? When you cut a tree, it does not turn its face away from you – it still gives you shelter in its shade. You can cut a tree’s branch, but when the sun is very hot, you go to the other side of that same tree and take shelter by its trunk. When a tree can be this forgiving, we too much show this quality. ‘Pratihimsa tyaji anye karabi palana’ – if somebody ill-treats you, does it mean you will also ill-treat the person in return? No. You will give up all vengeance. If somebody is mean to you, if somebody swears or criticises you, it means they have a problem that is why they swear you – they have some difficulty, that is why they are criticising or being mean to you. Do you understand what I am saying?

This is the meaning of ‘sikhaya saranagati’ – Mahaprabhu comes to teach surrender. Surrender means being extremely humble, being tolerant and giving honour to others (treating others with respect). This is what Mahaprabhu taught. What does the other, fourth, verse of Mahaprabhu’s Siksastakam teachings say?

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

People always pray, ‘Give me wealth’, ‘Give me knowledge’, ‘Make me beautiful’, ‘Give me a good wife’, ‘Make me a poet’, ‘Make me beautiful’, and so on. Mahaprabhu said, ‘No. I do not want any wealth. I do not want any followers. I do not want a beautiful wife. I do not want to be a poet. I do not want to live a lifetime of Brahma (Jagadish)!’

dhana jana ara, kavita-sundari,
baliba na chahi deha-sukha-kari
janme janme dao, ohe gaurahari,
ahaituki bhakti charane tomara

‘When will I say that I do not want any wealth, followers, poetic gift or any other bodily happiness? O Gaura Hari! Birth after birth, please give me unconditional devotion to Your holy feet!’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

What do I want to have birth after birth? I only want unconditional devotion to Your holy lotus feet. I do not want any wealth!

nahi magi deha-sukha vidya dhana jana
nahi magi svarga ara moksa nahi magi
na kari prarthana kona vibhutira lagi

‘I do not wish for any bodily happiness, knowledge, wealth, friends or followers. I do not wish to attain heaven or liberation, neither do I pray for any supernatural powers.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘I do not want heaven, I do not want liberation.’ How beautiful Mahaprabhu’s teachings are!

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara
sad-anga saranagati haibe yanhara
tanhara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion. Lord Krishna hears the prayers of those who surrender in these six ways.’

rupa-sanatana-pade dante trna kari’
bhakativinoda pade dui pada dhari’

‘Holding a straw between his teeth, Bhaktivinod falls before Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu and Srila Sanatan Goswami Prabhu, clasping their feet.’

kandiya kandiya bale, ami ta’ adhama
sikhaye saranagati karahe uttama

‘Crying and crying, he prays, “I am very low! Please give me the highest qualification by teaching me surrender.”’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is said here that surrender consists of six aspects, or limbs (sad-anga saranagati). These six aspects are humility, self-submission, relying on the Lord (realising that Krishna is your maintainer and guardian), believing in the Lord’s protection, accepting only what is favourable to devotion and rejecting everything that is unfavourable to devotion.

Krishna is our maintainer. Krishna is our protector.

marabi rakhabi—yo ichchha tohara
nitya-dasa prati tuya adhikara

‘Whether You kill me or protect me, it is up to You. You have full right over Your eternal servant.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If He wants, He can kill; and if He wants, He can save. Nobody else has the power to save us. If Krishna wants somebody to die, the person will die.

Also, we must always accept that which is favourable to devotion. Many people do what is favourable and at the same time also do what is unfavourable to devotion. This will not do. ‘Anukulyasya samkalpah, pratikulya vivarjjanam: accept what is favourable and reject what is unfavourable.’

We pray, ‘Chhaya vega dami’ chhaya dosa sodhi’ chhaya guna deha’ dase – O Vaishnav Thakur! Please subdue the six urges, rectify the six defects and please bestow the six good qualities upon this servant.’ The six urges are vakya-veg, jihva-veg, mano-veg, krodha-veg, udar-veg, upastha-veg (urges of speech, tongue, mind, anger, stomach and genitals). We must always control these six urges because they are unfavourable to devotion. If you can control them, it is called bhakti-anukul (doing what is favourable to devotion), and if you cannot control them, then it is bhakti-pratikul (doing what is unfavourable to devotion). Suppose you are doing a yajna. If you put one spoon of ghee and then one spoon of water, you cannot make a yajna like this. You must put ghee – if you put water, the fire will go out. Therefore, if you do what is favourable to devotion but do not give up doing what is unfavourable, what result will you get? If you drink alcohol and milk, what will that give you? Alcohol will take away all the benefit of drinking milk. So, people think, ‘I will eat fish, meat, eggs, onion, garlic, and I will chant the Holy Name.’ You can never chant the Holy Name like this. It may sound like the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, but ‘Nama aksara bahiraya bate tabu Nama kabhu naya – externally, you pronounce the letters of the Holy Name, but it can never be the Holy Name proper’ (Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 7.1). If you do what is unfavourable to devotion, then what you chant is merely the alphabet, the letters of the Name – it can never be the Holy Name proper.

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

If you want to chant the Holy Name, then you must understand:

‘sadhu-sanga’ ‘sadhu-sanga’—sarva sastre kaya

lava-matra sadhu-sange sarva-siddhi haya

‘All scriptures keep saying: ‘Good association’, ‘Good association.’ You can attain all perfection even just by a drop of good, saintly association.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.54)

It is necessary to keep good, saintly association. Sadhus are those who practise Krishna consciousness, who serve the Lord with unswerving determination (nistha). Those who do not practise even one of the practices of Krishna consciousness (sravanam, kirtanam, smaranam, pada-sevanam, archanam, vandanam, dasyam, sakhyam, atma-nivedanam: hearing about the Lord, chanting the Lord’s Name and glories, remembering the Lord, serving the Lord’s lotus feet, worshipping the Lord’s Deity, offering obeisances to the Lord, serving the Lord as a servitor, serving the Lord as a friend and submitting yourself to the Lord) are called ‘asat’ (inauspicious, unsaintly). ‘Asat’ means liars, thieves, free mixers (who illegally associate with girls). Those who practise at least one of the devotional practices are called ‘sat’ (truthful, saintly, auspicious).

Remember this. Always do what is favourable to devotion and do not do what is unfavourable to devotion (always leave, give up what is unfavourable). We must not lie, we must not disrespect others, and we must avoid the association with those who gamble, drink alcohol, mix freely with women, who kill – such persons are ‘asat’. Always associate with those who are ‘sat’ – who practise at least one of the nine devotional practices.

(8/13) At Vaishnavs’ Mercy

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya
kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya be merciful to me? When will I come in the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

kandiya kandiya janaiba duhkha-grama
samsara-anala haite magiba visrama

‘Weeping, I will tell about my miserable life and pray for respite from the fire of material existence.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

What does it say here? We must pray to Vaishnavs. If you send a letter to the Lord, you will not get a reply, but if you call or send your letter to a close and dear associate of the Lord, then you will get some news about the Lord. Those who are the near and dear of the Lord will tell you about the Lord – they will give you the news about the Lord, they will tell you where the Lord stays, what the Lord eats, what the Lord likes, where the Lord sleeps, how He eats – they can answer all your questions. It says here, ‘Kandiya kandiya janaiba duhkha-grama / samsara-anala haite magiba visrama.’ When will I get respite from this ocean of material existence? This is not only a matter of this life – how many lifetimes we have passed! How many families we have changed! When will we get relief from this material life? After death we must go to another life, and before that we have also had so many lives, we have changed so many families – we lived in a cow’s family, a goat’s family, a sheep’s family, a cat’s family, and so on.

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 Visnu Purana)

We have passed 900,000 aquatic species, we have passed through 2,000,000 immobile species (trees, hills, etc.), we have been born 1,100,000 times as all kinds of insects and bugs! We flew 1,000,000 times in the sky, and we were born 3,000,000 times as cows, goats, sheep, cats, pigs and other animals, and we have gone through 400,000 human species. You know, there are human species who even eat human meat. There are human species who eat dogs’ meat, goats’ meat, pigs’ meat, who eat snakes and frogs. You know, if you go to China and want to have a pakora, they will give you cockroach pakoras! Just as they eat fish fries here in Bengal, they eat cockroach fries in China (and it is expensive, too). Somebody also eats earthworms, snakes and other abominable things. There are such places (for example, Nagaland in India). There are places where they eat dogs’ meat, cats’ meat. We have gone through such human species, but now we have got this clean birth in India – we can come to Vaishnavs and pray for a relief from this material life. What will Vaishnav Thakur say then? Vaishnav Thakur will appeal to the Lord on my behalf. If I submit my application directly to the Lord, my appeal will not be granted. We must submit our application to Vaishnavs, then it will be sent upstairs, considered, and if they decide that this person is OK, they will sign it and issue an order to give us the grant; otherwise, the ‘bill’ will not be passed.

suniya amara duhkha vaisnava thakura
ama’ lagi’ krsne avedibena prachura

‘Hearing about my sorrow, the worshippable Vaishnav Thakur will ardently pray to Krishna on my behalf.’

vaisnavera avedane krsna dayamaya
e hena pamara prati habena sadaya

‘Lord Krishna is merciful – hearing the Vaishnav’s appeal, He will take pity on this wretched sinner.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

So, we will pray to Vaishnav Thakur, and Vaishnav Thakur will then send our prayer to the Lord. Hearing Vaishnavs’ appeal, Krishna becomes very merciful – taking pity on such a fallen lowly soul as myself, He will fulfil my desire. Without Vaishnavs’ appeal on our behalf, the Lord will never fulfil our heart’s desire.

So, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur prays:

vinodera nivedana vaisnava-charane
krpa kari’ sange laha ei akinchane

‘Bhaktivinod prays at the holy feet of Vaishnavs: “Please take this destitute soul with you.”’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(9/13) Spiritual Deposit

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav,” then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I start thinking that I am a Vaishnav, I will not be able to give honour to others; and when pratistha comes (when I become proud of my wealth, knowledge, beauty, and so on), it will pollute my heart, and I will become a resident of hell – it means that I will be very quickly removed from this line, from the service of the Lord, clearing the road to hell for myself. When pratistha comes, we become very heavy. If somebody gives you a garland, you must take shelter of gurudev: ‘Gurudev, I am offering this garland at your holy lotus feet.’

We must always give jay and pay obeisances to our guru. Even if you do not do anything in particular (for example, do not make a big festival), you must still wake up, check the calendar and give jay to your guru and Vaishnavs. Always pay obeisance to your guru and Vaishnavs when you wake up in the morning, always give them jay. Always keep faith and show respect to them. Always see the calendar – whose appearance day it is, whose disappearance day it is. Even if you cannot make a festival, at least you can give them jay, it will bring you benefit. When you give jay to your guru and Vaishnavs, it brings you sukriti. For example, today is the disappearance day of Srila Lochan Das Thakur – give jay to him, remember him.

We must always remember the words of Vaishnavs. When we remember the words of Vaishnavs, we get some benefit, some deposit through that. If you have no deposit in the bank, how will you cross the Viraja River? It is a great river – if you want to cross it, you must keep something aside for the fare. That fare is devotion – you must accumulate devotion day by day to cross that river. You cannot get devotion in one day. For example, if you want to make a house, it does not happen in one day – you must save and put some money aside for some time. Here too, you must accumulate devotion day by day, you must increase your deposit. Chitragupta [the bookkeeper appointed by Yamaraj to keep record of everyone’s activities] is there – he writes everything in a diary for you and sees how much you have accumulated. If you have no devotional deposit, you will not be able to cross over the Viraja River and enter the transcendental world – you will be sent back from there.

tomara kinkara, apane janiba,
‘guru’-abhimana tyaji’
tomara uchchhista, pada-jala-renu,
sada niskapate bhaji

‘I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru. I will always earnestly worship the remnants of Your food, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘O Vaishnav Thakur! I will always consider myself your servant (or maidservant) so that I may never become proud and get the ego of a guru. I will always worship your holy remnants and the water that has washed your feet.’

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest”, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I have told you about Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj. When somebody gave him prasad, he would take everything and not leave anything on the plate, and when he was forced to eat more one time, he ate even the plate too. He did not give his prasad (food remnants) to anyone. If you give your prasad to others, you will become proud. Sometimes people push, ‘Take some’, ‘Eat some’ – we should not touch it then (not to leave our prasad for others). It is also said here that we must not take worship from anyone.

When we become like this, Vaishnav Thakur will give us the right to chant kirtan.

amani manada, haile kirtane,
adhikara dibe tumi
tomara charane, niskapate ami,
kandiya lutiba bhumi

‘When I become free from the desire for honour and learn to give honour to others, you will give me the right to chant Your kirtan. Rolling on the ground, I will earnestly cry at Your holy feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(10/13) Lacking Spirituality

[Following kirtans, His Divine Grace resumes the class.]

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master, Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy, aspiring to serve him; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all the assembled guru-varga, godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees and all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet and praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

You have heard today some glorification of the Lord. Please listen attentively.

[There is much clamour and noisy commotion in the audience.]

dinera madhye abala-tabala
kata pachala padite para
tara madhye tumi ki ekbara
govinda balite nara

‘How much nonsense you can talk every day! How many idle talks you have! Can you not say the Name of Govinda even once?’

(Folklore)

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur says, ‘O mind, what kind of pauper are you? Are you lacking bhojan (food) or bhajan (Krishna consciousness)?’ Now is the time for prasad, and so many more people have come. You have come to this world to indulge your material senses, have you not? This is not what we have not come to this world for!

bhajiba baliya ese samsara-bhitare
bhuliya rahile tumi avidyara bhare

‘Forgetting that you came to this world saying, “I will serve You”, you remained engulfed in ignorance.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We came to this world promising that we would serve the Lord, but we have forgotten everything due to our ignorance. I have told you before – we must accept what is favourable to devotion, and we must give up what is unfavourable. There are talks about the Lord going on here, but you are disrupting it. Those who obstruct discourses about the Lord and the service to the Lord are offenders at the holy lotus feet of the Lord. You are making an offence to Him about whom we are talking (who we are glorifying). You have got a mouth to speak about the Lord, but instead of speaking about the Lord, you only know to speak about yourself. Satisfying the whims of your mind is not Krishna consciousness. Krishna consciousness means following your guru and Vaishnavs – it means serving your guru and Vaishnavs and satisfying them.

chhadiya vaisnava-seva nistara payechhe keba

‘You cannot get relief without service to Vaishnavs.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

How is it possible to get relief without service to Vaishnavs? Therefore, our religion is jive daya, Name ruchi, Vaisnava seva. We must serve Vaishnavs – if we cannot serve the Lord, our guru and Vaishnavs, we will not be able to save ourselves from this illusory environment.

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya,
sadhu-guru-krpa bina na dekhi upaya

‘It is impossible to conquer illusory environment and become released from it. I see no other way to get relief except by the mercy of saints and Sri Guru.’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Unless we can get the mercy of our guru and sadhus, we cannot overcome this illusory world.

(11/13) About Srila Lochan Das Thakur

Today is the disappearance day of Srila Lochan Das Thakur. As you know, Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur composed Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, and Srila Lochan Das Thakur composed Sri Chaitanya-mangala, which contains even more pastimes of the Lord than Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata.

Srila Lochan Das Thakur appeared in a village near Katwa in Bardhaman District. This is the area where also our Guru Maharaj appeared and most of our guru-varga (Sri Narahari Thakur, Sri Acharya Srinivas and many others) stayed. I have told you earlier today that the appearance and disappearance days of Vaishnavs are non-different from each other. Today is Krishna-ashtami, and it is the disappearance day of Srila Lochan Das Thakur. As I have just said, Srila Lochan Das Thakur, the composer of Sri Chaitanya-mangala, appeared near Katwa in a village called Kogram. He was very fortunate because he got the association of Gauranga Mahaprabhu’s devotees from a very young age. His guru was a devotee called Srila Narahari Thakur, and Srila Lochan Das Thakur writes in Sri Chaitanya-mangala:

thakura sri-narahari, dasa prana adhikari,
yanra pada prati ase asa
adhamahe sadha kare, gora guna gahibare,
se bharasa e lochana-dasa

‘May Sri Thakur Narahari, an exalted and competent servant of the Lord, fulfil my longing to sing the glories of Gora (Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu). This is the aspiration of this Lochan Das.’

amara thakura sri-narahari-dasa
pranati vinati karon pura mora asa

‘I am offering an obeisance to my worshippable Lord, Sri Narahari Das, and appealing to him to fulfil my prayer.’

In those days, everybody chanted the glories of Laksmi, Shani and other gods, but Srila Lochan Das Thakur composed Sri Chaitanya-mangala, glorifying Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

The name of Srila Lochan Das Thakur’s father is Sri Kamalakar Das, and his mother’s name is Sri Sadanandi. Because Srila Lochan Das Thakur was the only son of his father, he was the darling of his parents, the apple of their eyes. He very often stayed at the house of his grandfather.

He was married at a very early age, but it did not affect him – he was very detached from everything material. He had no attachment to the material world, and he lived in the house of his gurudev (Sri Narahari Thakur) in Srikhanda from his youth.

Before Srila Lochan Das Thakur composed Sri Chaitanya-mangala, he offered his obeisance and prayers to Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur, the composer of Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata (this book was previously known as Sri Chaitanya-mangala),

vrndavana dasa vandiba eka-chite
jagata mohita yanra bhagavata gite

‘I am offering my whole-hearted obeisance to Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur, whose ‘Bhagavat-gita’ [lit. ‘The Song of Bhagavata’, ref. to ‘Chaitanya-bhagavata’] has captivated the whole world.’

(Sri Chaitanya-mangal, Sutra-khanda)

In Sri Chaitanya-mangala, Srila Lochan Das Thakur describes the conversation that took place between Mahaprabhu and Sri Vishnupriya Devi before Mahaprabhu left her to take sannyas. Mahaprabhu always felt restless, and finally, He was going to leave His house and a very young (thirteen-year-old) wife. Srila Lochan Das Thakur describes:

prabhura vyagrata dekhi, visnupriya chandra-mukhi,
kahe kichhu gad-gad svare
kaha kaha prananatha, mora sire diya hata,
sannyasa karibe naki tumi

‘Seeing some perturbed eagerness in the Lord, moon-faced Vishnupriya Devi spoke in a somewhat trembling voice, “Tell me, tell me, Prananath. Put Your hand on my head and tell me – are You going to take sannyas?”’

loka mukhe suni iha, vidarite chahe hiya,
agunite pravesiba ami
to lagi jivana-dhana, rupa nava yauvana,
vesa vilasa bhava-kala

‘“I hear people talk. You want to tear my heart apart – I will enter fire! You are the treasure of my life. This time of life is filled with beauty and fresh youth, it is the time when You dress well, live well and love.”’

tumi yabe chhadi yabe, ki kaja e chhara jive,
hiya pore yena visa jvala

‘“When You leave me, what will this wretched soul live for? My heart is burning in agony as if I have taken poison…”’

What did Mahaprabhu say hearing this lamentation of Sri Vishnupriya Devi? It is described very beautifully in Sri Chaitanya-mangala of Srila Lochan Das Thakur.

e bola suniya panhu, muchaki hasiya lahu,
kahe suna mora pranapriya
kichhu na kariha chite, ye kahiye tora hite
sabadhane suna mana diya

‘Hearing these words, the Lord said with a slight, gentle smile on His face, “Listen to Me, dear. Do not stir your heart, what I am saying to you is for your benefit. Listen to Me carefully and attentively.”’

jagate yateka dekha, michha kari saba lekha,
satya eka sabe bhagavan
satya ara vaisnava, ta vine yateka saba,
michha kari karaha geyana

‘“Everything you see in this world is false. The Supreme Lord is within everything – this is one truth; and the devotees of the Lord is the other truth. Know that other than that, everything is false.”’

The Lord’s Name, qualities, form, associates and features are the only truth; everything else is false.

michha suta pati nari, pita-mata adi kari,
pariname keba na kahara
sri-krsna charana bahi, ara ta kutumba nahi,
yata dekha saba maya tanra

‘“Sons, husbands, women, parents and everything else are false. Ultimately, nobody belongs to anyone. Except for Sri Krishna’s lotus feet, there is no kin. Everything you see here is His illusion.”’

Who will you take as your own in this world? Only Krishna. Everything else in this world that you feel akin to is all maya, illusion.

ki nari purusa dekha, atma se sabara eka,
michha maya-bandhe bhave dui
sri-krsna sabara pati, ara saba prakrti,
e katha na bujhaye koi

‘“Whether it is a man or a woman, both souls are the same. Only those who are situated in illusory bondage see them as two different entities. Sri Krishna is everyone’s husband, and all souls are female. Do you not understand this?”’

raktareta sammilane, janma vistha mutra sthane,
bhume padi haya ageyana
bala yuba vrdda haiya, nana duhkha kasta paiya,
dehe-gehe kare abhimana

‘“When some blood and semen are combined, a body is born from the same place where urine and stool come out, and later, that body falls unconscious on the ground. Going through childhood, youth and old age and suffering so many austerities and hardships, conditioned souls become proud of their bodies and houses.”’

This is so true! My father and mother have given me this body, but they have not given me that which I am. When this body expires, dirty things (stool, urine, blood, and so on) come out of it. Nothing else comes out of it. This body is a place of urine and stool. It is born from earth, and after death it is again mixed with earth. People identify themselves with this body and suffer because of that.

bandhu kari yare pali, tara sabe dei gali,
abhimane vrddhatra kala vanche
sravana nayana andhe, visada bhariya kande,
tabu nahi bhajaye govinde

‘“When all their friends desert them, everyone will swear them – they will be cheated in their old age because of their pride. Deaf and blind, filled with sorrow, they will weep, but even then they will not worship Govinda.”’

krsna bhajibara tare, deha dhari e samsare,
maya bandhe pasari apana
ahankare matta haiya, nija prabhu pasariya,
sese paya naraka-yantrana

‘“They have got a body in this world, and if they use it to worship Krishna, they will automatically leave all illusory bondage. However, those who lose their mind out of pride forget their own Master, and in the end, they undergo hellish suffering.”’

We sing, ‘Ahankare matta haina, Nitai-pada pasariya, asatyere satya kari mani – maddened with pride, I forgot Nitai’s feet and take untruth for truth.’ We always think, ‘My house’, ‘My son’, and so on – we become very proud and suffer in hell.

tora nama visnupriya, sarthaka karaha iha,
michha soka na karaha chite
e tora kahilum katha, dura kara ana chinta
mana deha krsnera charite

‘“Your name is Vishnupriya [who is dear to Lord Vishnu], so fulfil its meaning. There is no need for all this false grief in your heart. I have told you everything, so do away with all your worries and dedicate your mind and body to Krishna consciousness.’”

‘Do not be grief-stricken – I can die one day too, so what is there to cry about? I have come to this world, and I can do something good for this world.’ Instructing Sri Vishnupriya Devi in this way, Mahaprabhu revealed His chatur-bhuja murti (His holy four-armed form) to her – He showed her that He was not an ordinary human being.

apane isvara haiya, dura kare nija maya,
visnupriya parasanna chita
dure gele duhkha-soka, anande bharila buka,
chatur-bhuja dekhe achambita

‘He is independent Lord, so He removed His own illusion. Vishnupriya felt pleased at heart – her sadness and grief went away, and her heart became filled with joy. She was then greatly surprised to see the Lord’s four-armed form.’

Seeing the Lord’s form, Sri Vishnupriya Devi became very happy, but she still saw the Lord as her husband – that feeling did not leave her.

tabe devi visnupriya, chatur-bhuja dekhiya,
pati budhhi nahi chhade tabu
padiya charana tale, kakuti minati kare,
eka nivedana suna prabhu

‘Yet, even seeing the four-armed form of the Lord, Vishnupriya Devi could not give up her perception of the Lord as her husband. She fell at His feet and pleaded earnestly, “Prabhu, please hear my one prayer.”’

mo ati adhama chhara, janamila e samsara,
tumi mora priya prana-pati
e hena sampada mora, dasi haiyachilum tora,
ki lagiya bhela adhogati

‘“I am a very fallen, wretched soul, I was born in this material world, but You are the dearmost lord of my heart, You are my all in all. This is my wealth. I have become Your maidservant. Why am I so unfortunate?”’

iha bali visnupriya, kande utaroli haiya,
adhika badila paramada
priya-jane artti dekhi, chhala chhala kare ankhi,
kole kari karila prasada

‘Saying this, Vishnupriya Devi broke down and began to sob. Her plight became even worse. Seeing the grief of His beloved, His eyes filled with tears, the Lord took her on His lap and spoke mercifully:’

suna devi visnupriya, tomare kahila iha,
yakhane ye tumi mane kara
ami yatha tatha yai, achhiye tomara thani,
ei satya kahilama dara

‘“Listen, Vishnupriya Devi. I have told you that whenever you think of Me, I am always in your room, wherever I may be at that time. I assure you that this is the truth.”’

prabhu ajna vani suni, visnupriya mana guni,
svatantra isvara ei prabhu
nija sukhe kara kaja, ke dibe tahate badha,
pratyuttara na dilena tabu

‘Hearing Prabhu’s advice and order, Vishnupriya composed herself thinking, “This Prabhu is independent Supreme Lord. He does what pleases Him, what use is it trying to stop Him?” So, she said nothing in reply.’

visnupriya heta mukhi, chhala chhala kare ankhi,
dekhi prabhu sarasa sambhase
prabhura acharana katha, sunite lagiye vyatha,
guna gaya e lochana dase

‘Vishnupriya Devi listened to the Lord’s sweet words with her face lowered and eyes filled with tears… This Lochan Das is singing the glories of the Lord’s pastimes although this behaviour of the Lord is painful to hear about.’

This is what Srila Lochan Das Thakur writes. He also wrote kirtans in glorification of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. Parama karuna, Nitai-guna-mani amara and others. He also wrote about the pastimes of Sri Sri Radha Govinda in a book called Durlabha-sara:

are nikunja vane, syamera sane,
ki-rupa dekhilum rai
kemana vidhata, gadala murati,
lakhai nahika yai

‘O what sort of form have I seen of Rai next to Shyam in Their Nikunja grove! It is inconceivable that the Creator can produce such a form!’

sajala jalada, kanura varana,
champa varani rai
mani marakata, kanchane jadita,
aichhana rahala thai

‘There I beheld that Kanu’s body is the blue emerald colour of a water-bearing cloud, and Rai’s golden colour is like that of a champa flower!’

kiye aparupa, rasa mandala,
ramani mandala ghata
mana-matha mana, paila achetana,
dekhiya o anga chhata

‘What a superb form! He enjoys amorous pastimes with young ladies! Seeing His lustrous form, my mind swooned, and I fell unconscious.’

vadane madhura, hasa adhare,
hrdaye hrdaye sanga
kona rasavati, rasera avese
kusuma sayane anga

‘He is lying on a bed of kusum flowers, His face emanating sweetness, His smile most affectionate, He is filled with joy and overcome with amorous ecstasy.’

navina meghera, nivida abha,
tahe vijuri ujoi
dasa lochanera, rai saravasa
o-rasa avese so-i

‘There is a lightning striking through the dense glow of this fresh rain-cloud. Rai is all in all for Lochan Das, who is overwhelmed by these pastimes.’

At the age of eighty-five, this Srila Lochan Das Thakur left his body. Today is his disappearance day. We must pray to Vaishnav Thakur, ‘Wherever you are, Prabhu, please bestow your mercy on this fallen and lowly soul so that I may live this life serving you.’

Jay Srila Lochan Das Thakur ki jay.

Tadiya tirobhav tithi-bara maha-mahotsav ki jay.

(12/13) Leave Separate Interests

Soon is Sri Nityananda-trayodasi (the holy appearance day of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu). Please come to Birbhum on 25 February, there will be a festival in our temple in Ekachakra. Many of you have also got the invitation to Gaura Purnima, please come. I think many of you have been to Nrisingha Palli recently – you have seen that we now have many rooms there. Come, there is no problem with accommodation – come for the parikrama of the holy dham. A few days later, there will be a festival in Birbhum, in Ekachakra, and you must all come. The programme and parikrama are three days (dvadasi, trayodasi and chaturdasi). You can come earlier – on the ekadasi day – also, it is not a problem. Devotees will start coming from the ekadasi day, and there are enough rooms for everyone, so everyone can come.

You see that everyone is all right – nobody is ill, nobody has got corona, nobody has died. If gurudev gives his mercy, if gurudev keeps us alive, if the Lord keeps us alive, then nobody can do anything to us. There are twenty-year-old people who die of corona, and there are one-hundred-year-old people who get corona and come back from hospital. So, there is no need to be afraid. I have told you – practise Krishna consciousness, do not stop. You may live only for ten years, but if you practise Krishna consciousness, it is sufficient. On the other hand, if you do not practise Krishna consciousness, there is no use living for one hundred years. We must practise Krishna consciousness.

sadhu-sange krsna-nama—ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

There is no other way to conquer this material existence unless you chant the Holy Name.

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

You can never chant the Holy Name in bad association; always keep good association, then you will get supreme benefit – you can get the Lord! Please come to your home! You are all my relatives. We are all amritasya-putra (sons of nectar) – we all have one father, so we are all brothers and sisters. Please remember that we are all related, we are all one family. I have just told you – our only near and dear one is Krishna, nobody else. Everyone else is svajanakhya-dasyu: dacoits disguised as well-wishing family. They may look as your well-wishers and your relatives, but they are actually dacoits. Do you not see what is going on in the world? Do you not read newspapers, watch TV or hear the news? Children kill their mothers. A mother creates the body of her child with her own blood during ten months (the Lord gives the soul, but parents create the body), after that she nourishes and takes care of the child (wipes the child’s stool and does everything else) for many years – and this very child kills her! Is this a relative? Is this your well-wisher, your near and dear one? It is not. They are dacoits disguised as your relatives. Everyone in this world knows nothing except their own interest. However, the Lord does not want any separate interest:

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

‘Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

The Lord says, ‘Leave all religions…’

(13/13) Muddled Minds

There is a religion of a father, mother, friend, relative, well-wisher, and so on; there is a religion of a sudra, brahman, brahmachari, grihastha, sannyasi, vanaprastha – but Lord Krishna says, ‘Leave all religions and surrender to Me.’ Do you understand what that means?

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

‘Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

‘Do not be upset, do not be disheartened that you do not do your duty, that you will incur sin – I have liberated you from all sins.’ Many of you think, ‘I have not served my father’, ‘I have not served my mother’, ‘I have not served my daughter’, ‘I have not served my friends’, but the Lord says, ‘If you serve Me, all kinds of other services are automatically carried out.’ If you serve the Lord, all demigod worship is automatically carried out – you do not need to worship any god (Laksmi, Durga, Ganesh et al.) separately. You can see that many make a museum of Deities at their homes. They think if you do not worship Manasi, she will get angry, and you will be bitten by a snake and die. People are very afraid of death, but everyone must die one day – why be so afraid of death? One who is born has to die one day.

You know how the saying goes, ‘Janma-mrtyu-biye tin Vidhatar niye.’ There are three things – birth, death and marriage; these three things are not in the hands of anybody, they are only in the hands of the Lord (they come through the Lord). If you have marriage written in your destiny, then you will get married, and as for the other two, everyone gets birth and death: you are born, so you must die; you die, so you must be born again. If you do not want to suffer from birth, death, old age and disease, then there is only one way – surrender to the Lord, call out to the Lord. ‘Grhe thako, vane thako, sada “Hari” bole dako – whether you stay in a house or in a forest, always call out to the Lord (chant the Lord’s Name). Sukhe duhkhe bhule nako vadane Harinam koro re – in happiness or sadness, never forget it, always chant the Holy Name’ (Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur). When happiness comes, we forget the Lord, and when unhappiness comes (for example, when we are in hospital and suffering), we remember and call out to the Lord. You get on a motorcycle and drive it without thinking about anyone, but when your leg gets broken, then you call out to the Lord while you are being taken to hospital.

maya-jale baddha ha’ye, achha michhe kaja la’ye
ekhana-o chetana peye, radha-madhav-nama bala re

‘Bound in Maya’s net, you work in vain. While you are still conscious, chant the Name of Radha-Madhav!’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

[Clamour in the audience. A devotee tries to hush them.]

They are hungry. I have told you – people are hungry for food, but ‘O mind, what kind of pauper are you? What do you beg for?’ Srila Prabhupad wrote: ‘Are you coming to beg for bhojan (food) or bhajan (Krishna consciousness)?’ There is a small book of Srila Gurudev that has been composed recently, and that article of Srila Prabhupad is printed in it.

There was once a festival at the temple of Gaudiya Math and somebody came and had the guts to ask, ‘When are they going to give food to the poor here?’ Hearing this question, Srila Prabhupad gave this answer:

O mind, tell me, what pauper are you? What do you lack? What do you beg for? Do you need money? Do you need good qualities? Do you need beauty? Do you need followers? Is this what you are roaming around for? Because you are not getting what you want, you consider yourself a pauper, is it not so? Somebody says that they are poor because they have no money. Somebody does not have some coveted qualities, so they say they are poor. Somebody does not have beauty (they think they have dark skin, and if they had lighter skin, they would have got a nice husband) – such people also think that they are poor (poor for beauty). Yet, the truth is this. What pauper are you? You want to enjoy the pleasures of the material world – you think you will be well off if you could eat nicely and get all these material things, but you are mistaken! You are greatly mistaken! All these things only increase your disease! All the things that you find here at the temple are serving the Lord, but you want the things that even animals get! You think that you are a pauper because you lack food, but even goats and dogs eat the food you want so much. Why do you need to come here then? If you want to give a pill to a child, the child will not take it – you must sugar-coat it (put it inside a sweet-ball). It is the same here – prasad is given to entice the public. This is a great place of pilgrimage here, a temple where the Supreme Lord resides and where His Hari-katha is going on, so there is only maha-prasad available here. Come, dear mind! If you desire your own benefit, then come! Do not come here as a beggar for food! Come here as a beggar for Krishna consciousness! Take the dust from the holy lotus feet of the greatly merciful devotees of the Lord on your head!

bhakta-pada-dhuli ara bhakta-pada-jala
bhakta-bhukta-sesa—ei tina sadhanera bala

‘The dust from devotees’ feet, the water that has washed devotees’ feet and the remnants of devotees’ food – these three are the strength of one’s spiritual life.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.16.60)

This is how we must think. You can see that wherever there is a festival, people start coming when it is time to eat. If you invite everyone in the morning, nobody will come. You can see now too – this place was empty at first, and now it is full. I have reprinted this article of Srila Prabhupad in the book, you can buy it. You should all come to the festival. Please take care of yourself.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj.

I will chant one more kirtan now and then finish.

ke yabi ke yabi bhai bhava-sindhu para
dhanya kali-yuge re chaitanya-avatara [1]

‘Brother, who will cross? Who will cross this ocean of material existence? Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appears in this fortunate Age of Kali!’

amara gauranger ghate ujanakheya vaya
kadipati nahi lage amani para haya [2]

‘At my Lord Gauranga’s ghat, the upstream ferry runs without requesting any fare. Everyone crosses freely.’

hari-namera tarikhani sri-guru-kandari
sankirtana-keroyala du’bahu pasari [3]

‘The Lord’s Names are the ferryboat, Sri Guru is the captain, and the arms raised in sankirtan are the oars.’

sarva-jiva uddhara haila premera vatase
lochana padiya raila karamera dose [4]

‘All souls have thus been delivered by the winds of divine love. Only Lochan Das has fallen and remained behind as a result of his sins.’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

* * *

￼Line Line7 February 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sevak Bhavan, Kolkata

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/8) ‘Guru-mukha-padma-vakya chitete kariya aikya’

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa-kula-churamani Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda Sundar jiu ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev Subhadra Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Tadiya sakha math-samuha ki jay.
Sri Mather sevak vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Ananta-koti Vaishnav-vrinda ki jay.
Sri Gaudiya acharya-vrinda ki jay.
Tridandi-pad-gan ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Nityananda Prabhu ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Mahaprabhu ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

I am giving my full obeisance to all the devotees, all the sannyasi- and brahmachari-bhakta-vrinda as well as all of my well-wishers and friends. I am very happy to see you all today. I see that so many devotees are joining this programme from their homes – they connect to this Zoom programme through the internet. I know the situation in some countries is still bad – some countries are still in lockdown, so devotees cannot go to the temples. I have also heard the news from London that devotees there cannot go to the temple so much, and those who live in the temple only do some daily programmes and puja. It is necessary to continue regular programmes and worship the Deities properly.

Scriptures tell what is sadhu-sanga (good, saintly association) and what is asadhu-sanga (bad, unholy association).

There are six main practices, and sadhu-sanga is listed first among them:

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana
mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

‘Associate with sadhus, chant the Holy Name of the Lord, listen to Srimad Bhagavatam, reside in Mathura and worship Deities with faith.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.124)

I was at a programme the day before yesterday, and I was telling them that I had read a lecture of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur where somebody asked a question, ‘What is good association? What is not good association?’ Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur gave the following answer to that question. There are nine kinds of devotion (nava-vidha bhakti). As you know, when we go on Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, we always speak about nava-vidha bhakti – we describe what kind of devotion exists at each of the nine islands. So, if you practise at least one of these nine kinds of devotion, it means you are doing good association (keeping sadhu-sanga), and if somebody does not practise any of these kinds of devotion (not even one of them), it means that they are doing bad association (keeping asadhu-sanga).

That is why, it is necessary to practise minimum one kind of devotion every day. The nine kinds of devotion are sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord).

We go to work every day early in the morning and sometimes do not get time to do much, but at least practise smaranam (remember the Lord), vandanam (pray to the Lord) or sravanam-kirtanam (hear about the Lord and chant the Lord’s Name and glories). Listen to the lectures in the morning. Sometimes, devotees do not get time to do archan (worship the Deities), they do not get time to do vandanam (recite prayers) or chant all rounds properly – understanding this situation, Gurudev always said that you must chant minimum four rounds every day, but only that is not enough – even sravan and kirtan must be practised every day. Working the whole day and getting time to hear a lecture only once a week – not like that. You must practise minimum one kind of devotion every day. You may not get time to cook every day, but you must practise minimum one kind of devotion every day, that will bring a great benefit and a great association in your spiritual life. It is very important.

There is smaranam, kirtanam, arati, archan, puja, all kinds of Deity worship – there are sixty-four types of devotion in total, but you must practise minimum one bhaktyanga (limb of devotion) every day. It is very important for your spiritual life.

(2/8) Internal and Eternal

First, it is necessary to have sraddha (faith). It is not necessary to show externally how much faith you have for the Lord – the question is how much faith do you have for your guru, for your Master and for the worshippable Lord internally? How much faith do you have? ‘Sraddha-anusari bhakti-adhikari – the quality of devotion depends upon faith’ (Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.64). The other day, I was explaining one of the songs from Sri Gaudiya Gitanjali:

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

The problem is our ego (abhiman). Ego disturbs everything and damages your devotion – it can take everything away from you. It is very important to understand this. You must know the relationship between you and your Master (your guru) and Vaishnavs. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said to everyone, even to his disciples, ‘Everybody is my guru.’ Such was his vision. He would say, ‘I am giving initiation to you, but it does not mean I am giving mercy to you; in fact, you have come to take initiation from me, so you are giving your mercy to me.’ Therefore, the true relationship is that everybody is our master, even those who took initiation only yesterday.

If you took initiation thirty years ago and somebody took initiation yesterday, you cannot discriminate against them – you cannot dishonour or disrespect them. Somebody may have joined Krishna consciousness a very short time ago, and you may have joined Krishna consciousness thirty years ago – you must still give respect to all devotees. They are your masters, so you must always address them as ‘Prabhu’ or ‘Didi’. Give proper respect to everyone. Do not look at who is a disciple of Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj, who is a disciple of Srila B. R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, who is a disciple of Gurudev (Srila B. S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj), who is a disciple of some other acharya. Do not discriminate against others or separate others into groups. They are all your friends, they are all your relatives. We all belong to the same family. Anyone who comes to Krishna consciousness is an amritasya putra (a son of nectar) – they all come from the Lord. This is actually true for anyone, even those who are not initiated. Everybody in this world comes from the same place – we all belong to the same place. The only difference is that somebody may not have come to Krishna consciousness yet because of the influence of maya.

Jiva souls forget the Lord and their identity under the influence of maya. This is called ajnanata or avidya (ignorance). We have no knowledge – all education that we get in this world is mundane education, and it is not possible to understand real things through that. Mundane education only tells you that your identification is that you are this body, but this is not our identification! Even Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says that the true form, or identity, of the jiva soul is that it is an eternal servant of the Lord (jivera svarupa haya krsnera nitya-dasa; Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.108).

We are eternal servants of the Lord; this is our identity. Even those who have already come to Krishna consciousness can sometimes forget it because of the influence of maya. When we learn or remember our identification, we come to Krishna consciousness and surrender, but after some time we can again forget it by the influence of maya. That is why, it is said:

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya,
sadhu-guru-krpa bina na dekhi upaya

‘It is impossible to conquer illusory environment and become released from it. I see no other way to get relief except by the mercy of saints and Sri Guru.’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

There is no way to conquer illusory environment except by the mercy of sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs. Without their mercy we cannot overcome it. That is why we must always remember sadhus, gurus and all Vaishnavs. This is the main thing for us in our life.

(3/8) Clearing the Path

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I think that I have become a Vaishnav, then I will not be able to show respect to others, and the result will be ‘haiba nirayagami’ – I will clear the road to hell for myself.

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It means the road to hell will become cleared for me. If somebody thinks, ‘I have become a great Vaishnav’, ‘I am becoming a great Vaishnav’, ‘I have become a sannyasi’, ‘I am a brahmachari’, ‘I am a grihastha (householder)’ or even, ‘I am a devotee’, this is all wrong. Our only identification is this: ‘I am a servant of devotees.’

sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the true relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is crucial to understand this. Ego always creates problems. We say that we have six enemies (sad-ripu) inside us – kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (desire, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy), and ego is also included there, it is number five – mada.

Matsaryata (envy) is also a big problem. We must think about others’ good and about others’ benefit. We must always think, ‘How can I help him/her to come to Krishna consciousness?’ Even Sriman Mahaprabhu’s teachings are like that. ‘Pratihimsa tyaji anye karabi palana: stop ill-treating others, nurture everyone.’ It means that if somebody says anything bad to you, you must not talk back. If somebody does any harm to you, you must not do harm to them in return – you must not become the judge because there is already somebody there above you who gives judgement, and that somebody is the Lord, so you cannot take the law in your own hands. We must control ourselves.

We must not see anyone’s faults. This is very important. We must always see our own faults. ‘Vaisnava habe adosa-darasi – Vaishnavs will not see others’ faults; they will see their own faults.’ Gurudev also says that we must not be drain inspectors. If you go to a drain, you will always get a bad smell, and the more you dig in the drain, the more stench will come. Do not think about anyone’s faults. Do not waste your time on this.

When I am saying all this to you, I am not giving advice to you – I am actually giving advice to myself to make myself clean. I am not saying that I am perfect, but if I tell, tell and tell it, then one day I will become clean. So, when I say something to you, I am giving advice to myself. I know that all these things are easier said than done (it is easy to say it, but it is very hard to follow it), but I am saying all this for my own benefit.

It is necessary to have all these good qualities…

(4/8) Cause of All Causes

Our problem is that we suffer from avidya (ignorance) and asmita (false identification) – we always identify ourselves with the material body. We always think, ‘Oh, I am doing this’, ‘If it were not for me, it would not have been done!’, and so on. When you say things like that, it is also a kind of false ego. Everything that exists in this world and everything that is happening in this world is under the control of the Supreme Lord. You all know this sloka:

isvarah paramah krsnah sach-chid-ananda-vigrahah
anadir adir govindah sarva-karana-karanam

‘Krishna, who is known as Govinda, is the supreme controller. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no origin, for He is the prime cause of all causes.’

(Sri Brahma-samhita, 5.1)

Sarva-karana-karanam. He is the cause of all causes. The Lord does everything (He is the doer), and He sees everything. Everything is written in His diary. He can see and say anything He likes.

You can ask yourself, ‘Is my devotion increasing?’ There is karma-misra bhakti, jnana-misra bhakti, jnana-sunya bhakti (devotion mixed with the pursuit of material gain, devotion mixed with the pursuit of knowledge and devotion free from any desire for knowledge). We always seek our own benefit.

We understand the relationship with our father, mother, sister, brother, daughter, husband, wife and others very well, but we cannot understand our gurudev – we are not even trying to understand him. How much our gurudev has given to everybody! He has given his very life for everybody – for your spiritual benefit. He threw himself away, he sacrificed himself for your spiritual benefit. You must keep some place for the Lord, for gurudev in your heart. Our heart is always dirty with kanak, kamini, pratistha (desire for money, women and fame), kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness and envy), rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (desire for enjoyment through eyes, tongue, nose, ears and skin). If you invite gurudev to your house, you must first free some space to keep him; in the same way, you must vacate your heart to be able to keep gurudev there. It is important to understand this. This is the main thing in our spiritual life.

We show so much devotion externally, but how much love do we have internally for our gurudev? How much attachment do we have internally for our gurudev? How much time do we give to him every day? Every day, we work the whole day running behind some kanak, kamini, pratistha (money, women and fame), behind some establishment, but how much time do you have in this world? Do you have any time to spare for the Lord, for your gurudev?

I was saying today that the main thing is sraddha, visvas (faith). I have told you that first comes the strongest faith (sraddha). We must develop our faith because if faith is gone, everything is gone. When you are going to make a building, you must first have some foundation – in devotion too, you must first establish the foundation, and that foundation is sraddha (faith). If the foundation of your devotion is weak, then the devotion in your heart will gradually be demolished. That is why, our first and foremost necessity is to establish faith. After that, it is necessary to keep good association – it is necessary to practise nava-vidha bhakti. I have already told you about it. These are the most important things in our spiritual life.

Sometimes, we feel tired and cannot do so much, but in this case, you must read books. Read Sri Prapanna-jivanamritam, read gurudev’s books, Guru Maharaj’s books. Read Srimad Bhagavatam – it is the main devotional scripture in our line. You cannot reach your real home without devotion – you cannot reach it through any material activities, any mystic practices or any knowledge. Only devotion can grant you entrance there. How can you improve your devotion? Through good association. ‘Bhaktis tu bhagavad-bhakta-sangena parijayate – devotion comes through the association of devotees’ (Brihan-naradiya Purana).

I have told you before also that you cannot join a zoom programme every day or at all times, but you must always keep good association. There are nine kinds of devotional practice – sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). You must practise minimum one of these practices every day.

(5/8) Do Not Be Disheartened

[Addressing one of the devotees.] How is your brother? When will he give his full-time to the temple? It has been lockdown for many months now – what has he been doing there all this time? Why did he not come? He thinks that he will study and become an engineer and make many buildings or maybe become a doctor and treat many patients, but we must first treat ourselves. In this world, we are all patients, and we must go to a proper, real doctor who can cure us from the disease of birth and death. That is why it is necessary to join Krishna consciousness full-time: to stay at the temple and practise properly…

I could not go to Nepal this year because of the covid situation, and I do not know if the border is closed or open now. [Devotees say that it is still closed.] Oh, it is not open yet? All right… Yes, so many foreign devotees also cannot get the Indian visa. The government says that they will start giving visas from March. Anyhow, even if you cannot come, you will make this parikrama mentally from your own country this year. You know, we sometimes visit some villages where we do not get an opportunity to do Tulasi parikrama (for example, the house can be small, or there can be too many people): in such situations, we do Tulasi parikrama mentally.

Those who cannot bodily join Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama this year can make this parikrama from their house. It is not a problem. When Srila Sanatan Goswami became old and could not walk properly, could not do Sri Govardhan parikrama, Srila Rupa Goswami gave him a Govardhan sila and said, ‘Take this sila – now you can do Sri Govardhan parikrama as many times as you want.’ When you come to India, you can take the soil from the nine islands, keep it in a small pot, and do Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama at home every day. Otherwise, you can print a photograph of the nine islands and do the parikrama of the nine islands in this way. You can do that.

This year, many devotees lament, ‘We cannot join Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama!’ but do not be disheartened. This year, you can make this parikrama from your home, and if you have a great desire and a great fortune, you will be able to come and join Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama next year. This is how you can adjust yourself.

(6/8) Forthcoming Festivals

There is no problem with the accommodation in Sri Nrisingha Palli this year. Everybody will get many rooms now – Krishna has given us an opportunity to make a house this time. We have been doing the parikrama from Sri Nrisingha Palli for many years now, starting from 2017, and there has always been a problem with accommodation – the temple accommodation is very small, and we had to always rent some houses outside, but the houses were far and often not very good. Accommodation used to be a big problem, but this year, by the mercy of gurudev, by the mercy of all the devotees, by the mercy of Lord Nrisinghadev and Prahlad Maharaj, we have been given some good accommodation. More than one hundred rooms should be ready before this Gaura Purnima.

Next week, I am going to do the annual potato collection in the Tarakeshwar area for four–five days, starting from Tuesday. I will leave on Tuesday afternoon and stay in Tarakeshwar for four days. This is my programme. Actually, some devotees are already collecting potato, but all the people want me to come to their houses, they want to see me, that is why I am going there myself. I can still walk, so it is not a problem – when I cannot walk anymore, then I can let others do this. Going door to door is also good preaching for Gaura Purnima – we come and invite everyone to come for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, and also the potato for the whole year comes in this way.

This year, I had to give some potato to Mayapur temples; some, to poor people; and some, to devotees, because there were not so many big festivals this year – Janmastami, Radhastami and even Srila Param Guru Maharaj’s tirobhav festival were not very big because of lockdowns. Festivals started actually from Srila Gurudev’s appearance day in December. We did make all the other festivals in our temples, but only a small number of people could join (perhaps, one–two hundred), and only Srila Gurudev’s appearance festival was very big. That is why we had to distribute and also sell some of the collected potato (also, potato was very expensive this year).

Our Uluberia temple is now almost finished. I think we will inaugurate the temple of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda-Sundar soon after the Gaura Purnima festival. This is what I am thinking. Uluberia is part of Howrah district, and it is a very famous place. There are many devotees in Uluberia, many of whom are disciples Srila Gurudev, that is why I chose one place on the bank of the Ganges and made a temple there. I had been offered another land, but that land was not quite suitable because the area was not good, and then one very old devotee gave his land for Srila Gurudev’s mission, and I chose to build the temple there, on the bank of the Ganges. That devotee is a householder – he took initiation when I had just joined Krishna consciousness.

When I lived in Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Nabadwip, I sometimes went swimming in the Ganges. One time, Gurudev also went swimming in the Ganges, and I went with him. I remember when we were swimming in the Ganges, Gurudev lost some stone [from his armlet or a ring], but when he came out onto the bank, he saw that the stone had come to his lotus feet. He said, ‘Oh, Mother Ganga Devi has taken it, and Mother Ganga Devi has given it back to me.’ I was swimming in the Ganges with Gurudev at that time… After I got diabetes, I started swimming in the Ganges, but later I had no time to go to the Ganges. Now I see that we have got a land for a temple on the bank of the Ganges, and I was thinking that I could sometimes go swimming in the Ganges – I could bath in the Ganges instead of taking a shower in the bathroom. Anyhow, I chose that land, and now, within almost two years, the temple is finished. Almost everything there is clean now – only painting and the wiring is left to do (there is electricity, but it is necessary to divide it).

Try to come and join Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. You have a great fortune to do it. Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama programme starts from 22 March this year (22 March is the adhivas, and the parikrama starts from 23 March). Come, you will get a special benefit. You can come alone, or you can come with your friends, relatives, it is not a problem. Everybody will get accommodation. Come for seven–eight days – the parikrama itself is five days, and one day is Gaura Purnima (the main festival), and the next day is the mahotsav. Join, it will be good for you.

Are there any questions today?

…You can use cow dung as fertiliser – if you have cow dung, do not use any chemical fertiliser; if you use only cow dung, it is good. In Nrisingha Palli, Sri Prahlad Maharaj now has so many cows – there are ten–elven cows in Sri Nrisingha Palli now. One cow had a calf there, one cow had a calf in Hapaniya, one more cow had a calf in Bankura, and three(!) cows recently had calves in Ekachakra. We now have so many cows in Ekachakra too (more than fifteen!) – initially, I brought only one cow, Padmavati, and now Padmavati has a very big family. Three of the cows there are giving milk, and the temple is getting much milk. Also, I received a phone call today from Hapaniya – one more calf was born. It is actually a miracle – I do not really like bulls, so it is a miracle that all the cows are giving female calves, not bulls [His Divine Grace laughs].

The holy appearance day of Sri Nityananda Prabhu is coming soon – there will be a big festival in Ekachakra on Nityananda Prabhu’s trayodasi tithi. Ekachakra is the birthplace of Nityananda Prabhu, and we have a temple of Sri Sri Guru Gaura Nityananda Prabhu there. This temple was founded on the appearance day of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. We are inviting you all to join this festival – if you cannot come physically, you can join this festival through your heart, through your mind. I will try to make a live programme from there – if we get a chance and the signal is good, we can try to do that.

‘Nitaiyer karuna habe Vraje Radha Krsna pabe, dhara Nitaiyer charana duhkhani – when Nitai bestows His mercy on you, you will reach Radha-Krishna in Vraja. Grasp Nitai’s feet, O miserable soul!’

The festival in Ekachakra will take place on 25 February, this month, so I will go there five–six days before to arrange the grand festival. You know what a great festival takes place there every year – those who have been there know it and have seen it with their own eyes. Afraid of covid, the government told me not to make it four days – they asked to make it three days only. I agreed – there will be a small festival on ekadasi, and after that there will be a three-day festival on dvadasi, trayodasi and chaturdasi. I told the officials that 25,000 people would take prasad every day – 75,000 people in total…

(7/8) On Importance of Chastity

Question: Why is chastity to the guru important?

I can give some 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 properly take care of him, and she can properly serve him. 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. Therefore, 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 go to people’s altar room, and you can 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 altar! It is necessary to have chastity. I asked Gurudev what chastity means, and Gurudev said that it means ‘satitva’ (‘chastity’ as in ‘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 no chastity? Krishna says that He is chaste to His devotees, and if you want to be a devotee of Lord Krishna, then you too must have chastity. If you want to please everybody, you cannot actually please anybody then.

‘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:

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 so 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 can control the Lord.

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. Thus offering yourself to Me and taking refuge in Me, 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 address of the Lord, and only gurudev knows His address. Therefore, it is necessary to be chaste to your guru. It is very important to understand this.

Gurudev also says 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 heart, your everything to the guru, if you fully surrender to your guru (if you think about the Lord, about your Master, about your gurudev), then gurudev will also think about you.

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

All right, 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 bhule nako vadane Harinam koro re: in happiness or sadness, do not 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 to you: you think you are getting some food, but this is also the will, the mercy of Lord Krishna. You live in this world, but how are you alive? How are you talking? You can see a dead body – can it talk or not? Only the body is there, but if there is no life in this body, if there is no soul in this 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. If somebody does not want to understand, what can you do? You can only give them some prasad – their jiva soul will get some benefit through that, and you will also get some benefit. It is OK. Here in India also, some people 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 can 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 says 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, and it is necessary to preach to them again and again…

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 house, 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 [to the website], 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 means Kali (‘a place of Kali’). There is so much influence of Kali here.

Abroad, it is a little easier to preach 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 wife or divorce their husband; whereas here in India, the wife can be beaten by her husband every day, but she tolerates everything and continues serving her husband. 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, you can try your best to preach to these people, and one day you will be successful.

(8/8) Study and Learn

Question: I want to take your shelter and ask you for instruction…

My instruction is ‘jive daya, Name ruchi, vaishnava-seva’. Preach in your country, and you can practise jive daya (kindness to the jiva souls) in this way; chant the Holy Name – this is Name ruchi (taste for the Holy Name); and vaishnav-seva – serve Vaishnavs, serve devotees. These are the main things. If you can follow this, it will be good.

I want to say to the devotees that it is necessary to make a centre in Spain so that everybody could join the programmes. Everybody together should try to make a centre there – if you can do it, it will be good because so many devotees have left Venezuela and gone to other countries, and I think more than 50% went to Spain, so try to make a centre there. You can start by renting a house. Start preaching there. I am telling this to everybody – try to stay together. It is not necessary to think who will be the president, who will be the secretary, and so on. These things are not necessary – it is only necessary to establish and maintain Gurudev’s mission.

[A devotee makes a complaint] Those who do not harmonise are committing a sin, but if you are telling about it, you are doing an even bigger sin. It is not necessary to tell anyone about these things. Those who do wrong will reap the result, but why must you bring the reaction for their actions into your own life? Always remember: ku-dekhiba na, ku-baliba na, ku-suniba na – we must not see bad things, we must not say bad things, we must not hear bad things. Close your eyes and only see the Deities – see your guru, see the devotees, do not see any other things. It is very important. ‘Aparadha-phale mama chitta bhela vajra-sama, tuya name na labhe vikara – as a result of offences, my heart has become as hard as a thunderbolt, and when I chant Your Name, it does not produce any transformation in me’ (Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur). Our offences are so strong that our heart has become very hard, like a stone – when we chant, tears do not come to our eyes. It is not necessary to say what others are doing – we are offenders ourselves, so we will not see others’ offences. We must consider ourselves the worst offenders, the most fallen souls. Who am I to talk about others’ faults?!

Question: My diksa-guru has abandoned his vows, and as I have been very attracted to Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, to the devotees there and to Your Divine Grace, I would like to ask you to please grant me shelter and engage me in some service to your disciples…

Yes, no problem. [His Divine Grace is aware of the background of the person speaking.] If your diksa-guru has made some offence to Srila Sridhar Maharaj, you can still come and join Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math – you can come and serve here, it is not a problem. You have already joined Krishna consciousness, and if you take shelter under the guidance of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in any temple all over the world, it will be your great fortune. If you serve Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, if you serve this mission of Srila Sridhar Maharaj, I will be even happier.

I am finishing for today. We will make another programme next Sunday. I will be here on Sunday – I have a preaching programme at noon and will come back in the evening to attend this zoom programme. After that, I will again go for preaching on Monday or Tuesday, and then to Ekachakra…

Please forgive my offence, I am telling some hard things, but it is necessary for devotees to know and understand the proper teachings. Be humble, tolerant and give honour to others – these are the main principles for us. Srila Gurudev also always told about it.

You can see how much Gurudev tolerated, and you can see also my example – how much I am tolerating… Gurudev always said: I am teaching so many things, I am teaching Mahaprabhu’s conception, but what have they understood? Somebody has been reading Ramayana the whole year, and after having finished the whole Ramayana, they ask, ‘Whose father was Sita Devi?’ So, hearing some questions, Gurudev would sometimes say, ‘I have been teaching them Mahaprabhu’s conception (humility, tolerance and giving honour to others), and one year later, they are asking me such questions…’ Somebody beats devotees, somebody throws devotees out of the temple – it is a very big problem. Both beating and kicking devotees out is wrong. Who gave them permission to beat or throw others out? It is necessary to tolerate and tolerate. Somebody does something wrong – first see, see and see. Anybody can make a mistake, it is necessary to tolerate, tolerate and tolerate. You cannot take the law into your own hands. Sometimes, we have to digest so many things. Gurudev tolerates us so much – he does not tell us to get out. Only when it becomes too much, he can tell somebody to get out.

I can remember also one example that Gurudev told me. Once, ants made a nest in a tree, and some outside people broke their nest and used the ants’ eggs as fishing bait (they used to fish in Govinda Kunda when Govinda Kunda was not manifested so much). Somebody came and complained to Srila Sridhar Maharaj about it. Then, Srila Sridhar Maharaj called those men and asked them, ‘Why have you done this? Why are you giving so much austerity to these ants? They did not go to your home – they took shelter here at Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, then why do you come to disturb them?’ I heard this from Gurudev.

So, Gurudev always said, ‘If somebody offends me, I can tolerate it, but I cannot tolerate those who offend my Guru Maharaj.’ I also cannot tolerate those who offend our Gurudev. It sometimes becomes a problem for me. On the other hand, if somebody offends me, I do not have any problem with that – they can swear me, they can say so many bad things, I do not mind it, I am happy to digest it. That is why I always pray to Gurudev, ‘Please give me some power! I have no strength, no intelligence (ami sakti-buddhi-hina), please give me some mercy so that I can tolerate everything!’ That is sufficient for me…

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line8 February 2021

Kolkata (Jatragachhi)

Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/13) Practise Devotion

Today is dvadasi-tithi, and we are observing ekadasi today. Have you all been fasting? Do you know that it is necessary to sing a special kirtan on ekadasi? In the morning, we sing, ‘Sri Hari vasare Hari kirtana vidhana’ and in the evening:

suddha-bhakata-charana-renu,

bhajana-anukula

bhakata-seva, parama-siddhi,

prema-latikara mula

‘The dust of pure devotees’ feet is favourable to devotion. Serving the devotees is the supreme fulfilment and the root of the creeper of divine love.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to chant these kirtans. So, as it is ekadasi tithi today, we must sing these kirtans. In the morning, we sing:

sri hari-vasare hari-kirtana-vidhana
nrtya arambhila prabhu jagatera prana

‘On the holy day of Sri Hari (Ekadasi), Sriman Mahaprabhu, the bestower of Sri Hari kirtan and the life and soul of the universe, began to dance.’

punyavanta srivasa-angane subharambha
uthila kirtana-dhvani gopala-govinda

‘Starting beautifully in the courtyard of pious Srivas, the sound of kirtan grew louder as devotees chanted the Holy Names of the Lord: “Gopal! Govinda!”’

mrdanga mandira baje sankha karatala
sankirtana sange saba haila misala

‘The sounds of the mrdangas, cymbals, conchshells and clapping hands all merged together in the sankirtan.’

brahmande uthila dhvani puriya akasa
chaudikera amangala yaya saba nasa

‘The sound of the chanting that arose there filled the sky of the entire universe and destroyed all inauspiciousness in the four directions.’

chatur-dike sri-hari-mangala sankirtana
madhye nache jagannatha-misrera nandana

‘There was all-auspicious sankirtan of Lord Hari resounding in all four directions, and the son of Jagannath Misra danced in its centre.’

sabara angete sobhe sri-chandana-mala
anande nachaye sabe haiya vibhola

‘Decorated with holy sandalwood paste and flower garlands, everyone danced, feeling overwhelmed with joy.’

nijanande nache mahaprabhu visvambhara
charanera tali suni ati manohara

‘As Mahaprabhu Vishvambhar danced, engulfed in joy, it was extremely captivating to hear the beat of His feet.’

bhavavese mala nahi rahaye galaya
chhindiya padaye giya bhakatera gaya

‘He was so rapt in ecstasy that His flower garland could not remain around His neck – it tore and fell on devotees’ bodies.’

yanra namanande siva vasana na jane
yanra rase nache siva se nache apane

‘The joy of whose Name makes Lord Siva forget about clothes; the ecstasy of whose Name makes Lord Siva dance – and that very Lord is now dancing Himself!’

yanra name valmiki haila tapodhana
yanra name ajamila paila mochana
yanra nama sravane samsara-bandhana ghuche
hena prabhu avatari kali-yuge nache

‘By the power of whose Name Valmiki practised great austerities; by the power of whose Name Ajamil attained liberation; by hearing whose Name the bondage of material existence is destroyed – that very Lord descends and dances in the Age of Kali.’

yanra nama laiya suka narada bedaya
sahasra vadane prabhu yanra guna gaya
sarva maha-prayaschita ye prabhura nama
se prabhu nachaye dekhe yata bhagyavan

‘He whose Name Sukadev and Narad take as they wander about; whose glories are sung by the thousand-mouthed Anantadev; whose Name is the greatest of all kinds of atonement – that very Lord is now dancing and casting His glance upon fortunate souls.’

sri-krsna-chaitanya nityananda-chanda jana
vrndavana dasa tachhu pada-yuge gana

‘Vrindavan Das sings this at the holy feet of Sri Krishna Chaitanya and Nityananda Chand, who are his very life.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata)

This song was written by Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur, and the other beautiful kirtan, which we sing in the evenings, was written by Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur. We must always practise kirtan. Do you know what my Gurudev said in his final moments, when he was about to leave this world? He said, ‘Acharya Maharaj, you are going to Midnapore, Bardhaman and many other places – you have brought so many people to me, and they took initiation, but how many disciples are there?’ Gurudev asked me, ‘How many disciples are there?’ One does not become a disciple just by taking initiation.

diksa-kale bhakta kare atma-samarpana
sei-kale krsna tare kare atma-sama

‘Devotees submit their entire being when they take initiation. At this time, Krishna accepts them as His very own.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.192)

If a child is admitted to a school, does it mean that the child has passed the final exams? Initiation means you have been admitted to a spiritual school. You are first admitted to primary school – when you finish primary school, you go to high school, pass the exams and then progress to college and university. So, if you are only enrolled to a school, does it mean you that have passed the exams? You must study to pass! What does ‘studying’ mean for us? There are nine kinds of devotion: sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). These nine kinds of devotional practices reside on the nine islands of Sri Nabadwip. When we do the parikrama, we go to each island and speak about the corresponding kind of devotion residing there. In the middle, there is Antardwip, Mayapur. The Nrisingha Palli temple that we have now is situated in Godrumdwip, and the place where our temple was before in Kolerganga (Kolerganj) is Koladwip. The area of Vidyanagar is Jahnudwip. Champahati is Ritudwip, and Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur’s birthplace, where we go last, in Mamgachi is Modadrumdwip. Madhyadwip is Gadigachha-gram. Lastly, above Mayapur, there is Simantadwip (where the temple of Lord Jagannath is) and Rudradwip near the Ganges. These are the nine islands. Devotion (bhakti) resides on these nine islands.

If you do not practise these kinds of devotion, you will not get any result. You eat every day, you go to the bathroom every day, and you must serve the Lord in the same way – you must offer bhoga every day, you must chant kirtans, worship the Lord and do everything else every day. You must practise in your own life. Otherwise, if you do not practise, you will not get any result. There is a saying in English: practice makes perfect. We do not learn to chant kirtans in the wombs of our mothers – we come to the temple and practise chanting kirtans, learn to play the karatals (some also learn to play the mridanga), learn how to worship the Lord, and so on. You can see foreign devotees – they come and play the mridanga, play the karatals; they chant kirtans.

They come from so far – from thousands of miles away. The earth is like a ball – you have India in one place, and their countries are on the other side of the globe. When it is evening here, it is only morning for them. There are also countries where there is no night for four months (the sun is in the sky the whole day and night), and when I went there during the chaturmasya time, they had no sun – there is only night the whole day! Have you seen a country like that? There is no night there! Here, we have day, and we have night – maybe the night is a little longer in winter, but they have no night at all. And at another time of the year, they have no day – the sun does not even rise! It only rises for five minutes and then again sets, and it becomes night. There are such places, and those places are now flooded with the Holy Name – people are chanting the Holy Name there!

Therefore, it is necessary to practise. You have been born here in the land of India and think that you know everything, but even Brahma himself says, ‘Those who say that they know can say so, but I know that I do not know anything.’ These are the words of Brahma, who took initiation from Krishna Himself…

(2/13) Land of Religions?

One can ask, ‘Why is there so much devotion to God in your country? In our country, there is only Christianity, but when I was in West Bengal, I saw that some people worship Kali, some people worship Durga, some people worship Ganesh, some people worship Lokanath, some people worship Harichand Thakur. Why is it so?’ Why are there so many religions? The reason is this. Everybody hears things in their own way, so all disciples are not the same. Brahma took initiation from Krishna, and he did not listen to the guidance spoken by Lord Krishna – Brahma heard it in his own way and created this whole world based on what he had heard and how he had heard it. This is how somebody ends up worshipping Kali, somebody ends up worshipping Durga, Ganesh, and so on. People do so many kinds of worship. If you go to Bombay, you will see that people worship Ganesh there; if you go to Bihar, you will see that people worship Suryadev (the Sun God) there; if you go to Tamil Nadu, they worship somebody else there. There are so many kinds of worship here in Bengal itself: somebody worships Kali, somebody Durga, Ganesh, Laksmi, Saraswati, Jagannath, Nitai-Gaura, and so on. However, the scriptures do not tell us to do this. What does Srimad Bhagavatam say?

prthivite yaha kichhu dharma name chale
bhagavata kahe taha paripurna chhale

’Bhagavatam says that whatever is going on in this world in the name of religion is complete cheating.’

(Based on Srimad Bhagavatam, 1.1.2)

Bhagavatam says that all these ‘religions’ are cheating, illusion. They are all created by Maya.

Brahma creates the world – you know that Vishnu is the maintainer, Brahma is the creator, and Siva is the destroyer. So, when Brahma received the order from Lord Krishna, he created this universe – he did it according to the way how he had heard the Lord’s instruction. Sri Guru gives the same guidance to everyone, ‘Do this’, ‘Live in this way,’ but does everyone do it? Somebody will think, ‘Oh, I know much, I have become a Vaishnav.’ You think you put tilak marks, wear kanthi-mala, and this is it – you have become a sadhu. You go to Vrindavan, wear an uttaria, and start saying, ‘Radhe! Radhe!’ (or, if you go to Ekachakra Dham, you start saying, ‘Jay Nitai! Jay Nitai!’). Have you not heard what happened the other year? There was a man who felt very happy when he heard others say, ‘Jay Nitai! Jay Nitai!’ One day, Muslim dacoits came and knocked at his door, saying, ‘Jay Nitai! Jay Nitai!’ Hearing ‘Jay Nitai!’, the man got excited, thinking, ‘Oh, some devotees have come!’ He opened the door, and the dacoits got into his house and robbed him. So, to say, ‘Jay Nitai’ and to come to steal is bad. In Vrindavan, they always say, ‘Radhe! Radhe!’ – but they say it to get food for themselves.

There are many kinds of devotion. There is karma-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with material desires), jnana-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with desire to know something), jnana-sunya suddha bhakti (pure devotion devoid of any pursuit of knowledge). Somebody worships the Lord and turns Him into a bribe-taker. They come to a Deity and ask Him or Her, ‘O God (O Kali / O Durga / etc.), I have given you this rice and bananas – please give me a son [give my son work / give my daughter a good husband / etc.].’ They want all these things from the Lord. You must have heard that in some places you can get a job if you give money to an official. In this way, you become a briber, and the person who takes the money becomes a bribe-taker. Both are criminals. Those who do wrong and those who overlook it are both offenders. We turn the Lord into our menial servant by asking Him, ‘Lord, give me this’, ‘Lord, give me that.’

Our devotion must not be like that. This is not what the devotion of the residents of Vraja is. The highest worship is present in the devotion of Vraja gopis. They never think about their own happiness. One time, when Krishna showed that He was ill and said that only foot dust of His devotees could cure Him, Vraja gopis gave the dust from their feet just to serve their Lord. Will you not think, ‘Oh, if I do this, it will be a sin’? Laskmi thought so. Siva thought so. Narad thought so. Brahma thought so. Everybody thought it was a sin, but Vraja gopis did not think about it. ‘Will we be committing a sin? Will we go to hell because of it? Whatever! Even if our legs burn or become afflicted with leprosy, whatever! As long as our Krishna is happy, we do not care about anything.’ This is what devotion must be like.

‘What can I do for the Lord to make Him happy? How can I serve the devotees of the Lord?’ We must always be alert and take care so that no difficulty, no austerity comes to the devotees of the Lord.

(3/13) Seva-Vidya

Some think how to please the Lord, but when it comes to making sure that no difficulty or austerity comes to the devotees of the Lord, they do not think it is necessary to do that.

If you send a letter directly to Krishna, you will not get a reply. However, Krishna has Vraja gopis and other associates, who come to this world as gurudev. You can ask gurudev, ‘Where does Krishna stay? What does Krishna eat?’ For example, those who stay with me know what I like, what I eat, what chair I like to sit on, and so on. If you ask them about me, they can tell you everything because they stay with me, and they know it. In the same way also:

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 so by pious souls, but who is also no doubt the Lord’s dear associate.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

Guru is the Lord Himself! At the same time, it is also said that gurudev is the Lord’s dearmost. Krishna told Uddhav, ‘Know the acharya to be non-different from Myself. Acharyam mam vijaniyan. There is no difference between Me and the acharya. I cannot come to this world all the time Myself, so I sometimes send My associate.’ We sing in one of the kirtans:

tava nija-jana, kona mahajane,
pathaiya dile tumi

(ek bar) daya kari’, more patita dekhiya,
kahila amare giya

‘I have fallen into this wicked material world, but You have sent a great soul, Your associate, to me. Seeing me so fallen, he took pity on me and came to me, saying…’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Seeing that I am an extremely lowly, fallen soul, gurudev comes to me and says, ‘Will you worship the Lord? Gauranga Mahaprabhu has come in this Kali-yuga – will you become His devotee? Will You follow what He says?’ This is what gurudev teaches us. If it were not for him, how would we have known it? Mahaprabhu does not come Himself now, but the Lord’s close associates do. On the one hand, such associates are completely non-different from the Lord; on the other hand, they are dearmost servitors and associates of the Lord. Who is the dearmost associate of the Lord? Srimati Radharani. Therefore, gurudev is Srimati Radharani Herself. She is Krishna’s dearest, so She knows what Krishna eats, where He sleeps, and so on. That is why Her Name is Radha – She is the one who worships (aradhya) the Lord the most. She did not study at any university, She did not go to any Cambridge or Oxford. But She has such knowledge that even Krishna Himself becomes irresistibly captured by Her. It is not some knowledge of capturing and controlling others. Her knowledge is bhakti-vidya (knowledge of devotion), seva-vidya (knowledge of service). Her superb qualification comes from Her devotion and service. That is why Her Name is Radha: She who serves the most and the best. It is necessary to know these things.

(4/13) Conditioned Souls’ Inaptitude

Many of you come from villages. Have you ever cultivated wheat? If you throw seeds in the soil and do not water them after that, the seeds dry up. In our life, it is also like that: we have got the seed of the creeper of devotion from our gurudev, and the water for that seed is sravan and kirtan. At the same time, what happens if you pour too much water? Seeds become rotten, and the plants die. Sahajiyas pour too much water – they think they have understood everything, so they do not have to do anything (‘I have got initiation from gurudev, so I have got everything!’). They think they have much devotion. That is why we are told that it is necessary to remove our ego:

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour.’

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

[His Divine Grace drinks some water and notes] I had given my word that I would come, so I came, although I was very tired. I have been out since the morning and very busy the whole day today. I went from Kolkata to Vidyanagar, then back to Park Street, Kolkata, then to Ultaganda, then to some other places. By the time I finished, it was already evening. I came back at five o’clock in the afternoon and took some prasadam. Every day it is like this – some days, I take prasadam at four; some days, at five. I took some anukalpa at midday and then came back and took prasadam at five o’clock. I was busy the whole day today, so I said that might not be able to come because I was not feeling so well. Tomorrow, I have to again go to different places in Kolkata, and after that I must go to Tarakeshwar in the afternoon because there is a programme scheduled for the evening. After that, there are programmes scheduled for the following five–six days. Then, I will be preaching in Bardhaman – I will be in Singur on Sunday, and starting from Monday, I will be again in Bardhaman for a week.

I have no time, but they asked me to come on ekadasi, and I said that I would come, I gave my word, but when I called today to say that I was not able to come because I was not feeling well, they told me that everybody had already gathered, and it would be bad to cancel the lecture. I told them: have you not been able to learn anything yourself? You took initiation so long ago – have you not been able to make anyone fit for preaching? Have you not learnt to preach and speak Hari-katha yourself? Must your guru always come and do everything? There are no people… Gurudev also said: I cannot keep water in a pot with holes. This glass here has water in it, but if it had holes, would water stay in it? It is necessary to have a proper vessel (a pot or a glass). We take initiation, but none of us tries to study and practise properly; nobody is eager to serve, to practise Krishna consciousness. We cannot do anything. Must gurudev always come and do everything? Tell me.

There are preachers in different places. For example, I was doing a programme in Hooghly the other day – so many people came; among them, there must be one thousand disciples who had taken initiation from me. There is one disciple there who preaches in different places of that area, and I come there only once a year for seven days and make fourteen programmes (usually after Nityananda-trayodasi). This is how the number of devotees is growing there. They come for every festival, and twenty–thirty people take initiation every time.

It is not enough to only take initiation. You must practise properly. I have told you – everybody can take initiation, but not everybody can become a disciple. Do you understand what it means? It is necessary to become a disciple. Disciples are those who can tolerate disciplining (chastisement) and can mould themselves according to that (who are able to change themselves). Disciples are those who listen to gurudev and do not cross gurudev’s word or order. It is not necessary to understand much more than that. I have just told you – if you pour too much water, the seed will become rotten. It is not necessary to know much. Some say that they know Krishna, but what is their position? Brahma himself said, ‘Those who say they know, they may know, but I know that I do not know the Lord.’ Brahma, Krishna’s original, first disciple, says, ‘I have not been able to understand the Lord. I could not recognise Him!’ Such are the pastimes of the Lord. He can perform so many pastimes…

Anyhow, let us chant some kirtans now; after that, I will speak some Hari-katha again. [His Divine Grace then chants ‘Suddha-bhakata-charana-renu.’]

(5/13) Choose Your Association

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Suddha-bhakata-charana-renu.’]

suddha-bhakata-charana-renu,

bhajana-anukula

bhakata-seva, parama-siddhi,

prema-latikara mula

‘The dust of pure devotees’ feet is favourable to spiritual life. Serving the devotees is the supreme perfection and the root of the creeper of divine love.’

madhava-tithi, bhakti-janani,
yatane palana kari
krsna-vasati, vasati bali’,
parama adare bari

‘I carefully observe holy days related to Lord Madhav – these days are the mother of devotion; and I very affectionately accept the holy abode of Krishna, considering it my own dwelling.’

gaura amara, ye saba sthane,
karala bhramana range
se-saba sthana, heriba ami,
pranayi-bhakata-sange

‘In the company of loving devotees, I will behold all the places my Gaura roamed during His ecstatic pastimes.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Service to devotees is the supreme perfection and the root of the creeper of divine love (bhakata-seva parama-siddhi prema-latikara mula).’ How does devotion come? Through service to devotees. You cannot get the Lord through any material activities (karma), through any knowledge (jnana) or through any mystic practices (yoga). This is written in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. How can one get the Lord? Through devotion. How does devotion come? ‘Devotion to the Lord comes through the association of the Lord’s devotees – bhaktis tu bhagavad-bhakta-sangena parijayate’ (Brihan-naradiya Purana). Where do you get this association of devotees? Does it mean you will walk on the street and look for somebody who wears tilaks and neck beads and associate with any random tilak-wearing, neck-beads–wearing person? ‘Asat-sanga sada tyaga chhada anya gita-raga – always give up bad association; do not listen to mundane songs and music’ (Sri Prema-bhakti-chandrika, 15). What is bad association? I have told you that there are nine kinds of devotion: sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). If somebody does not practise even one of these practices, you must not associate with them – their association is bad. At the same time, if somebody practices at least one of these practices (minimum one), you should associate with them.

Yesterday, I was giving a worldwide class, and I was telling them the same thing. You must not associate with those who do not practise even one of the nine devotional practices. It can be hearing, it can be chanting, it can be praying, it can be worshipping the Deities – it can be any of the practices, but it is necessary to practise at least one of these practices.

This is the meaning of ‘asat-sanga sada tyaga chhada anya gita-raga – always give up bad association; do not listen to mundane songs and music.’ You must always leave bad association. Always chant the Holy Name of the Lord in saintly association:

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

There can be no Holy Name in bad association. Therefore, you must always avoid the association of those who do not practise devotion.

It is said in this song that we observe Madhava-tithi (the day of the Lord). Ekadasi is the day of the Lord, and this day is the mother of devotion. We must observe these days with great care and affection. Observing ekadasi is prescribed in the scriptures, it is a rule, and we print a calendar of ekadasi dates every year. If you look in the calendar, you will see that there are so many beautiful things written in it: what the five diseases are, what the six urges are, what the six faults are, what the sixty-four limbs of devotion are, what the main limbs of devotion are, and so on. I wrote it all very beautifully for you.

(6/13) Lost and Languid Souls

We were just singing this kirtan:

chhaya vega dami’, chhaya dosa sodhi’,
chhaya guna deha dase

‘Please subjugate the six urges, rectify the six defects and bestow the six good qualities upon this servant.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

What are these urges, defects and qualities? You must remember that you cannot do two things at the same time. If you drink alcohol and at the same time also drink milk, then whatever vitamins there are in milk, everything will be destroyed by the alcohol. This is how the body works, and in our spiritual life it is also like this. There are six limbs of surrender:

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You do what is favourable, and you must also reject everything that is unfavourable. We sing about this every morning. Surrender (saranagati) is the root of devotion. What is surrender? First, it is necessary to be humble. This is what Mahaprabhu teaches too:

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

Who has the right and qualification to chant kirtan (to chant the Holy Name of the Lord and glorify the Lord)? Who can chant kirtan? Those who have a good voice? No. Those who can become lower than a blade of grass, have tolerance like that of a tree and can give honour to others – only those who have these three qualities have the right to chant kirtan; nobody else. It does not matter whether one can sing well or not – the main thing is that the person must have no ego (‘who is humbler than a blade of grass, who is more tolerant than a tree and who can give honour to others’).

What else did Mahaprabhu teach? In the outside world, people like to worship Durga and many other gods and goddesses. For example, Saraswati Puja is coming soon – what will everyone say?

om sarasvati mahabhage vidye kamalalochane
visvarupe visalaksi vidyam dehi namostute

‘O great Goddess Saraswati, the personified knowledge, possessing large lotus eyes! I offer obeisance to you, please give me knowledge.’

They offer obeisances to Saraswati and pray, ‘O Goddess of Knowledge, please give me knowledge.’ When it comes to Durga Puja, brahmans recite their prayer: ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, varyam dehi, kavitam dehi, sundarim dehi, yasam dehi. Give me wealth, give me knowledge, give me beauty, give me a good wife, make me a poet, make me beautiful, make me famous.’ They keep saying, ‘Give me, give me, give me,’ but what did Mahaprabhu say?

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

‘Dear Lord, I do not want any wealth, followers, women or fame. What do I want? I only wish that I may have unswerving devotion to Your holy lotus feet.’

nahi magi deha-sukha vidya dhana jana
nahi magi svarga ara moksa nahi magi
na kari prarthana kona vibhutira lagi

‘I do not wish for any bodily happiness, knowledge, wealth, friends or followers. I do not wish to attain heaven or liberation, neither do I pray for any supernatural powers.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Why do we not want heaven? It is explained in both Srimad Bhagavad-gita and Srimad Bhagavatam. If you go to heaven, you will have to come back from there one day. You earn much piety and go to heaven, but once that piety (punya) is finished, you have to again go down. If you commit sins, you will go to hell (the more sins you have committed, the longer you will stay there). It is similar to a prison – those who have committed a murder stay in prison longer, and those who have only stolen something get released soon. So, if you commit many sins, you will have to stay in hell for a longer time; and if you do not commit so many sins, you will stay there only for a short time. In any case, you will still have to come back here. Where is that place where you can go and never have to come back? If you go to your own home, you will not have to come back. Suppose you rent a house. When some problem comes, you have to look for another house; after some time, if another problem comes in the second house, you will have to look for another house again. If you keep changing houses like this, one day you will think, ‘I am tired of staying at other people’s houses. If I can buy some land and make even a thatched hut, it is better than living like this.’ Therefore, it is said that if you can come to stay in your own house, you will get supreme benefit. So, you must come to stay in your own house. But where is your own house? I told you the other day: we are all sons of nectar, we are all sons of God.

Everyone of us, everyone who is sitting here, we are all relatives, and we belong to one family. The problem is that we have forgotten our family, that is why we become bound by illusory environment time and time again.

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya,
sadhu-guru-krpa bina na dekhi upaya

‘It is impossible to conquer illusory environment and become released from it. I see no other way to get relief except by the mercy of saints and Sri Guru.’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

You cannot conquer illusory environment without the mercy of sadhus and your guru.

(7/13) ‘Make Teachings of Sri Guru Non-Different from Your Heart’

gaura amara ye-saba sthane
karala bhramana range
se-saba sthana heriba ami
pranayi-bhakata-sange

‘In the company of loving devotees, I will behold all the places my Gaura roamed during His ecstatic pastimes.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Mahaprabhu went to so many places. Even if you do not have initiation, you can always come – Gurudev has opened so many temples, and every temple holds many festivals throughout the year. We celebrate Janmastami in one temple, Radhastami in another; we observe the niyom-seva month also. We have a temple in Govardhan, and we celebrate Govardhan Puja there. There are appearance and disappearance days of our Param Guru Maharaj, appearance and disappearance days of our Gurudev. There are many different festivals, and we have an opportunity to join them. Soon, on 25 February, there will be a festival of Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance.

By the mercy of Gurudev, we have a very big temple in Ekachakra. I will go there five days ahead to arrange everything. Thousands and thousands of people take prasad there every day – during the festival, up to twenty-five thousand(!) people come to take prasad. There are many rooms at the temple. The problem is that all kinds people come – all the aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, ativadi, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari come. But what can I do? They come and stay in the nat-mandir, but our devotees get a room and stay in rooms. There are many facilities for you all.

Soon is also Gaura Purnima. I have given invitation letters to everyone. Come for Gaura Purnima and do Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. For as long as your legs carry you, you must do parikrama – for as long as you have this opportunity, you must come. Do not think, ‘Oh, I have been there twice already’ or ‘three times’, ‘four times’, and so on. Personally, I have done this parikrama thirty times – I have been at the temple for thirty years, and I have been doing this parikrama for thirty years. People ask me if there will be a parikrama in this pandemic situation. I tell them: why will there be no parikrama?! If political meetings can gather hundreds of thousands of people, then who will stop our parikrama? I have heard that Modi came to West Bengal yesterday, and so many people gathered in Midnapore. Some say that there were two hundred thousand people (others estimate that there were four hundred thousand people). At our parikrama, some four–five thousand people come, then why will we not be able to do this parikrama? What is the problem?

In Ekachakra, we will have the festival starting from the ekadasi day: everyone will come on ekadasi, and for three days after that we will be distributing prasad. It is a rule of our temple that on ekadasi days, we give prasad only to those who fast on this day. The rice and other things that are offered to the Lord on ekadasi are given to the cows. We do not take rice on ekadasi, and we do not distribute rice to anyone on ekadasi because it is said in the scriptures that if you eat rice on ekadasi, you will be committing the sin of eating cow’s meat. Anyway, can you not live without rice for one day? When you are admitted to hospital, you are given saline solution for seven–ten days – do you think anyone will give you rice there? What choice will you have then? If this is your fate, you have to go through this. If you can live properly, then you will not have problems.

Therefore, it is said that ekadasi is the mother of devotion (bhakati-janani), and ekadasi days are the days of the Lord (Madhava-tithi). We observe such days with great care.

madhava-tithi bhakti-janani
yatane palana kari

‘I carefully observe holy days related to Lord Madhav, for they are the mother of devotion.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Everyone must observe ekadasi days with great care. You must fast from morning until noon. Gurudev said that if you cannot do that – if you have problems with your health (for example, if you are old and suffer from flatulence when you do not eat) – you can make something plain and take that. I also cannot fast – after I had an operation in 2005 (sixteen–seventeen years have already passed), I cannot skip meals. What to do?… Before I go out on ekadasi days, I take some potato (alu-tarkari) or some fried potato (alu-bhaji). I am busy the whole day outside and then come back in the afternoon to take prasad again. So, I am not telling anything to those who cannot fast – Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that you can take anukalpa (non-grain prasad).

One time, a devotee wrote to Guru Maharaj, saying, ‘I work for a ship-building company and have to handle a ten-kg hammer. How will I work if I do not eat? How can I follow ekadasi?’ Guru Maharaj replied, ‘Then eat ten kg of boiled potato in the morning.’ What is the problem? There are so many kinds of fruit also – there is no lack of anything, especially in our country. There is fruit, there is alu-dum, there are so many plants. There are so many things you can eat.

So, it is necessary to observe ekadasi. Scriptures say that there are five items that are prohibited because sin stays in those five types of grains. What are these five items? Rice, wheat, barley, pulses and mustard/sesame. You cannot take any kinds of dal (beans, pulses), cereal or muri (puffed rice). You cannot eat anything that is made with or from these five items. Do not use mustard oil (any mustard, white or black). You can take nuts, you can use sunflower oil, peanut oil or ghee. You can cook something simple with that to maintain life in the body in one way or another.

Some do nirjal ekadasi (fast without any water or food); if you can do it, you can fast like that, but you must not take a pillow and lie in your room the whole day. You must do service. You must wash the dishes, you must serve the cows, you must serve the Deities and do everything else. You do nirjal ekadasi without even touching water and spend the whole day idle, but who will serve the Deities and work the whole day? It is not good. You cannot stop the Lord’s services. Whatever you do, you must do it for the service of the Lord. Our family is a Krishna-centred family. Everything that is created in this world is meant for the service of the Lord. If I go somewhere in the car, so many insects are killed under the wheels of the car – am I not committing sins? If I eat rice, if I eat wheat, if I eat cabbage or spinach, do I not cut these plants? Is it not a sin? The difference is that we do not eat anything! Devotees do not eat anything – they offer everything to the Lord and take prasad (remnants) of the Lord. That is why it is said that we must reject everything that is unoffered – we must not take what is not offered to the Lord. When you eat anything, you must remember the Lord, gurudev. Remember this. Sometimes, some problem can happen on the road or there can be some other difficulty and you cannot take prasad properly, but you must still do ekadasi – in this case, you must get some fruit, remember the Lord, remember gurudev and eat that. This is the rule.

So, as I started saying:

gaura amara ye-saba sthane
karala bhramana range
se-saba sthana heriba ami
pranayi-bhakata-sange

‘In the company of loving devotees, I will behold all the places my Gaura roamed during His ecstatic pastimes.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We will go together with devotees to all the places where Gauranga Mahaprabhu went. We will do parikrama in the association of devotees.

[His Divine Grace resumes chanting the kirtan ‘Suddha-bhakata-charana-renu’.]

(8/13) Price of Independence

[His Divine Grace continues chanting the kirtan ‘Suddha-bhakata-charana-renu’.]

mrdanga-vadya, sunite mana,
avasara sada yache
gaura-vihita, kirtana suni’,
anande hrdaya nache

‘My mind is always eager for an opportunity to hear the sounds of the mridanga. Hearing the kirtan prescribed by Sri Gaurasundar, my heart dances for joy.’

yugala-murti, dekhiya mora,
parama-ananda haya
prasada-seva, karite haya,
sakala prapancha jaya

‘Beholding the Deities of the Divine Couple, I feel great happiness. The entire material world can be conquered by honouring the Lord’s prasad.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must honour prasadam. How will you conquer the material world? Prapancha (the material world) means that there are five (pancha) diseases: avidya (ignorance), asmita (false identification), raga (misdirected love), dvesa (aversion to anything that goes against one’s enjoyment) and abhinivesa (being unable to give up unfavourable habits).

Devotee: What does ‘asmita’ mean?

Asmita means ignorance: it means not knowing that I and this body are not the same. In other words, it means not knowing who I am. If I ask you, ‘Who are you?’ you will say, ‘I am so-and-so Haldar’, ‘I am so-and-so Ray’ or ‘I am so-and-so Chaudhry.’ This is all false – this is not our identity. All these names are our body’s identity. Often, people live in some place, and they get named after the place. So, you are known by this name in this world, but once you leave your body and leave this world, nobody will call you by this name anymore. Is it not so? Therefore, this is not our identity. Our real identity is that we are a jivatma, a soul. That which makes this body talk, walk and do everything else is the soul. When this understanding comes, it is called knowledge, and everything else is ignorance (avidya). Spiritual truth related to the Lord is knowledge (vidya), and this is what we must understand.

Srila Sanatan Goswami asked Mahaprabhu, ‘Who am I? Why am I suffering?’ Why are we burning in the agony of three-fold miseries? There are three kinds of suffering: adhibhautik, adhidaivik, adhyatmik – miseries caused by other souls, by the nature and by our body. Adhibhautik means the Lord has created all the jiva souls in this world, but you can see that your mother beats your father, you can see parents beat their children, husbands beat their wives, people fight with each other, snakes bite people, snakes eat frogs, frogs eat moths and mosquitos, cows eat grass, milk, and so on – everything in this world is killing or torturing one another. This is called adhibhautik-jvala (the agony caused by other bodies). You can feel mosquitoes biting now – this is also adhibhautik-jvala. Adhidaivik-jvala means the suffering brought about by demigods. You may have heard that so many people died recently in Joshimath due to a glacial burst – this is an example of adhidaivik-jvala. Sometimes, there is a heatwave, sometimes torrential rains or other disasters. It is all adhidaivik-jvala. Finally, adhyatmik-jvala means mental suffering (there are many such illnesses). Many people do not have money, and they suffer because of this, but you can see California – when children are born, they get ten cars each as a birthday present. The people are so rich there. However, the suicide rate is said to be the highest in California. Why? Do they have a lack of money? They have no lack of anything, but they still suffer – this is called mental suffering (adhyatmik-jvala).

Why do we suffer from these three-fold miseries?

krsna bhuli’ sei jiva—anadi bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsara-duhkha

‘Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

We have forgotten Krishna, that is why we are suffering in this world so much. We must think, ‘Everything happens by the will of the Lord, and everything happens for the best. If something happens, it is well and good.’ We must always remember this. If somebody dies, it is good – it is the will of the Lord. Nobody can know about birth and death; do you think somebody will come to you and give you an advance notice that you have to die today or tomorrow? Nobody will do that for you. Birth, death, old age and disease are there, that is why we suffer mentally. The reason why we suffer in all these different ways is because we have forgotten the Lord.

(9/13) ‘Come Back to Your Home’

Srila Sanatan Goswami also asked Mahaprabhu, ‘What is the goal of life? How can one attain it?’ The goal of life is devotion to the Lord and returning to the Lord. Back to God, back to home. Come back to your own home! Where you are now is not your home. Somebody is living in America, somebody is living in Mexico, somebody is living in London, somebody is living in Russia, somebody is living in Bangladesh, somebody is living in Pakistan, somebody is living in a goshala, there are flies living in gardens, snakes living in their snakes’ place, goats living in their goats’ place, but everybody must return to their own home! We must reach our real home. We must go to the place where we all come from.

What must you do to get there? ‘Bhagavata pada Vaisnavera sthane, ekanta asraya kara Chaitanya-charane. Read Bhagavatam under the guidance of bona fide Vaishnavs and take shelter at Mahaprabhu’s lotus feet.’ We must take exclusive shelter in Gauranga Mahaprabhu. The Supreme Lord Sri Krishna comes to this Age of Kali as Gauranga Mahaprabhu, a combined form of Sri Radha and Krishna.

Somebody asked me, ‘Gadadhar is the incarnation of Srimati Radharani, then how is it possible that Gauranga Mahaprabhu is a combined form of Sri Radha and Krishna?’ They do not know it. Krishna has taken the heart and halo of Srimati Radharani. ‘Halo’ means the colour of the body, and ‘heart’ means the mood. Does a person have only a mood and a colour? Is there nothing besides that? Of course there is. So, Gadadhar took that which remained.

Gauranga Mahaprabhu is a combined form of Sri Radha and Krishna. What did He do when He came to this world? He went door to door, telling everyone: ‘Wake up! Wake up, souls! Do not sleep! (Jiva jaga, jiva jaga, Gorachanda bale.) I have come for you! You must come back to your home. You must go back to the place where you come from.’ This is what is called ‘back to God, back to home.’ Come back to you home. This is the main thing.

(10/13) Fighting Misconception

What does the song, ‘Suddha-bhakata-charana-renu’, say next?

mrdanga-vadya, sunite mana,
avasara sada yache
gaura-vihita, kirtana suni’,
anande hrdaya nache

‘My mind is always eager for an opportunity to hear the sounds of the mridanga. Hearing the kirtan prescribed by Sri Gaurasundar, my heart dances for joy.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You can hear so many kirtans in this world, but it is necessary to hear the kirtan that was prescribed by Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu.

What does it say next?

yugala-murti, dekhiya mora,
parama-ananda haya
prasada-seva, karite haya,
sakala prapancha jaya

‘Beholding the Deities of the Divine Couple, I feel great happiness. The entire material world can be conquered by honouring the Lord’s prasad.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Yugala Murti means Radha-Krishna – They are the Ones who must be worshipped. If you honour prasad, material diseases will go away from you. I have told you what avidya means; another material disease is asmita, false identification with the body. You think, ‘I belong to myself’, ‘This is my son’, ‘My house’, ‘My room’, ‘My wife’, ‘My family’, ‘I have done this’, ‘I have done everything.’ The Lord says that you do not do anything. Who does everything and who makes everyone do everything? He does everything. He is the master of everything, but you have forgotten Him.

When somebody dies at a house, everything continues running, but they do not water Tulasi trees. People continue eating, but they do not water Tulasi. What is this? I went to Bardhaman for collection recently. They would usually give 50 kg rice, but this time they said that the father of the family had died, so they could not give any alms. I asked them, ‘Where is it written in the scriptures that you cannot give alms when somebody dies at the house?’ At another time, they say, ‘Oh, it is Thursday, Laksmi Devi’s day, so I will not give you any alms today.’ Who does Laksmi Devi serve? She serves Lord Narayan. So, when devotees come to you for the service to Krishna, do you think Laksmi Devi will prohibit you to give them anything? Devotees come to serve Laksmi Devi’s husband, and they say they will not give alms on the day of Laksmi Devi (Thursday)! And when the father dies, all family continues eating, all children are fed as before, but when somebody comes for the service of the Lord, they say, ‘Oh, my father has died, we cannot give you anything.’ What have people learnt? They continue doing everything, but they do not give water to Tulasi Devi! They eat, sleep, watch TV, but they will not water Tulasi Devi or serve the Lord! These are their rules – who told them such rules? In which scripture does it say to be like that? I am telling what is written in Hari-bhakti-vilas – this is the scripture that contains all the rules and regulations. Where does it say there that you cannot water Tulasi if somebody dies? People do not even die, they only leave one body to take another body. I am wearing these clothes now, but tomorrow I will wake up and wear new clothes. If you eat in the clothes, you cannot worship the Lord in these clothes, so you change your clothes. Just as I change my clothes all the time, I also change bodies. Today, I have a human body, and tomorrow I may have a cow’s body, or I may become a cat, a goat, a pig, a monkey, a snake, a frog, and so on.

Srila Guru Maharaj told that you are hungry now, but when you were an elephant, how many banana trees did you devour? You were also a pig once. If you tell a pig, ‘We have some nice paneer rasa today,’ will the pig eat it? It will not. But if you give it a bucket of stool, it will eat it happily, thinking, ‘What nice food!’ When you pass stool, you do not even want to look behind yourself – you hold your nose. When it was inside your stomach, you did not care, but once it comes out, you hold your nose. You know Srila Raghunath Das Goswami from Adisaptagram – he left everything like stool and urine. Just as you pass stool and urine and do not even want to look behind at it, he gave up all material things, all material attachments like stool and urine and left. Srila Sanatan Goswami left his minister’s job and went to Mahaprabhu. We have also come to this line and to Srila Gurudev’s lotus feet, leaving everything, and we never think about all the things p we have left behind.

‘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)

Your debt to your father, mother, rishis (sages), demigods – all kinds of debt are cleared if you serve the Lord. Many said to me, ‘Oh, he has left his parents’ service and went away.’ I have read in the scriptures that if you serve the Lord, then all your debts become cleared (all debts to your father, mother, sages, demigods, and so on are cleared). Can you serve all 330,000,000 demigods? You cannot. You can serve ten–fifteen demigods, but the rest will be unhappy. But if you serve Krishna, then all worship of demigods is automatically accomplished – you do not have to worship anyone else! You must always remember this.

All right, let us chant now, I will speak again later. [His Divine Grace looks at his watch.] Oh! We are singing just one kirtan, but so much time has passed! [His Divine Grace continues singing ‘Suddha-bhakata-charana-renu’.]

(11/13) Goloka at Your Home

ye dina grhe, bhajana dekhi,
grhete goloka bhaya

charana-sidhu, dekhiya ganga,
sukha na sima paya

‘Any day there is devotional service at home, I see Goloka manifest itself in it. Seeing the Ganges, the river of nectar that emanates from the Lord’s feet, my happiness has no limit.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Every day, wake up early in the morning, come for mangal-arati. Follow all rules and regulations strictly. Offer bhoga to the Lord five times a day. In this verse, bhajan (ye dina grhe bhajana dekhi) means service, not just kirtan. Bhajan means you wake up early in the morning, wake up the Lord at four in the morning, offer arati, give balya-bhoga. Your mother will wake up and cook in the morning, you will offer this bhoga to the Lord, then you can go to work – take some prasad with you in a tiffin box. In the evening, you come back, wash your hands and feet, do arati, then your mother will offer bhoga in the evening. You must live following these rules. You must follow these things strictly, without fail. When you come home in the evening, offer arati, do Tulasi parikrama – if you have time, chant kirtans. If you do this, you will not have time to go to tea shops to discuss politics.

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

You do not need to get anything out-of-the-world to serve the Lord.

bhakter jinish prabhu lutiputi khay
abhakter jinish prabhu ulti nahi chay

‘The Lord eats anything and everything when a devotee offers it, but the Lord does not want to take anything from a non-devotee.’

(Based on Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.185)

A non-devotee cannot give anything to the Lord. On the contrary, they always want to get something from the Lord – they make the Lord their menial servant. But devotees serve the Lord, they always think, ‘How can I make the Lord happy? How can I please the Lord?’

People live at leisure: they sleep till eight, and when they wake up, they have some tea with milk, brush their teeth and do all the other things, and the Lord stays as He is. If you live like this, you will not get any result.

Goloka Vrindavan can be at your home if you can turn your home into a temple and if you can turn your family into a family of Krishna. ‘Kariya Krsnera samsara chhadi’ anachara: leave your bad habits and make your family a family of Krishna.’ You must give up bad habits. If you eat meat and fish and practise Krishna consciousness – do you think it will work? You make a fire sacrifice, but if you put one spoon ghee and one spoon water, the fire will go out. Two things cannot go together; therefore, you must do what is favourable to devotion, and you must reject what is unfavourable to devotion. If you do not reject the unfavourable, your good practice will not bring the desired result. Both cannot go together. If you stand with your feet in two boats, will you go far like this? Therefore, you must practise Krishna consciousness properly.

You have got this human body as the result of a great fortune, and it is not certain whether you will get it again. If you cannot serve and worship the Lord in this birth, nobody can say how long you will have to wander throughout all the species again. Do you understand what I am saying?

[His Divine Grace then concludes singing ‘Suddha-bhakata-charana-renu’ and chants other kirtans.]

tulasi dekhi’, judaya prana,
madhava-tosani jani’
gaura-priya-saka sevane,
jivana sarthaka mani

‘Seeing Tulasi Devi fulfils and comforts my heart, for I know she is pleasing to Lord Madhav. By honouring sak, which is dear to Gaura, I consider my life successful.’

bhakativinoda, krsna-bhajane,
anukula paya yaha
prati-divase, parama-sukhe,
svikara karaye taha

‘Whatever comes as conducive to Krishna’s service, Bhaktivinod very happily accepts it every day.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(12/13) Ekadasi: Devotional Practice

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy and aspiring to serve him; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all the assembled guru-varga, godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees and all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet, praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Today is an ekadasi-tithi. It is not necessary to know what the glories of each ekadasi is because if you read about it, you will have a desire to get some result. Much is written about ekadasi days – if you fast on a certain ekadasi, you will get this pious credit, that pious credit. When you read the glorification of Srimad Bhagavad-gita also, it is written there that if you read Gita, you will get this result, that result. It is not necessary to see all this. It is sufficient to know that we must fast on ekadasi. Yesterday’s day was viddha, so we are fasting today, on dvadasi (there was no fast yesterday). Outside people fasted yesterday, but those who practise in a pure way follow Gaudiya calendar, and they fast today according to the calendar.

Mahaprabhu Himself once said to His mother, ‘Mother, will you promise Me something? There is just one thing I want from you in this life. Will you give it to Me?’

‘All right’, Mother Sachi agreed.

‘Say that you will three times.’

‘I will, I will, I will.’

‘Do not take grains on ekadasi.’

That is why we do not take grains on ekadasi. Mahaprabhu observed ekadasi, and our guru-varga observed ekadasi. Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur made the rules a little easier. Our Param Guru Maharaj, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, wrote this sloka about him:

nikhila-bhuvana-maya-chhinnavichchhinna-kartri
vibudhabahula-mrgya-mukti-mohanta-datri
sithilita-vidhi-raga-radhya-radhesa-dhani
vilasatu hrdi nityam bhakti-siddhanta-vani

‘He slashed to shreds the illusion of the whole material universe, putting a stop to scholarly speculations and conceptions of liberation; he eased the strict rules and regulations, bestowing the conception of natural loving worship of the Divine Couple – may the devotional teachings of this Sri Bhaktisiddhanta play eternally in your heart.’

(Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Srila Prabhupad eased rules and regulations. Before, people would follow ekadasi during three days: one day before ekadasi, on the day of ekadasi itself and on the next day. The rules were very strict, but Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur allowed everyone to take anukalpa (non-grain items). Bengali people cannot live without rice, so you can fast just one day instead of three. One time in His childhood, Mahaprabhu went to the house of Hiranya and Jagadish on ekadasi day. He had been crying very much and could not stop – they had tried everything, even called a doctor, but nothing helped. Eventually, when they somehow brought Nimai to the house of Hiranya and Jagadish, where a full offering of all items had been made, Nimai took that non-ekadasi prasad and calmed down. In this way, Mahaprabhu showed that there is no fasting for the Lord on ekadasi.

Ekadasi is prescribed in the scriptures (fasting on ekadasi is one of the sixty-four limbs of devotion), and all of us must fast on this day.

I have told you the gist of ekadasi – we must observe it following this conception. It is necessary to practise Krishna consciousness taking shelter at the lotus feet of a bona fide guru. It is necessary to follow all rules and regulations properly and strictly, and it is necessary to become a genuine disciple. Practise sravanam, kirtanam, smaranam, vandanam and other kinds of devotion.

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.’

mali hana kare sei bija aropana
sravana-kirtana-jale karaye sechana

‘As gardeners, they plant this seed and water it with sravan (hearing) and kirtan (chanting, practising).’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.19.151–152)

Sravan and kirtan are the water that you must nurture your devotion with. We must listen to the glories of the Lord (sravan) and practise (chant the Holy Name of the Lord – do kirtan). Just as it is not enough to only plant a flower tree – you must water it; similarly, it is not enough to only take initiation. Practise sravan and kirtan. Wake up early in the morning every day. We have small kirtan books – take those books and chant five kirtans in the morning and five kirtans in the evening. You can see in that book what morning arati kirtans we sing, what we sing during the Tulasi parikrama, what kirtans we sing in the afternoon, what bhoga-arati kirtans and evening arati kirtans we sing. You must learn these kirtans by heart. Chant and chant them, and you will learn them by heart. Practise every day; this is smaran (remembering the Lord). Take karatals and chant yourself every day. We sing, ‘Sri Guru-charana-padma kevala bhakati-sadma vando muni savadhana mate. I am carefully offering my obeisance at gurudev’s holy lotus feet, which are an abode of exclusive devotion.’ We must offer obeisances and pray to gurudev: ‘Ami sakti-buddhi-hina, ami ati dina, kare more atmasatha. O gurudev, I have no strength, I have no intelligence, please hijack me! Please take me from this material illusory world and use me for the service of the Lord, for the service of Radha-Govinda.’ That is why you must do whatever service gurudev gives you. Those who have service have mercy; and those who have no service have no mercy.

(13/13) Stay Connected

Devotion depends on each person’s faith (sraddha-anusare haya bhakti-adhikari):

‘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)

First, it is necessary to have sukriti. Do you understand what sukriti means? It means using ‘His things for His service’ (tad vastu tadiya sevaya). When you worship the Ganges, you worship her with the Ganges water. When you give five rupees to the Lord, you are giving the Lord’s money to the Lord. He is the owner of everything in this world, so you must give everything to Him.

Always live like this, and always try to come to the temple. Do not only sit at your home. Vaishnavs have opened spiritual universities for you. There are many festivals during the year; you should try to take part in them. You must come. You must keep connection with gurudev. If you take initiation and only sit at home, what will that give you? Come to the temples from time to time. Come sometimes to Nabadwip; sometimes, to Ekachakra Dham; sometimes, to Puri; sometimes, to Vrindavan. I take everyone to these holy places every year. Only this year we did not go because there were no trains due to the coronavirus; otherwise, we always go to Vrindavan for the niyom-seva month, and we go to Puri during the Ratha-yatra time (only last year we did not go – the temple of Lord Jagannath was closed, how would we go?). Circumambulate all the places where Gaura went in the company of devotees (in sadhu-sanga).

sadhu-sange krsna-nama—ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

I will not take more of your time now. We have thirty–forty temples. Gurudev has given me the charge of all these temples – I have taken this responsibility on my shoulders, and after Gurudev left, I have had to look after all of them. There are also many new temples in Ganga Sagar, Tarakeshwar and Midnapore; this year we are opening a new temple in Uluberia (the works are finished now); and there are also works going on in Haridwar (we are building a temple there). Soon, on 15 February, we will have a festival in Ekachakra, and after that, it will be Gaura Purnima. I have to bear much responsibility, and I have not yet got a fit person who would be able to take some of the burden from me. The person who would be able to take some load off my shoulders has not been created, or prepared, yet. During his lifetime, Gurudev kept me in Nabadwip and would go to preach abroad, but I do not have such a suitable person at hand. That is why I have to live under so much pressure. What service is required where, where there is some problem, where Deities need clothes, where cows lack food, where there are cooks required, where there are cowherd men needed, and so on – I have to manage everything. There is much construction work also, and I have to keep in touch with all the workers, I have to negotiate and argue with them.

Anyhow, please come to the temples. I am staying nearby in Kolkata – I come to Dum Dum Park all the time. Sri Sri Gaura Nitai is there at the Sevak Bhavan (491, Dum Dum Park), and there is service going on there. You can come there sometimes. Take my phone number and keep in touch. I usually can talk from 10 p.m. to 12 a.m., so you can call me at this time, it is not a problem. I am usually very busy the whole day until 10 p.m. – I often go out in the car and spend the whole day going to various places. Keep connection, you have my invitation. Please take care of yourself. May the Lord bless you. As for those who wanted to take initiation, you can bring them to Ekachakra – I will give them initiation there. It is already late now, so I will not give initiation today…

* * *

￼Line Line10 February 2021, noon

Tarakeshwar Area

Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/4) Service Outlet

chhadiya vaisnava-seva nistara payechhe keba

‘You cannot get relief without service to Vaishnavs.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

It is by great fortune that you have got an opportunity to do vaishnav-seva. You want to send a letter to the Lord, you want to get in touch with the Lord, but you do not know the Lord’s mobile phone number, you cannot speak to the Lord on the phone, but there are devotees of the Lord near you who are non-different from the Lord Himself. Lord Sri Krishna told Uddhav Maharaj, ‘Know the acharya to be non-different from Myself.’ Acharya is one who practises himself and preaches to others. Krishna says that we should know that an acharya is non-different from the Lord Himself. The Lord says, ‘In every age, I either come Myself or send My devotee.’ It is said in the scriptures:

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 so by pious souls, but who is also no doubt the Lord’s dear associate.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

The guru is the Lord Himself; at the same time, he is also the dearmost associate of the Lord. Therefore, service to Vaishnavs is a great fortune – not everyone get this kind of fortune.

Vaishnavs do not come to everyone’s house:

mahanta-svabhava ei tarite pamara
nija karya nahi tabu yana tara ghara

‘It is the innate nature of great souls to deliver vile fallen souls. Great souls never come to their homes for any personal purpose.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.8.39)

I also go house to house – I go door to door begging for the temple, and somebody gives potato, somebody gives rice. Before, I would go begging for a handful of rice, and some would give a handful of rice, dal or ten rupees. This is how I collected in Gurudev’s time. Why do sadhus go begging? To give spiritual benefit to the conditioned souls, like ourselves. Being conditioned souls living a material family life, we cannot serve or offer bhoga to the Lord every day, but it is a rule that we must offer bhoga in the same way as you are cooking today for this programme.

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)

It is necessary to take initiation and offer bhoga four–five times a day. Just as people like to (1) drink tea when they wake up, you should also give balya-bhoga (usually some sweets) to the Lord in the morning. Then, you have (2) breakfast, eat something (3) for lunch at noon; in the afternoon, you (4) have a snack and eat some muri, fruit; finally, you return home from work in the evening and have (5) supper. You eat four–five times a day, and you should offer bhoga to the Lord in the same way. But not everyone can do that, that is why Vaishnavs come to householders’ houses, take some rice, potato and other bhoga from them and use it for the service of Govinda and His devotees. In this way, they give benefit to householders.

This year, we did not have festivals because of the pandemic restrictions, so we did not use much potato. We had to sell part of the potato, and we kept some potato in Krishnanagar and another storage place. Also, there are a lot of small temples in Mayapur – because they could not go for collection during the lockdown, all the temple Vaishnavs were in a difficult situation, so we went by car to all the temples and gave 20 kg potato, 25 kg rice, two litres of oil, and some soya beans to each temple. We also distributed something to poor people in Nrisingha Palli and a few other places because some people did not have food during the lockdown. In this way, we used everything that we have collected for the service of the Lord and for the service of people. At every temple, there are vaishnav-seva programmes; at every temple, there is Lord’s service going on every day, but many temples were in a difficult situation and could not buy potato and other things. At this time, we went temple to temple and distributed potato and other things to every temple in Mayapur. We did not leave anyone out – we gave bhoga to all temples that we visit during Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. There are about fifty temples. We tried to do vaishnav-seva in this way. Those of you who have come for festivals know that when Vaishnavs are taking prasad, we always give some pranami and gifts (for example, a shawl, tilak clay or a mirror), but this year there were no large festivals because of the lockdown and many could not come to programmes, so we distributed bhoga to Vaishnavs instead.

In this way sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs collect our hard-earned property (potato, rice, dal, etc.) from us and use it for the service of the Lord, and through that we get some sukriti. There is jnata-sukriti and ajnata-sukriti. Sukriti means ‘tad vastu tadiya sevaya’: using the Lord’s things for the Lord’s service. Many say, ‘I cultivate the land,’ but if the Lord does not give crops, if the Lord does not arrange everything, you can never do anything. We can plant a potato seed, but the owner is the Lord – He makes the seed sprout. If we ignore or forget the Lord, who gives and arranges everything, then we will inevitably end up in trouble.

(2/4) Do Not Waste This Human Life

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, 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 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 if you are not a widow, you must not follow ekadasi. 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 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 this power? The Lord. Our father and mother give us this body by mixing their blood together, but they do not give us that which we are (our intrinsic self). 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 your house all the time, will you be happy? 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:

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 Visnu 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…

(3/4) Eternal Oblivion

Where is hell and where is heaven? We sleep comfortably using a mosquito net or plugging in All-Out (a mosquito repellant) at night, but so many cows live without any protection and get bitten by mosquitos all the time. Snakes roam the streets – they catch and eat frogs. Every living entity is dependent on other living entities for survival. For example, in Nagaland, people swirl dogs until the dogs vomit, and then they eat that vomit – we too were such people before…

So, we have now got this human birth, but have we got it only to do four things – eating, sleeping, breeding and defending? Everyone does this – cows, goats, sheep, cats, pigs, dogs. Everyone eats, everyone sleeps, everyone fears, and everyone is busy procuring children. Nobody prohibits you to do this – you can have a family, but do not become an animal. Animals do not lack anything – they eat and sleep like us; only we are more civilised, so we wear some clothes. In some countries, people do not wear any clothes.

[Noise in the audience.] Do not disturb; you are making an offence. The Lord does not like those who disturb Hari-katha. The Lord Himself says that He is present where His Hari-katha is being spoken. So, if you disturb Hari-katha, the Lord will not look at you with a pleased eye. The Lord says that He is pleased when He is being spoken about. You may or may not listen to it, but if you disturb Hari-katha, it is not good at all.

It is very important that you have got this human birth, but what should we do with this birth? We only sleep, eat, enjoy and fear – we forget that when we were in our mother’s womb, we made a promise to serve the Lord!

bhajiba baliya ese samsara-bhitare
bhuliya rahile tumi avidyara bhare

‘Forgetting that you came to this world saying, “I will serve You”, you remained engulfed in ignorance.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

krsna bhuli’ sei jiva—anadi bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsara-duhkha

‘Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

(4/4) Happy Life

Many say, ‘Oh, I have no money, I will commit suicide!’ I once went to a house where the son had taken his life. What happens when one commits suicide? Do you think they get relief? They do not. They suffer even more after they die like this because they do not get another body for fourteen days – how much they suffer during this time! They roam around in the sky, staying suspended in the air, because they can neither stay on the ground nor go to heaven or hell. When fourteen days pass, they get another body. So, you will not get peace by ending this life.

You can see the example of California: people there have so much money! When they have children, they get ten cars as gifts when the child is born! Even though people in California have so much money, why are there so many suicides there? Because they do not have happiness and peace. Even if you have money, it does not mean that you will have peace. You make a fancy room in a big house for yourself, you marble the floors, do everything, but if there is no peace in that room, you cannot call it home. Material life is also like that: if there is no genuine service to the Lord in your life, if there is no practice of Krishna consciousness, you cannot call it’s happy life – this is a griha-medhi life (a life filled with material attachment to the household).

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)

This is what a real home is. When you practise Krishna consciousness, when you serve the Lord every day, eternally, then your home becomes Goloka Vrindavan. Only offering some flowers or a garland will not do. You must cook and offer bhoga to the Lord every day. If it is meal time and you give me ten garlands, will my stomach be full? It will not, but if you give me something to eat, then my stomach will be full. It is the same with the Lord. When it comes to midday and other particular times of the day, you must feed the Lord. This is how you must practise Krishna consciousness.

The gift of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is so great!

sri-krsna-chaitanya-daya karaha vichara
vichara karile chitte pabe chamatkara

‘Just consider Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mercy! If you do, you will feel astonished in your heart.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.15)

People say, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, yasam dehi: make me rich, make me clever, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me famous,’ but what did Mahaprabhu say?

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

dhana jana ara, kavita-sundari,
baliba na chahi deha-sukha-kari
janme janme dao, ohe gaurahari,
ahaituki bhakti charane tomara

‘When will I say that I do not want any wealth, followers, poetic gift or any other bodily happiness? O Gaura Hari! Birth after birth, please give me unconditional devotion to Your holy feet!’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We pray, ‘Please give me causeless devotion!’ You cannot get the Lord through any material activities, knowledge or mystic practices. If you want to get the Lord, you must have devotion. How will devotion come? Devotion comes from the association of devotees (‘bhaktis tu bhagavad-bhakta-sangena parijayate’). Who must you associate with? Not with those who are bad association. Bad association means those who do not practise even one of the nine devotional practices: sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet). If somebody practises at least one of these practices, their association is good.

There are sixty-four kinds of devotion in total. The nine practices I have just mentioned are the main among these sixty-four practices; among these nine main practices, there are five that are the most important; and among those five most important practices, there are two that are the highest: namely, sravan (hearing) and kirtan (chanting).

tara madhye sarva-srestha nama-sankirtana
niraparadhe nama laile paya prema-dhana

‘Of all practising processes, the best is Nama-sankirtan. If you chant the Holy Name without offences, you will get the wealth of divine love.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.71)

If you chant the Holy Name without offences, you will get the transcendental love for Lord Krishna. It is necessary to chant the Holy Name without offences. Wherever you stay, always chant the Holy Name: ‘Grhe thako, vane thako, sada ‘Hari’ bole dako – whether you stay in a house or in a forest, always call out the Holy Name.’ When you are happy, you forget the Lord, and only when you get into hospital or something happens, you remember the Lord and start calling out to Him. You must never forget the Lord, no matter whether you are happy or sad: ‘Sukhe duhkhe bhule nako vadane Harinam koro re – in happiness or sadness, never forget it, always chant the Holy Name’ (Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur).

This is what I wanted to say. It is time to finish now. Please offer bhoga and give everyone prasad. I will be at the temple in the evening – everyone can come. No invitation is necessary to come to the class. Everybody can come, you have my standing invitation – always come for the class. [To the hosts of the programme] If it is not possible to give prasad to everyone, you can give everyone some fruit. What is the problem? It is prasad too. Nobody says you must give rice, luchi and a full meal to everyone. If it is not possible, you can give everyone some fruit; it is also prasad.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and recites Jaya Dhvani, completing the noon programme.]

* * *

￼Line Line10 February 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Tarakeshwar

Evening Class

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/13) Always Practise Devotion

Hari bol, Hare Krishna. Jay Srila Guru Maharaj.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev Subhadra Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Sri Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Jay Sivji Maharaj ki jay.

Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar ki jay.
Giriraj Govardhan ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

vande ‘ham sri-guroh sri-yuta-pada-kamalam sri-gurun vaisnavams cha
sri-rupam sagrajatam saha-gana-raghunath-anvitam tam sa-jivam
sadvaitam savadhutam parijana-sahitam krsna-chaitanya-devam
sri-radha-krsna-padan saha-gana-lalita-sri-visakhanvitams cha

‘I worship the holy lotus feet of my initiating and instructing guru as well as all predecessor gurus, all Vaishnavs, Rupa Goswami, Sanatan Goswami, their dear associates Raghunath and Jiva, Advaita Prabhu, Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Krishna Chaitanyadev along with all His near and dear ones, and Sri Radha-Krishna, along with Their associates headed by Lalita and Visakha.’

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

‘I offer my obeisance to Sri Guru, who has opened my eyes, rescuing me from the illusory darkness of ignorance, by applying the salve of knowledge upon my eyes.’

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam
chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam
govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram
vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

‘I offer my obeisance to him who perfectly fulfils his gurudev’s most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all conceivable and inconceivable aspects of Vedic knowledge; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s line; who is known as “Govinda” (Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj); whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.’

devam divya-tanum suchanda-vadanam balarka-chelanchitam
sandrananda-puram sad-eka-varanam vairagya-vidyambudhim
sri-siddhanta-nidhim subhakti-lasitam sarasvatanam varam
vande tam subhadam mad-eka-saranam nyasisvaram sridharam

‘I worship Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, the bestower of all auspiciousness, my only shelter and the master of all renunciates. He is my Lord who possesses a transcendental form, whose face expression is very grave, who is clad in the holy clothes the colour of the newly risen sun. He is an abode of intense joy; the only genuine master whom one can accept and surrender to; and an ocean of divine knowledge of renunciation. He is a repository of holy scriptural teachings and pastimes of the highest devotion and a great follower of Srila Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad.’

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha
patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

vrndayai tulasi-devyai priyayai kesavasya cha
krsna-bhakti-prade devi satyavatyai namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to Vrinda Devi (Tulasi Devi), who is very dear to Lord Kesava, who bestows devotion to Krishna and is known as Satyavati.’

atha natva mantra-gurun gurun bhagavatarthadan
vyasan jagad-gurun natva tato jayam udirayet

‘Before reciting scriptures that can conquer material world, let us offer obeisances to our initiating guru, to the guru who teaches us the meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam, to Sri Vyasadev and all gurus in the universe.’

jayah sa-parikara sri-sri-guru-gauranga-gandharva-

govindasundar-padapadmanam jayastu

‘All glory to the lotus feet of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva-Govindasundar and all Their associates.’

vande rupa-sanatanau raghu-yugau sri-jiva-gopalakau

‘I worship Sri Rupa Goswami, Sri Sanatan Goswami, Sri Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, Sri Raghunath Das Goswami, Sri Jiva Goswami, and Sri Gopal Bhatta Goswami.’

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrnda

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

After many days, by the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma, we have again come to Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Tarakeshwar, especially now during what Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur called Sri Dhama Pracharani Sobha that takes place before Sri Gaura Purnima. It is necessary to preach about the holy abode and come for the parikrama of Nabadwip Dham. We sing in one of the kirtans:

sri-gauda-mandala-bhumi, yeba jane chintamani,
tara haya vraja-bhume vasa

‘Those who always think about Sri Gauda Mandal reside in the land of Vraja.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Those who know Sri Nabadwip Dham reside in Sri Vrindavan Dham. Sri Nabadwip Dham is the place where nine kinds of devotion are practised. There are nine islands, and each of these nine kinds of devotion reside on a corresponding island: sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet). It is said in the scriptures that every devotee must practise these kinds of devotion.

‘Asat-sanga sada tyaga chhada anya gita-raga – always give up bad association, do not listen to material songs and music’ (Sri Prema-bhakti-chandrika, Srila Narottam Das Thakur). We often say this, but what is called sadhu-sanga and what is asat-sanga? Sadhu-sanga (good, saintly association) means sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet). If somebody does not practise properly even one these practices, their association is called bad, and we must not associate with such people. You must always practise sravanam and kirtanam: always hear about the Lord and always chant the Lord’s Name and glories.

We do the parikrama of the nine islands of Nabadwip every year. You must come and join this parikrama once a year, and you should also do this parikrama mentally every day. Everybody must come for Nabadwip Dham parikrama. This year, the parikrama will be during five days. It used to be four days every year, but this year it is extended by one more day because Rudradwip is quite far, and we could not go there (we read about its glories from far), but it is necessary to go there. It is the place of Sivji Maharaj. We have a book Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala where you can read about every place that we visit…

(2/13) Pure Devotional Life (1)

It is necessary to always practise. There is one thing Gurudev always told me. He said, ‘Maharaj, you have been going to various districts ever since your brahmachari days – you have been bringing people to me, and they have received initiation, but how many have become disciples?’ Being a disciple means you live following gurudev’s words and practising spiritual life. It is necessary to practise. It is necessary to practise chanting kirtans. It is necessary to listen to Hari-katha, and it is necessary to learn to give class. Moreover, it is not sufficient to only do it yourself – you should serve yourself and give others an opportunity to serve (engage others in service). Always remember this. Engage others in the service of the Lord. You cannot ‘eat’ yourself and not give anything to others.

I take so much trouble going house to house, calling everyone to festivals. We can easily buy four hundred sacks of potato, there is no lack of money, but it is necessary to go house to house to invite people to the parikrama. If you keep telling them about it again and again, they will eventually come.

It is Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance day soon. I know that many are trying to come – they have attended this festival in Ekachakra once, and they say that they liked it a lot, so this year too they will be coming to the holy abode of Nitai. Although Ekachakra is very far, they are still trying to come. I have told people during collection that this year they cannot make excuses because of potato harvest – this year, the parikrama is late, so they can come easily.

We also make Nabadwip Dham parikrama every year. Many cannot come to Vrindavan and Govardhan because it is very far; also, you cannot come there without Gauranga’s and Nitai’s mercy. First, it is necessary to have Gauranga’s mercy. That is why it is said, ‘Gaurangera sangi-gane nitya-siddha kari mane. I consider Gauranga’s associates eternally perfected souls.’ We must associate with the devotees of Gauranga eternally, every day. How is it possible? By reading holy books, by chanting kirtans. When you chant, ‘Sri Guru-charana-padma kavala bhakati sadma – the lotus feet of Sri Guru are an abode of exclusive devotion,’ gurudev will come to your mind. When you talk about gurudev’s words during the class, you will remember gurudev. When you take the names of Pancha-tattva – Sri Krishna Chaitanya, Prabhu Nityananda, Sri Advaita, Gadadhar, Srivas-adi Gaura-bhakta-vrinda (Srivas and other devotees of Gaura) – you can see Their images in front of you. When you chant ‘Ohe Vaishnava Thakura’, you will be remembering Vaishnav Thakur. When you chant prayers to Nityananda Prabhu, you will remember Nityananda Prabhu, and when you chant prayers to Gauranga, you will remember Gauranga. Lord Nityananda is Gurupadpadma – without Nitai’s mercy, it is impossible to reach Sri Radha-Krishna in Vraja.

Even if you live for ten years, it can be sufficient. There is no use living for one hundred years if you do not practise Krishna consciousness – if you are ‘ruined by laziness and given to inauspicious works’ (nidra-alasya-hata sukarya virata). You can live for ten years, but if you can practise Krishna consciousness properly during this time, it can be sufficient – there is no need to live for one hundred years. If somebody is one hundred years but does not practise Krishna consciousness, we do not look up to them. But if a ten-year-old girl or a ten-year-old boy comes and practises Krishna consciousness, we give them respect and called them ‘Didi’ and ‘Prabhu’. That is why we sing in one of the kirtans: ‘Sakale samman karite sakati deha natha yatha-yatha: My Lord! Please give me the ability to give proper honour to everybody,’ then, ‘Tabe ta’ gaiba Harinama-sukhe aparadha habe hata: I will chant the Holy Name happily, and all my offences will be removed.’ We sing this every day when we do the temple parikrama.

sakti-buddhi-hina, ami ati dina,
kara more atma-satha

‘I have no strength, no intelligence, I am very poor. Please hijack me!’

yogyata vichare, kichhu nahi pai,
tomara karuna sara
karuna na haile, kandiya kandiya,
prana na rakhiba ara

‘I find no quality or qualification within me – your mercy is everything. If I do not get your mercy, then I will weep and give up life.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must pray to gurudev, you must check the calendar every day. Wake up in the morning and give jay to gurudev, take gurudev’s name. Give jay to Vaishnavs, to our guru-varga. This is the rule. The more you talk about it, the more you will remember it. When you wake up in the morning, give jay to Gurudev, to Param Gurudev, to Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur and the rest of our parampara…

(3/13) Pure Devotional Life (2)

Sadhus always live following all rules strictly and regularly. If you live at home and sleep till seven-eight o’clock, it will not do. You must wake up early and come for mangal-arati. You must serve the Lordships, your must cook and offer bhoga to the Lord. This is how you must always practise; otherwise, you will not get any result. Practice is the main thing.

You can see that sometimes those who took initiation just one month ago can chant all kirtans well, they can give nice lectures, and those who took initiation ten years ago cannot do anything. It means that there is some lack within us: it means we lack faith and devotion. Devotion comes from devotion. I have told it to you before: you cannot get the Lord through any material activities, knowledge or mystic practices. If you want to get the Lord, there is only one thing that is necessary – devotion.

You must keep devotion in your heart. You do not need to do anything to impress others. You must show devotion with your heart. As I have just said, you cannot come to the Lord through any material activities, knowledge or mystic powers – the only way to come to the Lord is through devotion; and devotion comes from the association of devotees. If you associate with devotees, you will have devotion.

It may not always be possible to associate with devotees directly, but there are other ways how you can get their association. For example, you must give jay to Gurudev and Param Gurudev every day, learn gurudev’s vandana and pranam-mantra by heart. How do you offer obeisance to gurudev? Gurudev’s pranam-mantra is there, and it is written very beautifully. There is also Param Gurudev’s pranam-mantra. I recited them both at the beginning of the programme, and I always recite them every morning and evening. Sometimes, when I get time, I also chant kirtans to myself – sometimes, I chant when I am going in the car.

By chanting kirtan, you can remember the Lord and His devotees (kirtana prabhave smarana haibe). These are the main devotional practices – sravanam, kirtanam, smaranam (hearing about the Lord, chanting the Lord’s Name and glory, remembering the Lord). How does remembering come? When you chant kirtan, you remember the Lord, but when you do not chant kirtans, you are not remembering the Lord, His pastimes and devotees. Therefore, you must always chant kirtan – when you are eating, lying down, sitting or doing anything else. You can chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra or other kirtans. You can sing and sing whatever kirtans you remember by heart – practice makes perfect.

Taking initiation is just the first step; after taking initiation, you have some duty, and this duty is to practise sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet). Only taking initiation is not everything. When a child is admitted to a school, it does not mean they have passed the final exam. When you are admitted to a school, you must study; then, ten years later, you advance to high school; and two years later, if you pass the exam, you get the certificate. There is no other way to get it. Therefore, there are nine kinds of devotion: sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet). And the main thing is that you must practise sravan (hearing about the Lord) and kirtan (chanting the Lord’s Name and glory). If you cannot do that, then everything will be a waste.

(4/13) Detach and Immerse Yourself

You must accept everything that comes, do not recoil at anything. Obstacles and danger can come: there are things that are unfavourable to devotional life, and you cannot do both what is favourable and what is unfavourable. You sing every morning:

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

However, what happens is that you do what is favourable, and at the same time, you do what is unfavourable. Talking village talks, listening to village news. Even material textbooks say, ‘Ku-boliba na, ku-dekhiba na, ku-suniba na – do not say bad things, do not see bad things, do not hear bad things.’ I have eyes, but I must not see bad things. Many things can come to you – when you are going down the street, people say many things around you, but you must not listen to it. Do not say bad things, do not see bad things, do not hear bad things. Mahaprabhu told Srila Raghunath Das Goswami:

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

If you want to eat nice things, if you want to wear nice clothes, you cannot practise Krishna consciousness in this way. You can see my example. I have been to 120 houses today: 80–90 in the morning and about 30 in the afternoon. My feet are hurting now, and my legs were hurting last night, but I still went today. Anyway, it is good to walk for health also. I do not get time to walk, so I am always happy to walk, be it during parikrama or collection. If I sit all the time in the room and do not move, it is not good.

We must practise nine kinds of devotion – we must not gossip or listen to gossips; we must serve Radha and Krishna in our mind. Practise Krishna consciousness in this way. Always keep yourself engaged in spiritual practice. This place here is your home. This is the house of the Lord, so everyone must come here. This is not some man’s property – this is the property of the Lord; this temple is the property of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Madan-Mohan.

As I was saying just now, criticising and gossiping about others is unfavourable to devotion. You chant the Holy Name and at the same time also say all kinds of other, inauspicious things. It is not right. You cannot do both at the same time – you will be removed from spiritual life and the Lord’s service. There are offences to the holy dham, offences to the Holy Name, offences to service, offences to Vaishnavs. It is necessary to know what these offences are and avoid them.

This here is Sri Tarakeshwar Dham, the place of Lord Siva. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came here. You are staying in this holy dham, but ‘Dhama-basi jane pranati kariya, magiba krpara lesa? When will I bow down to the residents of the holy dham and beg them for a drop of mercy?’ You must not give any trouble to anyone. Always remember this, always think about this and practise Krishna consciousness in this way. This is my prayer to you all.

[His Divine Grace then chants kirtans before resuming the class.]

(5/13) Earn Qualification

gurudev!
bada krpa kari’, gauda-vana-majhe,
godrume diyachha sthana
ajna dila more, ei vraje vasi’,
harinama kara gana

‘Gurudev! Bestowing great mercy on me, you have given me a place in Sri Godrumdwip amidst the forests of Gauda. You ordered me: “Reside in this abode that is non-different from Vraja and chant the Lord’s Name.”’

kintu kabe prabho, yogyata arpibe,
e dasere daya kari’
chitta sthira habe, sakala sahiba,
ekante bhajiba hari

‘But when, O Master, will you mercifully grant this servant the qualification to do this? My heart will become steadfast, I will tolerate everything, and I will serve the Lord exclusively.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘When will I earn the qualification?’ We are told to chant the Holy Name, but Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says, ‘O Lord, You have been so merciful to me – You have told me to chant the Holy Name, but I have no qualification, I am not fit. How will I chant? When will You take pity on this servant and allow him to earn this qualification?’ What is the qualification to chant Krishna-kirtan? The ability to sing well? Knowing the tune? No.

trnadhika hina dina akinchana chhara
apane manabi sada chhadi’ ahankara
vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana
pratihimsa tyaji’ anye karabi palana

jivana-nirvahe ane udvega na dibe
para-upakare nija-sukha pasaribe

‘Give up ego and always consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and wretched. Practise forgiveness like that of a tree; do not be vindictive, nurture others. Live without causing anxiety to others; do good unto others forsaking your own happiness.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka Giti, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to be able to forgive others. If somebody has done wrong, what can you do? You should be forgiving. It does not refer to gurudev though – if you think, ‘If I do wrong, gurudev must forgive me,’ it is wrong. It is said that if somebody is jealous of you, if somebody swears you, you must not swear them back.

So, when will I earn the qualification to chant the Holy Name? When will I become humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, and when will I learn to give honour to everyone? Just as when you cut a tree, the tree does not say anything, nor does it stop giving shade – we must have the same kind of tolerance. Our mind, our heart is always fickle – our mind cannot sit still in one place. That is why Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says, ‘When will my heart become fixed? When will I be able to tolerate everything and exclusively serve the Lord?’

saisava-yauvane, jada-sukha-sange,
abhyasa haila manda
nija-karma-dose, e deha haila,
bhajanera pratibandha

‘I enjoyed in my childhood and youth, and as the result, I have developed bad habits. Because of my previous actions, this body has now become an obstacle to practising spiritual life.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When you were young, you did not come to this line, that is why you developed bad habits. Do you think you will be able to chant the Holy Name in your old age? If you could not chant, if you could not wake up for mangal-arati from a young age, you will not be able to do it in your later life. If you are used to sleeping in the afternoon, you cannot wake up the Lordships in the afternoon. You sit in your room or visit friends and family, drink tea and chat with others in the evening – this is how bad habits are developed. Eventually, as a result of your own actions, your body becomes an obstacle to practising Krishna consciousness: you cannot practise properly, you cannot take prasadam (when you overeat or eat certain things, your stomach becomes upset). You will also not be able to see in your old age – you spend your life looking at all sorts of things, so in your old age, you will not be able to read anything or see anything. Such is the state we end up in. So, it is necessary to practise from young days. People say, ‘Why practise Krishna consciousness now? I will practise when I grow old.’ ‘Vrddha-kala aola, saba sukha bhagala, pida-base hainu katara: old age came, and all happiness finished; subjugated by disease, I became distressed’ (Saranagati). When old age comes, all happiness will go away, then we will lament and feel miserable amidst diseases; there will be no energy to practise Krishna consciousness. Will you feel happy practising Krishna consciousness when your health is not good?

vardhakye ekhana, pancha-roge hata,
kemane bhajiba bala’
kandiya kandiya, tomara charane,
padiyachhi suvihvala

‘I am now old and afflicted by five-fold material diseases. Tell me, how shall I serve? Crying incessantly, I have fallen at your feet, utterly bewildered.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(6/13) Humble Heartfelt Plea

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya
kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya be merciful to me? When will I attain the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘When will Sri Chaitanya bestow His mercy on me?’ What does it mean? ‘Sri Chaitanya’ here means that we have a chaitya-guru (internal manifestation of the guru) in our hearts. Guiding us from within, this chaitya-guru brings us to our mahanta-guru (external manifestation of the guru) and shows everything. When we recite guru-pranam-mantra, we say:

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

‘I offer my obeisance to Sri Guru, who has opened my eyes, rescuing me from the illusory darkness of ignorance, by applying the salve of knowledge upon my eyes.’

Sri Guru cures us from our diseases of avidya (ignorance), asmita (false identification), raga (misdirected love), dvesa (aversion to anything that goes against our enjoyment) and abhinivesa (being unable to give up unfavourable habits). He bestows upon us the gift of vision and removes the darkness of ignorance from us. When we have a cataract, we cannot see anything, but once the cataract is removed, we can see everything clearly. Similarly, Sri Guru gives us nice eyes – we used to live in darkness and could not see anything, but Sri Guru has given us divine eyes (divya-chaksu). So, we pray, ‘When will I get the shelter of this guru? When will I be able to take this shelter? When will I be able to serve gurudev?’ You must always remember this.

If you go directly to the Lord, you will not get any reply. The Lord sends His own man to this world to tell us about Him. Therefore, we pray: ‘When will I get the mercy of Sri Chaitanya? When will I get the association of Vaishnavs?’

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

gala-vastra krtanjali vaisnava-nikate

dante trna kari’ dandaiba niskapate

‘I will stand before a Vaishnav sincerely, with a cloth around my neck and joined palms, holding a straw between my teeth.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘With a cloth around my neck, joined palms and straw between my teeth, I will sincerely submit myself at the Vaishnav’s feet.’

kandiya kandiya janaiba duhkha-grama
samsara-anala haite magiba visrama

‘Weeping, I will tell about my miserable life and pray for respite from the fire of material existence.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I will pray to the Vaishnav: When will you rescue me from this ocean of material existence? I keep coming to this material world, I keep falling into this world, but when will I be rescued from this material existence? We must pray for this to the Vaishnav. First, we must appeal to a Vaishnav, and the Vaishnav will then send us to gurudev. What will gurudev do with our letter of appeal? He will send it on to the Lord. If we go directly to the Lord, bypassing Vaishnavs and gurudev, our appeal will not be granted.

‘When will I get some respite from the raging fire of this material existence?’ Do we even try to escape it? On the contrary, we forcefully go even further into material life – we enjoy even more; we do more and more. ‘Weeping, I will convey my sorrows to the Vaishnav and pray for shelter from the fire of material existence.’ What does the Vaishnav do then?

suniya amara duhkha vaisnava thakura
ama’ lagi’ krsne avedibena prachura

‘Hearing about my sorrow, the worshippable Vaishnav Thakur will ardently pray to Krishna on my behalf.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Hearing my prayer, the Vaishnav will tell about me to the Lord. We must never want anything from the Lord – the only desire we can have is to always have causeless devotion to the lotus feet of the Lord. We do not want anything else. Do you know what Mahaprabhu told? We sing it during the Chaturmasya month:

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

Outside people say: ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, varyam dehi, kavitam dehi, sundarim dehi, yasam dehi – give me wealth, give me knowledge, give me beauty, give me a good wife, make me a poet, give me a beautiful girlfriend, give me fame.’ But Mahaprabhu said the opposite: ‘I do not want wealth, I do not want followers, I do not want beautiful women, I do not want to be a poet. I only want causeless devotion to Your lotus feet. Give me that kind of devotion to Your lotus feet so that I can serve You life after life.’

I told a devotee recently: if you want to stay here, stay. It is your temple – stay here and serve; I have no objection. But if you stay at the temple, you must practise Krishna consciousness. Practising Krishna consciousness means chanting the Holy Name and doing service. There is nothing else to it. You do not need to walk the streets begging; the Lord provides everything. I am here also. The Lord arranges everything. So, only practise sravan and kirtan and do service. This is your duty. There is no other job except this.

You must reject what is unfavourable to Krishna consciousness. I have told you what is unfavourable. One of the unfavourable activities is listening to various talks. I see what people do – they like to go to their neighbours’, friends’ or relatives’ houses and spend time talking there. Good for them. But those who stay at the temple are guardians of the temple. Even if you go to anyone’s house, you must behave there as you behave at the temple. That is why Guru Maharaj said that if a brahmachari goes to anyone’s house, he must not go alone – he must go with a party and chant kirtan there. None of the sannyasis, none of the brahmacharis can go to anyone’s house alone. They can only go there accompanied by other devotees – to chant kirtan. It is a strict rule of our Math. Other than this, it is prohibited to go to anyone’s houses. Some go to their house, stay there for five–ten days, and then they leave their household clothes at home and come back to the Math. This is wrong.

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

What does the song say next?

vaisnavera avedane krsna dayamaya
e hena pamara prati habena sadaya

‘Lord Krishna is merciful – hearing the Vaishnav’s appeal, He will take pity on this wretched sinner.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must come to the Vaishnav very humbly, and Vaishnavs must also be very humble. Vaishnavs always feel that they are low – if somebody says that they have become a Vaishnav, it means that they have ‘poured’ too much sravan and kirtan on their devotional seed and have become rotten. If somebody says they have understood much, it means that they have not become a Vaishnav. If you pour five mounds of water (186,5 litres) on potato, all plants will die. It is the same here.

vinodera nivedana vaisnava-charane
krpa kari’ sange laha ei akinchane

‘Bhaktivinod prays at the holy feet of Vaishnavs: “Please take this destitute soul with you.”’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(7/13) Quality and Qualification

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is said here: O Vaishnav Thakur, please be merciful to me. This song mentions sambandha, relationship. What relationship is that? It is the relationship with the Lord, Hari. We know very well who is a father, a mother, a friend, a relative, a husband of a wife, but we do not know who gurudev is and who the Lord is. We do not understand them so much; neither do we want to know or understand them…

Where is **? Does he not like to chant kirtans?

Devotees: He is in the room.

In the room? It is necessary to chant kirtans!

Devotees: He is chanting from upstairs. He is with the worker there.

How can you say that one is chanting kirtans from upstairs? There is one devotee in our mission, his name is Sachisuna Prabhu. He has never learnt to read or write, but he knows and can chant all Kirtan Guide by heart. He knows more kirtans than me. He chanted with devotees, singing along, and in this way he memorised all kirtans, even the long ones. So, it is necessary to sing all the time. But I do not see devotees doing that… There was also one devotee at the temple who was completely blind, but he also knew all kirtans by heart, and he was a very good singer…

So, what does sambandha mean? You cannot get any result unless you know your relationship with your guru. What is the relationship between the guru and the disciple and what is our relationship with devotees? Regardless of where each of us is staying, we are all sons of nectar, we are all relatives. We are eternal servants of Krishna. Knowing sambandha means understanding that there is Lord within everyone. If the Lord resides in everyone and I am a servant of the Lord, then what is the problem if I call another person ‘Prabhu’ (master) or ‘Didi’ (sister)? This is the relationship.

It is said here that if we worship the Lord knowing the relationship, our ego will go away. How will it go away? Some say, ‘I took initiation ten years ago, and he took initiation just yesterday – why must I offer obeisances to him?’ Those who say this do not understand sambandha. You must offer your obeisance even to those who received initiation into the Holy Name only yesterday. What did Srila Prabhupad (Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur) say? He said, ‘All those who are sitting here in front of me are my masters (prabhu)’, ‘You think that somebody comes and takes initiation from me, but it is not so – they actually come to me to give me mercy.’ It is easy to say these things, but it is very difficult to be like that. Still, if we speak and speak about it, then one day this quality can come to us. I am saying something now, but I am saying it for my own benefit, not for you. I am saying all these things to myself so that more and more Vaishnav qualities come to me. This is why we must chant kirtans – so that more devotion, more Vaishnav qualities come to us.

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I think that I have become a Vaishnav, then I will not be able to give honour to others – pratistha (desire for name and fame) will come to my heart and spoil it. In this way, I will clear my own road to hell; I will have to go to hell…

tomara kinkara, apane janiba,
‘guru’-abhimana tyaji’
tomara uchchhista, pada-jala-renu,
sada niskapate bhaji

‘I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru. I will always earnestly worship the remnants of Your food, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘I want to be a servant (a maidservant, menial servant).’ If everyone thought like this, there would be no disturbance – everything would come right. It is necessary to give up the ego that you are the guru or acharya (teacher). When one devotee who had taken Vaishnavs’ food remnants tried to drink the water that had washed Mahaprabhu’s holy feet, Mahaprabhu told others, ‘Do not stop him, he has the qualification to do it.’ That devotee would come to the place where Vaishnavs took prasad on festival days; he would stand outside, and when Vaishnavs finished taking prasad and threw away their plates, he would come and lick those plates. He did not sit together with everyone. That devotees’s name is Kalidas. Because he took everyone’s remnants, Mahaprabhu said, ‘Do not stop him, he has become a jhanu vaishnav (“a seasoned, or crafty, Vaishnav”).’ It was generally prohibited for everyone to touch Mahaprabhu’s feet, but he became an exception. Therefore, we must pray, ‘I will always earnestly take Your remnants, Your foot dust, the water that has washed Your feet.’

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada,
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest”, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to always be a disciple first. You must leave the ego that you are a teacher (guru). If you consider yourself great and give others your prasad, it is not right.

When I go to people’s houses, it is actually a problem. For example, people give me sweets – I do not eat sweets, so I give them to others. If I do not take anything, they become upset, and if I eat some and give the rest to others, then it is even a bigger mistake (if I take even a pinch, they start saying, ‘Oh, we have got remnants!’). It is such a difficult problem…

amani manada, haile kirtane,
adhikara dibe tumi
tomara charane, niskapate ami,
kandiya lutiba bhumi

‘When I become free from the desire for honour and learn to give honour to others, you will give me the right to chant Your kirtan. Rolling on the ground, I will earnestly cry at Your holy feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is said here that if I cannot give honour to others, then the Lord, the Vaishnav will not give me the right (the qualification) to chant kirtan – if I try to chant myself, it will be only letters, it will not be kirtan proper. Those who cannot give honour to others chant only a tune; they do not chant kirtan. Remember this. ‘When I become free from the desire for honour and become able to give honour to others, you will give me the right to chant Your kirtan.’ Remember this.

[His Divine Grace continues chanting kirtans before resuming the class.]

(8/13) Devotional Depth

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy, aspiring to serve him; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all the assembled guru-varga, to all my godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees and all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet and praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet). These the nine kinds of devotion; you must remember them. There are also five limbs of devotion:

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana
mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

‘Associate with sadhus, chant the Holy Name of the Lord, listen to Srimad Bhagavatam, reside in Mathura and worship Deities with faith.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.124)

sadhu-sange krsna-nama – ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Srila Sanatan Goswami was instructed:

jive daya name ruchi vaisnava seva
iha bahi sanatana nahi ara dharma

‘Be merciful to the souls, chant the Holy Name happily and serve Vaishnavs. Sanatan, except for this, there is no other religion.’

Being kind to souls means we must bring them to this path. We have become averse to Lord Krishna since time immemorial – we have forgotten the Lord. We forget who is our actual family and relative; instead, we take those who are averse to Lord Krishna, who have no knowledge of the self, for our relatives and call them ‘family’. It is said in the scriptures that ‘Krsna-bahirmukha jivera nahi Krsna smrti-jnana – souls that are averse to Krishna have no knowledge or remembrance of Krishna.’ That is why we must worship devotees. Why do we worship Tulasi and offer water with Tulasi? The Lord has given much importance to Tulasi Devi (Bhakti Devi), that is why devotees wear Tulasi neckbeads and chant on Tulasi beads. Moreover, you cannot perform any ritual without Tulasi. What can one attain without worshipping Tulasi?

dhupa dipa naivedya arati
phulana kiye varakha varakhani

‘Offering incense, lamps and arati makes you flourish and showers you with rain.’

chhappanna bhoga, chhatrisa byanjana,
bina tulasi prabhu eka nahi mani

‘The Lord does not accept fifty-six grain offerings or thirty-six vegetable offerings without Tulasi leaves.’

(Sri Chandrasekhara Acharya)

We must serve Tulasi. Keep Tulasi at home. If somebody has not come to this path, you must explain it to them. Offer water and obeisances to Tulasi every day. Always serve Tulasi.

yanko darase parase agha-nasa hoi
mahima veda purane vakhani

‘Seeing or touching you destroys all sins; your glories are described in the Vedas and Puranas.’

(Sri Chandrasekhara Acharya)

Just seeing or touching Tulasi destroys all sins.

We must serve our guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and body, extracting and smearing mellows of deep love from our hearts. You must do it internally, with your heart – not in some external way, within the external world. You must serve internally.

(9/13) Surrender and Practise

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)

When, by some fortune, gurudev bestows his mercy, the fortunate soul receives the seed of the devotional creeper and must then practise sravan and kirtan.

mali hana kare sei bija aropana
sravana-kirtana-jale karaye sechana

‘As gardeners, they plant this seed and water it with sravan (hearing) and kirtan (chanting, practising).’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.19.152)

It is necessary to water the seed of devotion with the water of hearing and chanting. Hearing and chanting are the root of spiritual life. ‘Kirtana prabhave smarana haibe: chanting (kirtan) arouses remembrance (smaran).’ We will be able to remember (practise smaran) through kirtan. We have been averse to Lord Krishna from time immemorial.

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This life is not eternal – we can leave at any time, and nobody will give us an advance notice. You have got some time now, so serve the Lord, do service and practise Krishna consciousness. Remember that this life is not eternal – we can leave at any moment.

Many says, ‘I will leave everything and come to stay at the temple,’ but they cannot.

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya,
sadhu-guru-krpa bina na dekhi upaya

‘It is impossible to conquer illusory environment and become released from it. I see no other way to get relief except by the mercy of saints and Sri Guru.’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

If you want to conquer illusory environment, you need the mercy of sadhus and Sri Guru. You must first surrender to a sadhu, guru and Vaishnav and beg them for mercy. After that, Maya Devi will bestow her mercy on you.

Many want to come to the temple after they retire, but I see that when people retire, they cannot do any service at the temple anymore. They cannot utilise their time properly, cannot give full-time to the service of the Lord. We say:

kandiya kandiya janaiba duhkha-grama
samsara-anala haite magiba visrama

‘Weeping, I will tell about my miserable life and pray for respite from the fire of material existence.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When will we get respite from the raging fire of material existence?

Many say, ‘Oh, I stay at home and practise on my own,’ but there are many services that you cannot do at home. You have an opportunity to stay at the temple and serve full-time, but you will not get this kind of opportunity at home. When you stay at home, you have to worry about your family, you have to earn money, you have to do so many things. When I lived in the shelter of gurudev, I did not have to worry about anything. Even now too, I do not worry – the Lord will arrange everything as He wishes. I do not have any problems.

sad-anga saranagati haibe yanhara
tanhara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

‘Lord Krishna hears the prayers of those who surrender in six ways.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If you surrender in all six ways, Nanda Kumar (Lord Krishna) will hear your prayer. As for service, you must properly do the service that gurudev has given you. You must listen to what gurudev says and understand, ‘I will do the service that gurudev has given me.’ If you do something of your own accord, if you follow what your mind says, it will be karma. For example, gurudev tells you to fry potato, but you fry eggplant. If you are like this, then even if you stay at the temple, your attempts to serve will be karma, and as the result of such activities, you will become bound by your karma. If gurudev tells you, ‘Do puja,’ you must do that; what else is there to know or think? If you can do puja, as told, and on top of that give class or do some other services, it is good, but if you do something else instead of doing puja, then it is not good. You may think, ‘I like giving class’, ‘I like going for collection’, ‘I like preaching’, but it is not a matter of what you like or do not like – you must do what your guru tells you to do. It is necessary to understand this.

(10/13) Cut Off Material Attachment

The other day, ** was giving me various excuses, saying that he is not well. I told him, ‘All right, I will send somebody to your house then. You are trying to cheat and play with the temple service – you do not want to serve the Lord; you say that you are unwell, all right, then I will send the Lord to your house. You will have to serve the Lord from there. When the Lord comes to your doorstep, where will you run? How will you not serve then?’ He keeps running away from the temple, and his mother makes excuses for him. I thought to myself, ‘OK, I will show you.’ So, I sent devotees to their house to preach for ten–fifteen days and came there myself yesterday. I returned to the temple yesterday (the same day) at half past ten at night, and today I hear that ** has left for Midnapore, so he could not come here today. He says, ‘Oh, I did not know you were coming.’ It is necessary to preach. It is necessary to preach Mahaprabhu’s message in this world. He told me, ‘Oh, the car we go by is bad, I have a health problem and cannot walk.’ I said, ‘OK, I am giving you the red car. If you need a car, all right. You can preach so much with this car. If you need a car for preaching, it is not a problem – take it.’

We must practise strictly, following all rules and regulations. We must fast on ekadasi. We must practise Krishna consciousness as much as we can – without vaishnav-aparadha (offences to devotees), seva-aparadha (offences to service), dhama-aparadha (offences to holy places), nama-aparadha (offences to the Holy Name). Do not be fickle. Do what gurudev wants you to do. If you do not pay attention to what gurudev wants, you will not get any result. If you please gurudev, everyone will be pleased.

We must all reach nectar where we have come from. How long we have been staying in the bondage of the material world! Until and unless your material attachment goes away, you will not feel attachment and love for the Lord and for the service of the Lord. That is why it is said:

‘samsara’ ‘samsara’ kari’ michhe gela kala
labha na haila kichhu, ghatila janjala

‘Time has passed as I have been busy with my material life, and the result is nothing – only garbage.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

ki-rupe paiba seva muni durachara
sri-guru-vaisnave rati na haila amara

‘I am so wicked, how will I ever get service? I have not got any attachment to Sri Guru and Vaishnavs!’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

‘I am so vile, so bad!’ It is necessary to always think like this about yourself. We have no attachment to Sri Guru and Vaishnavs, but we are attached to so many other things. Have I not just told you that we understand our parents, wife, friends, relatives, but we have no attachment or love for our guru and Vaishnavs.

asesa mayate mana magana haila
vaisnavete lesa-matra rati na janmila

‘My mind is engrossed in endless illusion; there is not even a trace of attachment to Vaishnavs born within me.’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Our mind and heart are engrossed in illusion, and we do not have any attachment to Vaishnavs…

(11/13) Bogus Kirtan – Bogus Devotion

Yesterday I told devotees not to make too many things – make some luchi and aloo-dum. But then they force me to take it too, and I get a problem if I eat it. I can take one piece, it is sufficient.

Devotee: Will you take rice then?

No, no, I will not. I took rice at night yesterday, and my legs are paining today.

visaye bhuliya andha hainu divanisi
gele phamsa dite phere maya se pisachi

‘Day and night I live in darkness, forgetting myself in material life – this Witch Maya has put a noose round my neck.’

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya,
sadhu-guru-krpa bina na dekhi upaya

‘It is impossible to conquer illusory environment and become released from it. I see no other way to get relief except by the mercy of saints and Sri Guru.’

adosa-darasi-prabhu, patita-uddhara
ei-bara narottame karaha nistara

‘Prabhu, you see no fault in others, you are the saviour of the fallen. Please deliver Narottam this time!’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Srila Narottam Das Thakur sang this kirtan… You can read these kirtans from time to time and try to understand their meaning. Read the Kirtan Guide, it will be good for you.

Before, one person used to come here with his party and do kirtans. Is it still going on or has it stopped?

[Devotees explain what is going on, saying that the party comes to chant for money, dressed as Radha and Krishna.]

Just think what is going on!… And if I come and ask for one or two sacks of potato, they will not give it. They do not want to serve the Lord. People cannot understand this… If you follow such kirtan singers, they will tell you that you can eat meat and fish. That is why it is said:

koti janma yadi kare sravana-kirtana
tabu na paya vrajendranandana

‘Even if you practise hearing and chanting for millions of lives, you will not get Krishna, the Son of King of Vraja.’

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

People chant those kirtans going house to house for their own purpose. When it comes to the service of the Lord, there is karma-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with material desires), jnana-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with desire to know something) and jnana-sunya bhakti (devotion devoid of any pursuit of knowledge). We are interested in jnana-sunya bhakti, not jnana (knowledge) – we must renounce knowledge. Karma-misra bhakti means that you serve the Lord hoping to get something in return. The Lord says:

krsna kahe,—“ama bhaje, mage visaya-sukha
amrta chhadi’ visa mage,—ei bada murkha
ami—vijna, ei murkhe ‘visaya’ kene diba?
sva-charanamrta diya ‘visaya’ bhulaiba”

‘Krishna says, “They worship Me desiring material happiness – leaving aside nectar, they ask Me for poison. They are big fools, but I am intelligent: Why will I give these fools material things? Instead, I will give them the nectar of My lotus feet and make them forget the material world.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.38–39)

So, if you practise bogus kirtan, you will not get any result. People do this to earn money; this is business.

(12/13) Embracing Controlled Life

We have made such a big building, but how many Bengali people have service? How many Bengalis come and serve here? When the police catches you, you give money to the police, and when you get into hospital, you give money to doctors, but you do not think about the service to the Lord. People always think about their own enjoyment and pleasure, ‘How can I enjoy?’ That is why the souls of this world are getting so much pain. I come and say, ‘Come to the temple, do service.’ I have been coming here for so long, but how many people have come to this line? Materially, they have everything, but they do not come to this line…

I asked **, ‘Why are you breaking your own arm?’

diksa-kale bhakta kare atma-samarpana
sei-kale krsna tare kare atma-sama

‘Devotees submit their entire being when they take initiation. At this time, Krishna accepts them as His very own.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.192)

‘When you took initiation, you gave your body, mind, heart, everything to your gurudev’s lotus feet. If you do not use this body for the service of gurudev, then come and stay here for some time.’ He said, ‘I have no time, I have to see to the potato.’ The Lord has arranged everything in such a way that he has now been sitting without work for three months, but he still wants to continue sitting like this.

When you take initiation, you give your body to your guru and promise that you will use your body, mind, soul, everything for the service of the Lord. So, when gurudev tells you to do some service or to go somewhere, you must do that. If you do not do that – if you keep saying that you have no time or make other excuses, then one day the opportunity will be gone. That is why I am telling you all: surrender everything (your body, mind, heart, everything) to gurudev, and whichever way gurudev will use it, it is his matter – you must follow your gurudev’s order.

One time, Srila Sanatan Goswami was going to commit suicide, but Mahaprabhu told him, ‘Do you have no shame? How can you be destroying My things?! This body is not yours! You have given this body to Me, and I will do so many things with this body – I will write scriptures, I will serve Vaishnavs, I will rescue all the holy places with this body, but you are going to destroy it by committing suicide! Do you have no shame?’ So, this body, life, mind – everything is meant for the Lord. All living entities of this world exist for the Lord, but because we are overcome with ego, we do not use everything properly – we use everything for other purposes. People do not understand this. One day you will die, and you will regret that you could not spend at least one day using this body for the service of Govinda.

Radharani serves and worships (aradhya) the Lord the most, that is how She got Her name (Radharani). But as soon as we feel unwell, we do not do anything. I have been to many houses, and I have seen how people live. They are busy with their lives – their health is not good, they cannot walk, they cannot see, cannot hear; they cannot practise Krishna consciousness…

sarira avidya-jala jadendriya tahe kala
jive phele visaya-sagare

‘This body is a net of illusion, and the material senses are the cause of its ruination: they throw the soul into the ocean of mundanity.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This tongue throws us into the ocean of material existence, and we cannot control it. We cannot come to the great things because of some small matters. People want to eat nice food and wear nice clothes, but there is actually only one reason why they cannot come to this path: they cannot control their tongues. There is nothing else. But the soul does not want all this. Material gurus say, ‘Eat whatever pleases your soul,’ but the soul’s duty is to serve Paramatma, the Supersoul. The soul is a part and parcel of the Lord – can it ever want to eat meat and fish? Never.

(13/13) Start from Tongue

The soul’s duty is to serve Paramatma. The tongue wants to eat fish, meat, chickens, goats, cats, dogs and other things. Everyone eats whatever they want, according to their fortune. For example, pigs eat stool – they eat what humans discard as filth. In some countries, people eat dogs, snakes, frogs. We eat vegetable pakoras, and somebody else eats cockroach pakoras. Some eat earthworms, some eat snakes, and some eat frogs. Even in our country, many people eat frogs. People even eat mice. When I worked in the field, I noticed some people looking for something in the field – as it turned out, they were looking for mice. Such are the people in this world.

sarira avidya-jala jadendriya tahe kala
jive phele visaya-sagare

‘This body is a net of illusion, and the material senses are the cause of its ruination: they throw the soul into the ocean of mundanity.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

There are material senses of perception and action (karmendriya): feet, hands, rectum, genitals, mouth; and material senses through which we acquire knowledge (jnanendriya): eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, mind, intelligence, ego. The mind always wants something, but you can say, ‘No, I will not eat fish and meat from today.’ What is the problem? What loss is there? There is no loss. But people say, ‘Oh, I will die if I do not eat meat and fish.’ This mentality is very bad. If your intelligence is bad, you cannot control your mind. It is said that your tongue throws you into the ocean of material life, so if you cannot control your tongue, you will not be able to control anything. It is necessary to always control your tongue. That is why when you come to Gaudiya Math, the first and foremost rule is that you must control your food. That is also why there are so few disciples, or devotees in this line. If I were to say, ‘Eat whatever you like’, a thousand people will come to take initiation, but there is no use taking initiation like this. Both those who receive such an initiation and who give such an initiation will go to hell. Always control your food – do not eat meat, fish, onion, garlic, masoori dal (lentils).

You invite aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, ativadi, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari people to your house, you spend money and feed people, but you do this for name and fame. Mahaprabhu said:

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

You can see here also when you make a festival, so many people come – how many people come to hear the class and how many people come to eat? People come as beggars for food (bhojan), not as beggars for Krishna consciousness (bhajan)… If you come and listen to the class, if come to this line, become vegetarian, follow ekadasi, chant the Holy Name and practise Krishna consciousness, then it is good. But people do not do this. It is said in the scriptures: ‘Out of ten million workers, you will get one wise person; out of ten million wise people, you will get one liberated soul; out of ten million liberated souls, you will get one devotee of Krishna.’ Among thousands of Vaishnavs, there can be only one devotee of Krishna. The number of devotees of Krishna is very small, but even just one devotee of Krishna can liberate the entire universe. The people of this world cannot understand all this, and they keep coming to this world. What can we do?

We are told so many times that we are all children of nectar and we must go to nectar. We have got this human birth, and it is not certain whether we will get it again. If we live this life doing wrong things – eating meat, fish, onion, garlic, masoori dal (lentil) and other bad things, then we will have to go down again (we will be demoted). When you work, you can be promoted, and you can also be demoted: if you work well, you get promoted, and if you work bad, you get demoted. It is the same here. We have got this human birth from the Lord having crossed so many births, but if we get this human birth and do not practise Krishna consciousness (do not serve the Lord), then we will again have to go back.

People always make all kinds of excuses. For example, some say that if a girl takes initiation, she will not be able to get married. Nobody knows when your destiny will call you (when the time will come for you to leave this world). You have so many plans: ‘I will do this’, ‘I will do that’, but tomorrow you can go to ‘pick patol’ (kick the bucket). What will you say then? [His Divine Grace chuckles.] Gurudev told me, ‘People think that they will do so many things, but they can never be sure that they will not go to pick patol (kick the bucket) the next day.’

Anyway, much has been said today…

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and recites Sri Jaya Dhvani, concluding thus the evening class.]

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￼Line Line11 February 2021, noon

Tarakeshwar Area

Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/5) Self-Deception

grhe thaka, vane thaka sada hari bale’ daka
sukhe duhkhe bhula naka, vadane hari-nama kara re

‘Whether you live at home or in a forest, always call out to the Supreme Lord. In happiness and in sadness, do not forget this: chant the Lord’s Names aloud.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must chant the Holy Name both when you are happy and when you are unhappy. When you go to hospital, you are sad and call out to the Lord, ‘O Lord, please protect me!’ But you must chant the Holy Name always, both when you are happy and unhappy.

maya-jale baddha ha’ye, achha michhe kaja la’ye
ekhana-o chetana peye, radha-madhav-nama bala re

‘Bound in Maya’s net, you work in vain. While you are still conscious, chant the Name of Radha-Madhav!’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Bound by the net of illusory environment, you cannot get the Lord through any material activities, mystic powers or knowledge. Bound by the net of illusion, you simply spend your days working in vain…

Maya (illusory world) is created by the Lord. It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita:

daivi hy esa gunamayi, mama maya duratyaya
mam eva ye prapadyante, mayam etam taranti te

‘My supramundane trimodal illusory potency (alluring those who are averse to Me) is extremely difficult to overcome. However, this insurmountable potency of Mine can be overcome by those who exclusively surrender to Me.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 7.14)

Created by the Lord, Maya keeps us away from the Lord. We are all relatives – we are all sons of nectar. We have all come from the Lord, and until and unless we return to our home, we will keep coming to this world again and again: some time we will get a human birth some time we will get other births. It is said in the scriptures:

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 Visnu Purana)

I spoke about it yesterday. We have crossed 8,400,000 births before we have got this human birth. Among those 8,400,000 births, we have been born 400,000 times as humans. When sadhus give you their asirbad (blessing), it means that they give you a blessing so that your coming to this world (asir) stops (bada) – so that you do not again become cows, cats, dogs, snakes and frogs (there are so many species of trees, plants and animals). Sadhus give their blessings so that your coming and going throughout all these species comes to an end. As I have started saying, we have been born 400,000 times as humans, 3,000,000 times as animals, 1,100,000 times as insects, spiders, etc., 900,000 times as species living in water, 2,000,000 times as trees and hills, and 1,000,000 times as birds flying in the sky. So, it is a great fortune for us to have got this human birth. All scriptures describe this human birth as a very rare achievement. There are many kinds of people in this world, but the number of insects and animals is so much more than that – in other words, the number of human species is very small compared to all the other species. Among the various human species, many say they follow the Vedas (some follow Rig Veda, some follow Sama Veda, some follow other Vedas), but although they say that, they actually do what is prohibited by the Vedas. For example, none of the Vedas say that we must kill other living entities. Even Muslim people say in the Quran that you can kill a living entity only if you can give life to another living entity. Can anyone give life to others? Nobody can because it is the soul that keeps the body alive…

So, we have got this human birth, but this life is coming to an end and can end at any time (‘Jivana haila sesa, na bhajile hrsikesa: your life is ending, but you have not served Lord Hrishikesh’; Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur). Do you think that you will get a notice when the time comes to leave? Pariksit Maharaj got a notice that he would die in seven days, but it is a rare incident – we are not as fortune as he is.

You have promised that you will serve and worship the Lord, but I have heard that people come to your house to do kirtan for money. What use is that? We do not come here to chant kirtan – we come to make you chant kirtan. Coming to this house again and again, we have managed to make one person practise kirtan here. Now this lady here is left – she promised that when her son got married, she would take initiation.

The lady: Yes, when grandchildren are born, I will take initiation.

Now grandchildren! Do you think that if you chant the Holy Name, you will not have grandchildren? Do those who chant the Holy Name have no grandchildren?! So many excuses! That is why it is said that people have three hands – these two hands here (hata), and the third one is excuses (aju-hata). People say, ‘Oh, I cannot chant the Holy Name.’ But the problem is that you do not want to chant the Holy Name, that is why you are not able to chant it. You must try, but the problem is that you do not want to chant.

I told one person whose health is not so good: come to the temple, and your health will come right. If you need money to support your family, I will give it to you. There are four floors at the temple, you can stay in a room on one of the floors - you can look after the floor, take care of the cows. But they think, ‘I will not be able to drink tea there’, ‘I will not be able to smoke there’, ‘I will not be able to eat fish there.’ They worry about all this. If you want to attain great things, you must give up small things…

(2/5) Think About Lord

If you want to attain great things, you must give up small things. Suppose you want to run a big business – if you want to run a big business, you have to give up your small business. It is the same here. We can get the Lord Himself, but we do not want to give up small things.

Before the Pandavas fought against the Kauravas, Krishna asked both sides, ‘What do you want?’ The Kauravas said, ‘We want a big army’, and the Pandavas said, ‘We want You.’ What happened to the Kauravas in the end? They lost the battle. Those who had Krishna on their side won. It is the same here. What will you do? Will you go to your own home or will you keep wandering through hired places all the time? Your own home is the home of the Lord, the home of gurudev; and the place where we are now is a rented place. One day or another, when the time comes and the owner kicks us out, we will have to quickly leave this place – nobody will give us any time or notice.

jivana haila sesa, na bhajile hrsikesa,
bhaktivinoda-upadesa, eka-bara nama-rase mata re

‘Your life is finished, but you have not served Lord Hrishikesh. Here is Bhaktivinod’s advice: become mad with the nectar of the Holy Name just once.’

maya-jale baddha ha’ye, achha michhe kaja la’ye
ekhana-o chetana peye, radha-madhav-nama bala re

‘Bound in Maya’s net, you work in vain. While you are still conscious, chant the Name of Radha-Madhav!’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You know, when I came to this line, everyone said that I had gone crazy because I had left my job and come to the temple. What happened to all those who said that? There were three–four, maybe even five, brothers, and my aunties were all beaten by their daughters-in-law – they would come to one house, the wife would beat them; they would go to another house, and another wife would beat them. They spent their life suffering, but my mother died peacefully (in knowledge). She had been working, and she died when she was asleep. She did not suffer. Now they say about her, ‘Oh, her elder son does not work – he has left and become a sannyasi – but they have such a big house!’ Everyone else became poor. I do not know why they are saying this. I have never given them any money; I have never done anything for them. The Lord says: ‘If you think about Me, I will think about you. But if you think about yourself, then why must I look after you?’ Do not think about yourself – always think about the Lord. Our line of devotion is such that we always think about the Lord: ‘How can I make the Lord happy?’

When Krishna had a headache and asked for some foot dust, Vraja gopis did not think about sins – they gave their foot dust. Why did they give it? To make Krishna happy. Laksmi could not give it, Siva could not give it, Brahma could not give it, Narad could not give it – nobody could give their foot dust. Krishna had queens, Satyabhauma and Rukmini, but even they could not give their foot dust, thinking, ‘We worship Krishna, how can we let our foot dust touch Krishna’s head? We will be committing a sin!’ They worried about themselves. But Vraja gopis said, ‘If our foot dust touches Krishna and Krishna’s health comes right, then we must give it – even if our legs become rotten, we do not care!’ Narad said, ‘But you will go to hell!’ They said, ‘We do not mind it. If we commit a sin, whatever! If our legs rot, whatever! As long as our Krishna is well again, we do not care about anything.’ This is our line of devotion. This is jnana-sunya bhakti (knowledge-free devotion).

(3/5) Stay Away from Nonsense

Karma-misra bhakti means you do some service to the Lord thinking you will get something in return. This is how people turn the Lord into their menial servant. ‘Lord! Give me a son!’, ‘Give me a grandson!’, ‘Give me a daughter!’, ‘Give me a job!’, ‘Give me my own business!’ You know, people sometimes get a job by giving a bribe to an officer, and we are also doing this with the Lord – we give the Lord some bananas, some atop rice, some fruit and sweets and turn God into a bribe-taker, making Him serve us. Sadhus do not do this. Sadhus say, ‘Only serve the Lord.’

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

‘I do not want wealth, followers or a beautiful wife. Please only give me sincere devotion to Your holy feet.’ Those who think like this get the mercy of the Lord: they have a house, a wife, money, and they have no problem – they live in their families and worship the Lord. ‘Grhe thako, vane thako, sada ‘Hari’ bole dako: whether you stay in a house or in a forest, always call out the Holy Name.’ You can even be walking down the street and chanting the Holy Name. Walk and chant. Do not waste your time. Instead of reading newspapers and watching TV, series and news, chant the Holy Name. There is no use watching the news – it is all lies. Today, one country is criticising the other country, tomorrow the other country will rebuke the first country. He says you are a thief, and you are saying he is a thief. Is that news? This is all lies. All news are false, it is all criticism and gossiping, what else is there in it? All newspapers and TV are full of criticism and gossiping about others. Is there any use watching it all? If you want to depend on them, it is your matter. You rely on them and make them kings, but they ‘go to Lanka’ [a Bengali saying: ‘only Ravan goes to Lanka’]. What will they do for you? You need something to eat, but what will they do for you? If you work, the Lord will provide everything. So, it is no use getting involved with the politics, economics or society. It is a waste of time.

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

You must always practise Krishna consciousness in this way.

You told me that you paid somebody a lot of money to do kirtan at your house. Even if you do this your whole life (if you make great festivals like this at home, spending thousands and thousands of rupees), you will not get anything.

koti janma yadi kare sravana-kirtana
tabu na paya vrajendranandana

‘Even if you practise hearing and chanting for millions of lives, you will not get Krishna, the Son of King of Vraja.’

hena krsna-nama yadi laya bahu-bara
tabu yadi prema nahe, nahe asrudhara
tabe jani, aparadha tahate prachura
krsna-nama-bija tahe na kare ankura

‘If you chant this Name of Krishna many times but still there is no love, no tears streaming from your eyes, then you can know that there are too many offences and the seed of Krishna’s Name does not sprout in you.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.29–30)

You must give up offences and chant the Holy Name; otherwise, it is will be nothing but letters:

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

You give them money, and they take your money and sing. They do this to earn money. If somebody reads Bhagavatam for money, you must not listen to such Bhagavatam reading because you will not get any benefit. They sing well, they read well, they give a nice class, but it will not produce anything. What is the use then? Are they able to bring people to spiritual life through their reading of Bhagavatam?!

(4/5) Delay No More

You must come to this path. There is no time to wait!

uthare uthare bhai, ara ta samaya nai,
‘krsna bhaja’ bale uchchaihsvare

‘Wake up, wake up, brother! There is no time! “Worship Krishna!” devotees call out loudly.’

(Acharya Vandana)

There is no time left! If you do something one day earlier, you will get the result one day earlier, too. I also think that I came to the temple only thirty years ago, but if I had come earlier, I would have been able to do so much more. I could have done more service. Now, I am slowly getting old, but I am still going everywhere…

This is how you must practise Krishna consciousness. We will leave any day, there is no time to delay! People do not come because of such trifles! They cannot give up meat and fish – what is this? What is the problem if you do not eat meat, fish and onion? Will you die if you do not eat it?! Eating all this only increases diseases. Do not eat meat and fish! I will go away, and you will still not have come to this path. What is the problem? You can boil potato and have it with rice. You can cook spinach, vegetables. Do not kill jiva souls. If you show mercy to jiva souls, you will get supreme benefit.

Do not kill jiva souls. It is said in the scriptures, and science also says the same thing: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If I kill somebody in this world – for example, if I cut a chicken – in my next life, I will become a chicken myself. My soul will be in a chicken’s body, and the chicken’s soul will get a human body and will kill me. This is told in the scriptures, and science is also saying this. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you kill somebody in this world, you are afraid that you will be punished for this. Sometimes, it happens also that a man kills his father, but when this man’s son grows up and hears that his father had killed his grandfather, he kills his father for that. Therefore, if you kill somebody in this world, it will later come to kill you in a future life.

Follow ekadasi, chant the Holy Name, wear Tulasi beads on your necks. If you wear Tulasi mala on your neck, Yamadutas will not be able to touch you. Have you heard what they look like? They come to take you at the time of death – the soul does not want to leave the body, but Yamadutas come and take the soul away forcefully. But if there are Tulasi beads on your neck, then Vaishnavs come for you. So, practise Krishna consciousness in this way, you will get benefit.

(5/5) Pastimes of Lord Siva

You are staying near Tarakeshwar Dham. Sivji Maharaj is a great Vaishnav (vaishnavanam yatha sambhu). Those who take drugs and come to Siva are not devotees of Lord Siva – they only try to dress as Siva. They think, ‘Siva takes marijuana, so we will also take it.’ But Lord Siva also took poison, and his neck became blue (this is how he got his name Nilakantha: ‘the one with a bluish throat’). So, you can tell them, ‘You take drugs saying you are a devotee of Siva, but then you should also take poison – can you digest it?’

Lord Siva is a great Vaishnav. He took part in the rasa-lila of Lord Krishna. We always offer obeisances to Lord Siva. We have Lord Siva’s Deity in many temples – there is Gangadhar Siva in Nabadwip, there is Lord Siva in Midnapore, Ganga Sagar and other places. We always offer Lord Govinda’s prasad to Lord Siva (after the offering is done to Lord Govinda, that prasad is offered to Lord Siva).

One time, Sivji Maharaj went to Nandagram, Vrindavan, and sat there, thinking, ‘I have not been able to get the darshan of Gopal!’ When Sivji Maharaj had come to Mother Yasoda (wearing snakes on his neck and long dreadlocks), Mother Yasoda said, ‘No, if Gopal sees you, He will get scared.’ Then, Gopal started crying, ‘Asheshwar Mahadev (Lord Siva) came and went away without seeing Me!’ And the Lord then went Himself to Lord Siva to give him His darshan. Gopal told His mother, ‘Come this way, Sivji Maharaj is waiting for Me there!’ In this way, Lord Siva got Gopal’s darshan. There is a place of Asheshwar Mahadev in Nandagram, where this darshan took place.

There is also Bhuteswar Mahadev, Chakleshwar Mahadev, there is also Gopeshwar Mahadev in Vrindavan, who took part in the rasa-lila in Vrindavan. One day, Sivji Maharaj came to his wife Parvati Devi and said, ‘Parvati, I will go to the rasa-lila!’

‘You will go to the rasa-lila? But you are a man!’ replied Parvati. ‘Nobody except gopis (ladies) has the right to enter there.’

‘Then dress me as a gopi!’

Parvati dressed Siva as a gopi, and as Siva was about to leave, she quickly called him,

‘Hey, listen, listen! Have you dressed yourself as a gopi or have you become a gopi?’

The question is that whether one dresses as a sadhu or becomes a sadhu? Many dress as sadhus – it is easy to dress to do it, but it is very difficult to actually becomes one. It is necessary to become a sadhu. It is not sufficient to wear the cloth and chant on your mala. You must be humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, and give honour to others. It is necessary to have patience, tolerance, it is necessary to leave ego.

So, Lord Siva said to Parvati Devi, ‘Please bless me so that I can become a submissive follower of gopis.’

After that, Lord Siva entered the rasa-lila. None of the gopis could recognise him, but Krishna did: ‘Oh, Siva has come dressed as a gopi!’ So, Krishna started talking to him in a very lively way, but Radharani got angry: ‘A new gopi has come today, and Krishna is talking only to her!’ She went away – there is a pond where She stayed for five days, sulking. The name of that pond is Mana-sarovar. She sulked angrily, ‘I am Gopeshwari [mistress of gopis], and He says that new gopi is Gopeshwar [master of gopis]! Who is she!’ Then, Krishna told everyone, ‘Can You not recognise who has come here?’ Suddenly, all the gopis got alarmed and started pulling Sivji Maharaj’s clothes off! They scolded and hit him, ‘Shameless! How could you have come here!’ Sivji Maharaj quickly left the place.

Such is the glory of Sivji Maharaj. There is also another pastime. If you go for Nabadwip Dham parikrama, there is a place called Hari-Hara Ksetra in Godrumdwip. Hari means Krishna, and Hara means Siva. That Deity was stolen at some point, and the temple was closed down, but one day, when somebody came to the closed temple, they saw the Deity was again there! They had looked for the Deity everywhere, but in the end, the Deity appeared in the temple on His own. One day, Sivji Maharaj told Krishna, ‘You have so many pastimes – can You show one pastime to me? Show me a pastime that I have never seen before.’ It is said that Kali cannot become Krishna, but Krishna can become Kali – you can make yoghurt from milk, but you can never make milk from yoghurt. So, Krishna can become Kali, Durga, Siva, anyone, but Kali can never become Krishna. When Siva asked Krishna to show him a special pastime, Krishna turned into a very beautiful girl, wearing a thin sari that was waving in the wind; She had a ball in Her hand that she was playing with (‘ping-pong, ping-pong’) as She walked. Seeing this girl, Sivji Maharaj was captured and started running behind Her. Everybody said, ‘God, what kind of sadhu is this? He is running like crazy behind a girl!’ Siva ran and ran behind the girl, and when he finally caught Her, She turned into Krishna. That is how the Deity appeared – one side is white, and the other side is black. This pastime took place when nectar and poison emerged after the ocean had been churned. At that time, Krishna gave nectar to all the Vaishnavs and tricked all the demons into taking poison.

The Lord has performed many kinds of pastimes. But what I wanted to say to you is that you must come to this line. Time is passing by…

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￼Line Line11 February 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Tarakeshwar

Evening Class

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/7) Mahaprabhu’s Order

Hare Krishna! Say with me:

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

The day before Mahaprabhu left for Katwa to take sannyas in this month of Magh (He left on the day of Sakranti), all the devotees gathered in the evening, and Mahaprabhu told everyone:

yadi ama’-prati sneha thake sabakara
tabe krsna-vyatirikta na gaibe ara

‘If you all have love and affection for Me, then do not chant anything else except “Krishna”.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.28.27)

‘You are all residents of Nabadwip: if you love Me, then can you promise Me something?’ What is it? ‘Do not say anything except the Name of Krishna. Always say, “Krishna, Krishna”.’ Call the Lord as loud as you can. When you call your children, you call them by their name and they respond; in the same way, if you call the Lord, He will respond. When you call the Lord, you must call Him with all your heart and soul, not to impress others – you must call Him with all your heart. You must call the Lord extracting and smearing the mellows of love from deep within your heart.

When Mahaprabhu started doing kirtan at the house of Srivas Pandit, Muslim people lived and ruled in the area (most officials were Muslim – the judges, the villagers, and so on). When we do Nabadwip Dham parikrama, we go to Mayapur on the first day, and there is a place there called ‘the place where the mridanga was broken’ (Kol Bhangar Danga). Chad Kazi broke Mahaprabhu’s mridanga. Mahaprabhu did not play the mridanga, but other devotees did, and Kazi broke their mridanga to stop kirtan. Chan Kazi prohibited devotees to chant kirtan in their Muslim kingdom; he said, ‘If you do kirtan again, I will set all your houses on fire or break and throw them into the Ganges!’ (In those days, the houses were made of clay.) Moreover, he also said, ‘We will beat your leader, Nimai!’ Then, when Mahaprabhu came to Srivas Pandit’s house, everybody was sitting quiet. Mahaprabhu could understand everything (He is antarjyami, the omniscient Supreme Lord!), so He came there and asked, ‘What is the matter? Why have you stopped kirtan? Why is everyone sitting quiet?’ Mahaprabhu became angry, and Srivas Pandit quickly said, ‘Prabhu, please sit down, sit down. Calm down.’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘Why must I sit down? Tell Me why kirtan has been stopped?!’ Then, Srivas Pandit explained, ‘Prabhu, we do not have any objection if they break our houses and throw them into the Ganges, but they said that they would beat You – we cannot allow this.’

At the house, there was a small girl, Narayani. She was Srivas Pandit’s niece, and she did not have parents. She was three and a half or four years old at that time. When Mahaprabhu came to Srivas Pandit’s house, she sometimes came and disturbed Him – Mahaprabhu would sit down to eat, and she would come and take food from Him. Later, she was married, and although her husband was not very good (he did not come to this line), she was fortunate to get a great son, Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur, who wrote Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata.

So, at that time, Narayani came again to Mahaprabhu, and Mahaprabhu put His hand on her head, saying, ‘You will get Krishna-bhakti!’ After that, she started rolling on the veranda and crying, ‘O Krishna! O Gaura!’ She was just three and a half years old. Everyone was astonished, ‘He has just put His hand on her head, and she is now crying and calling out to the Lord!’ Then, Mahaprabhu said to everyone, ‘So, do you believe now or do you still think they can break your houses?’ The devotees said, ‘No, we were wrong, Prabhu. We will not stop kirtan again.’ That time, Mahaprabhu told, ‘Yes, do kirtan, and now you must also do parikrama – make a hundred parties and go village to village with fourteen mridangas. We shall see who will stop your kirtan!’ As devotees went out chanting kirtan in this way, they eventually came to the house of Chad Kazi who had broken the mridanga.

(2/7) Chad Kazi: Defeated Again

Mahaprabhu came to the house of Chad Kazi with a lot of devotees, and when Chad Kazi saw them coming, he quickly hid inside the house. Mahaprabhu said politely, ‘What is wrong, Kazi? Why are you sitting behind the closed door? We are your guests. Is this what your religion teaches? Does it say in Quran or Hadith that when guests come to you, you must close the door and hide?’ Hearing this, Chad Kazi came out.

‘What is the matter?’ Mahaprabhu asked. ‘So many people chant kirtan in various villages – why did you break our mridanga?’

‘Prabhu, can I speak to You privately?’ Chad Kazi asked in reply.

‘Why privately? Everyone here are My people, you can speak in front of everyone.’

‘Prabhu’, Chad Kazi spoke, ‘that day when I broke the mridanga, I went to sleep. Suddenly, I felt very heavy pressure on my chest and saw a half-lion, half-man (nara-simha) with huge claws! Having glanced at Him just once, I closed my eyes in fear. This Narasimha told me, “You have broken a mridanga, so I will break your chest today!” You will not believe me, but look – ‘ saying this, Chad Kazi opened his shirt and showed Mahaprabhu a claw scar on his chest. Then, he continued, ‘Narasimha told me, “Because you have closed your eyes in fear, I will spare you today. But if you ever do this again – if you try to obstruct kirtan in any way – all your dynasty will be destroyed!” That is why I am not obstructing kirtan anymore. There is one more thing I want to tell You. People have been coming to me and complaining that there is even more kirtan now. I told them, “I cannot go. If you can stop it, you can do it, but I cannot.” Later, they came back to me, and I saw that their beards had been all burnt – they had blisters on their faces! After that, I never tell anyone to stop all this “Hari bol”.’

‘You yourself are saying “Hari bol” now!’ said Mahaprabhu.

‘What?? Am I?? Haram! Haram!’

‘You always say “haram”, “haram” [“inauspicious”, in Muslim tradition], but you yourself take the Name of Lord Rama (Ha Ram! O Rama!)!’

‘Prabhu, I have told everyone in my family that if they do not chant kirtan, I will kick them out.’

That is why every year we always visit Chad Kazi’s samadhi during Nabadwip Dham parikrama (on the afternoon of the first day). This Muslim Kazi (governor) became a devotee. There is a tree that still grows there from those days. Nabadwip is not only Mayapur, there are other places also, and one of those places is the samadhi of Chad Kazi… Actually, in Dvapar-yuga, Chad Kazi was Krishna’s uncle Kamsa.

(3/7) Listen and Learn

There is one thing you must always remember.

Jagai and Madhai committed so many sins, but they never abused Vaishnavs (never committed Vaishnav-ninda). They sinned, they killed, they raped, they stole, they beat people, they drank alcohol, but they never committed Vaishnav-ninda (never abused Vaishnavs). That is why Mahaprabhu rescued them. Do you know what service Mahaprabhu gave to Madhai?

[Loud clamour in the audience.]

Do not speak! Listen to what is being said. Listen and learn. If you listen to it, you will get benefit. If you talk during the class, it is an offence. Nobody must obstruct Hari-katha, it is an offence. It is necessary to listen to Hari-katha. You talk so much the whole day, but I will be here for only one hour. Can you not keep your mouth closed for one hour? You can see I have four mobile phones, but I have turned them off, I am not talking to anyone. Even if somebody dies, I do not answer the phone. One time, when I was preaching in a village in the Hooghly district and giving a class in the afternoon, I got a phone call. Gurudev’s servitor had climbed on top of the temple to change the flag. The temple is 90 feet (27.5 meters) high, and he fell down from the dome! When my phone rang, I did not answer it because I was giving class. After the class finished, they called again. They asked, ‘Why were you not answering?’ I said, ‘Why? I was busy with the service of the Lord.’ Then, I was told what had happened. The devotee was taken to Nabadwip hospital and from there transferred to Apollo Hospital in Kolkata, but in the end he was unharmed! I went later to see him in Apollo, and he was all right – there was only some small injury to his foot! You have seen how tall the building of the temple in Nabadwip is, but he was unharmed. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘Is there a fire at your house? Let it burn!’ Even if your house is burning, you must not stir. Always only rely on the Lord – the Lord will arrange everything. Whatever His desire is, everything will happen according to that. If He protects, He protects – if you go there, will you be able to stop the fire? Do you have the capacity to do anything? Therefore, if He saves, He saves. If He kills, He kills; if He protects, He protects. We must surrender to the Lord. Always remember this. The problem is that we cannot surrender. Everybody keeps Gita in their homes, but we do not understand the meaning, the main idea of Gita. Gita says:

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

‘Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

One day, Mahaprabhu told Srivas Pandit: ‘You must hold kirtan at your house every day. Devotees will come every evening, and you must chant kirtan together.’ When devotees come, how can they leave with an empty stomach? So, what was Srivas Pandit to do? He is a poor man, he does not have a job – he went out to beg. Fifty, a hundred or even two hundred people would come, and he had to feed everyone; because he had no job, no business, he went out to collect alms. But people criticised him, ‘He is begging for himself, to hoard money!’ When this reached Mahaprabhu’s ears, Mahaprabhu knew that if people continued speaking like this, they would be making offences – it is no harm for Srivas, but those who said such things would be committing offences. That is why one day, Mahaprabhu told Srivas,

‘Srivas, listen to what I will say. Can you promise Me something?’

‘Yes, tell me’, said Srivas Pandit.

‘From tomorrow, you will not go out to beg.’

‘What are you saying, Prabhu? I host class and kirtan at home every day, people come, and I must give them prasad. If I do not go out for collection, they will have to leave without taking anything.’

‘I have already told you everything. You must do as I tell you. You must not go begging again.’

‘Yes, one clap, two claps, three claps.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I will fast for one day, I will fast for two days, and after the third day I will jump into the Ganges. I will commit suicide.’

‘Srivas, you have so much faith! You do not have to go begging ever again. Even if Laksmi Devi comes to beg from Vaikuntha, you do not have to go begging ever again.’

After that, all the devotees started bringing so many things (rice, dal, oil, etc.) to Srivas Pandit that his house became filled with bhoga. Nobody could understand where things were coming from. In this way, he never had to go begging again. Such is the nature of faith.

We have no faith. You know, when we are born, we learn from our mother that somebody is my father and I must call that man my father. Do we just learn it from her or do we try to check if this is the truth? Only your mother knows who your father is. So, when our mother says it, we believe her. In the same way, we must believe what is written in scriptures and holy books. We must believe what is written in Srimad Bhagavatam, Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita and other books composed by Vaishnavs and sages. At first, there were no books, and all knowledge was passed down orally. For example, Suta Goswamipad never wrote any books – he spoke everything…

(4/7) In Search of Real Benefit

Vyasadev composed Bhagavad-gita, Garuda Purana, Agni Purana, Padma Purana and so many other great scriptures. All scriptures came out from him, but even having composed all those great works, he did not feel happy at heart. What did he do then? He went to Badrinath Ashram. Who was staying in Badrinath at that time? Narad Goswami, who was Vyasadev’s gurudev. So, Vyasadev came to Narad Goswami and said:

‘Gurudev, I do not feel happy at heart. I have composed so many books, but I do not feel happy.’

‘How will you be happy? Yes, you have written many books, but inside those books, you have mixed karma-yoga, jnana-yoga, sankhya-yoga and all other possible kinds of yoga. Compose such a scripture where there would be only bhakti-yoga, and nothing else.’

It is possible to come to the Lord only through devotion (bhakti). You cannot get the Lord through material activities (karma), knowledge (jnana) or mystic powers (yoga). So, Narad Goswami told Vyasadev to write a scripture where there would be only bhakti-yoga. At that time, Vyasadev remembered Sukadev.

Sukadev was in his mother’s womb at that time. Do you know how many years he stayed in his mother’s womb? Unlike common children, who stay in their mothers’ wombs for ten months, Sukadev stayed in his mother’s womb for twelve years! So, when Vyasadev got the order from Narad Goswami and remembered Sukadev, he came to his wife and appealed to Sukadev, ‘Sukadev, come out! Come out!’

‘No, I will not come out,’ Sukadev replied (from his mother’s womb).

‘Why will you not come out?’

‘Because if I come out, illusory environment will attack me.’

All the rishis also worried, ‘What will become of him and his mother then?’ Then, they had an idea, ‘Listen, Vyasadev. You have the power to stop Maya (illusory environment). Stop Maya for five minutes so that he can come out.’ Then, Vyasadev came to Sukadev again and asked him, ‘If I stop Maya for five minutes, will you come out of your mother’s womb?’ Sukadev replied, ‘Yes, I will.’

Do you know how he came out of his mother’s womb? What do our children do? They only lie. But Sukadev was twelve years old, so when he came out of his mother’s womb, he started running! How is it possible? This is written in Bhagavatam, so it must be true. You can see that when a cow gives birth to a calf, the calf starts running within two hours. So, if a baby calf can start running in two hours, can the Lord’s associate not do that? If he can stay in his mother’s womb for twelve years, he can also run once he comes out.

So, Sukadev started running away, and Vyasadev tried to catch up with him, calling to him, ‘O Sukadev! Listen to me! Listen to me!’ Sukadev did not care – he kept running, stark naked. In this way, four years passed. Sukadev was already sixteen.

In the meantime, as you have heard, one brahman cursed Pariksit Maharaj, the king, to die within seven days from a bite of a snake. Receiving this curse, Pariksit Maharaj summoned all the sages and great souls – there were many sampradayas, and he invited representatives of each sampradaya. When everyone assembled, they started advising Pariksit Maharaj on what he must do and what he must not do, to whom he must pass down the responsibility for this and that. However, hearing all those sages, Pariksit Maharaj did not feel happy at heart. Eventually, Sukadev appeared at this assembly.

When Sukadev came, he did not pay obeisance to anyone because he could not see anyone – he saw only the Lord with his eyes. As if blind, he did not see any trees, grass, great buildings or people; he could see only the Lord. So, Sukadev came, was given an asan to sit on, and then he asked Pariksit Maharaj, ‘Tell me, what is your question?’ All the assembled sages (including Sukadev’s father Vedavyas and grandfather Parasara Muni) said, ‘We will all accept and follow whatever Sukadev says.’ In reply to Pariksit Maharaj’s question, Sukadev spoke the entire Bhagavatam for seven days.

To this day, there are people who do week-long Bhagavatam reading. This Bhagavatam was not written by anyone. Originally, Sukadev Goswami spoke it, and Suta Goswami, who was present at that assembly, heard it. Later, he went to Naimisaranya and spoke it again to 60,000 sages. This is how Bhagavatam appeared. At first, it was not written by anyone, but now it is printed as a book.

The question that Pariksit Maharaj asked Sukadev Goswami was, ‘How can I get real benefit?’ He asked him only one question.

We have printed two small books that we take with us for preaching. Sometimes, people cannot read difficult books, cannot understand anything, but these books are written in simple language and everyone can understand what is written in them. The first book is ‘Prakrita Utser Sandhane’ (In Search of the Original Source), and another one is ‘Parama-ananda-maya Dhamer Dhan’ (Gift of Transcendental Abode). They contain two lectures that Srila Gurudev spoke in Mexico and Australia, and I have made these two small books from those lectures.

So, Pariksit Maharaj asked Sukadev Goswami, ‘How can I get real benefit?’ Do you know how you can get real benefit in Kali-yuga? What can you do not to get any birth again? The religion of this Kali-yuga is:

kali-kale nama-rupe krsna-avatara
nama haite haya sarva-jagat-nistara

‘Krishna appears in Kali-yuga in the form of His Name, and the entire world is delivered through that Name.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.17.22)

The Lord’s Name, beauty, qualities, pastimes and associates are non-different from the Lord Himself, so everybody must chant the Holy Name. It is necessary to chant the Holy Name. This is the real benefit.

hare krsna nama japa abhirama
ye kai dina dehe achhe ta prana

‘Incessantly chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, the Lord’s Names, for as long as you have life in this body.’

Do you understand?

hare krsna nama japa abhirama
ye kai dina dehe achhe ta prana

‘Incessantly chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, the Lord’s Names, for as long as you have life in this body.’

For as long as you have life in this body, you must only chant the Holy Name all this time.

(5/7) Rescue Programme

You bring people to your houses and pay them to do kirtans. So many have come and left, taking your money, but how much benefit have you got through that? If you do not chant kirtan yourself, what benefit is there in others’ chanting? If you eat, your stomach will be full, but will your stomach be full if only I eat? So, if I chant kirtan and go, what does it give to you? Tell me. But if you chant yourself, then you will get benefit. If I can chant, I will be happy, and if you chant, then you will be happy.

One time, I went to Midnapore for preaching. I was a brahmachari (my name was Vinod Ranjan Brahmachari at that time). When I came to one house, a man came out and said with folded palms, ‘Prabhu, we have had a flood, so I will not be able to help you.’ I replied to him, ‘I have not come to take help from you – I have come to help you.’ Saying again that he would not be able to give anything, he gave me a mat to sit on and went to climb a palm tree to pick a dub (green coconut) for me. I told him, ‘What are you doing? Later, later! First sit and listen to some Hari-katha!’ I spoke Hari-katha, and as he listened to it, he started crying. After the class, he gave me a dub and some pranami. Then, he went to his house and brought whatever rice he had kept in a clay pot – he put all rice into our bag. I told him, ‘Come for Nabadwip Dham parikrama.’ He said that he would not be able to come that year, so he promised to come the next year. I explained to him how he could get money to come to Nabadwip. I told him, ‘It is all right, you do not need to give us anything. Only give us one handful of rice every day: one handful in the morning and one in the evening. Your family cooks two kg rice every day, so take one handful of rice from there and keep it in a pot. I will come at the end of the year and collect it.’ By the end of the year, he had accumulated 36 kg rice. I still remember that rice was 57 or 54 rupees per kilo at that time. So, he could get 2,000 rupees for it. I told him to give 10 kg of that rice to the temple and sell the rest to get money to come to the temple. He came to the Math, did the parikrama, and both the husband and the wife took initiation. They had two daughters, and one of them suffered from epilepsy (she would often lose consciousness). Gurudev put his hand on her head, and she recovered. Both girls later got married; their husbands work in the police. Now they often tell me, ‘Gurudev, why do you not come to our house anymore?’ I told them, ‘I came to your house and hijacked you. What will I got there for now? You have come to serve the Lord now, so why should I come to your house? There is no need now.’ I still think like this – when somebody comes to serve the Lord (if they genuinely serve the Lord), there is no more need to go to their house to ask them for potato, rice, etc. All that family got initiated in the end – the husband and the wife, then their daughters, and even their daughters’ husbands.

This is our duty. We bring jiva souls who are averse to Lord Krishna to this line. And it is necessary to bring such souls to this line.

Ultimately, it all depends on one’s fortune – some people can be very rich (can have millions of rupees), but they cannot give anything to the Lord, and a poor person, who has no money, can give five kg of rice or a sack of potato. Those who have nothing give potato – they actually go and pick it when we come! I went to one house the other day, and they eagerly told me, ‘I will give you two sacks of potato! Wait, I will go to pick it just now!’ There are four brothers in that household – two of them took initiation, and their wives are also initiated. I had a programme at their house, and I see that they are doing well. They have given everything up. They gave up bidi, cigarettes, tea, etc. Everyone has taken initiation now. When we did a programme at their house in the evening, he had bought so many plates and pots – he refused to borrow anything from other houses or the temple; instead, he went to town and bought everything for the programme. Such are devotees.

It is necessary to practise Krishna consciousness…

(6/7) Eating Up Old Rice

One time, a sadhu came to a house, on the door of which was written (there are similar signs on big houses and flats in Kolkata also): ‘No entry for hawkers and beggars.’ Seeing the sadhu with some books in his hand, the owner of the house became furious and came to beat him with a stick! He cried, ‘It is written on my door! Do you not understand?!’ The sadhu kept quiet and said nothing. The man chased him, ‘Go away! Go! Go!’ The sadhu did not stir – he remained standing there silently. The sadhu did not want anything from the man – he only wanted to use him for the service of the Lord. In the end, the sadhu asked the man for some dry leaves that had fallen outside his house. (Sometimes, if they scold you too much for picking flowers from their garden, you can pick some dry leaves and use them for cooking. Even dry leaves can be used.) Then, the daughter-in-law of the man came out. It turned out that she came from a devotional family, so she was used to sadhus coming to their house; her family were devotees also. The man beat the sadhu, swore the sadhu – ten minutes passed, fifteen minutes passed, an hour passed – but the sadhu did not move and did not say anything. Then, the girl came; she picked a flower from a tree and gave it to the sadhu, saying, ‘My father-in-law eats old rice. He is not used to this.’ After she gave him the flower and said this, the sadhu left. The man, her father-in-law, asked her, ‘What mantra did you tell him? “He eats old rice?” What is this? What does that mean?’ She explained, ‘“Eating old rice” means that as the result of your previous births (because you did some good works in your previous lives), you are living now in this nice three-storey house and eating nice food – because you are living happily now, you forget the Lord, but you have not done anything for your next life.’ When the man heard this, he appreciated it: ‘What you are saying is very valuable. You must teach me more about it.’ The girl said then, ‘You must read Srimad Bhagavad-gita. All this is written in it.’

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

‘Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins; do not despair.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

‘Give up all religions and surrender to Me, I will take care of you.’

‘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)

Your debt to your father, mother, rishis (sages), demigods – all your debts become cleared if you serve the Lord, and it is not necessary to worship any gods and demigods separately if you worship the Lord. When you worship Lord Krishna, all other kinds of worship are automatically accomplished.

Always remember this, it will give you spiritual benefit.

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Ke yabi ke yabi re bhai.’]

(7/7) No Other Shelter

This kirtan ‘Ke yabi ke yabi re bhai’ is written by Govinda Das, who also wrote the ‘Bhajahu re mana’ kirtan.

There were two brothers in Katwa, Krishna Das and Govinda Das, who were as different as chalk and cheese. One of them worshipped Krishna, and the other one worshipped Kali. In the garden near their house, Govinda Das grew many flowers that he used for the worship of their Deities. One day, Krishna Das thought to himself, ‘If I had a flower garden like that, I could also offer them to the Lord.’ The next day, Govinda Das went to offer some flowers to Mother Kali. When he was going to place some flowers in Mother Kali’s hand (they put flowers at her feet and in her hand), Kali suddenly moved her hand away. Govinda Das was amazed, ‘What is this?!’ That same day in the evening, he saw a dream: Kali came to him and said, ‘These flowers in the garden are not for me. They are for my Lord Krishna, so they should be used for His worship.’ After that, Govinda Das wrote this kirtan ‘Bhajahu re mana’:

bhajahu re mana, sri-nanda-nandana,
abhaya-charanaravinda re

‘O mind, serve the holy lotus feet of the Son of Nanda, which make one fearless.’

e dhana yauvana, putra parijana,
ithe ki achhe paratiti re
kamala-dala-jala, jivana talamala,
(ei achhe ei nai jivana talamala)
bhajahu hari-pada niti re

‘What is there in having wealth, youth, sons and family? Life is tottering like water on a lotus petal. (It is here now, and the next moment it is gone – life is about to break off at any moment!). O mind, eternally serve the feet of the Lord.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

He wrote such a beautiful kirtan!

Therefore, if you worship the Lord, all worship of demigods is automatically accomplished…

Everybody reaps what they sow. That is why I was just saying:

dinera madhye abala-tabala
kata pachala padite para
tara madhye tumi ki ekbara
govinda balite nara

‘How much nonsense you can talk every day! How many idle talks you have! Can you not say the Name of Govinda even once?’

We talk so much! ‘O mind! Worship Sri Nandanandan! Serve Lord Sri Nanda-nandan (the Son of Nanda Maharaj)!’ We must serve Yasoda-nandan Krishna – without service to Him, we cannot have any spiritual benefit. We were singing just now:

ke yabi ke yabi bhai bhava-sindhu para
dhanya kali-yuge re chaitanya-avatara

‘Brother, who will cross? Who will cross this ocean of material existence? Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appears in this fortunate Age of Kali!’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

We are very fortunate to have been born in this Kali-yuga because the Lord Himself appears as Gaura Hari in this age.

hari-namera tarikhani sri-guru-kandari
sankirtana-keroyala du’bahu pasari

‘The Lord’s Names are the ferryboat, Sri Guru is the captain, and the arms raised in sankirtan are the oars.’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

The Holy Name is the ferry, and gurudev is the captain – if you surrender to gurudev, you will be taken to the Lord. This age is blessed because Gaura Hari appears in it: we have no other way, no other shelter except Him.

I would like to finish at this for today. The bhoga has already been offered, so everybody can take prasad.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and then suddenly says, ‘Chant with me for some time more’, after which he continues to chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. At the end, His Divine Grace recites Sri Jaya Dhvani and concludes the class.]

* * *

￼Line Line12 February 2021, noon (1)

Tarakeshwar Area

Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/2) Remembering Sri Ekachakra Dham (1)

Soon is our festival at the holy abode of Nitai in Sri Birchandrapur. I am finishing the collection now because after the festival I will stay in Hooghly for seven days (I will stay at the house of Ashok Prabhu in Begumpur). There is a noon programme on Sunday in Singur, so I will come there before 10 a.m.

Nityananda Prabhu’s glory is so great. You have heard from Mahabharata about the great battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas that took place in Dvapar-yuga. Before that battle, the Pandavas lost a game of dice and were exiled: they had to give up their kingdom and go to live in the forest. Yudhisthir, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakul, Sahadev and their mother Kunti Devi left all together. Living in the forest means that they had to live in different places, travelling from place to place. Among the places they stayed in, there is a place in West Bengal that is now known as Pancha Pandav Tala in Birchandrapur. There was a brahman’s house there, and they stayed in his house. Then, the battle happened. Everyone says that many people fought in that war, but actually only Krishna fought in it. During the battle, one of the wheels of Arjuna’s chariot got detached, and when it was hurled at the enemy, it somehow landed in Birchandrapur. That is why Birchandrapur became known as Ekachakra (lit. ‘one [eka] wheel [chakra]’). Later, Nityananda Prabhu had a son called Virachandra [alternatively pronounced as ‘Birachandra’], who had many disciples in that area, that is why it eventually became famous as Birchandrapur. Nityananda had two potencies (sakti), Jahnava and Vasudha.

One day, Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu came to Kalna by boat. That place is near our temple in Kalna, and the oar of Their boat is still kept at the temple – devotees took care and kept it nicely somehow. When you come there, they used to touch it to your head, but because it has become soft now, they have kept it in a box, so they do not do it anymore. So, when Nityananda Prabhu came there, two brothers lived in that house, Gauri Das Pandit and Suryadas Sarakhel. Gauri Das Pandit is a devotee of Mahaprabhu.

One day, Mahaprabhu told Him, ‘Nitai goes to different houses and eats here and there. He has no permanent place, and there is nobody to cook for Him. Arrange for a household for Him – get Him married.’

‘Where will I find a girl?’ asked Gauri Das Pandit.

‘Why, your brother has two daughters! You can give one to Him – give Jahnava to Him.’

‘Well, she is not my daughter, so I will have to ask my brother.’

When Gauri Das Pandit spoke to his brother, Suryadas said, ‘Oh, come on! He has no house, no income. He always stays in different houses.’

Actually, Nityananda Prabhu owned a huge land of many bighas, but He lived as a sannyasi. He wore white clothes but always wandered place to place.

[To a devotee] Turn off your phone! You are going to offer bhoga to the Deities, are you going to take your phone with you? Who will call you? When you come to offer bhoga to the Deities, you must come without it; it is not necessary to take your phone or anything else with you!

So, Suryadas said no and refused to have his daughter married to Nityananda Prabhu. In the meantime, when Nityananda Prabhu and Gauranga were taking a walk outside the house, Jahnava’s glance fell on Nityananda Prabhu and their eyes met. Before, girls used to be very shy (now there is little shyness, but before even elder ladies would never come in front of their guru – they would run away), so when she glanced at Nityananda Prabhu and their eyes met (she is His sakti after all; this is not an ordinary marriage matter that common people have), she quickly ran away into the forest and fell unconscious. Nobody at the house knew what had happened, so they started looking for her, ‘Where is our girl? Where has she gone?’ Eventually, they found her in the forest and brought her home. When they brought her home, foam started coming out of her mouth. They thought that she had been bitten by a snake, so they fetched a healer. The healer tried to take out poison, but there was no poison or a sign of a bite. Then, Gauri Das Pandit said to his brother, ‘Where are Nitai and Gaura? You see? You refused to give this girl to a sadhu, and now you can see her condition.’

At this time, Nitai and Gaura were sitting beneath a tamarind tree (that tree is still there). Suddenly, they saw Gauri Das running towards them and crying, ‘Come, come! Come with me to the house!’

‘What has happened?’ asked Nitai and Gaura.

‘I do not know what has happened, but Jahnava is unconscious!’

‘What will We do? We are not healers or doctors. Call a doctor!’ Nityananda Prabhu said.

‘No, no, Prabhu, please come, come with me.’

In the end, Gauri Das Pandit made Them come with him to the house, and when They came, he said to Nityananda Prabhu, ‘Take this girl now.’

‘What will I do with this dead girl?!’ asked Nityananda Prabhu. ‘She cannot wash the dishes, she cannot serve the Lord. What will I do with a dead girl?!’

‘No, You must accept her!’ Gauri Das Pandit insisted.

Then, Nityananda Prabhu said, ‘All right, I agree, but I have one condition.’

‘What is Your condition?’

‘The condition is this. You must give Vasudha along with Jahnava.’

What is he to do now! Suryadas did not give even one girl to him, but now Nityananda is asking for two girls! Gauri Das told his brother, ‘If you refuse again, what if the same thing happens to Vasudha?’ Scared, Suryadas agreed to have both his daughters married to Nityananda Prabhu.

When he agreed, Nityananda Prabhu put His hand on Jahnava’s head, and opening her eyes, she sat up. Then, two garlands were brought, and the two sisters put the garlands on Nityananda Prabhu’s neck. After that, Nityananda Prabhu took them to Birbhum. There was no need for any formal marriage – Jahnava and Vasudha only put garlands on His neck, and after that they left. Later, Jahnava left for Vrindavan; if you go there, you can see her samadhi there. She became a Vaishnavi and in her later life went to Vrindavan to do her bhajan. She stayed near Radha Kunda. Every year, we come to pay obeisance at her samadhi.

Such is the glory of Nityananda Prabhu.

(2/2) Remembering Sri Ekachakra Dham (2)

At first, Nityananda Prabhu stayed at Srivas Pandit’s house. At that time, Srivas Pandit’s spouse Malini Devi must have been about seventy years old, and Nityananda Prabhu called her ‘Mother’ – when He called her ‘mother’, milk would flow from her breasts! Milk would flow from her breasts, and Nityananda Prabhu drank it! Nityananda Prabhu’s glory is so great!

One time, Malini Devi was washing the Deities’ dishes when suddenly a crow came and flew away with a brass pot. When Nityananda Prabhu came there, He saw Malini Devi crying. He asked her what had happened, and Malini Devi explained, ‘A crow has come and taken a pot away. If my husband gets to know it, he will scold me.’ But Nityananda Prabhu said, ‘Mother, do not worry, I will sort it out.’ Then, He shouted to the crow, ‘Hey crow! Give My Mother’s pot back!’ And the crow came back and put the pot back. There are so many pastimes and glories of Nityananda Prabhu like this.

There is one more place, which we do not go to – I do not know, but we can see if we get time to go there one day or not. That place is called Kundalal Tala. A great snake lived there, and there is a long story related to that place. I have never been there myself. I know many devotees have visited it (it is near Ekachakra, near our temple), but I have never got time to go there. There is also a pastime related to Pandav Tala, where the Pandavas stayed for one year incognito, and where Vyasadev also stayed for three days. Nityananda Prabhu appeared in Kali-yuga, so this pastime happened before Him, in Dvapar-yuga.

Before the Pandavas came to stay in that village, a demon called Bakraksasi (or Bakraksasa) lived there. That Bakraksasi would go house to house, and every house he went to, he would kill everyone and eat one of the killed people. You can find this story in Mahabharata. One day, all the villagers assembled for a meeting and spoke to Bakraksasi. They said, ‘You go house to house, and everybody dies – whole generations become destroyed! We have decided that one person from each house in this area will come to you. You can eat them.’ The demon agreed with this decision.

So, when the Pandavas came to stay in that area, they stayed in the house whose turn it was to send one person to the demon. The family consisted of a husband, wife and son. When their house’s turn came, the husband said, ‘I will go’, but the wife said, ‘No, you will stay, I will go!’ Then, their son said, ‘None of you must go! I will go! You stay at home!’ They started arguing like this. As they argued, Kunti Devi heard it and asked them, ‘What are you talking about? Where must you go? Who will eat whom? What is going on?’ The family said, ‘No, no. You are our guests, we should not worry you.’ Kunti Devi insisted, ‘No, no, tell me. Bhima is here, he is very strong. Maybe he can help you.’ They explained that one person from each house had to go to Bakraksasi and that it was their turn to go that day.

Kunti Devi told Bhima about it, and Bhima said, ‘No problem, I will go!’ So, he went with a bullock cart loaded with all kinds of fruit. On his way, Bhima felt hungry and ate all the fruit! He was positive, ‘I shall see the fun!’ In this way, he was walking and eating all the way to the demon’s place. (Bhima is Bhima! He is famous for his appetite.) He walked at leisure and came late. Bakraksasi was very angry, ‘Why are they late?!’ When Bhima finally showed up, he cried, ‘Why are you late today?! And what is this? You have eaten all my fruit!!’ Bhima said, ‘Well, I had a bite. I was hungry on the way…’ Bhima played the demon. Then, there was such a big battle! They had fought for forty-five minutes before Bhima finally killed him.

We sometimes go to the place where it happened – it is called Kotasur. It is near Ekachakra.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj!

* * *

￼Line Line12 February 2021, noon (2)

Tarakeshwar Area

Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/5) Vaishnavs’ Nature

[His Divine Grace starts the evening class by reciting Sri Jaya Dhvani and then chanting ‘Gurudev krpa bindu diya’ and ‘E-bara karuna kara.’]

Sri Krishna said in Srimad Bhagavatam: ‘Acharyam mam vijaniyan. Know the acharya to be non-different from Me.’ Who is called an acharya? Acharya is the one who both practises and preaches. However, there are many gurus in this world. Mahaprabhu told:

apane achare keha, na kare prachara
prachara karena keha, na karena achara
‘achara’, ‘prachara’,—namera karaha ‘dui’ karya
tumi—sarva-guru, tumi—jagatera arya

‘Some follow rules and regulations but do not preach Krishna consciousness; some preach Krishna consciousness but do not follow rules and regulation. You perform both duties in relation to the Holy Name by your personal behaviour and by your preaching; therefore, you are the spiritual master of the entire world, and you are the most advanced person in the world.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.102–103)

There are gurus who preach but do not follow the rules (they do not follow any rules and regulations, but they preach). Some gurus come to you all the time to do kirtan. They sing well – the Supreme Lord and Saraswati gave them a good voice – so they go house to house singing kirtans. What does Bhagavatam say? If somebody reads Bhagavatam for money, if somebody chants kirtans for money, if somebody speaks Hari-katha for money and listen to such things, it brings inauspiciousness and offences (nama-aparadha) to your life. There are four kinds of offences: offences to the Holy Name, to service, to holy places and to Vaishnavs. We were just singing:

ei-bara karuna kara vaisnava gosai
patita-pavana toma bine keha nai

‘O worshippable Vaishnav, please be merciful to me this time. O saviour of the fallen! I have no one except you.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

‘Please be merciful to me. There is no one in this world who is as merciful as You are.’

kahara nikate gele papa dure yaya
emana dayala prabhu keba kotha paya

‘If anyone comes to you, their sins go away. Where can you find such a merciful master?’

gangara parasa haile paschate pavana
darsane pavitra kara ei tomara guna

‘After touching the Ganges, one attains salvation later; but one can become pure just by seeing you. Such is your quality.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

If you have a bath in the Ganges, you become pure. In other words, people become pure by touching the Ganges, but one can become pure just by seeing (getting the darsan of) a Vaishnav. Who is a Vaishnav? One who dresses as a Vaishnav, wears tilaks and neck-beads and chants on some beads? Vaishnavs are those who practise Vaishnavism. Always remember this.

Who can chant kirtan? Mahaprabhu said also, ‘Who has the right to chant kirtan?’

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

trnadhika hina dina akinchana chhara
apane manabi sada chhadi’ ahankara
vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana
pratihimsa tyaji’ anye karabi palana

‘Give up ego and always consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and wretched. Practise forgiveness like that of a tree; do not be vindictive, nurture others.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must give up our own happiness for others’ happiness. Those who come to the line of Gaudiya Vaishnavs never think about their own happiness, clothes, an easy life or anything like that. They have no consciousness of their wife, sons, friends, relatives or any other bodily relations. The devotees of the Lord are our real family; they are our greatest wealth and greatest friends. There are thousands and thousands of disciples all over the world (they are my disciples or Gurudev’s disciples), but we do not say they are our disciples. When somebody comes to take initiation from me, I feel, ‘They have come to give mercy to me, that is why they have come to take initiation from me. I am not the one giving mercy.’ Such humility must be there.

(2/5) Heartfelt Prayers

We pray, ‘Gurudev, please hijack me!’ We sing in the kirtan ‘Gurudev krpa bindu diya’: ‘Ami sakti-buddhi-hina, ami ati dina, koro more atmasatha. I have no strength, I have no intelligence, I am very poor! Please hijack me!’

gurudev!
krpa-bindu diya, kara ei dase,
trnapeksa ati dina
sakala sahane, bala diya kara,
nija-mane sprha-hina

‘Gurudev! Please give a drop of your mercy and make this servant very humble, humbler than a blade of grass. Please give me the power to tolerate everything and to be free from any selfish desires.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Please give me strength so that I may be able to tolerate everything. Nija mane sprha-hina: I do not want any honour or respect for myself. I have no desire for this. I do not care if anyone says anything good about me or chastises me. I do not even think about it.’

sakale sammana, karite sakati,
deha natha yatha-yatha
tabe ta’ gaiba, hari-nama sukhe,
aparadha habe hata

‘Master! Give me the strength to give everyone appropriate honour, then I will happily chant the Holy Name and all my offences will be destroyed.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Sakale samman: I want to give honour to everyone. Please give me such power.’

sakti-buddhi-hina, ami ati dina,
kara more atma-satha

‘I have no strength, no intelligence, I am very poor. Please hijack me!’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Where must gurudev hijack me from? I have fallen into the bondage of illusory environment. ‘Gopinath, padechhi mayara phere! Gopinath, I have fallen into the dangerous clutches of the illusory environment!’ This is a very beautiful Gopinath kirtan. ‘Gopinath! Mama nivedana suna. Gopinath! Please hear my humble plea.’

gopinath, mama nivedana suna
visayi durjana, sada kama-rata,
kichhu nahi mora guna

‘Gopinath! Please hear my prayer. I am a wicked, constantly covetous materialist. I do not have any good qualities.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘I always want this, that, that. I am always subservient to lust. I am enthralled by the material world and things.’ We sing this kirtan, praying to Radha-Gopinath for Their mercy. It is necessary to always chant kirtans in this way (attentively, in a prayerful mood).

What kirtan have we just sung?

ei-bara karuna kara vaisnava gosai
patita-pavana toma bine keha nai

‘O worshippable Vaishnav, please be merciful to me this time. O saviour of the fallen! I have no one except you.’

kahara nikate gele papa dure yaya
emana dayala prabhu keba kotha paya

‘If anyone comes to you, their sins go away. Where can one find such a merciful master?’

gangara parasa haile paschate pavana
darsane pavitra kara ei tomara guna

‘After touching the Ganges, one attains salvation later; but one can become pure just by seeing you. Such is your quality.’

hari-sthane aparadhe tare harinama
toma-sthane aparadhe nahika edana

‘If somebody offends the Lord, the Lord’s Name delivers them; but if somebody offends you, it is impossible to get away with it.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

If you make an offence at the holy lotus feet of the Lord, Vaishnavs can rescue you, but if you make an offence at the holy lotus feet of Vaishnavs, who will rescue you then? You must have heard the story of Chapal Gopal.

Srivas Pandit would chant kirtan every evening behind the closed doors of his house, but people would come to the door and leave bottles, sidur and other dirty things in front of it so that they could later say, ‘Oh this sadhu chants kirtan during the day, but at night he drinks liquor!’ They wanted to criticise Srivas Pandit and tarnish his name. But Srivas Pandit did not care – he would only say to all the senior neighbours, ‘Look how bad my position is! I chant kirtan during the day and drink liquor at night! Come and see the bottles in front of my door!’ Do you know what happened to Chapal Gopal who did such things to Srivas Pandit? He got leprosy.

One day, when Mahaprabhu was walking down the street, Chapal Gopal begged him, ‘Prabhu, You are rescuing so many people, will You not give Your mercy to me? Will You not rescue me?’ Mahaprabhu told him, ‘I will feed you to worms and insects life after life!! You have made an offence to Srivas, you have made an offence at the feet of My devotee! You will not be spared!’ Chapal Gopal started crying even more, ‘Oh, what will I do now? What will become of me?’ Then Mahaprabhu said, ‘You can only get relief if you come to Srivas’s lotus feet and ask him forgiveness for your offence (for the wicked mischief you have done).’ Mahaprabhu knew everything.

Therefore, when you make an offence at a Vaishnav’s holy feet, you must ask them forgiveness. The problem is that we cannot recognise a Vaishnav. Not only that, even Brahma admits that he cannot recognise a Vaishnav! That is why we must always give honour to everyone. We were just singing:

hari-sthane aparadhe tare harinama
toma-sthane aparadhe nahika edana

‘If somebody offends the Lord, the Lord’s Name delivers them; but if somebody offends you, it is impossible to get away with it.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

(3/5) Devotional Ingenuity

tomara hrdaye sada govinda-visrama
govinda kahena—mama vaisnava parana

‘Govinda always rests in your heart. Govinda says, “My devotees are My heart and soul.”’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Where does Krishna stay? One time, Mahaprabhu was asked where He stayed, and He said that there were four places, among which was the kitchen of His Mother, Sachi Mata, where she cooks and always thinks about Krishna. When devotees cook, they always think about their gurudev, ‘Gurudev will take this, the Lord will take this. I am not cooking – my gurudev will take this, so as the Lord has me cook, this is how I will cook.’

In Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Sri Krishna said, ‘I do not know anyone except My devotees, and My devotees also know only Me – they do not know anyone else, they do not understand anything else except Me.’ That is why it is said:

tomara hrdaye sada govinda-visrama
govinda kahena—mama vaisnava parana

‘Govinda always rests in your heart. Govinda says, “My devotees are My heart and soul.”’

prati janme kari asa charanera dhuli
narottame kara daya apanara bali

‘In every birth, I aspire for the dust of your feet. Please mercifully consider Narottam your own.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Whatever birth I get, I aspire for the dust of Vaishnavs’ lotus feet. I do not want to be born as Brahma, I do not want to go to heaven, I do not want to become Indra. Let me be born as a dog, as long as I am a dog at a devotees’ house: devotees will take prasad and throw their plates away, and I will come and lick this plates. It is necessary to have this mood.

Many of you have heard, ‘You must not touch gurudev’s feet,’ but what does it mean? We always consider ourselves extremely poor. People come to touch my feet, to take the water that has washed my feet or to wash and touch my feet, but they use that same hand to chant on their beads and serve Govinda – how can they touch the feet of such a fallen soul as I am with that same hand?! That is why we do not allow this. We do not consider ourselves Vaishnavs – we are servants of the servants of Vaishnavs. This is why we do not let others touch our feet. Mahaprabhu also did not allow it, although there was one person whom Mahaprabhu was bound to allow it.

One time, Mahaprabhu went to the Gundicha Temple on the day before the chariots of Lord Jagannath, Lord Baladev and Lady Subhadra were to come. We also come there the day before Ratha-yatra and clean and sweep the temple. Mahaprabhu climbed somewhere on top to clean the place, and one clever devotee (‘Ye jana Krsna bhaje sei bada chatur: those who worship Krishna are very clever’) came there and poured a pot of water on His feet. The water started falling from Mahaprabhu’s feet, and the devotee put his hands there and drank it. When Mahaprabhu saw what had happened, He told Svarup Damodar, ‘Just see how cunning your Gaudiya is! He is nonsense! I have climbed up to clean the Lord’s place, and he is washing My feet and drinking that water! Tell him to go away!’ Internally, Mahaprabhu was pleased, thinking, ‘How ingenious he is!’ But externally He showed everyone that the devotee should not have done this because if He allowed it, everyone would start doing it – they would queue to wash His feet and drink the water. That is why Mahaprabhu was strict, ‘Take him away from here! He must get out!’ But Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami said that He was pleased inside, marvelling at the devotional ingenuity of that Gaudiya Vaishnav. This is how one must do their service – you must serve your guru and Vaishnavs extracting and smearing mellows of deep love from your heart.

(4/5) Devotional Substance

There are many gurus in this world – there are family gurus, there are pranam-taking (obeisance-taking) gurus, pranami-taking (donation-taking) gurus. But it is said that if you want to read Srimad Bhagavatam, you must come to a Vaishnav and take exclusive shelter in Sri Chaitanya (Bhagavata pada Vaisnavera sthane, ekanta asraya kara Chaitanya-charane)

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

If you chant the Holy Name in bad association, it is only some alphabet (some letters). Offensive chanting and pure chanting of the Holy Name look the same, just as karma (material activity) and seva (service) look the same. For example, we keep cows at the temple, we make buildings at the temple – do we keep cows or make buildings for ourselves? The buildings are made in the Deities’ name. When we built this temple in Tarakeshwar, in whose name is it registered? In the Deities’ name. It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita that if you do something bypassing the Lord – if you take something without offering it to the Lord – it will be stealing. Do you think that if you give something to the Lord, He will take it all away from you? You worship the Ganges with the Ganges water! So many devotees chant the Holy Name, but it is association that is important. I have told you before – one does not become a disciple just by taking initiation. What does it mean to be a disciple? A disciple is the one who can mould their life accepting the chastisement of their guru. Disciples listen to what they are told and live accordingly.

I always tell everyone, even all my disciples: you must practise sravan and kirtan.

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana
mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

‘Associate with sadhus, chant the Holy Name of the Lord, listen to Srimad Bhagavatam, reside in Mathura and worship Deities with faith.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.124)

What does ‘Mathura-vas’ (living in Mathura) mean? Does it mean you have to go to Mathura or Nabadwip and live there? No.

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)

When there is service of the Lord happening every day, eternally in some house, this house becomes Goloka! Most people eat five times a day – they drink tea when they wake up, then they have breakfast, then they have lunch, then they have some muri and snacks in the afternoon, and then they have supper in the evening. You eat five times a day – similarly, you you must feed the Lord five times. You must give bhoga to the Lord five times a day.

(5/5) Pure Name Comes from Pure Heart

There is one very nice story, I will tell it and then we will chant kirtan and finish. Listen carefully, I will ask you later what it was about, and if you cannot say it, it means that your brain is not working.

In many places, there are many kinds of gurus – ancestral gurus, family gurus, and so on. So, there was once a caste guru who would go place to place and make disciples. Eventually, everyone had become his disciples, but by that time the guru had become old. He had a son, who was 22–24 years old, but he did not listen to his father. The old guru said, ‘You must become a guru now and take over this responsibility to maintain the family! Even your mother says that you have not grown up yet. Who will take charge of all the disciples after me? What will happen to our family?’ The boy did not care. He would go out every morning, come for lunch and then go out again and come back for supper. Where did he go? He never told anyone about it. One day, his mother spoke to the old guru (her husband and the boy’s father), ‘What will happen now? Listen, I have an idea. There is one rich man, a king, in this village. Make him your disciple, then you will not have to go house to house everywhere to collect 50–100 rupees and a little bit of rice from everyone. If you get 5–10 quintal (500–1000 kg) of rice at one place, it will last us the whole year, and you will not have to go begging anymore.’

Following his wife’s idea, the guru went to that local king. He came and said to the king, ‘I want to make you my disciple.’

‘What will happen if I become your disciple?’ the king asked.

‘Your family will run peacefully.’

‘Is that so? Actually I do want peace and happiness! I have my wife (the queen), I have servants and subjects. I have a lot of wealth, but I do not feel happy. Can you give me happiness?’

‘Yes, yes! Take initiation, and everything will be happy.’

So, the king took initiation. After that, the guru started coming to the king’s house every year for rice (5–10 quintal at a time). He did not have to roam around, walking house to house, anymore. Five years passed in this way.

Five years later, the king still felt no happiness, and one day he told his guru, ‘Gurudev, I do not feel happy! I took initiation from you, but why do I not feel happy? Five years have passed already! You told me that I would feel happy, but although you come every year, I still feel no happiness. What must I do to feel happy?’

‘All right’, answered the guru, ‘here is what you must do. You must arrange a fire sacrifice.’

‘What do you need for the fire sacrifice?’

The guru gave the king a long list of required items ( a tin of ghee, many logs, etc.). Looking through the list, the king said, ‘I do not know where to get all these things.’

‘You do not need to know it’, the guru said. ‘You can give me money, and I will get everything.’

As the list was long and a large amount of each ingredient was required, the king gave him 10,000 rupees. The guru bought a little ghee and other ingredients and did the fire sacrifice, keeping the rest of the money. Then, six months passed. The king said again, ‘Gurudev, I still do not feel happy!’

‘I saw that your wife had given that money for the fire sacrifice, did she give it with a clean mind?’ the guru asked.

The wife did not remember how she gave the money, so the guru said that they had to make another fire sacrifice. He made another fire sacrifice. Two months later, he made one more fire sacrifice. Then, another two months passed, and the king still felt no peace. Finally, he called his guru and said to him, ‘Gurudev, I think you are cheating me! You cannot give me peace. I am giving you seven days – if I do not feel peace during these seven days, I will have you beheaded.’ What kind of guru is that, and what kind of disciple is that? The king had some material desires, and because his desire was not fulfilled, he said, ‘I will cut your head off!’

The guru went back to his house, and both he and his wife became very worried. The guru understood, ‘I have been cheating the king for money and rice and have been using him for my own enjoyment, so how will he feel peace?’ Then, one day, the guru’s son came home, and seeing that nothing had been cooked (the parents were sitting quietly, worried), he asked his mother, ‘Mother, where is my food!’

‘What food?’ cried the mother. ‘You never stay in the house, you never do anything for the house! Look at your father!’

‘What has happened to Father?’

‘The king gave him seven days – he will cut your father’s head off in seven days if he does not get peace.’

‘Oh, do not worry! I will go and give peace to the king! Do you have some muri? Give me some.’

The boy ate some muri and ran to the king to give him peace. His parents tried to stop him, ‘Where are you going? Are you mad?!’ He did not listen to anyone and ran to the house of the king. When he arrived, the gatekeeper asked him, ‘Hey, where are you going?’

‘Open the gate’, said the boy.

‘Open the gate? And who are you?’

‘You do not know me. I am the son of your king’s guru.’

Then, the king came there and recognised his face – he had seen him many years ago, when the boy was small and was walking down the street with his father. Now the boy had grown up, but he could recognise him. So, the king told his guard to open the door and asked the boy, ‘Why have you come?’

‘I have come to see you. I will give you peace.’

‘Peace? Your father has not been able to give me any peace. So many years have passed, and there is no peace. Will you give me peace?’

‘Yes, I sure will!’

‘What do I need to do? Make a list of what you need and give it to me.’

‘I do not need any lists. I only need two pieces of rope, and I need my father.’

‘All right’, said the king and sent his men to fetch the father of the boy (the guru).

The men came to the guru’s house and called him, ‘Come with us, the King is calling you!’ The guru was terrified, ‘What?! But the seven days have not passed yet!’ He thought that he would be beheaded. The messengers said, ‘We do not know anything about that. Your son came there, spoke to the King, and now the King is calling you.’ The guru had no choice, ‘What did that crazy boy say to the king?! What am I to do? I have to go, I have no choice.’ So, the guru came to the house of the king.

‘All right,’ said the king to the boy, ‘your father is here. Now tell me what you need.’

‘Come with me’, said the boy.

The three of them began to walk towards the cremation place. At the entrance of the place, there was a sign board saying, ‘Rest in Peace’ (smasane-i santi: lit., ‘peace is in the grave’). The king said slowly to his guru, ‘Where is he taking us? Why are we going towards the crematorium? We are alive, we have not died yet! Is he going to burn us alive?!’ The guru said, ‘Must be. He is crazy! I wonder myself what he is doing, taking us there with two pieces of rope!’ Anyhow, although a little scared, they decided to see what the boy would do. Finally, the boy saw two palm trees standing a little apart from each other near the crematorium, and he tied his father to one tree and the king to the other tree.

Then, he said to his father (the guru), ‘Father, can you untie the king please?’

‘Are you mad?’ the guru replied. ‘I am tied up myself!’

‘Do you understand now, dear King?’ said the boy, turning to the king. ‘My father is himself in a hole, he is tied up himself, so how will he free you from your bondage? How can he release you from the illusory environment?’

Therefore, chanting kirtans like this will never bring you any result:

koti janma yadi kare sravana-kirtana
tabu na paya vrajendra-nandana

‘Even if you practise hearing and chanting for millions of lives, you will not get Krishna, the Son of King of Vraja.’

hena krsna-nama yadi laya bahu-bara
tabu yadi prema nahe, nahe asrudhara
tabe jani, aparadha tahate prachura
krsna-nama-bija tahe na kare ankura

‘If you chant this Name of Krishna many times but still there is no love, no tears streaming from your eyes, then you can know that there are too many offences and the seed of Krishna’s Name does not sprout in you.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.29–30)

It is necessary to chant the Holy Name without offences! You must give up all offences, Chanting all the ‘social’ kirtans is of no use. I have told you before: I have not come here to chant kirtans, I have come to make you chant kirtans. You can see this boy here – he used to work for the police, but now he chants kirtans at home. I go to people’s houses to make them chant kirtan. Otherwise, even if you listen to hired kirtan singers for a thousand years, there is no use. Radharani (a famous professional sahajiya kirtan singer) sings for thousands of rupees per performance. One time, she came to offer obeisances to Gurudev, but Gurudev was away, so she offered her obeisances outside Gurudev’s house. Then, she came to me and said,

‘Brother, I have come to see your gurudev.’

‘Didi, can I ask you something?’ I asked her.

‘What is it?’

‘You were chanting kirtan today at Haritala [a small temple next to our temple in Nabadwip]. You earned so much today – so many people came to listen to you, but when I went there to give class on Bhagavatam, there were not more than two hundred people only. You have been singing kirtans for so long, but how many people have you brought to this line?’

‘Brother, shall I tell you the truth? We sing kirtans for money, but when you chant kirtans, you do it to bring people to this line to worship the Lord, to give them spiritual benefit.’

Radharani, the famous singer, told me that. There are so many hired singers and musicians. If you listen to the Holy Name from their mouths, it is nothing but mere alphabet. If you want to chant the pure Holy Name, you must hear it from a pure Vaishnav.

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Gaya Gaura madhur svare’, recites Jaya Dhvani and concludes the class, proceeding to another preaching programme before returning to Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Tarakeshwar.]

gaya gora madhur svare

‘Gaurasundar sings in a sweet voice:’

‘hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare’
grhe thaka, vane thaka sada hari bale’ daka
sukhe duhkhe bhula naka, vadane hari-nama kara re

‘Whether you live at home or in a forest, always call out to the Supreme Lord. In happiness and in sadness, do not forget this: chant the Lord’s Names aloud.’

maya-jale baddha ha’ye, achha michhe kaja la’ye
ekhana-o chetana peye, radha-madhav-nama bala re

‘Bound in Maya’s net, you work in vain. While you are still conscious, chant the Name of Radha-Madhav!’

jivana haila sesa, na bhajile hrsikesa,
bhaktivinoda-upadesa, eka-bara nama-rase mata re

‘Your life is finished, but you have not served Lord Hrishikesh. Here is Bhaktivinod’s advice: become mad with the nectar of the Holy Name just once.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

* * *

￼Line Line13 February 2021, noon

Tarakeshwar Area

Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/3) Remembering Champahati

We have very little time today, I will speak more at the evening class, but now I want to tell you two stories.

When we go for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, we go to Champahati on the last day. It is part of Bardhaman district now. Many of you will think that you will have to walk all the way to Bardhaman during the parikrama, but it is not so – we go up to Champahati by bus, and from there we do the parikrama, and when it is time to return, we also take buses. Anyhow, I want to tell you about two pastimes, one took place in Champahati; and the other one, in Mamgachi. The two places are located on two islands, Ritudwip and Modadrumdwip. Nabadwip consists of nine islands, and on the last day, we do the parikrama of three islands: Ritudwip, Modadrumdwip and Jahnudwip.

When Bhagirath Maharaj took Ganga to the ocean, they were passing Nabadwip on the way, and Ganga stopped there. Ganga Devi performed austerities in Nabadwip and refused to go further. She said, ‘I will not go. My Lord will come here – He will appear in this Nabadwip Dham, so I will not go to the ocean now.’ So, Ganga Devi stayed in Nabadwip for one month and practised austerities. Later, she started moving again and flooded the whole area (her current was very strong when she came down to this planet). It happened so that during the flood, the current of the Ganges carried away a pot of Jahnu Muni. The sage became angry that the pot that he was using for the worship of the Lord had been taken away, so he cursed Ganga and made her dry up. After that, Bhagirath Maharaj came and prayed to the sage, and Jahnu Muni released Ganga Devi out of his thigh (jahnu). Why do you think Ganga Devi is known as Jahnavi? Because she appeared from the thigh of Jahnu Muni. When we recite the Jaya Dhvani, we say ‘Jahnavi Devi ki jay’ – Jahnavi Devi means Ganga Devi.

So, listen carefully to the first story. Are you all hungry? I know, it is already lunch time! [His Divine Grace chuckles.] This is the first story.

During Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, we go to a place called Ritudwip (Rtudwip). Why was it called Ritudwip? Because all seasons (rtu) reside there simultaneously. There are six seasons: spring, summer, monsoon, autumn, pre-winter, winter. Now all the seasons are upside down, but they all are known to reside simultaneously in Ritudwip. Sometimes, around the Gaura Purnima time, it can rain, it can be cold, hot, and so on. On this island of Ritudwip, there is a place called Champahati: because there used to grow many champa trees, this place became famous as Champahati, and a gopi called Champakalata would make and offer garlands from those flowers for Sri Radha and Krishna.

At some point, Jayadev and Padmavati came to live in this Champahati, where Jayadev composed his famous Gita Govinda. One day, he was sitting in his house, composing Gita Govinda, when suddenly he could not remember what to write next. He took a break and went to have a bath in the Ganges. In the meantime, the Supreme Lord Krishna Himself came assuming the form of Jayadev and told Padmavati, the wife of Jayadev, ‘I have finished bathing; now give Me something to eat.’ Thinking it was her husband, Padmavati gave Him prasad as usual. After Krishna (disguised as Jayadev) finishing eating, He went to the room where Jayadev was writing his book and finished the sloka that Jayadev could not finish. He wrote, ‘Dehi pada-pallavam udaram: I place Your tender feet on My head.’

An hour later, real Jayadev came back. Coming to the house, he asked his wife, ‘Give me something to eat.’ Padmavati was surprised, ‘What is this? You have just eaten! You ate and went to your room, you were writing something. Why are you asking for food now?’ Jayadev was perplexed, ‘What are you saying? I did not come!’ Then, he went into his room and saw what was written.

You can understand that the Lord Himself came in disguise of Jayadev and wrote that line. I told you yesterday – Krishna can become Kali, Krishna can become Durga, Krishna can become Laksmi, Krishna can become Siva or anyone else! But, for example, Siva cannot become Krishna. So, Krishna became Jayadev and came to finish that sloka.

This is the first pastime I wanted to tell you about.

(2/3) Remembering Saranga Murari

Pastime number two. Another place we go to during Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama is Mamgachi. We come there last, and after that take prasadam. The place I want to tell you about is visited just before Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur’s birthplace. It is a very small place, and it is hard to enter it when there is a large crowd. You can only come, quickly pay your obeisance and come out. We do not get a chance to speak there, and after we take prasadam, everyone starts running to the buses to return quickly. Actually, when people come there, they run past the place to quickly take prasad, and after prasad they run to return. Only one-pointed devotees go there. So, the temple that we visit just before Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur’s birthplace is the place of Murari Gupta and Saranga Thakur. The Deities of Sri Sri Radha-Gopinath are still there, and Their service is continuing to this day from the times of Mahaprabhu.

It is a common tradition to install Deities, but not many think who will take care of the Deities after that. Those who install Deities must make sure that they bring up their children in such a way that they can take care of the Deities after them. Otherwise, Deities become nigraha (‘confinement, burden’) and then galagraha (‘throttling’) – at first you feel burdened and then throttled by the Deity. You can often see that people stop worshipping Deities and bring them to the temple. You have seen such Deities in temples, have you not? That is why when you come to this line, you must try to bring your children to this path as well. Otherwise, it will be a problem if you keep Deities. I never tell anyone to keep Deities – you can keep a photo, it is not a problem. If you keep Deities and go somewhere, who will serve the Deities? If there is no one, you have to take your Gopal with you and keep Him at the temple. That is why I always tell everyone to keep photographs – the photograph of your gurudev and the photograph of the Deities in our temples in Nabadwip, Nrisingha Palli or Ekachakra. You can do the worship in this way. Emotionally, you buy Gopal in Nabadwip and take the Deity home, but you have to serve Gopal after that – who will serve Him otherwise? Later, you will want to go to the house of your guru, to do the parikrama, what will you do with Gopal then? You will have to take Him with you. Is that not a problem? That is why I tell you that you must keep a photograph of Deities, not Deities, because when you go somewhere, if you do not give bhoga to a photograph, Their service is still going on at gurudev’s temple: for example, if you keep the photograph of Nabadwip or Nrisingha Palli Deities and cannot make an offering because you have to go somewhere, it is not a problem because the service of those Deities is going on every day in Nabadwip or Nrisingha Palli. There is Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Madan-mohan in Tarakeshwar, you can keep Their photograph in your prayer room and worship Them – even if you have to go somewhere, it is not an offence to leave because Their service is done every day at the temple. I tell this to everyone. Gurudev told this, and I am telling the same thing. People come and emotionally buy Gopal’s or Mahaprabhu’s Deity, but if you do not serve those Deities after that, it will be an offence.

So, I was telling you about Saranga Thakur. When Saranga Thakur became old, he had no strength to even put a garland on the Deities or dress the Deities. He cried to the Deities, ‘Gopinath! Please give me somebody who would be able to do this service!’ He cried to the Lord every day, and one day, the Lord came to him in a dream and said, ‘You go to have a bath in the Ganges every day, so tomorrow you must give initiation to whoever you see first. He will do your service: he will come and stay with you.’

In the morning, Saranga Thakur woke up and went to have a bath in the Ganges. On the way, he saw a banana-tree raft floating down the river. A boy had died from a snake bite in some family, but they had not burnt his body – they had just set it floating down the Ganges. When the raft drifted to the bank, Saranga Thakur saw there was a body of a boy on it. He gave Harinam to this dead boy, and as as soon as he chanted the Holy Name (Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare) into his ear, the dead boy suddenly opened his eyes! Then, he got up and paid a full obeisance to his gurudev. Taking his guru by the hand, he came to his ashram. The boy was eight years old at that time. His name was Murari, and when his guru initiated him, he gave him the name Saranga’s Murari (Saranga Murari), saying, ‘You are now mine, nobody else’s.’

When the boy’s parents later got the news that their son was alive, they came to the temple to take him back, but Murari said, ‘No, I am not yours anymore. I now belong to my gurudev. I am Saranga’s Murari, I am not your Murari anymore. I will not come back to you.’ From that time, Saranga Murari served his guru, and when Saranga Thakur left his body, Saranga Murari made his samadhi. He served at that temple all his life. When we come to that temple, we speak about this pastime.

If we do not hear about these pastimes and glories of the holy abode, how will we do a parikrama? Who will tell you these things if you go to Mayapur by a tourist bus?

(3/3) Remembering Pastimes

When we go to Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, we also go to the house of Sri Sridhar Prabhu. Mahaprabhu came to his house and drank water from a pot that had a hole. Sridhar Prabhu’s house is situated in a garden. We went there for the first time last year.

One time, when Mahaprabhu came to Sridhar Prabhu at the market, Sridhar Prabhu asked Him, ‘Are there no other shops at the market? Why do You only come to me to steal banana stems and flowers?’

bhakter jinish prabhu lutiputi khay
abhakter jinish prabhu ulti nahi chay

‘The Lord eats anything and everything when a devotee offers it, but the Lord does not want to take anything from a non-devotee.’

(Based on Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.185)

You can understand why Mahaprabhu would come to Sridhar Prabhu’s house and even drank water from his glass with a hole. Mahaprabhu ate Sridhar Prabhu’s banana stems and banana flowers.

We go to that house every time now. It is near the temple of Jagannathdev, and we talk about the pastimes that took place there. These pastimes are very, very beautiful. Sridhar Prabhu’s house is situated in Simantadwip, so when we go there, we also speak about the glories of this island, remembering Lord Siva. And near Simantadwip, there is also Rudradwip, also a place of Lord Siva.

When we come to Madhyadwip, we also remember one pastime. In Satya-yuga, there was a sage called Durvasa Muni. One time, when Durvasa Muni was lying down one hot afternoon in a forest, a small son of one of the demigods came there and cut off Durvasa Muni’s sikha (a tuft of hair). Durvasa Muni jumped up and cursed the boy, ‘You will be a crocodile for four ages!’ The boy began to cry bitterly and asked the sage, ‘What will become of me now? Please do not curse me!’ Durvasa Muni replied, ‘I have already cursed you; there is nothing you can do about it. But I will tell you one thing: Satya-yuga will pass, Treta-yuga will pass, Dvapar-yuga will pass, and when finally Gauranga Mahaprabhu comes in Kali-yuga, you will be living in a lake in Nabadwip. When Mahaprabhu comes to that lake, chanting kirtan, you will hear that kirtan and again assume your previous form.’

So, one day Mahaprabhu was walking with devotees in Madhyadwip, chanting kirtan. When they came to the lake where the boy was supposed to be living, everyone told Mahaprabhu, ‘Please do not go there! Do not go there! There is a crocodile in that lake! Even cows do not go there to drink water.’ Mahaprabhu knew everything, so He still came to the lake, and as He was chanting kirtan, suddenly a boy came out of the water and fell at His feet in a prostrate obeisance. Mahaprabhu asked him, ‘Who are you? Why were you in the water?’ The boy said, ‘Prabhu, I know that You are the Supreme Lord. I know that Lord Krishna comes in Kali-yuga as Gauranga Mahaprabhu. You chanted the Holy Name, and by the influence of Your chanting, my crocodile body changed, and I have again got this human body. Please give me Your blessing now, I want to return to my father and mother.’

This is the result of chanting the Holy Name.

All these pastimes are written in the book Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala. We do not have many books with us, but we have more in Kolkata. So, if you come again, you can get it later at any of our temples.

Please take care, everyone. We will chant a kirtan now and finish. I will be giving a class again in the evening – please come. Whether they invite you or not, it does not matter – I am inviting you, you must come to hear the class. Why do you need an invitation, anyway?

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line13 February 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Tarakeshwar

Evening Class

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/6) Attachment to Sadhus

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj begging him for his causeless mercy, aspiring to serve him; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all assembled guru-varga, godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, and all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet, praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

It is said in the scriptures that a cloudy day is not a bad day. What day is a bad day? A bad day is the day when we do not get to hear Hari-katha (when we cannot hear about the Lord). Material people never listen to talks about the Lord – even if they have time, they do not hear about the Lord. They gossip, talk about all sorts of things – it creates an obstacle to devotion. Do not gossip, do not tell all kinds of stories to each other; do not waste time on nonsense.

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

Serve Radha-Krishna in your mind; do not gossip or get involved in idle talks. To be able to do this, you need to keep good association (sadhu-sanga):

‘sadhu-sanga’ ‘sadhu-sanga’—sarva sastre kaya

lava-matra sadhu-sange sarva-siddhi haya

‘All scriptures keep saying: ‘Good association’, ‘Good association.’ You can attain all perfection even just by a drop of good, saintly association.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.54)

What does associating with sadhus give? I will explain it to you using one example.

At Srivas Pandit’s house in Nabadwip, there lived a maid. Her name was Duhkhi. She did not have any children or family; she also had no education. There was always kirtan at Srivas Pandit’s house – when she heard it, she could not understand it, but she would still always come and just sit and listen. She washed the dishes, brought water from the pond and did other work around the house (in olden days, there were no taps, so people would bring water for cooking and cleaning from a pond or a river). When it was the time of Mahaprabhu’s appearance and Srivas Pandit was arranging a festival, he told Duhkhi, ‘Duhkhi, you know, you bring water from the pond every day, but today you should bring more water – my Prabhu, Gauranga Mahaprabhu, will come today, and we will offer Him abhisek (bath Him).’ Hearing this, Duhkhi became very happy and began to cry for joy, ‘I bring water every day, but today the Lord will bath with that water that I bring!’ When Mahaprabhu came, Duhkhi kept bringing more and more water, and as she carried water, she was always crying.

Mahaprabhu noticed her and eventually asked her, ‘What is your name? Why are you crying? What is making you so sad?’

‘Prabhu, my name is Duhkhi [lit. “unhappy”]’, she answered.

‘Your name is not Duhkhi anymore! From today, your name is Sukhi [lit. “happy”]!’

She received the Lord’s mercy that day. What did she do? She just washed the dishes. So many great personalities, so many rich people could not get Mahaprabhu’s mercy, but this Duhkhi, who only washed dishes, got Mahaprabhu’s mercy. There are many examples like this.

There was also a Muslim tailor at Srivas Pandit’s house. One day, he came to Srivas Pandit’s house and lamented, ‘Why was I not born in a Hindu family? Why have I been born in a Muslim family? If I had been born in a Hindu family, I would be able to serve the Lord, I would get the Lord’s mercy…’ Such was his heartfelt desire.

(2/6) Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

A strong desire means making an effort. Many say, ‘When the Lord calls me, then I will go to Nabadwip.’ If you do not make any effort, then how will you go? You are your own friend, and you are your own enemy. We have got this human birth promising the Lord to practise Krishna consciousness. Sadhus come and keep calling you to Nabadwip, to do parikrama. You are given so much opportunity. There is no lack of accommodation, there is no worry about money. If you do this Nabadwip Dham parikrama, you will get relief from the parikrama of the material world (samsara-parikrama). Guru Maharaj wrote a very beautiful poem:

anitya e deha-rathe chadiya mrtyura pathe
himsra-sarddula-purna samsara-kanana
bhramite habe na ara e-chhara bhuvana

‘You do not have to wander any longer in this vile world, riding along the path of death in the chariot of this temporary body within the forest of material existence, which is filled with ferocious tigers.’

(‘Call for Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama’, Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

uthare uthare bhai, ara ta samaya nai,
‘krsna bhaja’ bale uchchaihsvare

‘Wake up, wake up, brother! There is no time! “Worship Krishna!” they call out loudly.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Does anyone of us know when the time will come and when we will be summoned to leave this world? I have been to many people’s houses today, and I have seen that many of the people who used to lived there were no more. I could not meet with many of those whom I had met many times. That is why I am saying: sadhus come and call you so many times, ‘Come, do the dham parikrama – it will give you peace and happiness in your next life.’ You have got this human birth now, and if you live like an animal (like cows, goats, sheep, cats, and so on) – if you only eat, sleep, fear and enjoy and do not remember or think about the Lord – then you will have to go back and get demoted: you will have to be born as frogs, goats, cows, grass, trees or some other species. You can see the trees – they are standing without any clothes or cover, and they remain standing outside when it is raining and so much water is falling on them. They had done some wrong or some offence, as the result of which they have now got this tree birth.

Do you know who once got a tree birth? If you come to Vrindavan, you will see there a place known as Yamalarjuna vriksa (‘the twin trees’). We go to that place – it is situated at the place of Nanda Maharaj’s house in Gokula. Srimad Bhagavatam describes what happened there (if you read it, you can find it there). One day, tied to a mortar for His mischief, Krishna crawled to those two trees, and the trees fell down. Have you heard about that? Who were those Yamalarjuna trees? They were Nalkuver and Manigriv, Kuver’s two sons. One day, they went into a lake or a river and did foul things with ladies. It happened so that Narad Goswami was passing that place, but they had no shame or shyness. The ladies quickly grabbed some clothes and covered themselves, but Nalkuver and Manigriv were so intoxicated with their wealth that they had no sense of who was passing by (that a sadhu was there, and so on). Narad cursed them, ‘You are so shameless! Next life, you will be born as trees!’ That is how the two brothers were born as twin Yamalarjuna trees. When Narad cursed them, they started crying, ‘What will become of us?’ Narad said, ‘Do not worry, when Krishna comes in Dvapar-yuga, He will rescue you.’

One day, Krishna’s mother was boiling some milk (she made paneer, curd, butter and other preparations from milk), but Gopal (Krishna) came and started demanding milk. Mother Yasoda tried to explain to Him that she was busy, but do small children understand such things? Gopal kept disturbing His mother, so Mother Yasoda fed Him her breastmilk, but then the milk she had kept on the fire started boiling over, and she quickly put Gopal down. Gopal became very angry! He called His friends over, and they went to the room where Mother Yasoda kept curd and butter. The boys climbed on top of each other’s shoulders and started feeding all the butter and curd to monkeys! Krishna said, ‘Here, take it! Mother did not give Me milk, so I will give everything to monkeys!’ When Mother Yasoda came there and saw the scene, she was horrified, ‘Gosh! I have been making all this curd and butter so nicely, but He has fed everything to monkeys! Gopal, You are so naughty! I will tie You!’ Nanda Maharaj had 900,000 cows (can you imagine it? 900,000 cows!), so Mother Yasoda started bringing rope to tie Gopal. No matter how much rope she used, she could not bind Him. She tied one piece of rope, but it was two fingers too short! She tied another piece of rope, and it was again two fingers too short! She kept trying and trying – she tried so hard that she started to perspire. We sing in the Damodarastakam kirtan:

namamisvaram sach-chid-ananda rupam
lasat-kundalam gokule bhrajamanam
yasoda-bhiyolukhalad dhavamanam
paramrstam atyantato drutya gopya

‘I am offering my obeisance to the eternal, all-cognisant and blissful Supreme Lord who wears shining earrings and is resplendent in His eternal abode, Gokula, who runs away from a mortar in fear of His Mother Yasoda but is then outsmarted and caught roughly by her.’

rudantam muhur netra-yugmam mrjantam
karambhoja-yugmena satanka-netram
muhuh svasa-kampa-trirekhanka-kantha-

sthita-graiva-damodaram bhakti-baddham

‘I am offering my obeisance to Lord Damodar (who was tied around His belly with a rope), who is crying bitterly and wiping His fearful eyes with His lotus hands. He is sobbing again and again, which makes the necklace on His chubby neck (adorned with three sweet lines) shake.’

(Damodarastakam, 1–2)

Mother Yasoda wanted to beat Gopal, and Gopal ran away from her with tears in His eyes! He in front of whom the entire three worlds tremble in fear is crying in fear of His mother! This is called vatsalya-rasa, parental love. There is santa- (neutral relationship), dasya- (servitude), sakhya- (friendship), vatsalya- (parental relationship) and madhura-rasa (paramour relationship). At first, Gopal wanted to show His play, ‘Who are you going to bind? We shall see that!’ but then, seeing that ‘Mom is struggling so much, she cannot bind Me’, He agreed to be bound by her. So, when Mother Yasoda tried to tie Him again, He let her do that.

So, Mother Yasoda tied Gopal to a mortar. Have you seen or heard what kind of mortars there were before? They used those mortars to grind rice, wheat and other things. You must have seen cows tied to such mortars – they go in circles and grind wheat or rice. These mortars are very big and long. Mother Yasoda tied Gopal to such a mortar thinking that He would not be able to go anywhere, but Gopal started crawling with the mortar tied to Him and came to those two Yamalarjuna trees. With the mortar, He felled the trees, and two men came out. They said with folded palms, ‘Prabhu, we have been rescued by Your mercy.’

From this pastime, we must understand that it is necessary to have desire and it is necessary to try. Mother Yasoda tried and tried, tried and tried…

[His Divine Grace is distracted by somebody in the audience.] Hey, why are you sitting over there and talking? Come here and sit quietly. Sit quietly and hear about the Lord! Your mind is always fickle. I always sing this kirtan, ‘When will my mind become steady?’ It is necessary to always make your mind steady and peaceful. Do not fidget – whatever happens happens by the will of the Lord, you must rely on Him (you must leave everything up to Him and have faith that He will take care of everything). If He wants to kill someone, He will kill them, and if He wants to keep someone, He will keep them (‘marabi rakhabi, yo ichchha tohara’). Are we able to anything? Do we have any power? We do not. Therefore, leave everything to the Lord. You must not be anxious about anything.

So, Mother Yasoda tried to bind Gopal; two things are necessary: one is effort, and the other is mercy. If you try, you will get mercy. If I make one step towards the Lord, the Lord will make ten steps towards me. But if you do not make any step forward, He will not come to you. What does the Lord say? ‘If you care for Me, I will care for you. If you think about Me, I will think about you.’ And if you yourself think about yourself, then the Lord will not care about you. You must give up everything to Him.

(3/6) Jivan Chakravarti’s Pastime (1)

In my life, I have been in many very dangerous situations, but amidst all danger, I always gave everything up to Gurudev and the Lord… We must always remember our guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord. We must always serve them.

I have been called to a place called Mankar, and I will go there one of the days. Have you heard about this place? It is near Panagar in Bardhaman. I will go to a place where there used to be one special house (it is no longer there now because everyone from that house became devotees and came to the Lord). Do you know who lived in that house before? One brahman family. The name of the head of the family was Jivananda Das, and his previous name was Jivan Chakravarti.

Living in Mankar, Jivan Chakravarti worshipped Lord Siva. He had twelve silas of Lord Siva, and he worshipped them religiously every day. Eventually, Lord Siva became pleased with his worship and came to him in a dream one night. Lord Siva asked Jivan Chakravarti, ‘Tell me, what do you want?’

There are four kinds of devotion: karma-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with material pursuits), jnana-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with knowledge-seeking), jnana-sunya bhakti (devotion devoid of knowledge-seeking) and suddha-bhakti (pure devotion). Somebody worships the Lord and prays, ‘O God, give me this.’ You must have seen it when people worship Durga – brahmans recite mantras, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, varyam dehi: give me wealth, give me knowledge, make me beautiful, give me a good wife.’ It is Saraswati Puja on Monday, and all children will be saying:

om sarasvati mahabhage vidye kamalalochane
visvarupe visalaksi vidyam dehi namostute

‘O great Goddess Saraswati, the personified knowledge possessing large lotus eyes! I offer obeisance to you, please give me knowledge.’

They ask for knowledge. This is how people turn God into their menial servant (‘God, give me this’). They give some fruit, money or things and ask God to give them something in lieu of that – they bribe the Lord and turn Him into their servant (you give ten rupees and expect to get something in return: ‘God, give me knowledge’, ‘God, give me wealth’). This is karma-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with material pursuits).

Jnana-misra bhakti means that people have knowledge (there are many scholarly missions and highly educated people in this world) and think that they are Brahma (the Supreme Lord). In other words, they consider themselves God. They chant, ‘Vande Purushottam! I am the Lord! [Lit. “Glory to supreme humankind”]’ But whenever anyone called Mahaprabhu the Lord, He would say (although He was the Lord Himself), ‘What?! No, no!’ He did not want to hear it and prohibited others to say this. Vaishnavs also never think that they have become Vaishnavs: ‘“Ami ta vaisnava” e buddhi haile amani na ha’ba ami: If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, I will never stop expecting honour from others.’ There are many tilak-wearing people roaming around. I will not mention any names, but many like to walk around wearing tilaks and considering themselves great sadhus. People come, get initiation in Nabadwip and think they have become great Vaishnavs!

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

loka dekhana gora bhaja tilaka matra dhari’
gopanete atyachara gora dhare churi

‘You put on tilaks and show the whole world that you serve Gora, but secretly you do outrageous things. Gora will catch you out, thief (hypocrite)!’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6–7, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Gora knows what you have been doing! He can understand everything, and He will catch up with you. Always remember these things.

So, Jivan Chakravarti’s devotion was karma-misra bhakti. When Siva Thakur came to Jivan Chakravarti and asked what he wanted, Jivan Chakravarti said, ‘I want some money to get my daughter married. She has grown up now, but I have no money to arrange her marriage.’ Then, Siva Thakur said to him in that dream, ‘I do not have wealth, but you can go to Vrindavan. There is a sadhu, Sanatan Goswami, there – He has extremely valuable wealth…’

(4/6) Jivan Chakravarti’s Pastime (2)

Do you know who Sanatan Goswami is? He is part of our guru-varga. Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami take the highest position in our line. They lived in Ramkeli, Malda district, and used to serve as ministers in the Muslim government of the emperor Hussein Shah, who ruled the area at that time. One of them was the treasurer, and the other one was the administrator in the government. Rupa Goswami’s former name was Dabir Khas, and Sanatan Goswami’s former name was Sarkar Mallik. In Dvapar-yuga, they were the gopis Sri Rupa Manjari and Sri Lavanga Manjari in Vrindavan, and in Kali-yuga, they became associates of Mahaprabhu. After they met with Mahaprabhu, they gave up their minister jobs. When Sanatan Goswami told the emperor, ‘Give my job to somebody else, I will not work anymore,’ the emperor actually put Sanatan Goswami in prison, prohibiting him to leave. But after some time, when the emperor went to Odisha, Sanatan Goswami bribed the guard and escaped from prison. In the end, both Sanatan and Rupa stayed in Vrindavan. We always say:

jaya rupa sanatana bhatta raghunatha
sri-jiva gopala-bhatta dasa raghunatha

‘All glory to Sri Rupa, Sanatan, Raghunath Bhatta, Sri Jiva, Gopal Bhatta and Raghunath Das!’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

These six goswamis are part of our guru-parampara; all of them stayed in Vrindavan…

So, Siva Thakur told Jivan Chakravarti to go to this Sanatan Goswami. In those days, there were no trains, so it took Jivan Chakravarti a long time to walk to Vrindavan. When he arrived, he asked somebody, ‘Where does Sanatan Goswami stay?’ and was told that Sanatan Goswami was staying on the Dvadasatila Hill. He went to Dvadasatila. Seeing some poor man there, he asked him, ‘Excuse me, can you tell me where Sanatan Goswami stays?’

‘I am Sanatan Goswami!’ answered the man.

‘Oh… It is you?’ said Jivan Chakravarti, puzzled at the appearance of Sanatan Goswami.

‘Why? Is there any problem?’ asked Sanatan Goswami, also a little puzzled. ‘Who has sent you to me?’

‘Lord Siva has sent me to you,’ Jivan Chakravarti said.

‘Lord Siva?? Why?’

‘To get wealth.’

‘Where will I get wealth?’ Sanatan Goswami asked. ‘I drink water from a clay pot and eat from a clay plate. Where will I get wealth?’

(Sanatan Goswami’s lifestyle was such that he would take two rotis a day – he would collect them as alms or sometimes make rotis anyhow himself, burning them in fire, and offer them to the Lord.)

Jivan Chakravarti was puzzled. He thought, ‘I am also thinking where this man will have wealth from. I have at least some dishes at home, but he has nothing.’ So, he said to Sanatan Goswami, ‘Sorry, I am leaving then.’

‘All right’, said Sanatan Goswami, but then he suddenly remembered something. He called out to Jivan Chakravarti, ‘Hey, wait! Wait! Come back, listen, listen!’

Jivan Chakravarti came back.

‘Have you called me?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I have remembered! One day, when I went to bath in the Yamuna, I found a touchstone. I threw it somewhere in the sand when I found it. Go to the bank of the Yamuna, you can try to find it. You will get a lot of money then.’

Do you know what a touchstone is? If you take a piece of iron and touch this stone to it, the iron will turn into gold.

So, Jivan Chakravarti went to the Yamuna and started looking for the touchstone, but he did not find it. He came back to Sanatan Goswami, and Sanatan Goswami said, ‘All right, let us go look for it together.’ In the end, Sanatan Goswami found that touchstone and gave it to Jivan Chakravarti. Jivan Chakravarti had a amulet (tabiz) on his arm, and when he touched the touchstone to it, the amulet became golden. He took the stone and went away. On the way, he thought, ‘This sadhu found a touchstone, but he threw it away into the sand. How can that be so? He must have something more than this!’ (When you have something very valuable, you can easily throw less valuable things away.) So, Jivan Chakravarti again came back to Sanatan Goswami.

‘What is it?’ asked Sanatan Goswami. ‘You have got your touchstone, you can go home now. What has happened?’

‘Nothing, I just thought of something… I am bowing at your holy feet and begging you for a drop of that sort of wealth having got which you do not see any value in a jewel [ye dhane haiya dhani manire mana na mani tahari khanika magi ami natasire; Rabindranath Tagore].’

‘Oh, you want that wealth? Do you want to have it, Jivan? Then throw away this “wealth” that you have in your hand.’

Jivan Chakravarti threw the touchstone into the Yamuna. Have you heard the name of Shah Jahan, who built Taj Mahal? He found that touchstone later. Many people tried to find it, but they were not destined to find it, so they searched for it to no avail. However, when Shah Jahan dropped his ship’s chain into the water nearby, it turned into gold – this is how he found the stone.

So, what happened to Jivan after that?

Sanatan Goswami said, ‘Stretch out your hand and take this mala. Chant the Holy Name on it.’

You will think, ‘How did his daughter get married?’ She did, and she got a good husband. The Lord arranged everything. Jivan Chakravarti did not have to go back to his house – the Lord arranged everything. When the Lord arranges everything, you do not have to do anything.

You must remember these things.

(5/6) Result of Service Mood

When Srila Sanatan Goswami left Ramkeli, Malda, he faced so many obstacles and difficulties. Maya is such that many obstacles can come. At first, when he left his minister’s post, he was put into jail, but he bribed the guards and managed to escape. Then, on the way, he was stopped by some dacoits. After that, he was passing his brother’s house, and his brother’s wife tried to stop him: she insisted that he stay at their house for a few days. He refused, but she kept insisting, ‘Your clothes are dirty, at least let me wash them, then you can go.’ Sanatan Goswami refused, thinking, ‘I cannot stay here, it will prevent me from going to Mahaprabhu.’ In the end, his sister-in-law gave him an expensive shawl (a blanket), saying, ‘You will be in Kashi in winter, it is very cold there, please take this blanket.’ Sanatan Goswami took it and left. Later, when he came to Mahaprabhu, he started going out to beg. He was a minister (his position was similar to today’s prime-minister), but he would go begging, thinking, ‘I have come to Mahaprabhu, so how can I just sit and eat at Tapan Misra’s house? I cannot. I will go begging.’ One day, he noticed Mahaprabhu glancing sidelong at his blanket. He realised, ‘Oh, I am wearing a torn dhoti and this expensive blanket. Mahaprabhu does not like it.’ He went out and found a Gaudiya sadhu who was drying his old quilt (kantha). Sanatan Goswami asked him, ‘Brother, please take my shawl. Can I take your quilt in exchange?’ The sadhu became angry, ‘Are you pulling my leg? Does anyone give expensive shawls in exchange for old quilts? Are you joking with me?!’ Sanatan Goswami explained, ‘No, no, Prabhu. Mahaprabhu is not happy that I have this shawl. Please help me – take this shawl and give me your quilt.’ In the end, the sadhu agreed, and when Sanatan Goswami later returned to Mahaprabhu wearing the old quilt and paid his obeisance to the Lord, giving to Mahaprabhu whatever he had collected, Mahaprabhu asked him, ‘What has happened, Sanatan? Where is your shawl?’ Sanatan Goswami explained what had happened. Hearing the story, Mahaprabhu was happy, ‘The Lord has cut off your last illusion. The Lord has taken away your last material possession!’

This is how we must serve the Lord.

You can remember also the pastimes of Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami, who served twelve silas in Vrindavan. One day, a big rich marwari from Delhi came to his temple with some Deity clothes. At that time, Gopal Bhatta Goswami was doing arati. The rich man said he had brought some Deity dress, and Gopal Bhatta Goswami said, ‘All right, keep it over there. I will use it for the Lord.’ Later, when he was putting the Lord to rest, he suddenly remembered, ‘Gosh! My Deities have no form, how will I put these clothes on them? That man has gone away, what do I do with these Deity clothes now?’ He went to sleep, and when he woke up the next day, he opened the door of the altar and saw a Deity standing there! (This Deity is still there in Vrindavan. When we go to Vrindavan, you can see that Deity at the temple of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha-Raman. That Deity’s name is Radha-Raman, a very beautiful name.) Seeing this Deity, he counted his silas and found only eleven silas. He was surprised, ‘Where has one more gone?’ Then he saw that there was a magnet-shaped mark on the back of the Deity, and he understood that the twelfth sila had become a Deity. This is what happens as the result of service.

It is necessary to have faith in all this. You cannot get anywhere without faith. There is even a saying in Bengali: ‘Faith brings you close, and argument keeps you far away (visvase melaya vastu, tarke bahu-dura).’

‘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)

Your debt to your father, mother, rishis (sages), demigods – all debts are cleared if you serve the Lord.

(6/6) Joining Lord’s Pastimes

This happened more than 500 years ago. When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (Nimai) was only three and a half years old, a sannyasi came to His house and asked Sachi Mata (Nimai’s mother), ‘Mother, can you give me some alms?’ Sachi Mata replied, ‘Yes, I can, but you have come late (prasad is finished). Still, it is not good when somebody comes and leaves without taking anything. Please stay – you can cook an offering for the Deities and then take prasad.’ So, the brahman stayed and cooked for the noon offering.

When the brahman was going to offer the bhoga to the Deities, Nimai suddenly came and ate it from the plate. The brahman chased Him away, ‘Hey, You naughty boy! Go away, go!’ Hearing the brahman shout, Jagannath Misra, Nimai’s father, came and asked him, ‘What has happened?’

‘I was going to offer the bhoga to the Deities,’ the brahman explained, ‘but your son has come and eaten it!’

‘He has never done this before.’ Jagannath Misra was surprised. ‘Is this what He did today? Do not worry, I will watch Him. Please cook again.’

The brahman cooked again. It was late afternoon, so he came to the Deities and prayed, ‘O Lord, please forgive me for this offence – Your noon bhoga has not been offered yet.’ He offered the bhoga again, and Nimai came again! His father was guarding the door, but anyhow Nimai still came again! ‘Oh You naughty boy! Again You?!’ Jagannath Misra heard the brahman shout again and came into the room, ‘What is it?’ The brahman said, ‘Look, He is here again! Where has He come from?!’

Jagannath Misra chased Nimai away, and Nimai ran to a neighbour’s house. He was trembling with fear for His father and told the lady at that house to lock the door (‘Father will beat Me!’).

Anyhow, the evening was coming, and the Deities had not been offered bhoga yet. Everybody was very upset. Then, Vishvarup, Nimai’s elder brother, came. He was surprised to see everyone disturbed.

‘Why is everyone so sad?’ he asked. ‘What has happened at home?’

‘Who is he?’ asked the brahman.

‘This is my elder son, his name is Vishvarup’, explained Jagannath Misra.

‘Oh, such a beautiful boy – he looks like Vishvarup (the Lord), and his name is also Vishvarup!’

Vishvarup asked again what had happened, and the brahman said, ‘Your brother is very naughty! I have tried to offer the bhoga twice already, but He keeps coming and taking the Deities’ offering!’

‘Oh, I see… I am His elder brother, and He is afraid of me. Do not worry, I am at home, I will see to it that He does not disturb you again’, said Vishvarup.

So, the brahman cooked again. It was evening already by then. When he was going to bring the bhoga, he was scared that Nimai would come again because he had already cooked twice but had not been able to offer the bhoga. So, before taking the bhoga to the Deities again, the brahman looked around to see where Nimai was and make sure He would not come. He saw Vishvarup sitting by the door and Nimai sleeping on the lap of His mother. Sachi Mata was also asleep. The brahman was pleased, ‘Very good! Now everything is peaceful! He will not come this time. He has not eaten the whole day, so He is sleeping now. Very good.’

Then, he went to offer the bhoga. He closed his eyes and started reciting the mantras, praying, ‘O Lord, I have made so much offence, I could not feed You at noon and in the afternoon. I am giving You this so late at night. Please forgive my offence.’ After he recited all the mantras and said all the prayers, he opened his eyes and saw that Nimai was again there – and He had again cleared the plate!

‘You again?!’ exclaimed the brahman.

Then Nimai spoke to him, ‘Listen, sadhu! Why do you keep chasing Me away? I have not eaten the whole day, and you keep calling Me and chasing Me away! I go away, but you again call Me and again chase Me out! What kind of spiritual regulation is that? Is that what sadhus do?’

‘Why would I call You?!’ said the sadhu, puzzled. ‘I was calling the Lord! Why would I call You?’

‘Oh, you have been calling the Lord, not Me?’ said Nimai. Then He showed His six-armed form to the brahman: ‘This is who I was in Satya-yuga; this is who I was in Dvapar-yuga; this is who I was in Treta-yuga; and in this Kali, I come as Gauranga.’ Seeing the Lord’s forms, the brahman fell in obeisance at the Lord’s feet and quickly ran away from the house. After a while, everyone started looking for him, ‘What is this? This sadhu went to offer the bhoga, but where has he gone now?’ Vishvarup went out to search for him, but nobody could find him again. During that darshan of the Lord, the brahman told Nimai, ‘Whoever You are, I am offering my obeisance to You’, and Nimai ordered him, ‘I have shown you My forms from all the yugas today, but do not tell anyone about it.’ That is why he left from there.

There are so many pastimes like this. Even if we speak the whole day, there is no end of pastimes. If you come to Nabadwip, we will sit and talk about this all day long. There are many pastimes of Mahaprabhu. You must buy the book Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala and read it. You must study, you must keep the association of sadhus and practise Krishna consciousness. We were just singing this kirtan:

jivana haila sesa, na bhajile hrsikesa,
bhaktivinoda-upadesa, eka-bara nama-rase mata re

‘Your life is finished, but you have not served Lord Hrishikesh. Here is Bhaktivinod’s advice: become mad with the nectar of the Holy Name just once.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When the call comes, you will have to leave, but how will you leave? To cross the river, you must take a ferry, but if you have not earned the fare, how will you cross it then? You must acquire the fare, and you do not acquire it with any money or material wealth! You can only acquire it with devotion. You cannot get the Lord with money or material wealth. Do you understand it? You cannot get the Lord through any material activities, knowledge or esoteric practices. If you want to get the Lord, you must have devotion. How does devotion come? Devotion comes from the association of devotees. If you associate with devotees, you will get devotion. There are nine kinds of devotion: sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet). You must practise these kinds of devotion, then you will get the Lord.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

Call out to the Lord in this way…

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’, recites ‘Jaya Dhvani’ and concludes the evening programme.]

* * *

￼Line Line14 February 2021, noon

Singur (West Bengal)

Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/6) Sincere Surrender

[His Divine Grace recites Sri Jaya Dhvani, Vandana, and chants ‘Gurudev bada krpa kari’, ‘Sri Krsna Chaitanya jive daya kari’ and then comments the following.]

‘Sri Krsna Chaitanya jive daya kari’ is a kirtan about surrender. We chant it every day when we wake up in the morning. What is said in it?

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Many say, ‘I call the Lord, but He does not hear me.’ People blame the Lord, but what do the scriptures say?

sad-anga saranagati haibe yanhara
tanhara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

‘Lord Krishna hears the prayers of those who surrender in six ways.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

The Lord hears the prayers of only those who have surrender (saranagati), nobody else’s. There are six limbs of surrender. The first limb of surrender is humility. You must be humble; you must consider yourself lowly. If somebody chastises me or says something bad, what of that? They have a problem, that is why they chastise me, but I have no problem. This is humility. We sing this kirtan every day, and we also sing Mahaprabhu’s Siksastakam. The first sloka is ‘Cheto-darpana marjanam’, the second verse is ‘Namnam akari bahudha’, and the third verse is this:

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

What is the fourth verse?

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

Actually, I do not usually recite many verses because most people do not understand them.

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur wrote kirtans as purport to these verses. What does he write? Who can chant kirtan? I spent five days in Narayanpur (Bardhaman) recently. I did programmes there and visited 130–140 houses every day. At every house, I sat for a minute. Every day was like that. 140 houses was maximum, but every day it was 120–130 houses, sometimes 110 houses. You can imagine how much I have walked. In that area, people like to hire kirtan singers to have kirtans at their homes. But Bhagavatam says (if you read it, you will find it there, right in the first chapter) that you must not listen to those who read Bhagavatam for money. If somebody does kirtan for money, you must not listen to their kirtans or lectures. It is an offence to the Holy Name. If somebody reads Bhagavatam for money or chants kirtans for money and you listen to that, you will not get any spiritual benefit – it only brings inauspiciousness. Therefore, it is not good to go here and there to listen to kirtans or listen to Bhagavatam classes. Who is capable of chanting kirtan? Those who have a good voice? No. Only those who have the right can chant kirtan. What is this right?

trnadhika hina dina akinchana chhara
apane manabi sada chhadi’ ahankara
vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana
pratihimsa tyaji’ anye karabi palana

‘Give up ego and always consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and wretched. Practise forgiveness like that of a tree; do not be vindictive, nurture others.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Those who are humbler than a blade of grass, who are more tolerant than a tree and who can give honour to others have the right to chant kirtan. These are Mahaprabhu’s words. Kirtan can be chanted only by those who are humble and tolerant. When you cut a tree, does the tree say anything? It does not; on the contrary, it gives you shelter. Such must be our tolerance.

jivana-nirvahe ane udvega na dibe
para-upakare nija-sukha pasaribe

‘Live without causing anxiety to others; do good unto others, forsaking your own happiness.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Do you understand the meaning? You must never trouble or harass others for your own maintenance, for your own food, clothes, and so on.

nija sukha lagi’, pape nahi dari’,
daya-hina svartha-para
para-sukhe duhkhi, sada mithya-bhasi,
para-duhkha sukha-kara

‘I am not afraid to commit sins for my own happiness. I am merciless and selfish. I always lie. I feel unhappy to see others happy, and I feel happy to see others sad.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We are not afraid to commit sins for our own enjoyment, but we must never trouble anyone for our own sake (jivana-nirvahe ane udvega na dibe). Rather, we must help others, forgetting our own happiness (para-upakare nija-sukha pasaribe). What do sannyasis do? Genuine sannyasis, genuine sadhus give up their families without thinking about anything and depend on the Lord in everything. They give up everything and go house to house to give people benefit. Do you think they come to you for some money, clothes or a place to stay? Is there any lack of places for sadhus to stay at? Why would they come to you for this? When sadhus go house to house begging for some alms, they do that for the Lord. They do everything for the Lord.

I told you yesterday about how Srila Sanatan Goswami left his prime-minister’s post. When he came to Mahaprabhu, he changed his clothes and was given a dhoti, but he tore that dhoti into two pieces. At first, he was given a new cloth, but Srila Sanatan Goswami refused to take it – he asked devotees, ‘Is there any old torn piece of Mahaprabhu’s clothes? You can give me one.’ Sanatan Goswami was given Mahaprabhu’s cloth, and he tore it into two parts – he covered his lower body with one half and his upper body with the other half. Clad in this way, he would go begging. He thought, ‘I have come to the Lord, so I cannot only sit and eat by His side. I will go house to house and take whatever alms I get.’

Srila Raghunath Das Goswami was the son of a big landlord here in Hooghly (in Adisaptagram), but he left everything as stool and urine and came to Mahaprabhu empty-handed, on foot. He made a festival at Panihati and got Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy, and after that he went to Mahaprabhu, who was staying in Puri at that time. He walked for twelve days to Puri! On his way, during those twelve days, he took prasadam only three times. He took some milk in some house, and at another house, he slept in a shed. He was a great landlord, his family had so much land – from Katwa up until Adisaptagram, but he did not care about it. Just as when you want to go to the bathroom very much and then at last pass stool, you feel happy and relieved; in the same way, Raghunath Das Goswami left everything as stool and urine and came to Mahaprabhu.

You must have humility (dainya), you must surrender everything to the Lord (atma-nivedana), you must know that Krishna takes care of you (gotrtve varan), and you must know that Krishna is your protector (avaisya raksibe Krsna). But we always think about ourselves. What does the Lord say? Do we ever listen to what the Lord says? If anyone asks me what the highest verse in Gita is, I will say that it is this verse:

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

‘Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

You think you have got married, so you have to look after your wife, children, parents, and so on. But Gita says ‘give up everything’. Give up all religions (be it the religion of brahmans, ksatriyas, vasyas, sudras, grihasthas, brahmacharis, vanaprasthas or sannyasis). ‘Give up all religions and surrender to Me. I will take care of you. There is no sin in that. I will liberate you from all sins.’ This is the gist meaning of Gita, but we do not read it, we do not understand it. We read Gita, but we do not follow what is said in it. That is why it is said:

‘gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

loka dekhana gora bhaja tilaka matra dhari’
gopanete atyachara gora dhare churi

‘You put on tilaks and show the whole world that you serve Gora, but secretly you do outrageous things. Gora will catch you out, thief (hypocrite)!’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6–7, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

To impress others, you wear tilaks and think that you have become a sadhu. This is not right. It is necessary to first have proper surrender. Who does the Lord hear? ‘If you surrender following all six types of saranagati, Krishna will hear you.’

(2/6) Deserve, Then Desire

There is also another kirtan – if you chant kirtans and practise properly, and if you try to understand the meaning of kirtans, you will see how beautiful they are.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Krpa kara Vaisnava Thakura.’]

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Many think that they have taken initiation, so they have become Vaishnavs. It is not so. When you know the relationship and keep practising, your ego will go away. That is why Gurudev and Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that there is no use living for one hundred years. Many are proud, ‘Oh, my father has lived to one hundred years!’ But what is the use? If somebody lives for only ten years but chants the Holy Name during this time, they will get some benefit. But if somebody lives for one hundred years and does not chant the Holy Name, what benefit will they get? What is the point living for one hundred years if you cannot practise Krishna consciousness, if you cannot worship and serve the Lord? There is no use. That is why it is necessary to know the relationship (sambandha). Even if somebody took initiation only yesterday, you must address them as Prabhu. If you pay obeisance to everyone, then your ego will go away. When you see each other, you must tell each other, ‘Prabhu, dandavat’, ‘Hare Krishna, Prabhu. Dandavat.’ We must be like this. It is necessary to know the relationship. What is this relationship? The relationship is that ‘You are my Prabhu [master], and I am your das [servant].’ It is necessary to understand this relationship. The Lord lives within everyone. Even common people say that God lives within each human being, but why only human being? The Lord is there in every single living entity, be it a tree or any other entity. The Lord is there within every living entity in His subtle form as Paramatma. So, if I learn and understand this relationship, my ego will go away and I will never think that I have become a Vaishnav. What am I? I am a servant of Vaishnavs (Vaishnav das) – I am a servant of the servants of Vaishnavs. I am Vaishnav’s menial worker. This is my identity. Mahaprabhu says that jiva is an eternal servant of Krishna – a servant not just for one day, one hour or two hours! When you forget it, Maya grasps you:

‘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)

That is why we sing here [His Divine Grace resumes chanting the kirtan],

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

krpa kara vaisnava thakura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur!.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

What does this mean? You think you have become a Vaishnav, but:

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)

What must you do when you get the seed of devotion? Do you think you have got the seed and this is it? When you plant a potato, you must water it after that. It is the same here. Our ‘water’ is sravan (listening, keeping good association) and kirtan (chanting, practising).

Last Sunday, some foreign devotee asked me, ‘What is bad association?’ What do the scriptures and Srila Prabhupad say? There are nine kinds of devotion: sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet). If somebody does not practise at least one of these nine types of devotional practices, their association is bad. You must practise at least one of these practices – you must practise sravan (listen to sadhus, hear about the Lord), you must practise kirtan (chant the Holy Name and practise properly), you must practise smaran (remember the Lord), you must practise vandan (offer obeisances and prayers to the Lord), you must practise archan (worship the Deity of the Lord), and so on. If somebody does not practise even one of these practises, you must never associate with them.

I went to a house last night. For many years, they have been distributing prasad to thousands and thousands of people, arranging Nama-yajna, chanting kirtans, giving class on Bhagavatam and many other things, but what is the result now? I see that now they do not serve the Deities anymore, they do not serve the Lord, do not practise Krishna consciousness anymore! They have been doing nama-aparadha, nama-aparadha, nama-aparadha, and the result is that the Lord is not staying there anymore – there is nothing there now. They have become full of offences.

What do sadhus come to do? Some come to take money, but some come thinking how they can bring people to this line. This is what ‘jive daya’ (being kind to the souls) means. You can see now also – it is not like only initiated people have come here; there are many uninitiated people among you, and if they hear about the Lord, they will get some benefit. He who is recording all their deeds will write in the dairy that one day this person has listened to Bhagavad-katha. It will give them benefit.

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

koti janma yadi kare sravana-kirtana
tabu na paya vrajendranandana

‘Even if you practise hearing and chanting for millions of lives, you will not get Krishna, the Son of King of Vraja.’

Even if you chant and give class like this for millions of lives, you will never get the Lord because you are doing it with offences. Moreover, as the result you will go to hell. We were singing just now, ‘My heart will become polluted with pratistha and I will end up in hell (pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe haiba nirayagami).’ You are so proud, ‘Oh, I am feeding people!’, ‘I am arranging great festivals!’ This desire for prestige will come to your heart and pollute it, and you will clear your own road to hell. You will be feeding so many people, but through that you will be clearing the road to hell for yourself! I told them yesterday that they feed thousands of people, but they are getting pratistha through that.

[His Divine Grace resumes chanting the kirtan.]

tomara kinkara, apane janiba,
‘guru’-abhimana tyaji’

‘I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to give up the ego that you are a guru or an acharya. That is why we do not allow anyone to touch our feet. Yesterday too, I was given prasad and the person was standing and only waiting when I finish to take my remnants – he did not care whether I needed anything. What have they learnt? What did Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj do one time? He ate everything, along with the banana leaf plate! They gave him prasad two times, and Babaji Maharaj understood what was going on, so the second time he ate everything along with the plate!

tomara kinkara, apane janiba,
‘guru’-abhimana tyaji’
tomara uchchhista, pada-jala-renu,
sada niskapate bhaji

‘I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru. I will always earnestly worship the remnants of Your food, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

krpa kara vaisnava thakura

‘O Vaishnav Thakur! Please be merciful!’

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada,
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest”, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

What does ‘nija srestha jani’ mean? You tell others, ‘Here, take this prasad,’ but it is not good because this will make you proud. Sometimes, there is no way out, and you have to tolerate so much danger. You can imagine how much danger a guru has to face. People give me sweets, but I am diabetic – I do not eat sweets – but they still push, ‘Oh, take a little.’ I pinch a bit and take, and they get happy because they say they now have my remnants. It is a big problem for me, and I always feel that I am an offender. They give me a whole plate full of sweets, but I do not even touch sweets, and if I take a pinch from there, they get happy and distribute my remnants to everyone. I can become proud because of this. That is why it is said in the scriptures that we must always remain disciples. I want to always be a disciple. How do the scriptures say we must serve Vaishnavs? You cannot serve Vaishnavs without become a Vaishnav yourself. So, first become a Vaishnav, then you can serve Vaishnavs. And if somebody thinks, ‘I have become a Vaishnav!’ they must not do vaishnav-seva – their service will be faulty, it will be a mistake. ‘I am a fallen soul, do I have the right to serve gurudev? Does a fallen soul like me have the right to serve gurudev?! I do not have any right! I am a lowly person, how can I serve the Lord? I do not have any right to do any service.’ It is necessary to have such humility. How can you get this right to do service? The answer is here too. [His Divine Grace resumes chanting the kirtan.]

amani manada, haile kirtane,
adhikara dibe tumi
tomara charane, niskapate ami,
kandiya lutiba bhumi

‘When I become free from the desire for honour and learn to give honour to others, you will give me the right to chant Your kirtan. Rolling on the ground, I will earnestly cry at Your holy feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When will I get the right to chant kirtan? When I become free from any desire for respect, and when I learn to give honour to others: ‘When I become lowly myself and when I can respect others, then, O Vaishnav Thakur! you will give me the right to chant the glories and the Holy Name of Lord Krishna. Then I will earnestly and eternally serve your holy feet.’

Jaya Vaisnava Thakur
Jaya Vaisnava Thakur
Vaisnava Thakur
Jaya Vaisnava Thakur

Doyal Vaisnava Thakur
Doyal Vaisnava Thakur
Vaisnava Thakur
Doyal Vaisnava Thakur

(3/6) Greatest Wealth, Ornament and Aspiration

Let us sing one more kirtan in glorification of Vaishnavs.

thakura vaisnava pada, avanira susampada,
suna bhai hana eka mane
asraya laiya bhaje, tare krsna nahi tyaje,
ara saba mare akarane [1]

‘Brother, listen one-pointedly about the holy feet of Vaishnav Thakur, the greatest wealth there can ever be on earth. Krishna never leaves those who have taken shelter in His devotees and worship them; everyone else simply dies in vain.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

It says here ‘taking shelter and worshipping’ – it means that it is necessary to take shelter at the holy lotus feet of a guru. If you address your letter to the Lord, you will not get any reply, but if you send your letter to your guru (who is the dearmost of the Lord – Srimati Radharani), then you will get a reply. First, you must become a servant of Vaishnavs (vaishnav das), then you can become a servant of your guru (guru-das), and then only can you become a servant of Krishna (Krishna-das). I have told you today about the qualities of Vaishnavs. The meaning here is that if you do not become a surrendered soul – if you do not take shelter at the holy lotus feet of a guru – you live your life in vain.

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 so by pious souls, but who is also no doubt the Lord’s dear associate.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

The guru is the Lord Himself, the Supreme Lord Himself! Krishna told Uddhav Maharaj, ‘Uddhav! Know that the acharya is non-different from Myself. The acharya is My personal manifestation.’ Krishna said this Himself. Just as Nityananda Prabhu is a non-different form of Gaura, and Balaram is a non-different form of Krishna, so is gurudev also non-different from the Lord. The body of the Lord is one, but He manifests Himself in two forms for His pastimes. For example, Krishna and Balaram (Baladev or Balabhadra – They are one and the same – you can also call Him Haladhar, the carrier of the plough). You can remember also how Nityananda Prabhu broke Mahaprabhu’s danda. Why did He break it? Because He thought, ‘This danda is I Myself – why must My Lord carry Me?’ (All paraphernalia of the Lord is manifestation of Nityananda Prabhu, or Baladev.)

So, it is said here that you must take shelter and offer worship Vaishnavs. Who is the giver of shelter? Nityananda Prabhu. Nityananda Prabhu, or gurudev, is ashraya-vigraha (worshippable embodiment of shelter), and the Lord is visaya-vigraha (worshippable embodiment of the object of worship).

vaisnava charana-jala, prema-bhakti dite bala,
ara kena nahe balavanta
vaisnava charana-renu, mastake bhusana binu,
ara nahi bhusanera anta [2]

‘The water that washes the holy lotus feet of Vaishnavs can grant transcendental love; nobody else possesses such power. If your head is not decorated with the dust from the holy lotus feet of Vaishnavs, there is no value in any other ornaments.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

I have remembered something I heard from Gurudev. You can often see sadhus who wear turbans. It says here that no ornament can decorate your head except if you decorate it with the dust from the holy lotus feet of Vaishnavs. You think that you will wear a turban and look beautiful, but if you can just put the dust from the holy feet of Vaishnavs on your head, you do not need any other ornaments. Gurudev said this. You can see in many Gaudiya temples that sadhus wear turbans, the same as Rama Krishna Paramahamsa or Swami Vivekananda. Some think that if they wear a turban, they become a sadhu. Some also walk around showing off their danda. But if you hit them, they start swearing – they will not say ‘Hare Krishna’ then. That is why, ‘If your head is not decorated with the dust from the holy lotus feet of Vaishnavs, there is no value in any other ornaments.’

Gurudev said that somebody can be chanting Hare Krishna so much all the time, but if you hit them in the stomach, they will cry, ‘Oh ma! Pa!’ They will not chant ‘Hare Krishna’ anymore. When you always chant ‘Hare Krishna’, then only ‘Hare Krishna’ will come out of your mouth, and if that is not happening, then you are only chanting nama-aparadha.

vaisnava charana-renu, mastake bhusana binu,
ara nahi bhusanera anta

‘If your head is not decorated with the dust from the holy lotus feet of Vaishnavs, there is no value in any other ornaments.’

tirtha-jala pavitra gune, likhiyachhe purane,
se saba bhaktira pravanchana

‘The purifying qualities of the water from holy places is mentioned in Puranas, but all this is just a way of cheating yourself out of devotion.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Many people go to holy places and like to bring water from the Ganges or the Yamuna. For example, when they go to Ekachakra, they bring water from the Yamuna that flows there. What does Srila Narottam Das Thakur say here? He is a very great Vaishnav and a very educated person. In those days (five hundred years ago), his education equalled to a B.A. degree. He says, ‘The purifying qualities of the water from holy places is mentioned in Puranas, but all this is just a way of cheating yourself out of devotion.’ No devotion can come through that – you will only drink some water. You can bring that water, you can take it, but no devotion will come from that. So many people go to holy places, but do they all worship the Lord and practise Krishna consciousness? So many people go here and there in buses, but does at least one of them become a devotee? It does not happen. Not even 1% of such tourists become devotees. A thousand people will go to Vrindavan, but not even one of them will practise Krishna consciousness after that. So, this is all nothing but cheating yourself out of devotion.

vaisnavera padodaka, sama nahe ei saba,
yate haya vanchhita purana [3]

‘All this can never compare to the water that has washed the holy feet of Vaishnavs that fulfils all wishes.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

These days everyone thinks that they are Vaishnavs and stretch out their legs to let others wash them. But Mahaprabhu prohibited this! There was only one person whom He allowed to touch His feet. Do you remember his name? It was Kalidas. He had become such a great Vaishnav that he deserved this right. What does ‘right’, or ‘qualification’, mean? He had no wealth, no money, no house, no car, nothing – his only qualification was his humility. He was so humble that when Vaishnavs took prasadam, he did not sit with them. He was invited to take prasadam, but he did not sit with everyone, thinking, ‘I have no right to sit with them. They are big Vaishnavs, and I am so lowly – I have not even become their servant! How can I sit next to them?’ But when all the Vaishnavs threw away their plates in some place, Kalidas would go to that place and lick their discarded plates! He took everyone’s remnants. This is what is called prasad-seva (service to remnants, honouring remnants).

One time, Kalidas went to the house of Jhadu Thakur and gave him a mango, saying, ‘Please take this mango. Use it for the service of the Lord and give me your prasad.’ Jhadu Thakur replied, ‘No, no, you are a respectable Vaishnav. How can I do that? I eat all sorts of things, I do not live a proper life. Keep the mango here, I will have it offered and take prasad.’ Then, first Jhadu Thakur took that mango, then Jhadu Thakur’s wife sucked the stone, and when she finally threw the stone away, Kalidas picked it up and sucked it. Do you understand what kind of Vaishnav he was?

vaisnava sangete mana, anandita anuksana,

sada haya krsna para-sanga

dina narottama kande, hiya dhairya nahi bandhe,

mora dasa kena haila bhanga [4]

‘In the association of Vaishnavs, my heart rejoices and I feel the association of Lord Krishna Himself. Poor Narottam is crying, his heart can no long endure it. Why has my situation (my life) become broken?’

Doyal Vaisnava Thakur
Doyal Vaisnava Thakur
Vaisnava Thakur
Doyal Vaisnava Thakur

Doyal Vaisnava Thakur
Doyal Vaisnava Thakur
Vaisnava Thakur
Doyal Vaisnava Thakur

I am not telling all these things to you only. I am telling it all to myself also. I myself have not been able to become such a Vaishnav. So, I am saying all this to purify myself. I have many faults – I do not have any good qualities, I am only full of faults – but if I keep telling and telling all this to myself, if I keep chanting these kirtans and talk about all this, then humility will come to me too, then I will also be able to become like this one day:

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

I always think about this. That is why I am chanting kirtans for my own benefit and purification. I am not telling all these things for you – I am chanting these kirtans for my own purification.

(4/6) Remembering Nityananda Prabhu’s Glory (1)

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Nitai-pada-kamala’ and resumes the class.]

As you know, soon, on 25 February, is the appearance day of our Nityananda Prabhu. Nityananda Prabhu’s glory is such that if you get His mercy, the result is inconceivable. Mahaprabhu Himself sang Nityananda Prabhu’s glory.

Nityananda Prabhu mostly stayed at the house of Srivas Pandit after He came to Nabadwip. Srivas Pandit’s wife, Malini Devi, was maybe seventy years old at that time, but Nityananda Prabhu called her Mother, and when He called her Mother, milk would flow from her breasts! He drank her milk. How great His glory is! Milk would flow from a seventy-year-old lady’s breast!

One day, Malini Devi was washing the Deities’ dishes. Suddenly, a crow came and took the puja glass. Malini began to cry. Nityananda Prabhu came and asked her what had happened, and she explained, ‘A crow has taken a glass. If Your Father [Srivas Pandit] comes and gets to know about it, he will scold me.’ Nityananda Prabhu said, ‘Mother, do not worry! I will see to it.’ Then, He cried out to the crow, ‘Hey crow! My Mother is crying, give the glass back!’ The crow came back and returned the glass. The crow obeyed Nityananda Prabhu.

The lotus feet of Nitai are cooling like ten million moons – not just one moon, but ten million moons. Just as the sun gives light, the moon also gives light, but when the sun gives light, it is warm, and when the moon gives light, it is cold. So, Nitai’s lotus feet are as cooling as ten million moons. It is said in the scriptures about Nityananda Prabhu:

uttama, adhama, kichhu na kare vichara
ye age padaye, tare karaye nistara

‘Nityananda Prabhu does not judge who is good and who is bad: He saves anyone who falls before Him.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.208)

Nityananda Prabhu does not judge whether somebody is high or low – He rescues whoever falls at His feet. Such is His glory!

One time, Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu came to Kalna to visit Gauri Das Pandit. When They finished taking prasad, Mahaprabhu said, ‘Gauri Das, We are taking your leave now.’

‘Prabhu’, replied Gauri Das Pandit, ‘You have come by Your own wish, but You can leave only by my wish. You have never come to my house before, so I will never let You go now.’

‘Oh? But We have to go preaching, We have to go house to house! How can We preach if We only sit at your house?’

‘I do not know these things, I do not understand these things. I will not let You go!’

Nityananda Prabhu and Mahaprabhu sat on the veranda and started thinking what to do. Suddenly, Mahaprabhu thought of a very clever idea. He called out to Gauri Das Pandit, ‘Gauri Das! Come here! Will you let Us go?’

‘No way, I will not let You go!’

‘All right, then, look back, inside the room’, Mahaprabhu said.

Gauri Das Pandit looked behind and saw Gaura Nitai Deities in the room! They were just like Gaura and Nitai who were sitting at the veranda!

Mahaprabhu asked Gauri Das Pandit, ‘So, whom will you keep? Will you keep Us or Those in the room?’

Gauri Das Pandit kept the Deities, and Nitai and Gauranga could leave his house.

(5/6) Remembering Nityananda Prabhu’s Glory (2)

Another time, when Mahaprabhu again came to Gauri Das Pandit’s house with Nityananda Prabhu, He said to Gauri Das Pandit:

‘We keep coming to your house, We inconvenience you. Listen, I have one whimsical request to you…’

‘What whimsical request?’ asked Gauri Das Pandit.

‘Well, Nitai goes to eat at random houses, there is nobody to cook for Him. It is a problem for Him. Can you arrange for somebody to cook for Him?’

‘How will I do that?’

‘Well, you could help. You have a brother, Surya Das, and he has two daughters… Give one daughter for Nitai.’

‘They are not my daughters, I must ask my brother.’

When Gauri Das Pandit asked his brother, Surya Das replied, ‘What? He is a sadhu – He goes to eat at this house, that house. He does not have rice or even an oven! He will not even be able to feed the girl…’ (Nityananda Prabhu’s wealth is actually immense – His family owned thousands and thousands of acres of land.) So, both brothers became upset because Gaura and Nitai had come to their house, but they could not satisfy Their request.

When Gaura and Nitai were at Gauri Das Pandit’s house, Jahnava’s and Nitai’s suddenly eyes met! Jahnava is Nityananda Prabhu’s sakti, she is not a common wife like those that men have in this world. Moreover, in olden days, when an unmarried girl saw a boy, she would feel very shy. So, when their eyes met, Jahnava felt very shy – she ran to the forest and fainted there! Foam started coming from her mouth. Gaura and Nitai understood everything, but nobody else could. They started looking for the girl, ‘Where has she gone?’ Eventually, they found her lying in the forest, unconscious, with foam coming out of her mouth. They carried her home. Thinking she had been bitten by a snake, they sent for a healer. When people saw her dead-like state, they started talking among each other, ‘See? Mahaprabhu wanted to give this girl to Nitai, but they did not give her, that must be why it has happened.’ Gauri Das went to look for Nitai and Gaura. He looked everywhere and finally found Them sitting under a tamarind tree (that tree is still there today). He ran to Them, panting. Nitai and Gaura asked him,

‘What has happened, Prabhu?’

‘My brother’s elder daughter has passed away. She has been bitten by a snake. Please come with me!’

‘What will We go there for? We are not doctors… Send for a healer, what will We do there?’

‘No, no, come, please come with me!’

Gauri Das Pandit forcefully took Nitai and Gaura home and then said to Nitai, ‘Here, please accept this girl.’

‘What will I do with a dead girl?!’ replied Nityananda Prabhu, surprised. ‘She cannot serve Deities, she cannot cook or wash the dishes for Deities, what will I do with her?!’

Still, Gauri Das Pandit insisted, ‘No, no, You must accept her!’

‘Well, you have to arrange for the dowry then.’

‘Dowry? I am a poor brahman, where will I get dowry? I have no money, no property, what dowry can I give You?’

‘No, no. You do not need to give money. Give the younger daughter as the dowry!’

Gauri Das Pandit was in trouble. He thought, ‘If I say no again, what if the second girl dies too?’ So, having no choice, he said, ‘All right, take both girls.’

Then, Nityananda Prabhu put His hand on Jahnava, the dead girl, and she slowly opened her eyes. She sat up, and then Vasudha, her younger sister, came, and both of them put a garland on Nityananda Prabhu’s neck. After that, the three of them left and came to Birbhum, Sri Ekachakra Dham. In her later life, Jahnava left everything and went to Vrindavan. You may have seen her samadhi there, at Radha Kunda.

(6/6) The Highest of the Highest

One day, Mahaprabhu told Srivas Pandit, ‘Srivas! Whom have you given place in your house? He does not have anything, do you even know who He is? Why have you taken Him in? You have your wife and other family members at home – there are many young girls in your family, and you have taken Him in?…’

‘Prabhu, You are joking, are You not?’ replied Srivas Pandit. ‘You must be playing with me. You know how much I love Nityananda, so You are testing me now!’

Even Mahaprabhu Himself said:

madira yavani yadi nityananda dhare
tathapi brahmara vandya kahila tomare

‘Even if Nityananda Prabhu comes drunk with a Muslim lady by His side, He is always worshippable for Lord Brahma.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.6.123)

Such is Nityananda Prabhu’s glory! Nityananda Prabhu goes to this house, that house, He eats at different places, sometimes wears earrings, sometimes wears bangles, sometimes wears orange clothes, sometimes white clothes, sometimes yellow clothes, sometimes blue clothes. He walks everywhere like a madman. He is avadhut. Who can recognise who He is? But Mahaprabhu said, ‘Even if He comes drunk with a Muslim girl by His side, even Brahma will offer his obeisance to Him.’

Anyhow, much has been said today. We shall sing one–two kirtans more. [His Divine Grace is about to start ‘Yadi Gaura na haite.’]

Why did Vasu Ghosh write this kirtan? Why are Srimati Radharani’s glories not mentioned anywhere in Srimad Bhagavatam? Bhagavatam is a very big book dedicated to bhakti-yoga; it was composed by Vyasadev, but Her Name is not mentioned in it…

Actually, Vyasadev did not originally write any book – Srimad Bhagavatam is the instruction that came from the lotus mouth of sixteen-year-old Sukadev Goswami. Sukadev Goswami stayed in his mother’s womb for twelve years, and after that he roamed around for four years. At some point before that, Vyasadev came to Badarikashram to meet with his guru, Narad Goswami. We sing in the guru-parampara kirtan also:

krsna haite chatur-mukha, hana krsna-sevonmukha,
brahma haite naradera mati
narada haite vyasa, madhva kahe vyasa-dasa,
purnaprajna padmanabha gati

‘Through Krishna, Brahma became devoted to Krishna’s service. Brahma inspired Narad. Narad inspired Vyasadev. Madhvacharya is a servant of Vyasa. Thus, the line continued through Purnaprajna (Madhvacharya) and Padmanabha.’

(Sri Guru-Parampara kirtan)

Vyasadev came to Narad Goswami and said, ‘Gurudev, I do not feel peaceful inside. I have made so many scriptures – Agni Purana, Garuda Purana, Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Mahabharata and many other books. I have written so many things, but I do not feel content…’

‘How will you feel happy?’ Narad replied. ‘You cook five dishes – dal, vegetables, labra, chutney, sweet rice, but when you distribute these dishes, you mix everything together and distribute them like that. Can anyone get the taste? You have written Gita, but you have mixed karma-yoga, jnana-yoga, sankya-yoga and lastly you gave bhakti-yoga. It will not do. Create such a scripture where there will be only bhakti-yoga.’

At first, Vyasadev was puzzled, ‘How will I do it?…’ but then he remembered about his son Sukadev Goswami, who was in his mother’s womb at that time. He came to his wife and spoke to the child(!). Just think about it! Nobody believes these things, but these are scriptures’ words, you must believe it. When your mother tells you, ‘This is your father’, she knows who the father is, and you do not challenge what your mother says – you do not go to make a DNA test to check if what she is saying is true or not. Your mother says, ‘This is your father’, and you simply believe it. In the same way, it is necessary to believe what scriptures say:

‘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)

So, Vyasadev told his child, ‘Sukadev, come out! Come out!’

‘No, I will not come out of my mother’s womb!’ Sukadev answered.

‘Why not?’

‘Because the illusory environment is there. If I come out, Maya will catch me.’

Then, many great sages, Parasara Muni and others (you have heard about the meeting of 60,000 sages in Naimisaranya, after which Bhagavatam was recorded), spoke to Vyasadev. Parasara Muni, who was Vyasadev’s father and the ultimate judge of all scriptures, said, ‘Vyasadev, you have power, so you can stop illusion for five minutes to let this boy come out.’

Vyasadev asked Sukadev, ‘Will you come out in those five minutes if I halt Maya?’

‘Yes,’ Sukadev replied, ‘five minutes will be enough for me.’

Then Vyasadev stopped the activity of Maya (illusion) for five minutes, and Sukadev came out of his mother’s womb. As soon as he came out, he dashed into the forest! When our children are born, can they run? I thought to myself how it could be possible that Sukadev ran right after he had appeared, but then I remembered calves – when a cow gives birth to a calf, the calf starts running within two hours. So, given Vyasadev is a great sage, why cannot his son run after birth?

Sukadev at once ran to the forest, and Vyasadev ran after him, calling out, ‘Listen! Listen! Wait!’ Sukadev did not notice anything – he had no sense of his father, relatives or anyone else. As if blind, he could see only the Lord! He did not see any buildings, objects or anybody around him. In this way, he ran to the Himalayas. On the way, some girls were bathing naked (it is cold in the mountains, so it is hard to dry clothes) in the river, and when they saw Vyasadev passing by, they quickly covered themselves with some clothes, but when they saw Sukadev, they did not even reach for their clothes because they knew Sukadev did not even see anyone.

In the meantime, Pariksit Maharaj received a curse from a brahman, according to which he was to die from a snake bite within seven days. Pariksit Maharaj called sages and acharyas from every sampradaya, and they started giving their advice to him. Pariksit Maharaj listened to their advice but did not feel satisfied. In the end, Sukadev, a sixteen-year-old boy, came to that assembly. Seeing him, all the rishis told Pariksit Maharaj, ‘We will follow whatever Sukadev says.’ When Sukadev came, he did not offer his obeisance to anyone, he did not even see anyone. He simply came in front of Pariksit Maharaj, and Maharaj gave him a place to sit on. Sukadev sat and said to him, ‘What is your question? What do you want to know?’

‘How can I get real benefit?’ Pariksit Maharaj enquired.

‘Yes, there can be only one question and only one answer.’

Sukadev began explaining the answer, and he spent seven days speaking Bhagavatam. Suta Goswami heard it at that assembly. He had a special gift – once he heard something, he could remember everything. So, when he later repeated Bhagavatam at the assembly of 60,000 sages in Naimisaranya, what he said was recorded as Bhagavatam. This is how Bhagavatam was first written (recorded).

This Srimad Bhagavatam contains the pure line of devotion (bhakti), but Sukadev never mentioned the name of Srimati Radharani in it. Why? Because it is a very high topic. He told about Prahlad Maharaj’s devotion, but he did not speak about Radharani’s devotion. He knew, ‘It has to be kept secret.’ Therefore, Her devotion is not openly revealed in the scriptures. Her devotion, as well as the devotion of Vraja gopis, is so high!

matala hari-jana kirtana-range
pujala raga-patha gaurava-bhange

‘We will worship the path of raga-marga (spontaneous loving service) from afar and live in adherence to the Vedic rules and regulations.’

(Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

Raga-patha (the path of spontaneous love and devotion) must be kept in one’s heart. What is the highest meditation? The meditation on the dust from the holy lotus feet of Sri Sri Radha Krishna. This must be always kept as the object of your meditation, but you must not speak about it. Do not speak about such things. That is why Sukadev Goswami spoke about Prahlad Maharaj’s devotion but did not utter anything about the devotion of Srimati Radharani. He kept it secret as the highest of the highest topics. But in our country, people always keep Radha Krishna’s Deities. They should be scared to do this – do they have the right, the qualification to do this? It is necessary to have qualification for such service. You cannot serve if you do not have the right for the service.

Vallabha Acharya served Bala Gopal, and when he came to Mahaprabhu, he was proud that he had been serving Bala Gopal. He tried to teach Mahaprabhu, but Mahaprabhu said, ‘My guru considered Me a fool, so he forbade Me to read Bhagavatam!’

‘kiba mantra dila, gosani, kiba tara bala
japite japite mantra karila pagala’

‘My lord, what kind of mantra have you given Me? What kind of power does it possess? Chanting this maha-mantra has driven Me mad!’

(Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.7.81)

This was the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.

harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam
kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha

‘Chanting the Holy Name, chanting the Holy Name, chanting the Holy Name – there is no other way, no other way, no other way.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.7.76)

‘My guru has given Me this mantra, and as I chanted and chanted it, I became crazy!’

You must chant this Harinama maha-mantra! Do you understand?

I will chant now one kirtan in glorification of Mahaprabhu and then finish. [His Divine Grace glances at the time.] The time has passed just by chanting kirtans, and we have not even finished yet.

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Emana durmati samsara bhitare’, ‘Jaya Radha Madhava’ and the Hare Krishna maha-mantra before concluding the noon programme.]

On 25 February we will have a festival of Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance. Please come to Ekachakra Dham. Come on 23–24 February. The festival will be in Ekachakra Dham, Birbhum. You are all invited. Also, everyone must try to come for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. We have many rooms now, so it is not necessary to stay outside, there are extra rooms for everyone. This year, Nabadwip Dham parikrama will be five days because we will go to Rudradwip. We did not go there before – we would offer our obeisances from the outskirts and come back; that is why I have given one more day to be able to go there. I am giving you all invitation cards, please distribute them to everyone. Come to Ekachakra Dham also, the festival is in ten–eleven days, and we have rooms for everyone, there is no problem with accommodation. So, please prepare yourself and come for the parikramas. I am inviting everyone, please tell everyone. The dates are written in the calendars also. It is a little hard to travel on ekadasi, but you can start out in the morning and come and take noon prasad at the temple. The festival adhivas is on dvadasi.

Please take care of yourself.

I see that everyone is all right – nobody is wearing masks. Corona has fled in fear! By the wish of Mahaprabhu, all corona flees away. Do not worry about all this. Those who practise Krishna consciousness do not fear death. One day, death must come. Once born, everyone has to die – everyone has to leave their body. But for as long as we are alive, we must practise Krishna consciousness. We are given this time to practise Krishna consciousness. That is why is said:

hare krsna nama japa abhirama
ye kai dina dehe achhe ta prana

‘Incessantly chant Hare Krishna for as long as you have life in this body.’

You must chant the Holy Name. Keep good association and practise listening (sravan) and chanting (kirtan).

hare krsna nama japa abhirama
ye kai dina dehe achhe ta prana

‘Incessantly chant Hare Krishna for as long as you have life in this body.’

jive daya name ruchi vaisnava seva
iha bahi sanatana nahi ara dharma

‘Be merciful to the souls, chant the Holy Name happily and serve Vaishnavs. Sanatan, except for this, there is no other religion.’

* * *

￼Line Line14 February 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sevak Bhavan, Kolkata

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/6) Holy Vasanta Panchami Day

Hari bol. Dandavat.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda Sundar jiu ki jay
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the sannyasi-vrinda ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Dandavat. I am offering my humble obeisance to all the devotees: please accept my humble obeisance. I have come again in front of you after one week. I have returned from preaching today – the last preaching programme was today at noon, and I came back to Dum Dum Park at 4–4:30 p.m. On Tuesday, I am going for preaching again. I have some more preaching programmes scheduled before Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s festival. I have quite a busy schedule now. 25 February is Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance day, the inauguration anniversary of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math Temple in Ekachakra and also the holy appearance day of Sri Sri Guru Gaura Nityananda Prabhu. I must attend so many preaching programmes before that. Also, the day after tomorrow [16 February] is the appearance day of Sriman Mahaprabhu’s sakti Srimati Vishnupriya Devi, Sri Pundarik Vidyanidhi, Sri Raghunath Das Goswami, Sri Raghunandan Thakur as well as Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur’s disappearance day.

Sri Pundarik Vidyanidhi Prabhu was King Vrisabhanu, the father of Srimati Radharani, in Dvapar-yuga. So, he is the incarnation of King Vrisabhanu. Sri Pundarik Vidyanidhi Prabhu was a great Vaishnav. His appearance place is in Bangladesh, in a town called Chattogram. Some of our devotees also joined Krishna consciousness from Chattogram, and ISKCON made there a small preaching centre, a temple. When Sri Gadadhar Pandit Goswami wanted to take initiation, he approached Mahaprabhu for initiation, but Mahaprabhu told him, ‘Your guru is coming soon, you must wait for him.’ When Sri Gadadhar Pandit first met Sri Pundarik Vidyanidhi Prabhu, he did not really like him because externally Sri Pundarik Vidyanidhi Prabhu looked very much like a materialist, a gross householder. (That is why it is repeatedly said that you cannot recognise a Vaishnav by his clothes.) Sri Gadadhar Pandit saw Sri Pundarik Vidyanidhi Prabhu was always chewing pan supari (betelnut), which made his mouth red, and wore a babu dress (like that of a zamindar, or a materialist). But later, Sri Gadadhar Pandit understood that he had misjudged Sri Pundarik Vidyanidhi Prabhu and took initiation from him. Sri Gadadhar Pandit is an incarnation of Srimati Radharani, and this Sri Gadadhar Pandit took initiation from Sri Pundarik Vidyanidhi Prabhu, an incarnation of Srimati Radharani’s father, King Vrisabhanu. Sri Pundarik Vidyanidhi Prabhu is a great Vaishnav – he may look like a materialist, but he is a great Vaishnav.

It will also be the appearance day of Sri Vishnupriya Devi. Sri Vishnupriya Devi is the daughter of Sri Sanatan Misra. When Laksmi Priya Devi (Sriman Mahaprabhu’s sakti, or first wife) left, Sri Sachi Mata and Sri Jagannath Misra wanted Nimai to marry again, and they wanted Him to marry Sri Vishnupriya Devi. Actually, Sri Vishnupriya Devi had always been worshipping Mahaprabhu since her early childhood (from her father’s home). She would regularly come to the Ganges to bath, and she saw Mahaprabhu there (Mahaprabhu used to come to the Ganges to bath, too). At that time, she was a very young girl. When Mahaprabhu later took sannyas, she was only thirteen years old, a very young girl.

Srila Lochan Das Thakur wrote something about Sri Vishnupriya Devi’s lamentation in his book Sri Chaitanya-mangal. I recently read something to you from this book on the appearance day of Srila Lochan Das Thakur. In particular, he described the conversation that happened between Mahaprabhu and Sri Vishnupriya Devi before Mahaprabhu left to take sannyas. Sri Vishnupriya Devi cried bitterly when she heard about Mahaprabhu’s intention. Mahaprabhu explained everything to her; He told her what for He was going to take sannyas, and He said, ‘I will never leave you. You are always with Me. Take care of your bhajan, your sadhan, your practising life. And you must think that I am always with you.’ He gave her some nourishment in this way, but He did not tell her what day He was going to leave.

The night when He was going to leave, Mahaprabhu called Maya Devi (Kalanidra), and Maya Devi plunged Sri Vishnupriya Devi into a deep slumber so that she could not wake up and prevent Him from leaving. When leaving, Mahaprabhu left His ankle bells by the side of the bed, and when Sri Vishnupriya Devi finally woke up, it was very dark in the room – finding herself was alone in bed, she was surprised and became immediately anxious; when she put her leg on the floor, it touched Mahaprabhu’s ankle bells, and she understood that Mahaprabhu had left. Picking up these ankle bells, she began to cry so much… Srila Lochan Das described this in Sri Chaitanya-mangal.

Sri Vishnupriya Devi made too much sacrifice. Srila Gurudev said once on this day that if Sri Vishnupriya Devi had not made this sacrifice (if she had not allowed Mahaprabhu to take sannyas), then how would we have got Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu? How would we have seen Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s achar-dharma, prachar-dharma (the example of His practice and preaching)? Having taken sannyas, Mahaprabhu went to Puri, and there He spoke about the sadhyan-sadhan tattva with Srila Sanatan Goswami and Srila Rupa Goswami, He spoke about the prayojana-tattva with Raya Ramananda. The conversation that took place between Mahaprabhu and Raya Ramananda is very important for our line.

So, Sri Vishnupriya Devi made a huge sacrifice in her life. When we go for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama and come to Koladwip, we visit Sri Vishnupriya Devi’s sevita vigraha of Mahaprabhu. Everybody calls this place ‘Mahaprabhu’s house’ (Maharabhur bari), but it is actually Srila Sanatan Misra’s house. When Sri Vishnupriya Devi was getting Mahaprabhu’s Deity made, she would go to the murti-valla (deity-maker) every day to see how the Deity was turning out. Then, she installed the Deity and would every day make an offering. She would chant the Holy Name and keep a grain of rice aside – in this way, chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra and counting rice grains, she would gather all the rice she had got in this way during the day, cook it and offer it to the Deity with some salt. She did not use so many spices, chilli, masala, etc. She showed very much sacrifice and austerity in her life. This is how she continued her life…

Actually, nobody has been able to trace when Sri Vishnupriya Devi left this world. Nobody knows it – we have not heard it mentioned anywhere in the scriptures. We only know when the appearance (avirbhav) of Sri Vishnupriya Devi is…

So, it is a very good day coming the day after tomorrow.

(2/6) Extraordinary Qualities of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami

Materialistic people, especially here in Bengal, do Saraswati Puja on this day – those who want to capture knowledge and education, worship Saraswati Devi, the education, or knowledge, minister. All Bengal is worshipping that day, but all devotees are worshipping this day as Vasanta Panchami and the appearance day of Srimati Vishnupriya Devi. This day is also the appearance day of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, a very great Vaishnav.

jaya rupa sanatana bhatta raghunatha
sri-jiva gopala-bhatta dasa raghunatha

‘All glory to Sri Rupa, Sanatan, Raghunath Bhatta, Sri Jiva, Gopal Bhatta and Raghunath Das!’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

You all know the history of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami’s life. He left everything like stool and urine. People always pass urine, pass stool, and Srila Raghunath Das Goswami left everything – all his property, all his name, fame, everything he had.

Srila Raghunath Das Goswami was born in Adisaptagram, a place in the Hooghly district (it is not very far from our temple in Tarakeshwar), and He met Mahaprabhu for the first time in Srila Advaita Prabhu’s house when he was just five years old – at that time, Mahaprabhu had just taken sannyas and came to Srila Advaita Prabhu’s house in Shantipur. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami is a very extraordinary personality. He was extremely humble, tolerant and always gave honour to others. He had all these qualities.

Actually, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami tried and tried so many times to come to Mahaprabhu, but Maya Devi always gave some trouble to him. Finally, he got the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, and after that he was able to come to Mahaprabhu – Mahaprabhu accepted him and made him a servitor of Srila Svarup Damodar Prabhu. He gave him this service, saying, ‘Stay and serve Svarup Damodar.’ So, when Srila Raghunath Das Goswami stayed in Puri, he served Srila Svarupa Damodar Prabhu, and everybody called him ‘Svarup’s Raghu’ – he became famous throughout Puri as Svarup’s Raghu.

When Srila Raghunath Das Goswami stayed in Puri, he always paid obeisances to all Vaishnavs – he could see the same Vaishnav ten times during one day, and each time he saw him he would pay him obeisance. Such was his quality.

At first, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami’s father sent him some money, and Srila Raghunath Das Goswami used that money to make vaishnav-seva. But after some time he understood that Mahaprabhu did not like it because he was taking a materialist’s money and used it to make vaishnav-seva, as a result of which some ego (abhiman, ahankar) could come to him, ‘Oh, I am spending my father’s money! I am doing vaishnav-seva!’ So, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami rejected his father’s money and started begging instead. At first, he would stand in front of Jagannath temple and beg for alms, but then he thought, ‘Simha-dvare bhiksa-vrtti – vesyara achara (Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.284) I need some food for my stomach, and I am standing here like a prostitute! It is not good!’ So, he started going to the place where food was sometimes distributed to beggars.

When Srila Raghunath Das Goswami left for Puri, he walked for twelve days, and I sometimes think how much austerity he got at that time. We walked recently for four days, visiting 120–130 houses every day, and we sometimes felt tired, our legs sometimes swelled, but I was thinking that we were walking wearing shoes, and Srila Raghunath Das Goswami went to Puri barefoot, without any shoes. Not only that, as he walked for twelve days, he took rice only three times during that time. We walked for four days and took prasadam three times a day but still felt very tired. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami walked continuously for twelve days – he only stopped during the night and slept somewhere outside or maybe in somebody’s cowshed; he took rice only three times during those twelve days. Such was his quality. He had an extremely strong attraction to Mahaprabhu – he had the highest, the strongest desire to come to Mahaprabhu, and when he got the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, he immediately went to Mahaprabhu. His desire to get service was extremely strong.

Mahaprabhu taught Srila Raghunath Das Goswami some things, and everybody must learn from those instructions.

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

Do not wear fancy clothes, do not eat fancy food. Do not gossip. This is what Mahaprabhu taught Srila Raghunath Das Goswami.

sthira hana ghare yao, na hao batula

krame krame paya loka bhava-sindhu-kula

‘Go back to your home, do not become crazy. It takes time: one reaches the shore of material existence gradually.’

markata-vairagya na kara loka dekhana
yatha-yogya visaya bhunja’ anasakta hana

‘Do not show your false renunciation to impress people. Use whatever material things you require, but without attachment.’

antare nistha kara, bahye loka-vyavahara

achirat krsna tomaya karibe uddhara

‘Be fixed internally and behave like everyone else externally. Krishna will rescue you soon.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.16.237–239)

‘Go back to your home, do not become crazy. It is not necessary to show false renunciation.’ Mahaprabhu gave him very good instructions. He also said that we must give respect to whatever is necessary for service: yatha-yogya visaya bhunja’ anasakta hana.

We sometimes need certain things – for example, we use a car for preaching, but somebody can say, ‘Oh, this is too much!’ Some foolish or jealous Indian people like to say, ‘Oh, Mahaprabhu walked door to door, Nityananda Prabhu also went door to door on foot, but in this Age of Kali sadhus are so degraded that they use cars and aeroplanes!’ Such people are very foolish – they do not know that everything is meant for the service of the Lord. Everything must be used for service. It is necessary to understand this.

Everybody must think about Srila Raghunath Das Goswami’s lifestyle and about how much austerity he faced. You must also remember Srila Sanatan Goswami’s character. Srila Sanatan Goswami Prabhu refused from taking new clothes – Sri Chandrasekhara Acharya wanted to give him some new clothes, but he refused; instead, he said, ‘If you can, give me some old cloth of Mahaprabhu.’ Sri Chandrasekhara Acharya gave him an old cloth of Mahaprabhu, and Srila Sanatan Goswami tore it into two parts – he would wear one and use the other one as a chadar. Such was his lifestyle.

So, I was thinking: when I am walking, my legs swell, I feel I cannot walk, but I am wearing shoes and taking prasadam three times a day, and Srila Raghunath Das Goswami went to Puri barefoot, walking non-stop for twelve days, and he took prasadam only three times during all twelve days. This is what I wanted to say to everybody. Practise what is preached. You must understand Mahaprabhu’s teaching: not to wear fancy clothes, not to eat fancy food. But we always follow the whims of our tongues (jihva-lalasa) – how fallen we are!

(3/6) Hanker and Aspire

[Addressing a devotee] Who lives in the temple and does puja permanently? Oh, there are different pujaris on different days?… And nobody stays in the temple permanently? And when the Deities are sleeping, nobody is staying there?! It is necessary to have a security guard for the Deities. Minimum one person must always stay at the temple. Somebody needs to stay here. If the Deities are thirsty at night, if They need some water, who will give Them water? Do you understand? It is necessary to keep somebody at the temple.

I have a three-day preaching programme starting this Tuesday; after that I will come to Kolkata for one day; and the next day I will go to Ekachakra. I will go there very soon. I came from a preaching programme at 4:30 p.m. today because I have job here in Kolkata tomorrow. The potato collection is almost finished – after the Ekachakra festival, I will have to go for collection one more day, and then it will be finished. We have collected almost five hundred bags of potato so far. We went house to house every day, visiting 120–130 houses a day. These are all devotees’ houses, and they want me to come, that is why I go there. We have had to walk very much during these days, but anyhow, for the service of gurudev, it is all happiness,

tomara sevaya, duhkha haya yata,
seo ta’ parama sukha

‘Even whatever unhappiness I feel when serving You is a source of great happiness for me.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When there is no service, I feel unhappy, and when service comes, I feel happiness. I always wait for service; I always hanker and aspire for service.

…When Sriman Mahaprabhu and Srila Svarup Damodar Prabhu left, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami left Puri and wanted to commit suicide – he wanted to climb Govardhan Hill and jump from it. But Srila Sanatan Goswami and Srila Rupa Goswami protected him, they gave him some nourishment, and in the end Srila Raghunath Das Goswami said, ‘I have got far more from Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami than even from my guru (Mahaprabhu and Svarup Damodar).’ In this way, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami passed his life. At the end of his life, he always prayed,

pramada-madana-lilah kandare kandare te

rachayati nava-yunor dvandvam asminn amandam

iti kila kalanartham lagnakas tad-dvayor me

nija-nikata-nivasam dehi govardhana tvam

‘O Govardhan, the Divine Couple freely enact pastimes of mad love in your caves. Please grant me a dwelling beside you so I can see Their pastimes.’

(Srila Raghunath Das Goswami)

It is a very nice sloka about Govardhan. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami lived the last part of his life at Radha Kunda in Govardhan. Every year, when we go for Vrindavan parikrama, we always come there to pay obeisance at the samadhi-mandir and bhajan-kutir of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami…

If we try to get even a tiny drop of his mercy, that is sufficient for us. We always pray for his mercy because without the mercy of such Vaishnavs we cannot proceed in our spiritual life. We must try to get his mercy. We say these things, and it is very easy to say them, but it is very hard to actually be like that. Still, we say it for our own purification. I am not saying all this to you only – I am saying it for myself also, for my own purification. I am not giving advice to you only – I am actually giving advice to myself. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami also got mercy from Sriman Nityananda Prabhu, whose appearance day is coming very soon.

I know that you cannot come for the Ekachakra festival this year because of the covid situation, but you must observe this day from your house. Make glorification of Nityananda Prabhu, speak about His glories, make some good prasadam for Nityananda Prabhu. Observe this day in this way, it will be good for you. You can make this festival from your house and remember this day very nicely. The festival is on 25 February, it is a Thursday, a working day, but what can you do? Make the festival in the evening or in the morning then, it will be good, but you must remember Sriman Nityananda Prabhu all day, it will be good for you. We are very fallen souls – we cannot proceed in our spiritual life without Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy. Therefore, we must remember Nityananda Prabhu properly, full day, on His appearance day.

(4/6) Keep Your Head at Vaishnavs’ Lotus Feet

Whether you are staying in a hot area or in a cold area where there is snow, it is not a problem – wherever you are, you must practise properly.

I have seen some very cold places – for example, I had some experience of a cold weather in Russia. It is a very cold place, there is five–six-feet-thick ice on the streets. And it is also an astonishing place because there are some days in a year when there is even no night – the sun sets only for fifteen minutes and then rises again; so, the day lasts twenty-three hours forty-five minutes. We have a temple in that place (Saint Petersburg). I have seen how cold it is there. But it is not a problem for spiritual life.

Anyhow, a very good day is coming this Tuesday. We must pray for the mercy of Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur, Sri Pundarik Vidyanidhi, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami. Always sing, ‘Krpa kara Vaisnava Thakura!’

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Sing this song and read its meaning in Gaudiya Gitanjali (Kirtan Guide). It is a good song.

In this way, today I have spoken a little about the glories of Vaishnav Thakur – Sri Vishnupriya Devi, Sri Pundarik Vidyanidhi, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami and Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur.

We sing Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur’s song every day,

samsara-davanala-lidha-loka
tranaya karunya-ghanaghanatvam
praptasya kalyana-gunarnavasya
vande guroh sri-charanaravindam

‘I offer my obeisance unto the lotus feet of Sri Guru, who is an ocean of good qualities and auspiciousness and who, as a thick rain cloud of mercy, brings relief to this world devoured by the forest fire of material existence.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

We always sing this Guru-vandana [offering of prayers to Sri Guru] composed by Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur. I like this song.

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 so by pious souls, but who is also no doubt the Lord’s dear associate.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

(5/6) ‘Please Forgive Me’

Actually, all Deities are non-different from each other. We give jay to many Deities – Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govindasundar, Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Madan-mohan, Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Damodar, Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Ramana-sundar, Radha Gopinath and others. There are so many Deities, but They are all non-different from each others.

One time, a devotee asked Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, ‘Whom am I to worship, Gauranga Mahaprabhu or Lord Krishna?’ And Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘Do not differentiate between Them. They are non-different from one another.’ So, do not look who worships Lord Krishna and who worships Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu. You must not create such artificial rules and division. It is not good.

We always sing this song written by Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur,

gopinath, mama nivedana suna
visayi durjana, sada kama-rata,
kichhu nahi mora guna

‘Gopinath! Please hear my prayer. I am a wicked, constantly covetous materialist. I do not have any good qualities.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is a very nice song, a prayer to Radha Gopinath. You can sing it.

gopinath, mama nivedana suna
visayi durjana, sada kama-rata,
kichhu nahi mora guna

‘Gopinath! Please hear my prayer. I am a wicked, constantly covetous materialist. I do not have any good qualities.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur sings in this way, and it is a very nice song. You can recite it regularly. The main point is that we always pray for mercy. Devotees do not ask for anything for their own interest – they always feel, ‘We are always making offences to the Deities. We do not give enough respect to the Deities!’ That is why they pray for mercy.

You must understand that Gaura Nitai in Parama Karuna (Venezuela), Nitai Gauranga here in Ekachakra, Gaura Nitai in Nrisingha Palli, Nimai Nitai in Malaysia and Nitai Gaura Deities in Singapore are not separate – They are all non-different from each other. They are the same Deities. So, for example, Parama Karuna’s Deities are non-different from the Deities in Ekachakra.

Our main prayer is, ‘I have no devotion, I do not have any qualities or qualification to serve You! I am a fallen soul, I am always torturing You so much because I cannot serve You properly, but You can digest all my torturing… I always make offences to You, but I am begging You to please forgive me my offences.’ This is all you can ask the Deities for. You can ask gurudev and the Deities only this: ‘Please forgive my offences.’

From Guidance, Volume Four:

It is necessary to be very careful and very clean on the path of worshipping Deities. This cleanliness must be in the kitchen, in the storeroom and in the temple. If everything in the service of the Lord is not clean, it will be an offence (aparadha). If the servitor’s leg accidentally touches the offering plate, it is necessary to wash the plate immediately. Somebody may think to themselves, ‘Well, what to do? It often happens when one does some service.’ This leads to offences. There should be much respect and reverence in Deity worship. Those who commit such offences lose their service.

You do not become a brahman just by hanging a brahman thread on your body. When this sense of reverence, sense of cleanliness comes, then you can understand that some brahmanic qualities have come to you. Otherwise, if you still have the qualities of a meat-eater, what will wearing a brahman thread change? You must be careful even with the items you procure for the worship.

The Lord is happy when His devotees approach His service with care. Service is rewarded with more service – when this happens, you will no longer know any leisure. When the Lord accepts somebody’s service, He gives them even more service; and when He does not accept somebody’s service (when there are offences in the service), then the service goes away from them. The result of the offences committed in the course of service (seva-aparadha) is losing one’s service. If the Lord does not accept somebody’s service, it means He does not like the person – service to the temple goes away from such people. He does not open His mouth and say anything, but He will awake such a mood in you that it will become impossible for you to stay at the temple. This is a very important point. When you are doing something that He does not want – if He does not accept your service – then material desires will come to you, your desire to enjoy material life will be growing, you will be doing fine, your name and fame will grow, wealth will grow, or such mood will come to your mind that you will not be able to serve anymore or your health will go down – you will get such a disease that it will forever remove you from your service. These things are the results of offences.

On the other hand, when the Lord accepts your service, then your material desires will be weaker and weaker. When He accepts your service, you will feel humility, detachment from the material world; you will feel you are lowly and bereft, a beggar, a renunciate; floating in divine love, tears will always fall from your eyes, your heart will be melted – you will feel enthusiasm for your service.

Those who have got some experience of the conscious (transcendental) domain can see all these things. However, if you commit offences when you do service, your heart will become hard – there will be unconsciousness, materialism within you. The Lord keeps away those whose mind, heart does not get excited, who does not become overwhelmed with enthusiasm doing their service. For example, if your foot touches some items used for the Lord’s service and you do not give it any importance (Oh, what to do?), you do not feel any fear – this is a symptom of callousness, hardness. When your heart becomes very hard, you will not be afraid of your gurudev or the Lord. If you become daring, you are standing on the path leading to death; even if you are born in a family of brahmans, you will become an atheist (hard-hearted). Those who have no humility, fear and sense of reverence have no right to worship Deities.

The Lord is antaryami: He is all-knowing, He is the Supersoul. He can understand everything, He can see everything – you cannot cheat Him. Those who have the eyes can see it when Sri Gaurasundar indicates something to them secretly. If He accepts your service, you will be getting more service – after one service another service will come. He will keep you submerged forever through such service, He will keep you by His side – He will hijack you.

(6/6) Renounce Pride, Not Practice

Question: When people read too many books, too many scriptures, they may become a little proud of all that knowledge. It makes me a little scared. Why then should we read books?

It happens, but it did not happen to Gurudev, neither did it happen in the case of Srila Sridhar Maharaj. You can see their examples. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Jiva Goswami and so many others did not go crazy. Why are you scared of that? We must not be proud. That is why Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur says that we must not go to read so many books, so many scriptures – it can sometimes make us crazy.

Devotee: Because of that I sometimes feel some rejection, I feel I do not want to know anything at all.

No, no, no. We can read. Reading is not bad. And if you do not read, it is also not bad – then it will be jnana-sunya bhakti, ‘I do not want to know anything, I only know service.’ I have told many times that Srimati Radharani never went to Oxford University or Cambridge University.

At the same time, it is sometimes necessary to learn something for preaching. For example, some devotees preach to scientists, but if somebody asked me anything about biology, I would not be able to say a single word – I do not know anything about biology. For example, I know some mathematics, but not biology.

So, reading is not a problem, but we must remember that we should not become proud. Everybody has their own limitation, and if we cross our limit, we will be in a very dangerous position. I was explaining today,

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Do you understand the meaning? These are very strong words. If you want name and fame – if you think you know everything, if you think you are a great scholar, a very big pandit – this desire for pratistha will pollute your heart, and the road to hell will be open for you (you will clear your way to go straight to hell). This is the result of the desire for pratistha. This is what Vaishnav Thakur writes. Therefore, we must always give up false ego (guru-abhimana tyaji) – we shall always remain disciples (sisya thakibo sarvada). Some crazy person may become crazy – somebody knows some slokas, and they think, ‘I am a very great personality, I know everything!’ Somebody reads Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Srimad Bhagavatam, learns to recite some slokas, and they think they have become great scholars, great pandits or Vaishnavs. If they like, they can do that – we do not want to criticise anyone, but as for us, we are their humble servants. This is our position. We only want to be humble servants.

…There are not so many devotees in Memari (Purba Bardhaman, West Bengal). We used to go to some rich people for collections, but rich people’s behaviour is not good, so I stopped this several years ago (perhaps, three–four years ago). We have now a temple nearby, in Tarakeshwar, and many devotees go to the temple; many people have got initiation, and their behaviour is good. Our experience of going to their houses is very nice. At every house we go to, people give much respect to every one of us, and we are happy to visit them. I am also more interested in going to poor people’s houses and collected a little from each person. If we collect five hundred bags of potato from five hundred people, it is good, what is the problem? This is Mahaprabhu’s style. Mahaprabhu would not take so many things from rich people, but He would take bananas and banana flowers from Sri Sridhar Prabhu (a poor brahman).

bhakter jinish prabhu lutiputi khay
abhakter jinish prabhu ulti nahi chay

‘The Lord eats anything and everything when a devotee offers it, but the Lord does not want to take anything from a non-devotee.’

(Based on Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.185)

Non-devotee rich people actually have much ego. They are puffed up, thinking, ‘Oh, we are giving top quality potato!’, ‘We are giving ten bags!’, ‘We are giving twenty bags!’ If a poor farmer gives us one bag, that is sufficient. Not only that – they will give you a bag of potato, and they will carry it to the car on their own heads also. It is good. Yesterday we went to the house of one disciple of Gurudev (or, perhaps, my disciple), and they gave us two bags of potato. Kamalendu Prabhu carried one bag, and the man carried the other bag. On top of that, they gave us some nice sweets, samosas and other treats; they also gave us some money for the temple. They are all very nice people.

Question: How can I overcome depression?

Only by chanting the Holy Name. Take shelter of a bona fide guru and chant the Holy Name, then you can overcome depression. Whatever comes, good or bad, it is not a problem – depend on the Lord in everything. You must surrender to the Lord, surrender to your guru. It is necessary to have saranagati,

sad-anga saranagati haibe yanhara
tanhara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

‘Lord Krishna hears the prayers of those who surrender in six ways.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If you have six types of surrender (if you surrender fully) to gurudev and the Lord, then Lord Krishna will hear you.

I am finishing for today. Please forgive my offences. Make some festival and remember the Vasanta Panchami day – the appearance day of Sri Vishnupriya Devi, Sri Pundarik Vidyanidhi, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami; remember Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur. You must always remember them. Also, Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance day is coming soon. We will meet again next Sunday before the festival. I do not know where we will be on that day, in Nrisingha Palli or Ekachakra, but we will be here next Sunday, and we can make a programme from wherever we are. It is not a problem.

Everybody should try to serve Nityananda Prabhu. Please pray for me so that I can continue serving like this until my death. I am very happy to go house to house, door to door. Somebody said, ‘Oh, you are becoming old day by day, how will you go?’ Even when I cannot go, if I cannot walk, it is not a problem – I will make a wheelchair and go door to door in a wheelchair.

Jay Gurudev. Jay Nrisinghadev.

* * *

￼Line Line21 February 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/7) Lord’s Arrangement

Dandavat.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Dandavat. Hari bol. Today the connection may not be very good as I am in a very rural area. I am now in Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance place in Sri Ekachakra Dham, so the connection here is a little unstable. I was in Nrisingha Palli yesterday, and today we have come to Ekachakra. I still need one more day for rice collection and one more day for potato collection – I will go after the festival in Ekachakra. Other than that, the collection is now almost finished.

[Addressing a devotee] How are you, Prabhu? Dandavat. I have got the donation you have sent for the Ekachakra festival. It is of a very great help for this festival because some devotees had sent something previously, and I have expended it on the guesthouse and the Prasadam Hall construction in Nrisingha Palli, so I was a little short of money, but Krishna has sent some funds – ‘Krishna’ means ** Prabhu sent it. It was very helpful. If each devotee sends a little, it is sufficient.

Gurudev said from time to time, ‘If one door closes, another door will open.’ This is my hope. If some devotees do not help, it is not a problem – Krishna arranges everything for His service.

I have been going for rice and potato collection for many years, and some people who used to donate before do not give anything now, but then some new people appear, and they start giving more and more. It is happening here, and it is happening abroad also – some devotees used to help so much, but now they are not helping. Somebody thinks that I have lost the main temple in Nabadwip, that I do not live there anymore, so why must they give anything now? You know what Gurudev said. He told me, ‘If you are alive, that is sufficient for me.’ So, I cannot kill myself for the main temple. That is why I left it, and so many devotees are still with me – that is my happiness.

Those who are in the front field know how much I tolerated when I was at Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. In the end, I became very sick and almost died. My body, everything was finished. But by the mercy of Gurudev, by the mercy of the Lord and all the devotees’ prayers, I am still alive and I am always with you all. That is sufficient for me. I realise that this is only the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu and Gurudev because my doctors (they are all big, big doctors) later told me about what had happened to my health – they said that only maybe one person out of ten thousand people can survive this kind of disease. This is the kind of disease happened to me when I got sick, but I am still alive, I am still working as before, and I can walk without a stick. You can see it. Through devotees’ prayers for me, I am getting life and am able to function as before, as in my brahmachari life. Otherwise, I went on foot and visited 125–140 houses every day – it is impossible without devotees’ blessings.

So, I do not have any problems. Actually, when I left Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, I had to start from zero, and you can see now how many temples have happened and how many devotees serve properly all over the world and here in India also. Everybody is happily doing their service, and by the mercy of Gurudev, we have opened many new temples since then. All this would have been impossible without the mercy of devotees.

(2/7) Service Field

I have come today here to Sri Ekachakra Dham to arrange the grand festival here. You have all heard about it. In the coming three–four days, thousands and thousands of people will come and take prasad every day here at the Ekachakra Temple. A huge number of people will come to take prasad, to chant the Holy Name. We make a very big festival here every year.

There are not so many foreign devotees this year because of the covid situation. They miss this festival very much, I know that. They are thinking about this festival in their hearts – they may not be able to come bodily or physically, but they are all here in Ekachakra mentally. If you can remember Lord Nityananda Prabhu even being very far away, that is your happiness, and Nityananda Prabhu will also be very happy. Also, you contribute to this festival from far away – you are sending money for this festival; it is good for you, and it pleases Lord Nityananda Prabhu.

You know that I spend everything for my Gurudev’s service – even my life, my ego, my everything. I have surrendered everything at the lotus feet of my Gurudev, who is non-different from Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. I have given my life to Gurudev. I joined Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math thirty years ago, and I have never even once seen my family in all these years. They are calling me and saying I must come to see them one day, but I am not really interested in it because they are not actually my family – all devotees all over the world and here in India are my real family. I am a member of this family, and that is my happiness. I have got so many well-wishers and good friends all over the world, and it is the source of my happiness. You give your life and whatever you earn for the service of the Lord (when I ask you, you always give), it makes me very happy. You are all my family. It is those who are real family that help in this situation. Although I have left the main temple of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, you are all helping me, and I am very happy with you.

I have recently made a big festival in Nrisingha Palli on Gurudev’s appearance day, and after that I went to many places for collection – I preached and spoke about my Gurudev. Some ‘devotees’ are crazy (pagal) – they say that it is not necessary to take initiation, it is not necessary to accept a guru. Srila Narottam Das Thakur says,

asraya laiya bhaje, tare krsna nahi tyaje,
ara saba mare akarane

‘Krishna never leaves those who have taken shelter in His devotees and worship them; everyone else simply dies in vain.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

It is necessary to take shelter of a bona fide guru, to take initiation, to receive the Holy Name from a proper source. When you are born in this world, you have to learn some things, and you need others’ help to do that – sometimes we learn from our parents; sometimes, from our elder brothers or sisters. We learn so many things from so many people around us. Even if you want to learn to cook, you need a teacher. If you want to get school, college or university education, you also need a teacher. The same is true about spiritual life. It is necessary to have a teacher. In my life, I have got a bona fide guru, I have got the best spiritual master – that is my great fortune, great luck. Everybody must understand the importance of accepting a guru – only those who are crazy do not believe it and say it is not necessary.

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)

They think that we have spent so many years, so many lives as it is, so why is it necessary to take a guru? We call this ‘pagal’ in Bengali, foreign devotees call it ‘crazy’, and South American people call it ‘loco.’ There are such people in this world…

Dandavat, Srila Ashram Maharaj, please accept my humble obeisance.

Srila Ashram Maharaj: Dandavat, Maharaj. Please also accept my humble obeisance at your holy feet. How is your health?

My health is good, Maharaj. I have been preaching a lot, doing a lot of rice and potato collection – I have been walking a lot, and it is good for my health. I still need one more day to finish the collection, I did not get time to finish everything. They were making the roof of the fourth floor of the guesthouse in Nrisingha Palli, so I went there to see it. I came there on Friday late in the evening (eleven o’clock), and the works had almost finished. I could not come earlier because I had been very busy. Every day we started off at eight o’clock from the place where we were staying, drove for one hour and started collecting from nine o’clock. We took lunch with us and had prasadam in the car. If we had gone back to take prasadam, it would have taken two hours to drive there and back and one hour to take prasadam, so three hours would have been lost. I did not want to lose time. So, some devotees made chapati and alur dam in the morning, and we stopped the car in a field some time between twelve and two o’clock and took prasadam in the car. One local devotee helped us with the collection because he knows this area – he know all the rice fields and mills there.

Actually, I no longer go house to house to collect rice in villages. Sripad Niriha Maharaj is doing it now. Rice mills give 25 kg, 50 kg of rice, and if you go to a house, they give one kg or two kg at a time. It takes too long to collect, and I do not have so much time. That is why I go to big mills, and the collection goes very well. After the Ekachakra festival, I will need one more day for rice collection and one more day for potato collection. We have already collected six hundred bags of potato, and it is necessary to collect one hundred more.

Sripad Niriha Maharaj and one more devotee did the rice collection for the Ekachakra festival, and I collected for Gaura Purnima and the whole year. This rice and potato will last the whole year for all the branches of the Mission. I divide this rice and potato among the temples and send it to Ekachakra, Tarakeshwar, Kalna, Nrisingha Palli, Kolkata and all the other temples. I go on collection only one time a year, so this rice and potato will be used for all festivals and all temples throughout the year. We keep the potato in a cold storage and the rice in Nrisingha Palli, and whenever we go to some temples, we take some rice and potato from there and bring it to the temples.

So, I have come to Sri Ekachakra Dham today, and I must sing at least one song of guru-vandana… [His Divine Grace then sings ‘Gurudev, krpa bindu diya’, ‘Nitai-pada-kamala’ and ‘Gaya Gaura madhura svare.’]

(3/7) Gist of Guru-Mahima

Sriman Mahaprabhu told about Sri Nityananda Prabhu,

madira yavani yadi nityananda dhare
tathapi brahmara vandya kahila tomare

‘Even if Nityananda Prabhu comes drunk with a Muslim lady by His side, He is always worshippable for Lord Brahma.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.6.123)

When some brahman was saying some bad things about Nityananda Prabhu, Mahaprabhu gave him this advice. He said, ‘If Nityananda Prabhu takes whiskey, some alcohol, and goes to a Muslim lady, Brahma will worship Him even then.’ This is what Sriman Mahaprabhu said about Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. Not only that, Mahaprabhu told that brahman, ‘Go and tell all your friends, all citizens of Nabadwip and everybody in this world what I have told you about Nityananda Prabhu!’

Try to understand the meaning of these words. That is guru-mahima (the glories of the guru), coming from Mahaprabhu’s lotus mouth. He told for everybody,

madira yavani yadi nityananda dhare
tathapi brahmara vandya kahila tomare

‘Even if Nityananda Prabhu comes drunk with a Muslim lady by His side, He is always worshippable for Lord Brahma.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.6.123)

Even Lord Brahma also worships Nityananda Prabhu. And now, so many devotees have come to the holy appearance place of this Nityananda Prabhu…

(4/7) Eternal Bond with Sri Ekachakra Dham

Actually, I came here for the first time in 2004. Gurudev had come here in 1989 or 1990 when he was preaching in Bengal – he stayed in a nearby village here in Ekachakra during two days; at that time, he visited this place of Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance. After that, I came here in 2004. From the beginning, it was my desire to make a temple here, but Gurudev did not agree – he was not so much interested in making a temple here because there are a lot of sahajiyas in this area. Despite that, in Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj’s time, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj would send the birthplace temple of Nityananda Prabhu a money order for five rupees every year on the appearance day of Nityananda Prabhu.

When Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj came back from Vrindavan and started Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Koleganj, aparadha-bhanjan-pat in Koladwip, many of his godbrothers wanted to take sannyas from him, and there were also some well-wishers who wanted to take initiation from Srila Sridhar Maharaj. At first, Srila Sridhar Maharaj did not agree to give anyone initiation or sannyas, but then he came here, to the birthplace of Nityananda Prabhu, and when he prayed to Nityananda Prabhu for His guidance and mercy (‘What should I do now? Please give me Your mercy’), he heard a message from the sky – Nityananda Prabhu told him, ‘You have already got so much mercy from Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad. First distribute that mercy, and after that, when you finish distributing it, you can ask Me for mercy again.’ Hearing these words, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj returned to Kolerganj and started giving initiations. This is the past history that I have heard from Srila Gurudev.

As I have said, Gurudev visited Ekachakra before he started visiting foreign countries, and in 2007, when Gurudev was in America, he called me and said, ‘You wanted to start a temple in Ekachakra. Now I am telling you that if you can find a good land, you can make a temple there.’ I bought this land here in Ekachakra in 2008. So many things have happened since then…

Before starting the construction of the temple, Gurudev told me to first make a guesthouse, a place for devotees’ residence. This is how I started the construction of this building where I am staying right now. Actually, I made this very room where I am sitting now for Gurudev, but due to his health condition, Gurudev could not come (he was very sick in 2007, you all know it). 2007 was Gurudev’s last world tour, during which he stayed in America for many months, and then came to Thailand. I was also in a world tour, preaching in Singapore and Malaysia at that time when Gurudev called me from Thailand and told me to come. I came to Thailand and Gurudev told me there to buy the land in Ekachakra. This is how, in 2008, I purchased this land here and started the construction.

Gurudev saw this guesthouse building, and he was very happy. He could not come himself, but he saw the video of the programme in 2008–2009. When I just got this land in 2008, it was a vacant land that used to be a wheat field. I cleared the land, made a big pandal here and did the first grand festival. Gurudev saw the video broadcast – he saw that so many thousands of people came here – and he was very happy at that time. Gurudev gave the name to this guesthouse; he told me to call it with the name of Nityananda Prabhu’s parents – Sri Sri Hadai Padmavati Smriti Kunja.

After that, I started to make the nat-mandir and the temple, but in the meantime, Gurudev left this world – I could not finish the construction before his departure. The inauguration of the temple took place in 2011. According to Gurudev’s instruction, the size of the Deities here is very big – Gurudev ordered me to make life-size Deities. He chose a man who does Deities in Nabadwip to make these Deities in Ekachakra and instructed him about the size the Deities had to be – Mahaprabhu is 7’6 (228.6 cm) and Nityananda Prabhu is 7’4 (223.5 cm).

The Deities were installed in 2011, after Gurudev’s disappearance. So many devotees came here that year, and since then, many devotees have been coming every year also. It makes me very sad that foreign devotees cannot come this year because of the covid situation. Mainly, Venezuelan devotees always come and join this festival because their Deity is also Parama Karuna Nitai Gaurachandra, so they always come here and help during the anniversary festival. Still, there are some Venezuelan devotees here with me now – Sripad Sajjan Maharaj, Sripad Sadhu Maharaj, Sudevi Didi, Ananda Moy Prabhu; there are also some Colombian devotees – Kamalendu Prabhu and others. I know many cannot come this year because of the situation. What can I say? It makes me very sad, and I miss them, but I hope that they will celebrate this day in their own centres, at their own homes. Every house should make a programme on this day, that is our happiness, because we cannot conceive of anything in our life without the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu. If we give most of our attention to making Nityananda Prabhu’s festival, then Gurudev and Gauranga Mahaprabhu will be very happy.

Gauranga Mahaprabhu told Nityananda Prabhu to preach about Krishna, but Nityananda Prabhu preached about Gauranga.

bhaja gauranga, kaha gauranga, laha gaurangera nama re
ye jana gauranga bhaje, sei amara prana re

‘Worship Gauranga! Say Gauranga! Take Gauranga’s Name! Those who worship Gauranga are My heart and soul!’

(Sri Nityananda Prabhu)

Nityananda Prabhu preached about Mahaprabhu all over Bengal and other places in India. Without His mercy, it is impossible to conceive of anything in our life. It was also Nityananda Prabhu who started preaching about Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama when He first did this parikrama of the nine islands of Nabadwip with Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu, speaking about the glories of Mahaprabhu and Mahaprabhu’s pastimes that took place in Nabadwip, which is non-different from Sri Vrindavan.

sri-gauda-mandala-bhumi yeba jane chintamani
tara haya vraja-bhume vasa

‘Those who always think about Sri Gauda Mandal reside in the land of Vraja.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

(5/7) Sri Gauda Mandal Parikrama

sri-gauda-mandala-bhumi, yeba jane chintamani,
tara haya vraja-bhume vasa

‘Those who always think about Sri Gauda Mandal reside in the land of Vraja.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Gauda Mandal is Ramakheli (where Mahaprabhu first met Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami) in the north, Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance place (Ekachakra) in the west and Pichalda in the south. Actually, I wanted to make a Gauda Mandal parikrama this year, but I wanted to make it with foreign devotees, but because not so many of you are coming for Gaura Purnima this year, I cannot make this Gauda Mandal parikrama this year. I was also going to rent a ship and go from Nabadwip to Ganga Sagar, but I have decided to postpone it until next year because foreign devotees cannot come and join it this year. If they can come to the Ekachakra festival next year, then I hope we will visit Ganga Sagar, the place of Kapil Muni and Indradev.

When I was in Russia and Mexico, I went with some devotees by speed boat. There were not so many devotees with us at that time, but I want to go on a boat ride with two–three hundred devotees in a big two-deck ship. Mahaprabhu also travelled by boat – He went to Kalna with Nityananda Prabhu, and He rowed the boat Himself. I have seen a part of the wooden oar (boitha) that Mahaprabhu used – it is still kept in Kalna, at Gauri Das Pandit’s place. Kalna is about thirty kilometres from Nabadwip, we have a temple (a ladies’ ashram) nearby. It is a very nice place.

Come before Ekachakra festival, and after Ekachakra we will go to Ganga Sagar (the ocean) – we will rent a boat from Nabadwip with big rooms, bathrooms, toilets and other conveniences. You can even get an attached bathroom in the lounge. We will make good prasadam and kirtan. The ride will take one whole day. We will stop at some place for the night, have a proper sleep and then continue the way the next morning, reaching Ganga Sagar, the place where the Ganga mixes with the ocean, in the afternoon. On the way, we will be passing Kalna, Kolkata and other cities. There are many places along the bank of the Ganges. We can stop at our Uluberia Temple for lunch. We can visit Gauri Das Pandit’s place, which is within a walking distance from the bank of the Ganges (it is a fifteen-minute walk, and if somebody cannot walk, we can arrange a rickshaw for them). On the one side of the Ganges (the west side), there is Kalna, and on the other side (the east side), opposite Kalna, there is Shantipur, Sri Advaita Prabhu’s place. It will be a very nice tour. And after Gaura Purnima, we can make Gauda Mandal parikrama and visit Ramakheli, Ekachakra, Nabadwip, Pichalda and many other places. I have a list of all the places.

Sri Gauri Das Pandit is an exceptional devotee from the side of Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu; he is actually an associate (parsada) of Sri Nityananda Prabhu. There is also Acharya Srinivas, Shyamananda Prabhu, Narottam Das Thakur – they are all exceptional devotees. There are places of Sri Ramachandra Kaviraj, Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur, the birthplace of Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami. There are many nice places still existent in Bengal. The birthplace of Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami is situated near Katwa where Mahaprabhu took sannyas. Two–three kilometres from Katwa, there is Acharya Srinivas’s place, and another three–four kilometres from there, there is Sri Narahari Chakravarti’s place and Vasu Ghosh’s place.

yadi gaura na ha’ta, tabe ki haita,
kemane dharitam de
radhara mahima, prema-rasa-sima,
jagate janata ke?

‘If Gaura had not come, what would have happened? How would we have lived? Who would have revealed to the world Radha’s glory and the extremes of Her ecstatic divine love?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

Vasu Ghosh is the author of this song. There is also Govinda Ghosh. They are all related, they are all very nice devotees from Mahaprabhu’s time. There is also a place of Srila Narahari Chakravarti (Narahari Thakur), the place of Mukunda’s son, Raghunandan Prabhu. Mukunda Prabhu is Mahaprabhu’s dearmost devotee. There are places of Abhiram Thakur, Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur, Prabhodananda Saraswati. There are so many associates of Mahaprabhu…

Going on a tour down the Ganges, we do not have to stop in Kolkata – we can stop in Panihati instead.

(6/7) Construction Pastimes

They have finished the goshala today. We have made a new goshala here in Ekachakra because there are so many cows now, and the old goshala had become too small. So, I have expanded it.

In 2011–2012, I made the boundary wall on top of the nat-mandir. Initially, I planned that I would rent a helicopter for Gurudev to come, and the helicopter was supposed to land on top of the nat-mandir. A helicopter driver came to inspect the place and told me not to make the boundary wall on the roof. Unfortunately, Gurudev was very sick and could not come. So, last year I made another floor there for Indian devotees. The nat-mandir is very big, so we could make additional twenty-two rooms, four–five hundred square feet each. It is a very big dormitory to provide accommodation for the Indian section.

Actually, it all happened by the mercy of Gurudev and by the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu. When I first came here to buy the land, I spent one night sleeping under some tarpaulin under a bakul tree (the place where Nityananda Prabhu played, the place is also called nari-pota). I remember I could not sleep the whole night because of mosquitos – sometimes I slept under the tarpaulin and sometimes went to the car; the whole night I was waiting when the morning would come. The next day I rented a house to stay in.

Question: Do we fast on Nityananda-trayodasi or can we take breakfast?

We fast. If somebody cannot fast, they can take something, but actually we fast until noon on this day. The Gaudiya Math temples fast on this day like on Nrisingha-chaturdasi – Nityananda Prabhu is Lord Baladev’s avatar, so they fast from morning to evening, and they take some anukalpa in the evening. But Gurudev said, ‘Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance is at noon, like Srimati Radharani’s appearance, so you can fast until noon and then take prasadam.’ This is what we do. We follow what Gurudev said; we do not follow what other temples do. This is a distinction of our temple. We follow what Gurudev says. Other temples fast the whole day from morning to evening on Vamana-dvadasi, Baladev Purnima and on Nityananda-trayodasi, but we follow what Gurudev told us.

Are there any other questions from any devotees today?

Srila Janardan Maharaj: I have one question. When are you going to start the construction in Mayapur?

Maharaj, I have started it, but then there is some problem related to the political party. When the election results are declared, I will be able to resume the construction. Also, it is necessary to collect more money. If more devotees can help, then it will be possible. If every devotees gives about one thousand dollars one time, then it is possible to resume the construction. Some devotees give more than that – they give five, ten, twelve thousand dollars, but there are only few of them. If everybody gives one thousand dollars, then it will be sufficient. Indian devotees cannot help so much – they come and give five hundred, two hundred or one hundred rupees as pranami…

(7/7) Pride in Our Identity

Question: We are going to speak in one college about identity. Is there any message we can give to them?

The message is what Gurudev tells. They are studying to become a doctor, an engineer… An engineer can make a big construction, a big building that will stand for many years, but they do not know how many days they themselves will be alive this world – how many days they will stay in this world. They have got a human body by great fortune, and they are using this body only to eat, enjoy and sleep, but this is not what this body is for. When you got this human body, you promised to Lord Krishna that you would remember Him, that you would practise Krishna consciousness. A doctor treats other people, but this is only physical help. First you must treat yourself. You must understand that you are not this body.

You think that you are this body, but it is not true, you are actually a jiva soul, an atma. To improve the position of your atma, to bring benefit to your atma, it is necessary to chant the Holy Name, to follow what Krishna tells us. Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We always pray to the Lord for our own physical, mundane benefit, but we never think about our spiritual benefit.

These are the main things you can tell them. It is unfortunate that people become great PhD, get doctorate and become very proud of that. We forget that we are eternal servants of the Lord. What should we be proud of? We must be proud of being eternal servants – eternal servants of the servants of devotees. This is our main pride. But we become proud of our education. This education is mundane! Real education is when you learn to be a devotee.

If you do not practise Krishna consciousness, then even if you live for one hundred or two hundred years, such a life is nothing. On the other hand, you may stay in this world for only ten years, and that can be sufficient if you chant the Holy Name and practise Krishna consciousness. It is necessary to understand this.

I would like to finish now, I still have some things to arrange for tomorrow. I must give service to some devotees because it is ekadasi tomorrow and all the devotees will start coming. Actually, devotees have already started coming today. Sripad Niriha Maharaj is giving a class now – he came three–four days ago, and some devotees have come today also. So, I am finishing here, and I am asking you all forgiveness – please forgive my offences. Please remember this festival and always chant the Holy Name. That is the main thing.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line23 February 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Evening Class

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/13) This Is Not a Playground

[Chanting ‘Krpa kara Vaisnava Thakura’, His Divine Grace pauses and remarks]

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘I am a Vaishnav’ – if you think like this… [Noise in the audience.] What are the children doing upstairs? Is this a playground? It is not a place for sitting and gossiping or getting up to some mischief. This place here is bhakti-siddhanta sravan sadan (‘a formal place where one comes to hear the teachings of devotion’). There can only be talks about Nitai, Vaishnav Thakur and the Lord here. You cannot talk about any outside (material) things here. Mahaprabhu told Srila Raghunath Das Goswami:

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

Do not talk any gramya-katha here! Do not have any outside talks here! You must leave all this at home. Do not come here with all that. You must come here surrendering your everything – all your heart, soul, mind, everything – at the lotus feet of the Lord.

We always blame the Lord, ‘Why is the Lord giving me so much sadness and suffering?’ but we do not blame ourselves for not being able to surrender to the Lord. You blame the Lord, but have you become surrendered to the Lord? You must ask yourself this question. How much can you give to the Lord? We cannot give anything to the Lord. But we must place everything – our mind, heart, soul, body, ego, and so on – at the holy lotus feet of the Lord…

We have brothers, sisters, wives, children and other relatives, but they are with us just for one–two days – they will all come and go from this world. But if you are to get Nityananda, you must give everything – your heart, your mind – to the holy lotus feet of Nityananda, and you must not only say that. These are not just some words. How many times have I told you that?

‘gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

If you just keep saying, ‘Nitai, Nitai’, it will not do – you must practise what Gora and Nitai preach. Trying to impress others is not what worshipping Gora is. You think, ‘I will eat well, I will dress well, I will live in a nice room,’ but this is not what Krishna consciousness is about.

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Have you heard what we were singing? I told you about it yesterday also. It is necessary to first know the sambandha. We know our father, mother, brother, sister, wife, son, daughter, friends, husband and other relatives very well. Everybody knows this relationship, but we do not know who are our guru and Vaishnavs. How many of us know and understand our guru, Vaishnavs, the Lord? We do not understand the meaning of guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord; we only know our own interest. Everybody understands who their wife, son, friends and relatives are, but we do not know our guru, Vaishnavs, or the Lord. What does the Lord say in Srimad Bhagavad-gita? ‘I do not recognise, or know, anyone except My devotees, and My devotees also do not know anyone except Me.’ This is what chastity is. Women can understand what is called to be chaste. It is necessary to have chastity. You must surrender everything to your guru. You will not get anywhere if you do not keep chastity to your guru. If you think, ‘I have got initiation, so I have already got everything’, and go home at ease, then you are wrong. Taking initiation is a matter of fortune,

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)

In his last days, Gurudev called me and said, ‘You go to all those villages and remote areas, bringing everyone for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. You have helped so many people take initiation, but can you say how many of them have actually become disciples?’ This is what Gurudev told me. ‘How many of your people have become disciples?’ We say, ‘Guru-mukha-padma-vakya, chittete kariya aikya ara na kariha mane asa – make the teachings from Sri Guru’s lotus mouth one with your heart and do not desire anything else within your heart.’ We say we keep the teaching of our guru in our heart, but, tell me, how many people listen to what their guru says? People offer their full dandavat, but as soon as you tell them to do something, they say, ‘Sorry, I do not have time.’ Such people are not fit to be called disciples. The duty of a disciple is to tolerate gurudev’s chastisement and mould your life according to the desire and vision of your gurudev.

(2/13) Wrong Worries

Srila Raghunath Das Goswami had come to Mahaprabhu many times, but he could not get Mahaprabhu’s mercy. He left everything, all his wealth – his father was a rich landowner in Adisaptagram and earned twenty thousand rupees, which was an enormous sum of money, but Srila Raghunath Das Goswami left everything as if it were stool and urine. When we go to the toilet, we reject stool and urine as something filthy and do not even want to look at it. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami had left everything he had in the world in the same way and went to Mahaprabhu, but he could not get Mahaprabhu’s mercy. Why could he not get it? Because he had not got Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy (‘Nitaiyer karuna habe Vraje Radha Krsna pabe: if you get Nitai’s mercy, you will come to Radha-Krishna in Vraja’). That is why Mahaprabhu sent him back again and again…

[Distracted by somebody’s phone ringing] Switch off your phones. Nothing will happen to you – if you listen to Hari-katha for one–two hours, you will not lose anything. You do not need to call home and answer all the questions (‘How are you?’, ‘What are you doing?’, etc.) – everything is always all right at the holy dham of Nitai. Nothing will happen to you. Keep faith in that. If you do not have faith, you will suffer. The less faith you have, the more your devotion will be decreasing. I told you yesterday also:

‘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)

You have a lack of faith. You have no faith, that is why you have no devotion.

Devotion (Bhakti Devi) does not stay where there is no faith – she runs away from such places. Bhakti Devi always wants a clean place. If there is kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy), rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (desire for enjoyment through eyes, tongue, nose, ears, skin), kanak, kamini, pratistha (desire for money, women, fame), Bhakti Devi will not stay there to suffer. Suppose you host a programme at your house and call a Vaishnav to come; if you do not give any place for the Vaishnav to sit but instead stuff the room with sacks of potato, dal, rice, etc., where will you seat your Thakur (Lord)? The Lord comes to sit in your heart, that is why you must first have space in your heart so that the Lord can sit there. Do you know what Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said? Mahaprabhu said, ‘Prthivite yata achhe nagaradi grama, sarvatra prachara haibe Mora Nama. My Name will be spread in every town and village of the world.’ And Srila Prabhupad said, ‘No, not in every town and village – this Holy Name must dance in the heart of every man. It is necessary to make a temple in each and every person’s heart.’ So, the main point is not to make a temple in every village, but we must make a temple in every single person’s heart; otherwise, it will not do.

The problem is that every heart is ‘pancha-roge hata’, ruined by five diseases. These five diseases are avidya (ignorance), asmita (false identification), raga (misdirected love), dvesa (aversion to anything that goes against one’s enjoyment) and abhinivesa (being unable to give up unfavourable habits). Raga is not when somebody gets angry, raga means not being attracted to the Lord. We are afflicted by these five diseases. When our body and heart are full of kanak, kamini, pratistha (desire for money, women, fame), kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy), rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (desire for enjoyment through eyes, tongue, nose, ears, skin), how will you get the Lord then?

If you want to make a temple in every person’s heart, it is necessary to make space for the Lord in their hearts. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur writes in one of the kirtans:

kabe nityananda more kari’ daya
chhadaibe mora visayera maya

‘When will Nityananda be compassionate to me and relieve me from mundane illusion?’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

ara kabe nitaichand karuna karibe
samsara-vasana mora kabe tuchchha habe

‘When will Nitaichand give me His mercy? When will my material desires become trifle?’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

We always worry, ‘How will I live? How will I maintain my family?’ But one day you will go away – you will have to leave all this behind…

(3/13) Pure Identity

…So, we were singing,

sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the true relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to give up ego. We must watch out and make sure we do not have the ego that ‘I have become a big Vaishnav!’

pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘My heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When the desire for pratistha (name and fame) comes into my heart, it will clear the road to hell for me. That is why Vaishnavs never say, ‘I have become a Vaishnav.’ Mahaprabhu never said, ‘I am the Lord!’ In this world, everybody says that this world is created by Brahman – such people are jnanis (knowledge-seekers); but you will not get the Lord through karma (material actions), jnana (knowledge) or yoga (mystic practices). You can get the Lord only through bhakti (devotion).

There are three kinds of devotion – karma-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with material desires), jnana-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with desire to know something) and jnana-sunya suddha bhakti (pure devotion devoid of any pursuit of knowledge). We must have jnana-sunya bhakti (devotion without desire to know anything): ‘I do not know anything, I do not understand anything. O Lord, I am a lowly, fallen soul.’

We must not have the ego that we are a brahmachari or a sannyasi. When describing His own identity, Mahaprabhu said,

naham vipro na cha nara-patir napi vaisyo na sudro
naham varni na cha grha-patir no vanastho yatir va
kintu prodyan-nikhila-paramananda-purnamrtabdher
gopi-bhartuh pada-kamalayor dasa-dasanudasah

‘I am not a brahman, not a ksatriya, not a vaisya, not a sudra; neither am I a brahmachari, a householder, a vanaprastha or a sannyasi. I identify Myself as a servant of the servant of the servant of the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krishna, who is the beloved of the gopis, an ocean of nectar, eternally self-effulgent (self-manifest) and filled with the entire scope of all possible highest ecstasy.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.13.80)

‘I am not a brahman, I am not a ksatriya (fighter), I am not a vaisya (businessman), I am not a sudra (menial worker). I am not a sannyasi (monk), I am not a brahmachari (celibate), I am not a grihastha (householder). What am I? I am a servant of the servant of the holy lotus feet of gopis.’ Do you know what gopis say? They say, ‘We do not have the kind of devotion that Prahlad Maharaj has!’ Prahlad Maharaj is a santa-bhakta (his devotional mood is the mood of neutrality, or peacefulness). Just see how much humility gopis have. Krishna says that gopis are His greatest devotees; their devotion is the highest. You know that there is santa-, dasya-, sakhya-, vatsalya- and madhura-rasa (neutral devotion, servitude, friendship, parenthood and consorthood), and among these moods of devotion, madhura-rasa (consorthood) is the highest. So, Krishna says that gopis are the highest devotees, there is no worship that is higher than the worship offered by gopis, and these gopis says, ‘We still do not have the kind of devotion that Prahlad Maharaj has.’ How humble they are! They think so low of themselves.

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Sri Nanda Kumar (Lord Sri Krishna) hears the prayers of those who have got these six limbs of surrender. We sing this every morning. Those who chant kirtans are habituated to doing it. I have told everyone: take Gaudiya Gitanjali with you (if you cannot buy the big book, you can take the small one). Chant kirtans every day, learn them by heart. This is how you will develop the habit to chant.

I have written how to practise properly in the books. I know that I myself cannot practise properly – why do I tell you about it then? Because if I keep telling you about it, then I will become clean. I have written so many things in the books; read these books. I know I have not become perfect myself, but I believe that if I keep speaking about it, one day I may become pure. I am telling you all these things not for your benefit but for my own benefit.

Then, it is written in the kirtan,

pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘My heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I start thinking that I am a Vaishnav, I will end up in hell. As I wrote in the fourth volume of Guidance, one does not become a disciple just by taking initiation. You take initiation, and after that you do not keep connection with your guru, do not practise anything, never think about the temple or anything – you think that you have taken initiation and got everything. Do you think you can pass the graduation exams just by getting admitted to a school? You can understand it yourself. Moreover, when you start going to school, do you stop at passing the fourth grade exams or do you continue to study at high school, college, university, and so on? You do not pass exams just by getting enrolled. It is necessary to study. There is a saying in English, ‘Practise makes perfect.’ You may be able to play the mridanga well or sing kirtans well, but if you do not practise it for four–six months, you will forget how to do it. If you are a good cook but do not cook for several months, you will forget how to cook. It is necessary to practise constantly.

(4/13) Worshipful Devotion

tomara kinkara, apane janiba,
‘guru’-abhimana tyaji’
tomara uchchhista, pada-jala-renu,
sada niskapate bhaji

‘I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru. I will always earnestly worship the remnants of Your food, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘I am your servant (kinkar), slave (das).’ Srila Prabhupad also told, ‘Daso’ smi. I am your servant.’ So, ‘I will consider myself your slave, and I will leave all ego of a guru.’ When people think, ‘I am a guru, I am an acharya [I can teach others]’, this ego is very bad. It is necessary to give up the ego that you are a guru. You must not think, ‘I have become a guru’, or ‘I will become a guru.’ Even if you think, ‘I can give a nice class’, ‘I can sing kirtans well’ – if you have this kind of ego, it will not take you anywhere.

‘Tomara uchchhista pada-jala-renu sada niskapate bhaji’ means that when Vaishnavs take prasadam, I will take the remnants of their prasadam. ‘Pada-jala-renu’ means the water that has been used to wash Vaishnavs’ feet and the feet dust of Vaishnavs. You can notice that when people pay their obeisance, they always want to touch the feet of the person who they bow down to, but do you know why Vaishnavs do not let others touch their feet? Because they consider themselves very lowly and vile. Do you know the reason why I do not let you touch my feet? A guru must always think towards others, ‘I am your servant.’ I do not allow you to touch my feet because you use your pure hands to make garlands for the Lord, cook for the Lord, serve the Lord; why will you touch the feet of this lowly, fallen soul with your pure hand? This is why I always prohibit everyone to touch my feet.

At the same time, ‘Ye jana Krsna bhaje sei bada chatur: those who worship Krishna are very clever.’ At the time of Gundicha-marjan, Mahaprabhu personally cleaned the temple of Gundicha Devi, where Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra were to come. There was one very clever Gaudiya Vaishnav who managed to drink some water that had washed Mahaprabhu’s feet. You know that during Gundicha-marjan, everyone brings pots with water to the temple; that Vaishnav took a pot and dropped the water on Mahaprabhu’s feet – when the water started flowing down from Mahaprabhu’s feet, the Vaishnav put his hand under the water and drank it. Mahaprabhu was pleased internally, but He showed externally that He was angry. He said, ‘Hey, Svarup Damodar! Just look at your Gaudiya [‘your Gaudiya’ means he was also from Bangladesh, as Svarup Damodar]! He is throwing water at My feet in the temple and drinks that water to impress others!’ Mahaprabhu told him to go away, although He was internally pleased with that Vaishnav. In this way Mahaprabhu showed that we must not allow others to touch our feet, and that is why in particular, we also never allow others to wash our feet.

At another time, Mahaprabhu went inside the Jagannath temple. You know that there is a faucet at the entrance where you can wash your feet before entering the temple (many people come to the temple bare feet, so not to enter the temple with dirty feet, they wash their feet at the entrance). That day, when Mahaprabhu came to the temple and was washing His feet at the entrance, a devotee called Kalidas came there and tried to touch Mahaprabhu’s feet. All the devotees rushed to stop him, ‘Do not touch! Do not touch!’ but Mahaprabhu said, ‘Do not stop him. He ate the food remnants of Vaishnavs in Bengal and became a ‘jhanu vaishnav’ [‘seasoned, or expert, Vaishnav’]!’ Kalidas was such a Vaishnav that he never sat together with other Vaishnavs to take prasad. Sometimes, everyone would be invited to some place for prasad. He would come too, but he would sit quietly a little far, in some forest, or stand somewhere afar; he watched where everyone threw their plates (in those days, everybody ate from banana leaves; there were no plastic plates), and after everyone finished taking prasad, he would go there and take the remnants from those plates. Such was his quality. He also brought once a mango to the house of Jhadu Thakur. When Jhadu Thakur ate the mango and his wife sucked the stone and threw it away in some bush, Kalidas went there and started sucking the stone, dancing for joy! Such was Kalidas’s character. How beautiful this is. Such are Nityananda Prabhu’s associates.

(5/13) Meaning of Discipleship

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada,
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest”, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

There are many gurus in this world. There are gramya-gurus, sahajiya-gurus; there are also those who are called ‘kula-gurus’ (ancestral gurus). What do they do? They put a lot of food on their plates and then, not being able to eat it all, tell everyone to eat it up after them. This is how ego comes. If you think you are great and give everyone your remnants, you will become loaded with the burden of ego. ‘I am the greatest, and everyone is lower.’ This breeds ego. That is why our sampradaya does not teach us to behave like that. You must take as much as you can eat. Be satisfied with whatever is placed on your plate, do not take more than that. If you take more than you can eat, it means you will leave your remnants for others – this is how your ego will grow. Do not do this. We never behave like this in our line; this is what others do. You have probably heard that Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj even ate his banana leaf plate once. He had already eaten full stomach, but the host still forced him to take more and put more and more on his plate, thinking that Babaji Maharaj would leave something on the plate and they would get his prasad, but Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj understood what was going on and ate everything, along with the banana leaf plate! And he was so old at that time, over 130 years old.

It is ekadasi today, and yesterday I drank some milk. I never drink milk (my doctors prohibit it), but yesterday I felt very hungry and took some milk with biscuits. After I that, I could not sleep the whole night. Today also I could not sleep. I am feeling unwell now, but I still had to come downstairs for the class. I made my healthy body sick. I thought it was ekadasi the next day and I would be fasting, so I decided to take some milk with biscuits. As the result, I had so much acid and gas in the stomach that I could not sleep and could not even take medicine. I used to eat everything, but after an operation sixteen years ago (I had a stone in my gall bladder), I started to control my diet. Now I do not eat anything – I can take just aloo-siddho and rice, and some tok dal, perhaps; that is enough for me. I do not need anything else. I do not need any vegetables, spicy subjis, and so on.

It is said in the kirtan, ‘Tai sisya tava thakiya sarvada. I will always remain your disciple.’ Guru Maharaj also said that if you want to become a guru, you must first become a disciple. If you have not become a disciple, tell me how will you then become a guru then? First you must become a disciple, then only can you become a guru. What is the meaning of being a disciple? Disciples are those who always follow the disciplining of their guru (who can tolerate their guru’s chastisement and can change their life according to their guru’s disciplining). You must have heard how Nityananda Prabhu kicked Sivananda Sen. These days, if you speak to somebody harshly, they will say, ‘I do not need a guru like you! There are many other gurus like you in this world!’ But Nityananda Prabhu kicked Sivananda Sen! How did that happen?

Nityananda was very hungry. He was kept waiting, and when Sivananda Sen finally came, he paid obeisance to Nityananda Prabhu and said, ‘Prabhu, it is all my fault! Please forgive me.’ How did Nityananda Prabhu forgive him? He kicked his head! That was His forgiveness. When this happened, Sivananda Sen got up and started dancing! He thought, ‘I have been serving the Lord, and today I have got the result of all that service!’ But these days, if you beat anyone, they will beat you back. Such are the disciples these days. It is impossible to say anything to disciples. If you get angry and say something by mistake, they start chastising you. They cannot tolerate it. There are only one–two people who can tolerate it.

My Gurudev also chastised me, he also beat me. Srila Sridhar Maharaj also beat Gurudev. When Gurudev did something wrong and Srila Sridhar Maharaj beat him, Gurudev did not run away; instead, he only came closer to Srila Guru Maharaj. Srila Guru Maharaj asked him, ‘What is this? I am beating you, but you are not running away?’ Gurudev answered, ‘You do not know how to beat, that is why I am coming closer, so that you can beat me better.’ Such was the relationship between them. Gurudev chastised me too, and I did not mind it – I did wrong, and I got chastised justly. When I was making the four-storey building at the Nabadwip temple, I borrowed half a lakh rupees, and Gurudev chastised me when he found out about it. I was chastised rightly – I had borrowed money, that is why Gurudev was unhappy. He told me to get out. Half an hour later, Gurudev again called me to his room and gave me that money to pay off the debt. I never ran away – Gurudev told me to go away, but I always came back again. When Gurudev asked me why, I said, ‘You told me to go away, but you did not say that I could not come again.’ Gurudev said, ‘Oh, I see you have learnt well!’ Gurudev told me to go away, and I did go away, but he did not prohibit me to come again, so I came again. Such was my relationship with Gurudev. But now, if you tell one word to disciples, they get angry. They live as they please. Srila Prabhupad said, ‘Satisfying the whims of your mind is not Krishna consciousness. Krishna consciousness is following the guru, the Vaishnavs, serving the guru, the Vaishnavs, and satisfying them.’ We think that we sing a song and this is it – we have practised Krishna consciousness. No. Krishna consciousness means following what your gurudev says and serving your guru and Vaishnavs. It means to please them.

‘Tai sisya tava thakiya sarvada, na laiba puja ka’ra. I will always remain Your disciple, and I will not take worship from anyone.’ There are many gurus who will tell you, ‘Do an arati for me every day! You must offer flowers at my feet every day!’ You cannot do this with me. I do not need any arati, I do not need any worship from you. I am your servant. Why will you worship me? This should be our mood.

(6/13) Free Mercy, Exclusive Rights

[His Divine Grace continues chanting ‘Gurudev, bada krpa kara’]

amani manada, haile kirtane,
adhikara dibe tumi
tomara charane, niskapate ami,
kandiya lutiba bhumi

‘When I become free from the desire for honour and learn to give honour to others, you will give me the right to chant Your kirtan. Rolling on the ground, I will earnestly cry at Your holy feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When will you give me the right to chant kirtan? When I become free from desire for honour and when I learn to give honour to others. I told you yesterday also – who has the right to chant kirtan?

trnadhika hina dina akinchana chhara
apane manabi sada chhadi’ ahankara
vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana
pratihimsa tyaji’ anye karabi palana

jivana-nirvahe ane udvega na dibe
para-upakare nija-sukha pasaribe

‘Give up ego and always consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and wretched. Practise forgiveness like that of a tree; do not be vindictive, nurture others. Live without causing anxiety to others; do good unto others, forsaking your own happiness.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka Giti, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Those who have these qualities have the right to chant kirtan. These verses are written in the Siksastaka songs as a purport to Mahaprabhu’s sloka:

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

Read the Siksastaka kirtans, you will like what is written there.

So, it is said in the kirtan we are singing, ‘Tomara charane niskapate ami kandiya lutiba bhumi. I will earnestly roll on the ground and cry at Your holy feet.’

‘Prabhu, O Vaishnav Thakur! I will always stay at your holy feet.’ We do not do or say this to impress others. It is necessary to say this from your heart. ‘I am your footdust.’ What does it mean to become footdust? It means to take the dust from the holy feet of Vaishnavs on our heads. This is so beautiful!

Doyal Vaishnav Thakur! Doyal Vaishnav Thakur!
Doyal Vaishnav Thakur! Doyal Vaishnav Thakur!

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Akrodha paramananda Nityananda Raya’, ‘Yadi Gaura na haite.’]

Have you heard what Sri Vasu Ghosh is saying in this kirtan?

yadi gaura na ha’ta, tabe ki haita,
kemane dharitam de
radhara mahima, prema-rasa-sima,
jagate janata ke?

‘If Gaura had not come, what would have happened? How would we have lived? Who would have revealed to the world Radha’s glory and the extremes of Her ecstatic divine love?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

This glory of Srimati Radharani is not found anywhere in Srimad Bhagavatam. Do you know why? Vyasadev and Sukadev thought, ‘The glory of Sri Radha is so high that somebody like me has no capacity to speak about it with this mouth.’ That is why there is not even a single mention of Srimati Radharani in Srimad Bhagavatam. This is such a high topic, but devotees go to Vrindavan, put tilaks, hang a cloth on their necks and go about saying, ‘Jay Radhe!’

Mahaprabhu said, ‘Mukhe bole ra-ra-ra, dui nayane bahe dhara. The Lord could only say “Ra-ra-ra” and torrents of tears flowed from His eyes.’ Those who behold Srimati Radharani cannot even pronounce Her Name. They keep saying ‘Ra-Ra-Ra.’ Even Mahaprabhu could not pronounce Her Name! He only cried and said, ‘Ra-Ra-Ra…’ He is Radha-Krishna’s combined form, but even He could not utter Her Name. Krishna took Srimati Radharani’s heart and halo, and what remained of Her was taken by Gadadhar Pandit (that is why he is called Sri Radha’s incarnation).

Later, after Krishna had left for Mathura and Dvaraka, gopis came to meet with Krishna at Kuruksetra one day (many of you have visited Kuruksetra, you know where it is). During solar eclipses, people come in throngs to bath in a pond there. So, gopis also came there from Vrindavan on the pretext of bathing, but actually they came to see Krishna. But when they saw Krishna, their mind was not satisfied. They said, ‘Our Krishna and this Krishna are not one and the same! Where is that Krishna who wore a peacock feather and played the flute in the forests of Vrindavan?’ Krishna had come there as a king, surrounded by His soldiers, seated on a royal throne. So, when gopis met with Krishna, they started pulling Him back to Vrindavan, saying, ‘Come with us! We are taking You with us!’ When we come for the Ratha-yatra and chant kirtan as the chariots move, what do we say? ‘Hari bolo, Hari bolo, Vrindavane niye cholo! O Lord! O Lord! Come with us to Vrindavan!’ There is Nilachal and Sundarachal – Nilachal is Puri (Kuruksetra, or Dvaraka), and Sundarachal is Gundicha temple (Vrindavan). This is how gopis took Krishna from Kuruksetra to Vrindavan.

Gauranga Mahaprabhu came to show Sri Radha’s mood of union in separation. There is always more pleasure and happiness in separation than in union. Always remember this.

madhura vrnda, vipina-madhuri,
pravesa chaturi sara
varaja-yuvati, bhavera bhakati,
sakati ha-ita kara?

‘Who would have had the great expertise required to enter into the sweet forests of Vrindavan? Who would have shown the power of Vraja-gopis’ ecstatic devotion?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

These are very beautiful words.

gao punah punah, gaurangera guna,
sarala kariya mana
e bhava-sagare, emana dayala,
na dekhiye eka-jana

‘Sing Gauranga’s glories again and again, keeping your heart simple. In the ocean of this material world, no one has ever seen anyone so merciful.’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

There is no one as merciful as He is!

sri-krsna-chaitanya-daya karaha vichara
vichara karile chitte pabe chamatkara

‘Just consider Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mercy! If you do, you will feel astonished in your heart.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.15)

Nobody in this world has ever given as much mercy as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did. To rescue such low and fallen souls as ourselves, He came to this world performing human pastimes. He went door to door calling out to everyone,

jiva jaga jiva jaga gorachanda bale
kata nidra yao maya-pisachira kole

‘Sri Gorachand says, “Wake up, souls! Wake up! How much longer will you sleep in the lap of the witch Maya?”’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Do not sleep, O jiva soul! Wake up!’

pisachi paile yena matichchhanna haya
maya-grasta jivera haya se bhava udaya

‘Those who are possessed by a ghost become delirious, and the same condition arises in those who are seized by Maya, illusion.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.3, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

As if possessed by a ghost, we talk gibberish, ‘My house, my room, my son, my family.’ We do not understand that we only keep floundering in this ocean of material existence…

(7/13) Path of Devotion

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 Visnu Purana)

Having travelled through these 8,400,000 species, we have finally got this human birth. We have gone through 400,000 human species, taking birth in many various places, but this time we are very fortunate:

bharata-bhumite haila manusya janma yara
janma sarthaka kari’ kara para-upakara

‘One who has taken birth as a human being in the land of India should take advantage of this birth by bringing benefit to others.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.9.41)

What does it mean to bring benefit to others (kara para-upakara)? It means bringing to this path the souls who are averse to Lord Sri Krishna. You can see so many people gathered here – I have been going house to house, roaming and preaching in many different places to bring them all here. Many think I come for some potato, dal and money. This is not so. It is not a problem to get rice, potato or dal, I can buy everything. But if I had not come to your house, you would not have come here today. You would not have got a chance to hear these holy talks. You would not have been able to get the mercy of Lord Nityananda Prabhu. That is why I roam this land, going house to house. ‘Krsna bolo, sange chala, ei matra bhiksa chai. I am begging you only for one thing: come with us and chant “Krishna”!’ This is all I say to everyone: practise Krishna consciousness.

Nityananda Prabhu says, ‘Amara kiniya bhaja Gaura Hari! You can buy Me – just worship Gauranga, and I will be sold to you!’ He says, ‘You cannot buy Me with money, but if you worship Gauranga, you can buy Me easily.’ How can we make Nityananda Prabhu happy? By worshipping Gaura Hari. ‘Gaura pahu na bhajiya mainu, prema-ratana-dhana helaya harainu. I did not worship Gora! I did not care for the jewel treasure of the divine love and have lost the chance!’

We will now chant the ekadasi kirtan written by Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur. [His Divine Grace chants ‘Suddha-bhakata-charana-renu.’]

You have all come here today taking so much trouble. You have come from very far despite the problems with the trains, and today is also an ekadasi tithi. ‘Madhava-tithi bhakti-janani yatane palana kari. I carefully observe the holy days related to Madhava. Such days are the mother of devotion.’

Mahaprabhu started the tradition of observing ekadasi from His own mother. He begged this tithi from His mother. One day, He asked her,

‘Mother, I want to beg something from you. Will you give it to Me?’

‘I will,’ Sachi Devi replied.

‘No, saying it once will not do. Say it three times.’

‘All right. I will, I will, I will.’

‘You must not eat rice on ekadasi,’ the Lord asked.

Mahaprabhu told this to His mother, showing that you cannot teach others if you have not taught your own mother first (charity begins at home). This is how Mahaprabhu started preaching the necessity of observing ekadasi, from His own mother.

Many fast without taking any food or water on this day (they observe nirjala ekadasi), but Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur relaxed the rules. Our Param Guru Maharaj, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, wrote Srila Prabhupad’s pranam-mantra:

nikhila-bhuvana-maya-chhinnavichchhinna-kartri
vibudhabahula-mrgya-mukti-mohanta-datri
sithilita-vidhi-raga-radhya-radhesa-dhani
vilasatu hrdi nityam bhakti-siddhanta-vani

‘He slashed to shreds the illusion of the whole material universe, putting a stop to scholarly speculations and conceptions of liberation; he eased the strict rules and regulations, bestowing the conception of natural loving worship of the Divine Couple – may the devotional teachings of this Sri Bhaktisiddhanta play eternally in your heart.’

(Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Srila Prabhupad declared a totalitarian war against maya and relaxed strict rules and regulations. Many fast on the full moon (purnima), new moon (amavasya) and many other days, but Srila Prabhupad said that it was not necessary to do all that. We must only fast until twelve o’clock (midday) on the ekadasi days. If you cannot fast until midday for some reason (for example, many go out to work in the morning), you can take some potato, fruit or other anukalpa in the morning.

You know the rules. You know that there are five things that are prohibited on fasting days: rice, wheat, barley, pulses, mustard/sesame oil. On ekadasi days, sin stays in these kinds of food, so if you eat these things on ekadasi, you will be committing a sin. This is why these five groups of food are prohibited. On ekadasi, we use peanut oil or sunflower oil to make subji. We boil or fry nuts, take sago, potato, fruit, milk, curd. You cannot take sweets from a shop on this day because you can never be sure how they make them and what they add. You can take some home-made sweets.

These are the rules of observing ekadasi.

On the one hand, Mahaprabhu Himself told us to follow ekadasi. On the other hand, He Himself also one day went to the house of Hiranya and Jagadish in Chakdah and ate a full offering, including grains, showing that there is no ekadasi for the Lord. So, the Lord, as well as Deities, is always offered full bhoga, but devotees take only anukalpa on this day.

Today is Sri Bhaimi Ekadasi. You know that there are many ekadasis, and people like to explain what each ekadasi means and what benefit fasting on a particular ekadasi brings, but it is not necessary to follow ekadasi out of hope to get something. Mahaprabhu told us to observe ekadasi, Gurudev told us to observe it, all our guru-varga told us to observe it, and they all observed ekadasi themselves (they taught others by their example), this is why we observe ekadasi. It is no use thinking what benefit you can get by fasting on this ekadasi or that ekadasi. ‘I will only do service, and I will not think about the result or desire to have any share of the result (tomara samsare kariba sevana, nahiba phalera bhagi’ (Saranagati). You have read Srimad Bhagavad-gita. It is said there that we must be active (perform actions; in other words, do service), but we must not enjoy the result. The difference between karma and seva is this: if you do whatever pleases your mind (follow the whims of your mind), that is karma. And if you do what your guru orders you to do, that is service. Other than this, karma and seva externally look the same.

Therefore, ‘Madhava-tithi bhakti-janani yatane palana kari. I carefully observe the holy days related to Madhava – they are the mother of devotion.’ Ekadasi is a Madhava-tithi, the Lord’s day, and we must try to observe this day with care. There are sixty-four types of devotional activities. These five are the main ones:

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana
mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

‘Associate with sadhus, chant the Holy Name of the Lord, listen to Srimad Bhagavatam, reside in Mathura and worship Deities with faith.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.124)

But fasting on ekadasi is also one of those sixty-four practices. Fasting on ekadasi, doing arati, parikrama, chanting kirtans, and so on are all limbs of devotion.

(8/13) Krishna Conscious Life

You should read what the sixty-four limbs of devotion (bhaktyanga) are. As I have just said, the main practices are:

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana
mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

‘Associate with sadhus, chant the Holy Name of the Lord, listen to Srimad Bhagavatam, reside in Mathura and worship Deities with faith.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.124)

There is also nava-vidha bhakti, nine kinds of devotion: sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet).

First, sukriti must come. You cannot come to this line without sukriti accumulated from previous births. Sukriti means using ‘His things for His service’ (tad vastu tadiya sevaya) – using the Lord’s things for the Lord’s service. If you plant a flower tree, you must pick the flowers and offer them at the lotus feet of Govinda or make garlands from the flowers and offer them onto Govinda’s neck. This is how the flower tree can get some benefit. This is how it works. His things for His service. Everything that is created in this world exists for the Lord’s enjoyment, but we become proud and try to use all things in our own service.

We are alive in this world at the expense of killing so many jivas (souls). Each day we live, we live by killing other living entities – we eat rice, dal, vegetables. We drink water, but there are living entities even in water. The only way out of this exploitive life is to turn your whole life into a Krishna-conscious life. You must make your life Krishna-centred. ‘Krsnera samsara kara chhadi’ anachara. Leave your sinful behaviour and dedicate your life to Krishna.’ It means that you can cook, you can work in the field, you can run your business, you can go to work, you can do everything, but you should do it for the Lord.

If you eat something without offering it first to the Lord, it is stealing and you will be committing a sin. Do you understand this? That is why, it is said, ‘Prasada-seva karite haya, sakala prapancha jaya – the entire material world can be conquered by honouring the Lord’s prasad’ (Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur). You must honour (serve) prasad, then all diseases will go away. There are five material diseases – avidya (ignorance), asmita (false identification), raga (misdirected love), dvesa (aversion to anything that goes against one’s enjoyment) and abhinivesa (being unable to give up unfavourable habits). If you honour prasad properly, all these diseases will go away. Do not eat paneer rasa [tasty food]. Take prasad. Do you understand what it means? Eating paneer rasa is not taking prasad. If you eat something and think it is paneer rasa, this is not prasad-seva.

Anyhow, you have heard all these things from me for many years. Today I will speak about the glories of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu…

(9/13) Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Glory (1)

A lowly and fallen soul such as myself is not capable of glorifying Sri Nityananda Prabhu, but if gurudev and Nityananda Prabhu give their mercy and say something through my mouth, then only can it be possible.

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my God-brothers and sisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

I have told something about the glory of Nityananda Prabhu earlier during this class. I mentioned that Nityananda Prabhu bestowed His mercy on Srila Raghunath Das Goswami and Sri Sivananda Sen.

jaya rupa sanatana bhatta raghunatha
sri-jiva gopala-bhatta dasa raghunatha

‘All glory to Sri Rupa, Sanatan, Raghunath Bhatta, Sri Jiva, Gopal Bhatta and Raghunath Das!’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Srila Raghunath Das Goswami is one of the famous six goswamis. He spent his last years on the bank of Sri Radha Kunda. His bhajan-kutir and samadhi are there. Many of you have been at Govardhan and have got a chance to take the darshan of that place. Long before he came to stay there, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami lived here in Bengal.

There were two brothers, Hiranya and Govardhan. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami was Govardhan’s son, and he was the only son in the family. When Mahaprabhu took sannyas and stayed at the house of Sri Advaita Acharya for ten–twelve days, He bestowed His mercy on Srila Raghunath Das Goswami Prabhu, who was just five years old at that time.

Receiving Mahaprabhu’s mercy, Sri Das Goswami Prabhu became indifferent towards the material world. He had no attachment to anything in this world. Many times he tried to leave everything and come to stay with Mahaprabhu, but Mahaprabhu sent him back again and again. His parents also came every time to bring him back. In the end, Srila Das Goswami Prabhu’s parents arranged for eleven bodyguards so that somebody always stayed with him and made sure that he would not run away. Mahaprabhu Himself also told him, ‘Do not become crazy. Go back to your home! Do not show monkey renunciation to impress others. Live at comfortably but without attachment.’

markata-vairagya na kara loka dekhana
yatha-yogya visaya bhunja’ anasakta hana

‘Do not show your false renunciation to impress people. Use whatever material things you require, but without attachment.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.16.238)

Mahaprabhu told Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, ‘Practise Krishna consciousness and be detached.’ Genuine sadhus have no attachment. You see all these great temples, buildings, guesthouses – so many things have been made – but I have no attachment. I have made it, and I will go away. I do not even go to these buildings. We have built another floor above the nat-mandir. Once the construction finished, I checked it, and after that I never go there. I am not attached to these things. I do not even think about all this. I only told devotees to clean it and maintain it nicely.

It is good to keep everything clean. You must keep yourself also in cleanness. Mahaprabhu personally cleaned the Gundicha Temple and took out all the dust. He swept and wiped the temple with His own hand. Why did Mahaprabhu bestow His mercy on King Prataparudra in Puri Dham? Because he cleaned a street. King Prataparudra did the smallest possible service – he swept a street knowing that Mahaprabhu and Vaishnavs would go down that street…

(10/13) Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Glory (2)

Srila Narottam Das Thakur was a B.A. according to the standards of his time. He was determined to take initiation from Srila Lokanath Das Goswami, but Srila Lokanath Das Goswami said that he would not give initiation to anyone. Still, Srila Narottam Das Thakur promised to himself, ‘I will not give up until I have got initiation from him. He will be my guru!’ How did he get initiation?

Srila Lokanath Das Goswami was sitting in some place, chanting the Holy Name, and he would go to some place in a forest or garden every day to pass stool. Srila Narottam Das Thakur would go there, clean the place with a spade and put some fresh soil on top. He kept that part of the forest clean in this way. Eventually, Srila Lokanath Das Goswami came to notice this. ‘I have been passing stool here for many days, where does it all go? Who buries my stool?’ When he found out that Srila Narottam Das Thakur had been doing it, he was touched and felt that he was bound to give him initiation.

His name was ‘Narottam’. You must not just keep a name. You must become what that name embodies. Narottam means the highest (uttama) among men (nara).

So, this is how Srila Narottam Das Thakur received initiation from Srila Lokanath Das Goswami. Many do not know about it, that is why I am telling you about it now. His guru accepted a very small service from him. He cleaned his guru’s stool. It is the lowest service, but his name is known to everyone. Moreover, if Srila Narottam Das Thakur had not preached, who would have known about Srila Lokanath Das Goswami? Because Srila Narottam Das Thakur took initiation from him, everyone now knows about Srila Lokanath Das Goswami also. It is necessary to understand these things.

I was speaking about how Sriman Nityananda Prabhu bestowed His mercy on Srila Raghunath Das Goswami.

His parents tried hard to keep Srila Raghunath Das Goswami at home and even had him married to a girl, who was as beautiful as an angel, but he was indifferent to her.

Mahaprabhu told him, ‘Go back to your home, do not become crazy. Do not show monkey renunciation to impress others. Live comfortably, but without attachment.’

markata-vairagya na kara loka dekhana
yatha-yogya visaya bhunja’ anasakta hana

‘Do not show your false renunciation to impress people. Use whatever material things you require, but without attachment.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.16.238)

When Mahaprabhu said this, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami asked Him, ‘Prabhu, then how will I ever come to You?’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘If Krishna wants to give His mercy to you, who will be able to stop you then?’

se chhala se-kale krsna sphurabe tomare
krsna-krpa yanre, tanre ke rakhite pare

‘When time comes, Krishna will reveal to you the trick how you can come to Him. Who can stop you if you have received Krishna’s mercy?’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.16.241)

Nobody can stop you. Even if you have a wife, beautiful as an angel, Krishna can still keep you as a brahmachari!

One day, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami came to his father and asked him, ‘Father, I hear Sri Nityananda Prabhu has come to Panihati. I want to go there to meet with Him.’ His father gave him permission. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami took a horse and rode away to Panihati.

Sri Nityananda Prabhu was sitting and resting under a tree. Seeing the Lord from afar, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami got off his horse and walked up to Him. When he came closer, Nityananda Prabhu call him, ‘Come, come, thief. Come to Me!’

Why did Nityananda Prabhu call him a thief? Because he was trying to foolishly bypass the right channel (goda dingiye ghas khawa). Lord Nityananda Prabhu said, ‘You went to get Mahaprabhu’s mercy bypassing Me! That is why you could not come to Him.’ It is impossible to get mercy without Nityananda Prabhu. That is why Nityananda prabhu called Raghunath Das Goswami a thief: he had crossed Nityananda Prabhu. This is the same as worshipping Gauranga bypassing the guru. ‘Guru bade Gauranga bhaje, sei papi raurave pade majhe: the sinner who worships Gauranga without the guru will fall into a terrible hell.’ Many worship Gauranga bypassing the guru, but Nityananda Prabhu said that it was thievery.

Nityananda Prabhu said to Raghunath Das Goswami, ‘Come here, thief! I will punish you today!’ What punishment was it? He said, ‘Feed all the Vaishnavs who are here with flat rice and yoghurt!’ It was May–June, a season of mangoes and jackfruits, so different fruit was also supplied for the ‘punishment’ festival. The festival arranged by Srila Raghunath Das Goswami became famous as a flat-rice festival. In Gaudiya language, it is known as a ‘danda-mahotsav’ because Sri Nityananda Prabhu gave ‘punishment’ (danda) to Srila Raghunath Das Goswami Prabhu by ordering him to arrange a festival.

Srila Raghunath Das Goswami Prabhu arranged the festival, and so many people came to take prasadam that day that some had to actually stand in the Ganges and take prasadam standing up to their neck in the water.

To this day, this festival is attended by a large crowd of people, and some people still take prasadam standing in the water. We go to Pahinati for this festival every year, only last year we could not come [due to the pandemic restrictions], but I went there on that day. There was nobody there, only the police were guarding the place. I went there by car with one–two devotees just to offer my obeisance because even though there was no festival on that day, I had been coming there every year.

When the festival finished, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami paid a full obeisance to Sri Nityananda Prabhu asking the Lord for His mercy, and Sri Nityananda Prabhu put His feet on his head, saying, ‘Now you can go! You have got your mercy.’

A few months later, it came to Durga Puja time. There was a big festival at Srila Raghunath Das Goswami’s house. I have just told you – if Krishna gives His mercy to somebody, nobody can bind or stop them. So, when it came to Durga Puja time, the Lord created some illusion, and Srila Raghunath Das Goswami got a chance to leave the house together with the family’s priest.

Running away from home, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami Prabhu went to Puri and met with Mahaprabhu. You will be astonished to hear how he lived and practised spiritual life in Puri. A landowner’s son who was used to sleeping on a nice bed, he walked for twelve days on foot to Puri. During those twelve days, he ate rice only three times. Where did he sleep? He slept in cowsheds. Leaving everything as stool and urine, he finally came to Mahaprabhu. This time, Mahaprabhu welcomed him and said, ‘From today, you will serve Svarup Damodar, and your name will be Svarup’s Raghu.’

Some time later, Mahaprabhu disappeared. Svarup Damodar disappeared. And Srila Raghunath Das Goswami promised himself, ‘I will jump from Govardhan and commit suicide!’ He went to Vrindavan to do it, but when he met Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami, Srila Sanatan Goswami explained to him, ‘I also thought of committing suicide once, but Prabhu told me, “Are you not ashamed of yourself? How can you destroy My body? Your body is Mine!”’

diksa-kale bhakta kare atma-samarpana
sei-kale krsna tare kare atma-sama

‘Devotees submit their entire being when they take initiation. At this time, Krishna accepts them as His very own.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.192)

‘’’When you took initiation, you surrendered to Me. You gave everything – your heart, your mind and everything else – to your guru! So, this body is not yours, it is My body! I will use it, and it My matter how I will use it.”’

Have we got there yet? Do we have this kind of surrender? We think, ‘This is my body’, but this body is gurudev’s. Gurudev gave me initiation, so this body is now his: I will do whatever gurudev wants me to do. But we are not like that. We have not got there yet. We still do what our minds want. Always remember this.

So, Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami explained all this to Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, and Srila Raghunath Das Goswami changed his mind. After that, he stayed in Vrindavan and composed many books. He was a recipient of Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy…

(11/13) Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Glory (3)

Apart from Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, there were other great personalities who received Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy. Two of them are Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami and Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur.

You know that Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur was the son of Narayani, Srivas Pandit Prabhu’s niece. He was born in Mamgachi, Nabadwip (Modadrumdwip; current Bardhaman District).

Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur stayed with Sri Nityananda Prabhu as His servitor from the age of thirteen. He knew what Nityananda Prabhu liked to eat and served Him in every way. Once, Sri Nityananda Prabhu was taking all the devotees to Puri. They had taken prasadam in Nabadwip and started walking in the morning.

Sri Nityananda Prabhu had a habit to eat hartaki. (I heard from Gurudev that even a mother can be nasty to her son, but hartaki can never be bad to your stomach – it always works. If you take green hartaki, it always helps digestion.) When devotees in Nabadwip had given hartaki to Sri Vrindavan Das Thakur, he thought, ‘Prabhu will take prasadam on the way, and He will ask for hartaki again. Let me keep a few for later.’

When Nityananda Prabhu and the devotees set off from Nabadwip and reached Denur, a village in East Bardhaman, by midday, Sri Nityananda Prabhu sat in a mango grove and met with Sri Ramahari Chakravarti, a local brahman.

Sri Ramahari Chakravarti had always thought, ‘When will Prabhu come? When will I get Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy?’ He saw a dream in which he was told that he would get Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy very soon. The next day, he saw that there were many sadhus in the mango grove near his house. When he went to the grove, he saw that his Prabhu Himself was there!

Ramahari Chakravarti fell in a full obeisance to Lord Nityananda Prabhu, saying, ‘Prabhu, please come with me to my house. Please take prasadam at my house.’ Nityananda Prabhu replied, ‘Do you have place for so many people?! Do Me a favour. Bring some rice, dal and other things. We can cook here and take prasad here.’ Ramahari Chakravarti arranged everything, and Lord Nityananda Prabhu took prasad in the garden, together with all the devotees.

Finishing His meal, He told Sri Vrindavan Das Thakur, ‘Vrindavan, where is My thing? Give it to Me.’ He did not say in front of everyone what He wanted, but Sri Vrindavan Das Thakur understood it and gave Him a hartaki.

Then, Akrodha-Paramananda Nityananda Ray (who has no anger and is always full of extraordinary joy) showed anger.

To teach others, He said angrily, ‘You are a brahmachari, but you are not keeping your brahmacharya properly! Your hoarding mentality has not gone away yet! You still think what you will eat tomorrow! Do not go with Me to Puri! Stay here, get married and do what you like.’

This is how Sri Vrindavan Das Thakur stayed in Denur. Do you know what he did in Denur? He wrote Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata there! He named his book Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, but in fact he mostly wrote about the glory of Sri Nityananda Prabhu in this book. When devotees read it, they chuckled, ‘You should have called it Sri Nityananda-bhagavata!’

[His Divine Grace notices somebody is sleeping.]

Hey, give him a pillow! Do you have a pillow in your room? Bring it, give it to him. You are falling asleep. Why are you suddenly feeling sleepy? Because Maya Devi is getting to you. There are three sisters – Ghum-parani (fast asleep and snoring), Jhim-parani (fast asleep and drooping) and Dol-dolani (fast asleep and rocking or jerking). You must have heard these three names before. When you listen to Hari-katha, you feel drowsy, but when you watch TV series, you do not feel sleepy. In every house I go to I see that people sit in front of their TV sets and watch series. They have no time to listen to Hari-katha. They have no time to chant kirtans for half an hour in the evening. If you did, they would have already learned all kirtans by heart, but no, they have no time. They can easily tell what time which series are on, but they cannot remember kirtans. They have no time for kirtans. That is why sleep comes…

So, I was saying that Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur stayed in Denur and composed Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata there. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami called him ‘Vyasadev of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s pastimes’ (Chaitanya-lilara vyasa—Vrndavana-dasa; Sri Chaitanya-charitamrta, 1.8.34). If you go to Denur, you can still see his handwritten manuscript there.

This is how Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur received Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy and was able to write his very beautiful scripture, Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata.

(12/13) Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Glory (4)

Another person who received Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy was Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami said that there were only three persons in this world who knew Mahaprabhu, but Gurudev said that there was one more, the fourth, person. Who is it? Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami himself.

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami stayed here, in Bengal, in a placed called Jhamatpur Baharan. This is the place of his previous family (purva-ashram). Later, he went to Vrindavan and wrote Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. He wrote:

ei grantha lekhaya more ‘madana-mohana’
amara likhana yena sukera pathana

‘Sri Madan Mohan is writing this scripture through me. My writing is like the repetition of a parrot.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.78)

And in every single chapter, Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami wrote:

sri-rupa-raghunatha-pade yara asa
chaitanya-charitamrta kahe krsna-dasa

‘Always desiring the lotus feet of Sri Rupa and Raghunath, Krishna Das is narrating this Chaitanya-charitamrita.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.1.110; repeated at the end of every chapter)

This Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami also received the mercy of Sri Nityananda Prabhu.

At his house in Jhamatpur Baharan, there used to be asta-prahar kirtans (day-long kirtans) during which everyone mostly worshipped only Gauranga Mahaprabhu. One time, Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami’s brother brought a pujari brahman, Gunarnava Misra, to the house. This Gunarnava Misra offered worship to Mahaprabhu, but when Nityananda Prabhu’s great servitor, Sri Ramadas Minaketan, came there, Gunarnava Misra showed no affection – he did not even give him a place to sit. Ramadas Minaketan later spoke to Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami, saying, ‘My hair is standing on end! He is making such a big offence! He respects Gaura but has no respect for Nitai. This is a half-hen logic!’

Do you understand what half-hen logic is? At first, I did not understand it, so I asked Gurudev what it meant. You all know what a hen looks like. A hen eats with its upper portion, and eggs come out of its bottom portion. So, if you think, ‘I will keep the portion where eggs come from, and I will throw away the rest!’ will that work? It will not. This is what half-hen logic is. On other words, you think, ‘I will worship Gaura, and I will not worship Nitai!’ It can never work like this. There is no Gaura without Nitai, and there is no Nitai without Gaura. We must worship both Gaura and Nitai. If you worship Gaura, you must worship Nitai. If you worship Nitai, you must worship Gaura.

After that conversation with Sri Ramadas Minaketan, Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami was very upset and had a quarrel with his brother. At night, Nityananda Prabhu appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Listen, listen, Krishna Das! You are no longer to stay in Jhamatpur. Come to Vrindavan!’ The next morning, he woke up and went away, leaving everything behind.

He was very old when he came to Vrindavan. His hands trembled, and he could not write. How was he to write about Mahaprabhu’s pastimes? Then, Madan Mohan’s garland fell from His neck and landed on Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami’s neck when he was paying an obeisance to the Deity. That is why he wrote:

ei grantha lekhaya more ‘madana-mohana’
amara likhana yena sukera pathana

‘Sri Madan Mohan is writing this scripture through me. My writing is like the repetition of a parrot.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.78)

The Deity told him, ‘You will only hold the pen!’

In those days, there were no pens. There were quills. I also wrote with a quill when I was small. I remember it used to always break. When I was given pencils, they too used to break. I even broke three tables, and sometimes had to study right on the ground. That is how much I studied…

This is how Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami received Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy.

We have time to speak about one more pastime. What pastime is that? The pastime related to Sri Madhai. You all know about him. When we go for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, we go to Madhai Ghat and talk about it. I have also written about this pastime in a book, Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala.

Nityananda Prabhu bestowed His mercy and gave a very beautiful service to Madhai. He said, ‘Many people come to take a bath in the Ganges and pass stool nearby. Make a ghat here and clean all stool.’ He did that, and that ghat became known as Madhai Ghat. Madhai and Jagai kept that ghat clean. Although brahmans, they behaved like low persons: they became great Vaishnavs and cleaned all devotees’ stool.

At first, Mahaprabhu rejected Madhai. He said, ‘I will not give him My mercy! I will give mercy to Jagai because he has saved My dearmost friend and brother Nitai.’ Hearing this, Nitai begged Mahaprabhu, ‘Prabhu, I have never asked You for anything in My life, but today I want to ask You for something. Please give me Madhai as alms. You are here in this world to rescue all fallen souls. Is there anyone in this world more fallen than him? We must rescue Him!’ Then Mahaprabhu and Nitai bestowed Their mercy on Madhai.

[His Divine Grace joyfully sings the kirtan below, followed by ‘Jaya Radhe Jaya Krsna’ and ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna.’]

dayal nitai chaitanya ba’le nach’re amar’ man’

nach’re amar’ man’ nach’re amar’ man’

‘Dance, my mind, dance, chanting, “Dayal Nitai Chaitanya!” Dance, my mind, dance!’

(emana dayala to nai re, mara kheye prema deya)

(o-re) aparadha dure yabe, pabe prema-dhan’!

(o name aparadha-vichar’ to nai he)

(takhan’) krsna-name ruchi ha’be, ghuchibe bandhan’

(krsna-name anurag’ to habe he)

‘(There is no one as merciful as Them–even when They are beaten, They bestow transcendental love!) (Lo,) offences will go away and you will attain the wealth of divine love! (After all, there is no consideration of offences in the Names of Nitai and Chaitanya.) (Then,) you will develop taste for Krishna’s Name and your bondage will be destroyed. (After all, you must get loving attachment to the Lord’s Name!)’

(takhan’) anayase saphal’ ha’be jivera jivan’

(naile jivan’ to michhe he)

(krsna-rati bina jivan’ to michhe he)

(sese) vrndavane radha-syamer’ pabe darasan’

(gaura-krpa ha’le he)

‘(Then) your soul’s life will easily become successful. (Otherwise, life is a farce.) Without attachment to Krishna, your soul’s life is a farce. (In the end,) you will get to see Radha-Shyam in Vrindavan (if you get Gaura’s mercy!).’

(13/13) Clean Mood

You know that it is Bhaimi Ekadasi today, and tomorrow is Lord Varahadev’s appearance. I have told before: you must all take sweet rice tomorrow.

Lord Varahadev removes all opposing elements from our lives. You must do archan in the morning, after that offer special sweet-rice bhoga to Varahadev, then everyone can make paran (break the fast) with the prasad. This must be completed before 9:57 a.m. Paran is between 6:09 and 9:57 a.m. tomorrow. All cooking must be finished before 8 a.m. After that, do the archan and offer the bhoga. Where is the pujari?

[Devotee calls out: Bhaja Da!]

Do not call him ‘Bhaja Da’. You must say ‘Prabhu’.

[Devotee: Dada Prabhu!]

No ‘dada’ [elder brother], no ‘ma’ [mummy]. [Devotees laugh.]

[Devotee: Bhajahari Prabhu!]

You must talk respectfully to others. Do not behave like aul, baul, karttabhaja, neda, daravesa, sani, sakhibheki, jata-goswami. ‘Sambandha janiya bhajite bhajite abhimana hau dura: if we practise Krishna consciousness with proper decorum (understanding the relationship), then our ego will be removed.’ You must call [male] devotees ‘Prabhu.’ Even a father must call his son ‘Prabhu’. Have you seen Sripad Niriha Maharaj’s father? His son is a sannyasi, but he pays full obeisance to his son and respectfully addresses him ‘Maharaj’. You must learn from him. Do not see his faults, you must look at his good qualities.

Somebody complained that he did not give prasad to some outside people, but it is ekadasi today – if outside people come and take prasad, then our devotees arriving from a long train journey will have to stay hungry. He did right. Do not look at others’ faults. Always see good qualities in others. [A devotee tries to explain something.] I know everything, I have heard it. Everything comes to my ears. You think I am staying upstairs and do not see anything. I see everything. I hear everything. Who does what, who does not do what. I know everything.

The day after tomorrow is Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance day. You must fast on this day in the morning. Nityananda Prabhu is Baladev’s incarnation. If you fast on this day, it will bring you spiritual benefit. Fast in the morning and take prasad at midday.

Another thing I want to tell you is that this year we are starting Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama from dasami. Everyone must come. This year, the parikrama will be five days.

I have cancelled the trip to Ganga Sagar this year because foreign devotees cannot come and I also need to finish the construction of the rooms in Nrisingha Palli, Nabadwip. Devotees will come, and they need accommodation. I made the third floor here in Ekachakra, and so many people can now stay here. Otherwise, where would you all stay? It would have been necessary to make pandals and make many arrangements. It is very much austerity for you. In the same way, we also need to take care of the accommodation in Nrisingha Palli. We left the main Nabadwip temple, so we must make enough rooms in Nrisingha Palli now. The floors are already marbled, and the bathrooms are also completed…

So, take paran timely tomorrow, after the worship of Lord Varahadev. You know that Varahadev is one of the ten incarnations of the Lord. I will tell about His pastimes tomorrow. The Lord appeared as Varahadev, assuming the form of a boar. The Lord assumed the form of Nrisinghadev (half-man, half-lion) to slay Hiranyakasipu, and Lord Varahadev killed Hiranyakasipu’s elder brother, Hiranyaksa.

I have heard there are many people who want to take initiation. They can come after the paran. You can give prasad at 8:30 a.m. Offer the bhoga at 8 a.m. and give prasad at 8:30 a.m. You have been all fasting today, it is ekadasi, so everybody will be hungry. That is why Srila Prabhupad made the rule that we must fast on ekadasi for only one day. Bengali people love rice so much that they cannot live without it. So, to decrease your austerity, Srila Prabhupad made the fasting obligatory only for one day. It is also good for health to fast on ekadasi. Every day we eat all kinds of food, and it is good to take a break every now and then for a day and take simple food (some potato and fruit, without rice, chilli and other spices).

Devotee: Can those who are taking initiation tomorrow take prasad?

Yes, they can, it is not a problem. Initiations will start from 9 a.m. I will be telling them about the Holy Name, and if they come hungry, they will only think about food. Instead of the Holy Name, they will only think, ‘When will I eat?’ [Devotees laugh.] Better if they eat and then come to me. I am telling it to you straight. It is the truth. Those who are surrendered souls have no offence: if someone is genuinely surrendered, there is no offence for them if they eat and then come to take initiation.

ki sayane, ki bhojane, kiba jagarane
aharnisa chinta krsna, balaha vadane

‘Whether you are sleeping, eating or waking up, incessantly think about Krishna and chant the Name of Krishna with your mouth.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.28.28)

Always chant the Holy Name – when you are eating, when you are sleeping. Always keep your heart and mood clean.

However, those who are taking the second initiation must fast because they must sit at the fire sacrifice. I will not be able to make a yajna tomorrow, so ladies can take the second initiation tomorrow, and male devotees can come to Nabadwip to receive their brahman threads.

ki sayane, ki bhojane, kiba jagarane
aharnisa chinta krsna, balaha vadane

‘Whether you are sleeping, eating or waking up, incessantly think about Krishna and chant the Name of Krishna with your mouth.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.28.28)

There are no rules and regulations (viddhi).

prabhu kahe – kahilan ei maha-mantra
iha japa’ giya sabe kariya nirbandha

‘Always chant the Holy Name – there is no obstruction, no binding restriction, you can chant this Holy Name at any time.’

iha haite sarva-siddhi haibe sabara
sarva-ksana bala ithe vidhi nahi ara

‘By doing this, you will attain success in all respects. There is no other rule but to chant it at every moment.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.23.77–78)

These are Mahaprabhu’s words. There are no rules and regulations regarding the chanting of the Holy Name. There is no question of ‘you cannot take the Holy Name if you have eaten’. Srila Haridas Thakur followed many rules and regulations and chanted 300,000 Names daily. One day, when Mahaprabhu’s prasad came, he said, ‘Today I have to break the rule.’ He ate without having completed 300,000 Names that day. When Srila Haridas Thakur rescued Laksmihira, he told her, ‘I have vowed to chant ten million Holy Names this month, so you will have to wait.’ He chanted the Holy Name the whole day, and he chanted loudly.

If you chant silently, in your mind, many thoughts will come to your mind – you will be moving the beads and thinking about other things. The same thing happens when people go out for a walk with the beads in their hand. Gurudev called this ‘finger exercise’. People walk and talk to each other and do their mala. Can you be saying Hare Krishna and other things at the same time? This is how you get ‘Pare Besto Pare Besto’ instead of ‘Hare Krishna Hare Krishna’… Do not chant to impress others. Always do it privately. ‘Apana bhajana-katha na kahibe yatha tatha: Do not tell anyone and everyone about your service and practice (bhajan).’ We must not tell anyone about our spiritual practice. It is not necessary to tell anything to impress others. I have also seen that people hang chanting beads around their necks… What can you say? It is said in the scriptures, ‘There is only one Krishna-bhakta among a thousand of Vaishnavs.’ Some say they are Krishna-bhaktas. We are not Krishna-bhaktas. We are devotees of Gauranga. First you must become a devotee of Lord Nityananda Prabhu, then a devotee of Gauranga Mahaprabhu, then only can you become a devotee of Lord Krishna. But there are missions that say that you must first become a devotee of Krishna. This is not how spiritual life is practised.

I heard the other day that one temple installed Pancha-tattva Deities. You can see here in Ekachakra also that there are asta-sakhis installed together with Nitai and Gauranga in one of the temples. I have never been there, but I have heard about it. There is vatsalya-rasa and sakhya-rasa between Nitai and Gauranga. How does madhura-rasa come here? And in Vrindavan, the place of madhura-rasa, they have Baladev’s Temple. When somebody asked Srila Sridhar Maharaj about it, he answered that it depends on one’s qualification – somebody is a shanta-rasa bhakta, somebody is a dasya-rasa bhakta, somebody is a sakhya-rasa bhakta, somebody is a vatsalya-rasa bhakta, and somebody is a madhura-rasa bhakta. Madhura-rasa is extremely high. Our Param Guru Maharaj installed Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda-sundar, and Srila Prabhupad installed Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Giridhari. There are three Deities that have ‘hijacked’ Gaudiya Vaishnavs – Govinda, Gopinath and Madan-mohan. Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu served Govinda, Srila Sanatan Goswami served Madan-Mohan, and Sri Madhu Pandit served Gopinath.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj ki jay.
Sachchidananda Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur ki jay.
Sarvabhauma Sri Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Ekachakra Dham ki jay.
Sri Hadai Pandit, Sri Padmavati Mayi ki jay.
Jay Sri Ganga, Yamuna ki jay.

Do you know that there is Yamuna Devi here? There is also Jahnu Kunda, or Hantugada. There is also Kadam Khandi. Sivji Maharaj is also here (his name is Chakleshwar here). There is also Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra here. We will go to pay obeisance to Them the day after tomorrow during the parikrama. Everybody must come. You will hear about the glory of each place.

There will be a class tomorrow in the morning. It is Lord Varahadev’s appearance, so everybody must wake up early in the morning and come to the class. I know you are used to sleeping till late. I have told you before:

saisava-yauvane, jada-sukha-sange,
abhyasa haila manda
nija-karma-dose, e deha haila,
bhajanera pratibandha

‘I enjoyed in my childhood and youth, and as the result, I have developed bad habits. Because of my previous actions, this body has now become an obstacle to practising spiritual life.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Our habits are bad, we cannot wake up early in the morning. People watch TV the whole night and wake up late. This is how we end up like this:

vardhakye ekhana, pancha-roge hata,
kemane bhajiba bala’
kandiya kandiya, tomara charane,
padiyachhi suvihvala

‘I am now old and afflicted by five-fold material diseases. Tell me, how shall I serve? Crying incessantly, I have fallen at your feet, utterly bewildered.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Now you think, ‘How can I practise?’ We did not develop good habits from childhood… You must get into good habits.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Sri Hadai Pandit, Sri Padmavati Mayi ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

* * *

￼Line Line24 February 2021, a.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Appearance Day of Lord Sri Varahadev

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/6) Clear Your Path

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my God-brothers and sisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

[Noise in the nat-mandir.]

Who is talking so much? Why are you talking here? Are you sitting in the nat madir telling stories to each other? Lying in bed and telling stories?? There is Hari-katha taking place here! Is it a place for chatting?

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Do you ever think that you can leave this world at this very moment?

hare krsna nama japa abhirama
ye kai dina dehe achhe ta prana

‘Incessantly chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, the Lord’s Names, for as long as you have life in this body.’

It is necessary to always chant the Holy Name, to chant Krishna-kirtan. You are worrying about your money, food, clothes and various gossips at every moment, passing your whole life like that.

dinera madhye abala-tabala
kata pachala padite para
tara madhye tumi ki ekbara
govinda balite nara

‘How much nonsense you can talk every day! How many idle talks you have! Can you not say the Name of Govinda even once?’

You always gossip, always engage in idle, inauspicious talks (prajalpa). It acts against devotion. There are six obstacles – atyahara, prayascha, prajalpa, niyamagraha, laulancha, jana-sangancha (eating too much, hoarding things, talking nonsense, superficial attachment to rules and regulations, greed, associating with non-devotees). They are thorns obstructing the path of devotion. Atyahara means eating much; prayascha means accumulating much; prajalpa means talking a lot and talking nonsense; niyamagraha means going what opposes devotion; laulancha means material greed; and jana-sanganch means keeping material association. All these things are written at the end of our calendars.

We sing every day also:

chhaya vega dami’, chhaya dosa sodhi’,
chhaya guna deha dase

chhaya sat-sanga, deha he amare,
basechhi sangera ase

‘Please subjugate the six urges, rectify the six defects and bestow the six good qualities upon this servant. Please give me the six kinds of good association. I am waiting and yearning for this association.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to control the six urges. It is necessary to correct the six defects in yourself. And it is necessary to keep good association. It is necessary to keep enthusiasm for Hari-katha, for the Lord’s service. All these things are written very beautifully. If you do not read about it, if you do not follow it, you will not get any result. You were just now singing in a kirtan,

bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava–varjanangikara

‘[Surrender means] engaging only in what is favourable to devotion and rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’

svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari

‘To bestow His mercy to jiva souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to reject all that is against devotion – all that is unfavourable to devotion, all thorns obstructing the path of devotion, all deception in the name of devotion. Devotion and anti-devotion cannot go together, just as if you drink both milk and liquor, you will not get any benefit.

I heard that people in Basirhat like to say, ‘We are doing mina-seva [fish service]!’ It made me laugh. Instead of worshipping the Lord, they are eating food themselves. What does the Lord eat? We sang in the Dasavatara Stotram just now, ‘Kesava dhrta-mina-sarira jaya jagadisa hare.’ It is the first verse of the stotram. It says that the Lord assumes the form of a fish (mina). And people enjoy eating fish… Here also 50% of people eat fish. They think, ‘I can do anything I want’, but doing anything you want does not work here. Do you understand? You must accept what is favourable to devotion and you must reject what is unfavourable to devotion.

You think if you do not eat meat and fish, you will not manage. Where I come from, they say, ‘Oh, I eat fish and eggs, but I have given up meat!’ This is their Krishna consciousness – they wear neckbeads, put tilaks, etc. They do everything, but they eat fish and eggs. But neither Mahaprabhu, nor the scriptures teach this. There is no such siddhanta.

(2/6) Nurture Exclusive Desire

jihvara lalase yei iti-uti dhaya
sisnodara-parayana se krsna nahi paya

‘Those who, subservient to their tongues, run here and there and are devoted to satisfying their genitals and bellies cannot attain Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.227)

To stop this constant nagging of the tongue, we always chant before taking prasad,

mahaprasade govinde nama-brahmani vaisnave
svalpa-punya-vatam rajan visvaso naiva yayate

‘O King, one whose fortune is meagre never develops strong faith in mahaprasad, Govinda, the Holy Name or Vaishnavs.’

(Mahabharata)

sarira avidya-jala jadendriya tahe kala
jive phele visaya-sagare

tara madhye jihva ati, lobhamaya sudurmati
ta’ke jeta kathina samsare

‘This body is a net of illusion, and the material senses are the cause of its ruination as they throw the soul into the ocean of mundanity. Among all senses, the tongue is extremely greedy and wicked; it is very difficult to conquer it in the material world.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

The material senses include the five karmendriya (instruments – feet, hands, rectum, genitals, mouth), the five jnanindriya (senses through which knowledge is acquired – eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin) and also mind, intelligence and ego. Can you control all these senses? Our eyes always go in a wrong direction. We cannot control our senses, but how is it possible to do it? Why do our scriptures say that we must not eat fish, meat, onion, garlic, masoor dal and other things? Because these things excite senses and make them strong. That is why scriptures say that we must take sattvik food (food in the mode of goodness). Our senses always become excited – if they become very strong and we feel too much lust, anger, greed, illusion, and so on, we will be removed from Krishna consciousness. Many say, ‘What is the problem if I eat onion or garlic?’ Onion and garlic are very strong – those who ate it before know it. We cannot eat it; otherwise, we will be removed from Krishna consciousness.

That is why Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur explains that accepting what is favourable to devotion and rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion are parts of the six-limb surrender. ‘Anukulyasya samkalpah, pratikulya vivarjjanam. Accept what is favourable, reject what is unfavourable’ (Vaisnava-tantra). Srila Narottam Das Thakur also writes very beautifully:

anya-abhilasa chhadi’, jnana-karma parihari’,
kaya mane kariba bhajana

‘Serve the Lord with your body and mind, giving up all other desires and the pursuit of material benefit and knowledge.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

There is ananya-abhilas (exclusive desire), and there is anya-abhilas (other desires). Ananya-abhilas means ‘I do not know anything or anyone except Krishna. I have submitted my mind, life, speech – everything I have – at Krishna’s lotus feet. I do not know anything except the lotus feet of Sri Krishna, I do not understand anything except Krishna, I do not give my mind to anything except Krishna.’

Lord Sri Krishna assumes ten kinds of forms. For example, there are many people who like to go to Ayodhya – they compare Rama to Krishna and give preference to Rama. There is even a group that always chants, ‘Rama, Rama.’ But Lord Rama, just as Lord Baladev, is only one of the avatars. Rama is the Lord, but He is not the complete Supreme Personality of Godhead. There is Vamanadev, Varahadev and many other incarnations – They are all Lords, but They are not Supreme Personalities of Godhead. The Lord assumes these forms (Nrisinghadev, Varahadev, Baladev, Mina-sarira, Parasurama, Buddha, and so on) to perform and enjoy His pastimes, and He assumes all these forms for a particular purpose in each age (mostly to slay demons). For examples, Lord Rama defeated Ravana. There was this necessity in Treta-yuga, so the Lord assumed the form of Lord Rama to fulfil His purpose. Similarly, Lord Varahadev assumed the form of a boar to slay Hiranyaksa. Srimad Bhagavatam describes all these pastimes in a very beautiful way. So, the Lord comes to this world again and again assuming various forms of His incarnation, or avatar. But there is avatar (incarnation), and there is avatari (the source of all incarnations). Mahaprabhu is avatari. We sing in one of the kirtans also, ‘Avatara sara – Gora avatara. Gora’s incarnation is the quintessence of all incarnations.’

isvarah paramah krsnah sach-chid-ananda-vigrahah
anadir adir govindah sarva-karana-karanam

‘Krishna, who is known as Govinda, is the supreme controller. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no origin, for He is the prime cause of all causes.’

(Sri Brahma-samhita, 5.1)

He is the cause of all causes. Everything happens by His wish – everything in this world is created by His wish, and so many gods and goddesses work following His desire. Nothing can exist or function without Him, and we are told to take shelter at His lotus feet. In this Age of Kali, the Lord takes the heart and halo of Srimati Radharani and comes assuming the form of Golden Lord, Sri Gauranga. And He does not come alone. He comes with His alter ego, Lord Nityananda Prabhu…

(3/6) Sri Ekachakra Dham: Our Fortune To Be Here

Today is the appearance day of Lord Varahadev. After that (the day after tomorrow), it will be Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance day. We are very fortunate to have come here.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur wanted to open a Gaudiya Math in Ekachakra, and by the blessing of Srila Gurudev, it has happened. Everybody knows our temple as Gaudiya Math (nobody calls our temple by its proper name, Chaitanya Saraswata Krishnanusilana Sangha). In fact, there is a Gaudiya Math in Ekachakra, but Nityananda Prabhu has bestowed His mercy and given us this place here. This is how we are able to stay here today. If you just think about the dust of this holy dham, you will think that you must circumambulate this holy abode walking on your head! The Lord Himself wandered in this land. Nityananda Prabhu is non-different from Mahaprabhu, who is the Lord Himself.

Nityananda Prabhu is asraya-vigraha (embodiment of shelter), and Gaura Hari is visaya-vigraha (embodiment of the object of worship). Nityananda Prabhu gives shelter, so He represents guru-tattva. That is why we always chant, ‘Guru-Nityananda, Gaura-Nityananda.’

We are present here in this holy abode of Nityananda Prabhu. I have also come here owing to you all; otherwise, I do not have time to come here. I visit Ekachakra very rarely, maybe one–two times a year because I do not have time. I have so much work, so much service in other places. Last time when I came here the cows had just had calves and the goshala had become too small for them, so I came and expanded the goshala. I gave the orders to the workers and after that managed the construction on the phone.

Also, every year during the festival, there is a lot of water falling behind the guesthouse. People use water in the rooms and outbuilding bathrooms, and all the water flows onto the land behind the temple. I have bought that land this year, and it can be now used for a garden or something like that. All the lands around are turning into trade places (shops and stalls), but I want to have some place to make a garden. I have already planted some trees there – rose apples, jackfruit and mango trees. I bought a banana grove also. Gurudev tried to come here many times – I actually made the nat-mandir so big because I thought Gurudev would come here by helicopter, and it would land on top of it.

I first came to this holy dham in 2004. I had heard that there was Nityananda Prabhu’s dham, and Gurudev mercifully sent me here in 2004 with some foreign devotees. And Gurudev himself visited Ekachakra only in 1989, after Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s disappearance…

(4/6) Forging Your Destiny

[Noise in the audience. One of the devotees asks them not to speak so loud.]

Leave them, Prabhu. Not everybody comes to practise Krishna consciousness… Some come to goggle, some come for entertainment. There are different kinds of desires. Everybody does not have the same desire. That is why we cannot bring everyone to this path. Those who have such fortune, who are destined to come, they come.

You know, there is a famous saying in Bengali that people like to sing, ‘There are a lot of conch bangles and sindoor sold at the market and in shops, but you can only wear them if you are destined to’ (hata-bajare sakha-sindura aneka paowa yaya, kapale thakle takhan tabe-i para yaya). It is the same here. One must have the fortune.

Gurudev said that there is an annual fair in Jamalpur where people sacrifice goats. So many thousands of goats are sacrificed there that the slaughterers do not give them even one minute – as soon as a goat is brought, they chop off its head, a goat a second. They smear sindoor on all sacrificial goats’ heads before killing them. So, not all goats in the world are destined to have sindoor on their heads. We too are sacrificial goats, but not all of us get to have our heads smeared with sindoor.

Not everybody can understand the glory of a holy dham. It takes a great fortune to know it. People come here to do all the other things. Everybody is chanting, ‘Hari bol! Hari bol!’ but who takes it seriously? Who takes Krishna consciousness seriously? Who will think, ‘I have taken a vow (vrata) to practise Krishna consciousness’? Who will think, ‘Without Krishna consciousness this life is useless. The Lord has sent me into this human body, but if I do not practise Krishna consciousness, then it is useless to keep this body – my very life is useless’?

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We sing every morning,

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This life is not eternal. You will face so many dangers in this life, but amidst all these dangers you must take shelter of the Holy Name. Engage yourself in the service of the Lord.

We are told to take shelter of the Holy Name. The Lord is very merciful. If you have a strong desire and if you try, the Lord must certainly bestow His mercy. It is necessary to have a strong desire and faith. You must try, otherwise you will not get any result. Mother Yasoda tied Krishna! She was able to do it because of her tireless effort. She kept bringing more and more rope, but it was always two fingers too short. What do these ‘two fingers’ mean? One finger is desire, and the other finger is mercy. We must make effort to practise Krishna consciousness. You cannot practise Krishna consciousness without making effort. You must keep practising, you must keep trying. That is what Krishna consciousness is.

There are nine kinds of devotion: sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). You must practise this every day.

sadhu-sange krsna-nama—ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

The Lord does not embrace (gets hold of) someone so easily, but once the Lord does embrace someone, He does not let them go. Think about it. The Lord is so merciful! You cannot even conceive of it. Krishna has bestowed so much mercy on everyone. Sisupal went to kill Krishna, Putana went to kill Krishna, but they all received Krishna’s mercy.

Everybody knows it is a crime to kill a man, but it is an even worse crime to kill a baby. The demoness Putana went to kill a three-days-old baby! Receiving Kamsa’s order, she had smeared poison on her breasts and came dressed as a beautiful gopi to Gokula. She came to kill Krishna, but when Krishna saw her beauty, He became charmed. He took her as His mother and drank her breast milk. Although He showed that He was drinking her milk, He knew that it was not a mother – He knew it was just a demoness who had come disguised as a mother. Krishna drank her milk with so much force that Putana began to cry, ‘Leave me! Leave me!’ But Krishna did not leave her. He grabbed her so strongly that she was about to die. In a frenzy, she ran out of the house to a nearby field, where she fell down dead, revealing her enormous form of a demoness. Because her body was so huge and nobody could move it, they had to cut it into pieces. But how can we know that Krishna bestowed His mercy on her? Think about it. Does a burning body smell good? On the contrary, it smells very bad. But when they were burning Putana’s body, her body emanated the smell of camphor in all four directions. So much nice aroma spread all over Gokula that it could be felt all the way in Vrindavan! Everybody wondered, ‘What has happened? What is this? What is this nice smell?’ Then somebody would say that they were burning Putana. The Lord bestowed His mercy to her…

(5/6) Extreme Mercy

Krishna is so merciful, but Gaura is even more merciful than Krishna.

Krishna performs madhurya-lila (pastimes of sweetness), and Gaura performs audarya-lila (pastimes of magnanimity). Gaura forgot His own self while magnanimously rescuing jiva souls. When Gauranga Mahaprabhu came to Kashi, He lamented, ‘I have brought Krishna-prema from Gauda-dham for anyone and everyone, without asking any price for it, but there is nobody to take this Krishna-prema! I have travelled all over India, from South India up to Haridwar, whom will I give it to?’ Gauranga Mahaprabhu and Sri Nityananda Prabhu distributed Krishna-prema without asking any price! Gaura gave Krishna-prema to the entire world. This is so beautiful.

We also chant in one of the kirtans,

ke yabi ke yabi bhai bhava-sindhu para
dhanya kali-yuge re chaitanya-avatara

‘Brother, who will cross? Who will cross this ocean of material existence? Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appears in this fortunate Age of Kali!’

hari-namera tarikhani sri-guru-kandari
sankirtana-keroyala du’bahu pasari

‘The Lord’s Names are the ferryboat, Sri Guru is the captain, and the arms raised in sankirtan are the oars.’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

The Holy Name is a boat, and the captain of this boat is gurudev. If we can take shelter of gurudev and practise Krishna consciousness, we will get real benefit. It is necessary to surrender to your guru. Many people come to this line, but they do not really take shelter of their guru.

asraya laiya bhaje, tare krsna nahi tyaje,
ara saba mare akarane

‘Krishna never leaves those who have taken shelter in His devotees and worship them; everyone else simply dies in vain.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

It is necessary to take shelter to practise Krishna consciousness. We must surrender to a bona fide guru, surrender to Nityananda Prabhu, and practise Krishna consciousness in His shelter. There is no other way for us. There is no other way to attain the real result. Nitai is ‘Doyal Thakur’ – He is our worshippable Lord, mercy incarnate.

(6/6) About Nityananda Prabhu

I see they are already offering the bhoga. I will let you go just now. It is time to take prasad, and you were fasting yesterday, so you must be hungry.

Sri Narahari Thakur writes very beautifully about the stay of Pancha Pandav (the five Pandavas) in Ekachakra, I will read it to you in the evening. And now I want to read to you what Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami writes about the mercy of Sri Nityananda Prabhu. These are very beautiful words.

sri-chaitanya—sei krsna, nityananda—rama
nityananda purna kare chaitanyera kama

‘Lord Chaitanya is Lord Krishna, and Lord Nityananda is Lord Balaram. Sri Nityananda fulfils all desires of Sri Chaitanya.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.156)

Who fulfils the longing and hankering of Sri Chaitanya? Sri Nityananda. Mahaprabhu told Him, ‘Nityananda, distribute Krishna-prema to this world! Preach the Holy Name of Krishna!’ but Nityananda Prabhu thought, ‘The people of this world will not understand the Holy Name of Krishna so easily. I would rather preach the Holy Name of Gauranga!’

bhaja gauranga, kaha gauranga, laha gaurangera nama re
ye jana gauranga bhaje, sei amara prana re

‘Worship Gauranga! Say Gauranga! Take Gauranga’s Name! Those who worship Gauranga are My heart and soul!’

(Sri Nityananda Prabhu)

That is why we always chant, ‘Guru-Nityananda, Gaura-Nityananda! Nitai-Gauranga! Nitai-Gaura!’

nityananda-mahima-sindhu ananta, apara
eka kana sparsi matra,—se krpa tanhara

‘The ocean of Lord Nityananda’s glories is infinite and unfathomable. Only by His mercy can I touch even a drop of it.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.157)

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami says that Nityananda Prabhu’s glory is unlimited. Only if you get a slightest touch of His mercy can you understand it. Nityananda Prabhu freely scattered His mercy to all fallen souls. The Lord came to this world to deliver all fallen souls.

[His Divine Grace reads from Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, Chapter 5.]

ara eka suna tanra krpara mahima
adhama jivere chadhaila urdhva-sima

‘Please hear about more glory of His mercy. He made a fallen living being climb to the highest peak.’

veda-guhya katha ei ayogya kahite
tathapi kahiye tanra krpa prakasite

‘To disclose it is not proper because it should be kept as confidential as the Vedas, but I shall still speak of it to make His mercy known to all.’

ullasa-upari lekhon tomara prasada
nityananda prabhu, mora ksama aparadha

‘O Lord Nityananda, I write about Your mercy out of great exultation. Please forgive my offences.’

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami says, ‘Prabhu, please forgive me if I become too audacious or mad writing about You.’

avadhuta gosanira eka bhrtya prema-dhama
minaketana ramadasa haya tanra nama

‘Lord Nityananda Prabhu has a servant called Sri Minaketan Ramadas, who is a reservoir of divine love.’

amara alaye aho-ratra-sankirtana
tahate aila tenho pana nimantrana

‘There was sankirtan day and night at my house. He received an invitation and came there.’

maha-prema-maya tinho vasila angane
sakala vaisnava tanra vandila charane

‘Absorbed in ecstatic love, he sat in my courtyard, and all the Vaishnavs bowed down at his feet.’

namaskara karite, ka’ra uparete chade
preme ka’re vamsi mare, kahake chapade

‘In a joyful mood of love for the Lord, he sometimes climbed upon the shoulder of someone who was offering him an obeisance and sometimes struck others with his flute or mildly slapped them.’

ye nayana dekhite asru haya mane yara
sei netre avichchhinna vahe asru-dhara

‘When someone saw Minaketan Ramadas’s eyes that shed a constant shower of tears, tears would automatically flow from their eyes.’

kabhu kona ange dekhi pulaka-kadamba
eka ange jadya tanra, ara ange kampa

‘Sometimes, there were eruptions of ecstasy like kadamba flowers on some parts of his body, and sometimes one limb would be stunned while another one would be trembling.’

nityananda bali’ yabe karena hunkara
taha dekhi’ lokera haya maha-chamatkara

‘Whenever he shouted aloud the Name of Nityananda, the people around him were filled with great wonder and astonishment.’

gunarnava misra name eka vipra arya
sri-murti-nikate tenho kare seva-karya

‘A respectable brahman, Sri Gunarnava Misra, was serving the Deity at that time.’

angane asiya tenho na kaila sambhasa
taha dekhi’ kruddha hana bale ramadasa

‘When Minaketan Ramdas was seated in the yard, this brahman did not offer him any respect. Seeing this, Sri Ramadas became angry and spoke as follows.’

‘ei ta’ dvitiya suta romaharasana
baladeva dekhi’ ye na kaila pratyudgama’

‘Here I find the second Romaharsana-suta, who did not stand up to show honour when he saw Lord Balaram.’

He behaved like an atheist – Gunarnava Misra had no faith in Vaishnavs, considering himself very great.

eta bali’ nache gaya, karaye santosa
krsna-karya kare vipra – na karila rosa

‘Saying this, Minaketan Ramdas danced and sang to his heart’s content, but the brahman did not become angry because he was serving Lord Krishna.’

utsavante gela tinho kariya prasada
mora bhrata-sane tanra kichhu haila vada

‘At the end of the festival, Minaketan Ramadas went away, offering his blessings to everyone. At that time, he had some argument with my brother.’

chaitanya-prabhute tanra sudrdha visvasa
nityananda-prati tanra visvasa-abhasa

‘My brother had firm faith in Lord Chaitanya but only a dim glimmer of faith in Lord Nityananda.’

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami Prabhu’s brother had faith in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu but no faith in Nityananda Prabhu. I told you yesterday that this is a half-hen logic.

iha jani’ ramadasera duhkha haila mane
tabe ta’ bhratare ami karinu bhartsane

‘Knowing this, Sri Ramadas felt unhappy. I then rebuked my brother.’

dui bhai eka-tanu—samana-prakasa
nityananda na mana, tomara habe sarva-nasa

‘These two brothers are one body: They are identical manifestations. If you do not believe in Lord Nityananda, you will fall down.’

‘You give honour to Mahaprabhu, but you have no respect for Nityananda! You will be ruined!’ In other words, this also means, ‘You are giving respect to the Lord, but you do not give respect to the guru.’

ekete visvasa, anye na kara sammana
‘ardha-kukkuti-nyaya’ tomara pramana

‘If you have faith in one but disrespect the other, you are following the half-hen logic.’

kimva, donha na manina hao ta’ pasanda
eke mani’ are na mani,—ei-mata bhanda

‘It is better to be an atheist slighting both brothers than to be a hypocrite believing in one and slighting the other.’

If you give honour to One and no honour to the Other, then you are a hypocrite.

kruddha haiya vamsi bhangi’ chale ramadasa
tat-kale amara bhratara haila sarva-nasa

‘Sri Ramadas broke his flute in anger and went away. At that time, my brother fell down.’

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami Prabhu’s brother fell down – all his life was ruined because he had made vaishnav-aparadha. He did not even write his brother’s name in the book.

ei ta’ kahila tanra sevaka-prabhava
ara eka kahi tanra dayara svabhava

‘I have described the power of Lord Nityananda’s servants. Now I shall describe another characteristic of His mercy.’

bhaike bhartsinu muni, lana ei guna
sei ratre prabhu more dila darasana

‘Appreciating that I had chastised my brother (considering it my good quality), Lord Nityananda gave me His darshan that night.’

naihati-nikate ‘jhamatapura’ name grama
tanha svapne dekha dila nityananda-rama

‘In the village of Jhamatapur, near Naihati, Lord Nityananda appeared to me in a dream.’

dandavat haiya ami padinu payete
nija-pada-padma prabhu dila mora mathe

‘I fell at His feet, offering my obeisances, and He then placed His lotus feet upon my head.’

‘utha’, ‘utha’ bali’ more bale bara bara
uthi’ tanra rupa dekhi’ hainu chamatkara

‘“Wake up! Wake up!” He told me again and again. Rising, I was greatly astonished to see His beauty.’

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami is describing here the form of Sri Nityananda Prabhu that he saw:

syama-chikkana kanti, prakanda sarira
saksat kandarpa, yaichhe maha-malla-vira

‘He had a glossy blackish complexion, and His tall, strong, heroic stature made Him look like Cupid himself.’

Nityananda Prabhu was very tall. Gurudev told the size of the Deities that were to be installed here at the temple, and he said that Gaura had to be 7’6 (228.6 cm) and Nitai 7’4 (223.5 cm). That is Their actual height.

suvalita hasta, pada, kamala-nayana
patta-vastra sire, patta-vastra paridhana

‘He had beautifully formed hands, arms and legs. His eyes resembled lotus flowers. He wore silk clothes and a silk turban on His head.’

suvarna-kundala karne, svarnangada-vala
payete nupura baje, kanthe puspa-mala

‘He had golden earrings, armlets and bangles. He wore tinkling anklets on His feet and a garland of flowers around His neck.’

chandana-lepita-anga, tilaka suthama
matta-gaja jini’ mada-manthara payana

‘His body was anointed with sandalwood pulp, and He was nicely decorated with tilak marks. His movements surpassed those of a maddened elephant.’

koti-chandra jini’ mukha ujjvala-varana
dadimba-bija-sama danta tambula-charvana

‘His face was more beautiful than millions of moons. His teeth were like pomegranate seeds from chewing betel.’

preme matta anga dahine-vame dole
‘krsna’ ‘krsna’ baliya gambhira bola bale

‘He was absorbed in ecstasy, so His body moved to and fro, right and left. He chanted “Krishna, Krishna” in a deep voice.’

ranga-yasti haste dole yena matta simha
chari-pase vedi achhe charanete bhrnga

‘Swinging a red stick in His hand, He looked like a maddened lion. There were bumblebees all around the four sides of His feet.’

parisada-gane dekhi’ saba gopa-vese
‘krsna’ ‘krsna’ kahe sabe saprema avese

‘His devotees, dressed as cowherd boys, surrounded His feet like many bees and also chanted “Krishna, Krishna”, absorbed in ecstatic love.’

singa vamsi bajaya keha, keha nache gaya
sevaka yogaya tambula, chamara dhulaya

‘Some of them played horns and flutes; some danced and sang. Some of them offered betel nuts; some waved chamara fans about Him.’

nityananda-svarupera dekhiya vaibhava
kiba rupa, guna, lila – alaukika saba

‘This is the opulence I saw in Lord Nityananda’s form. His wonderful form, qualities and pastimes are all supramundane.’

anande vihvala ami, kichhu nahi jani
tabe hasi’ prabhu more kahilena vani

‘I was overwhelmed with transcendental ecstasy, not knowing anything. Then, Lord Nityananda smiled and spoke to me as follows.’

are are krsnadasa, na karaha bhaya
vrndavane yaha,—tanha sarva labhya haya

‘O my dear Krishna Das, do not be afraid. Go to Vrindavan. You will attain everything there.’

‘Wake up, wake up, Krishna Das! Do not stay here in Jhamatpur. Come to Vrindavan, and you will get all benefit.’

These days, do you know what servitors do when they go to Vrindavan? They enjoy themselves, earning and spending money from their own pocket. When you go to Vrindavan, you must spend money on feeding others, not on yourself. How can you practise Krishna consciousness like this? When you go to Vrindavan, you must practise Krishna consciousness. You must not go there to practise Maya consciousness.

If you practise Krishna consciousness without following your guru, this is practising Maya consciousness, and you will only become tangled within illusory bondage. People go to Vrindavan to worship Radha-Krishna, but they will not get any result unless they worship Nityananda Prabhu. There are many people like this living in Vrindavan, especially at Govinda Kunda. Some have problems at the temple, so they leave everything and go to do bhajan in Vrindavan. But when they go there, they only think about their stomach. They always think, ‘What will I eat?’ It is all illusion. Gurudev said that Vrindavan monkeys were previously all those babajis who came there to earn money. If you go to Vrindavan, you will see that now monkeys eat biscuits and drink Frooti mango juice! Why is it like this? Because those babajis worried about their own enjoyment. There are people called ‘chhadi-ghuray’ [bossy people who like to brandish their stick, or, figuratively, lord it over and command others]. They come, chant kirtan for two hours and ask you for a kilogram of rice and a certain amount of money. What they chant is not Hare Krishna. They chant to earn money.

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

So, continuing reading,

eta bali’ prerila more hatasani diya
antardhana kaila prabhu nija-gana lana

‘After saying this, He pointed towards Vrindavan with His hand and disappeared along with His associates.’

murchchhita haiya muni padinu bhumite
svapna-bhanga haila, dekhi, hanachhe prabhate

‘I fainted and fell on the ground. My dream broke, and I saw that morning had come.’

ki dekhinu ki suninu, kariye vichara
prabhu-ajna haila vrndavana yaibara

‘I thought about what I had seen and heard and concluded that the Lord had ordered me to go to Vrindavan at once.’

sei ksane vrndavane karinu gamana
prabhura krpate sukhe ainu vrndavana

‘That very second I started for Vrindavan, and by His mercy, I reached it in great happiness.’

jaya jaya nityananda, nityananda-rama
yanhara krpate painu vrndavana-dhama

‘Glory, glory to Nityananda, to Nityananda-Rama, by whose mercy I have received shelter in the transcendental abode of Vrindavan!’

jaya jaya nityananda, jaya krpa-maya
yanha haite painu rupa-sanatanasraya

‘Glory, glory to merciful Lord Nityananda, through whom I have get shelter at the lotus feet of Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatan!’

yanha haite painu raghunatha-mahasaya
yanha haite painu sri-svarupa-asraya

‘By His mercy, I have got the shelter of the great personality Sri Raghunath Das Goswami, and by His mercy, I have found the refuge of Sri Svarup Damodar.’

sanatana-krpaya painu bhaktira siddhanta
sri-rupa-krpaya painu bhakti-rasa-pranta

‘By the mercy of Sri Sanatan, I have learned the ultimate truths of devotional service, and by the grace of Sri Rupa, I have tasted the highest nectar of devotional service.’

jaya jaya nityananda-charanaravinda
yanha haite painu sri-radha-govinda

‘Gory, glory to the lotus feet of Lord Nityananda, by whose mercy I have got Sri Radha-Govinda!’

jagai madhai haite muni se papistha
purisera kita haite muni se laghistha

‘I am more sinful than Jagai and Madhai and lower than worms in stool.’

mora nama sune yei tara punya ksaya
mora nama laya yei tara papa haya

‘If anyone hears my name, they lose all auspiciousness. If anyone takes my name, they commit a sin.’

How low he thinks of himself!

emana nirghrna more keba krpa kare
eka nityananda vinu jagat bhitare

‘Who in this world but Nityananda can show His mercy to such an abominable person as me?’

preme matta nityananda krpa-avatara
uttama, adhama, kichhu na kare vichara

‘Intoxicated with ecstatic love, Nityananda is mercy incarnate. He does not distinguish between the good and the bad.’

Nityananda Prabhu does not judge who is good and who is bad! He takes everyone on His lap!

ye age padaye, tare karaye nistara
ataeva nistarila mo-hena durachara

‘Because He delivers anyone who falls before Him, He has delivered such a sinful and fallen person as me.’

mo-papisthe anilena sri-vrndavana
mo-hena adhame dila sri-rupa-charana

‘Although I am sinful and the most fallen, He has given me the lotus feet of Sri Rupa Goswami.’

sri-madana-gopala-sri-govinda-darasana
kahibara yogya nahe e-saba kathana

‘I am not fit to speak about Sri Madan Gopal and Sri Govinda.’

vrndavana-purandara sri-madana-gopala
rasa-vilasi saksat vrajendra-kumara

‘Sri Madan Gopal, the chief Deity of Vrindavan, is the enjoyer of the rasa dance, none other than the Son of the King of Vraja.’

sri-radha-lalita-sange rasa-vilasa
manmatha-manmatha-rupe yanhara prakasa

‘He enjoys the rasa dance with Sri Radha, Sri Lalita and others. He manifests Himself as the Cupid of Cupids.’

sva-madhurye lokera mana kare akarsana
dui pase radha lalita karena sevana

‘With Radha and Lalita serving Him on His two sides, He attracts the hearts of all by His sweetness.’

nityananda-daya more tanre dekhaila
sri-radha-madana-mohane prabhu kari’ dila

‘The mercy of Lord Nityananda showed me Sri Madan-Mohan and gave me Sri Madan-Mohan as my Lord and master.’

mo-adhame dila sri-govinda darasana
kahibara katha nahe akathya-kathana

‘He granted to one as lowly as me the sight of Lord Govinda. Words cannot describe this, nor is it fit to be disclosed.’

vrndavane yoga-pithe kalpa-taru-vane
ratna-mandapa, tahe ratna-simhasane
sri-govinda vasiyachhena vrajendra-nandana
madhurya prakasi’ karena jagat mohana

‘Lord Govinda sits on an altar made of gems in the principal temple of Vrindavan, amidst a forest of wish-fulfilling trees. He is the Son of the King of Vraja. He manifests His full glory and sweetness and enchants the entire world.’

vama-parsve sri-radhika sakhi-gana-sange
rasadika-lila prabhu kare kata range

‘On His left side is Srimati Radharani and Her girlfriends. Lord Govinda enjoys the rasa-lila and many other pastimes in their company.’

yanra dhyana nija-loke kare padmasana
astadasaksara-mantre kare upasana

‘Seated on his lotus seat in his abode, Lord Brahma always meditates on Him and worships Him with the eighteen-syllable mantra.’

chaudda-bhuvane yanra sabe kare dhyana
vaikunthadi-pure yanra lila-guna gana

‘Every living entity in the fourteen worlds meditates upon Him, and all denizens of Vaikuntha sing of His qualities and pastimes.’

yanra madhurite kare laksmi akarsana
rupa-gosani kariyachena se-rupa varnana

‘Laksmi, the goddess of fortune, is attracted by His sweetness, which Srila Rupa Goswami has described in this way:’

smeram bhangi-traya-parichitam sachi-vistirna-drstim
vamsi-nyastadhara-kisalayam ujjvalam chandrakena
govindakhyam hari-tanum itah kesi-tirthopakanthe
ma preksisthas tava yadi sakhe bandhu-sange ‘sti rangah

‘“My dear friend, if you are attached to your worldly friends, do not look at the smiling face of Lord Govinda as He stands on the bank of the Yamuna at Keshi Ghat. Casting sidelong glances, He places His flute to His lips, which look like newly blossomed twigs. His transcendental body bending in three places appears very bright in the moonlight.”’

saksat vrajendra-suta ithe nahi ana
yeba ajne kare tanre pratima-hena jnana

sei aparadhe tara nahika nistara
ghora narakete pade, ki baliba ara

‘Without a doubt, He is the Son of the King of Vraja Himself. Only fools consider Him a statue. Because of this offence, they cannot be liberated and fall into a terrible hell. What more can I say?’

People think that Deities are dolls, so they can gossip and chat in front of Them. What becomes of those who have such consciousness? They have no means of salvation – there is no way for them to redeem their offence. The Lord is Vrajendra-nandan Himself (the Son of the King of Vraja)! The Lord speaks, the Lord steals, the Lord gives witness, but we do not understand this. You all come to me asking me for mercy, but how can I give you mercy? The Lord is in your heart, so He will give you His mercy. Do we have the power to give mercy to anyone?

hena ye govinda prabhu, painu yanha haite
tanhara charana-krpa ke pare varnite

‘Who can describe the mercy of the lotus feet of Lord Nityananda, through whom I have got the shelter of this Lord Govinda?’

vrndavane vaise yata vaisnava-mandala
krsna-nama-parayana, parama-mangala

‘All Vaishnavs who live in Vrindavan are absorbed in chanting the all-auspicious Name of Krishna.’

yanra prana-dhana – nityananda-sri-chaitanya
radha-krsna-bhakti vine nahi jane anya

‘Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda are the life and soul of Vaishnavs. They do not know anything except devotion to Sri Sri Radha-Krishna.’

se vaisnavera pada-renu, tara pada-chhaya
adhamere dila prabhu-nityananda-daya

‘The dust and shade of the lotus feet of Vaishnavs have been granted to this fallen soul by the mercy of Lord Nityananda.’

‘tanha sarva labhya haya’ – prabhura vachana
sei sutra – ei tara kaila vivarana

‘“In Vrindavan, you will attain everything.” These are my Master’s words. I have explained His succinct statement in detail here.’

se saba painu ami vrndavane aya
sei saba labhya ei prabhura krpaya

‘I have got all this by coming to Vrindavan. It was possible only by the mercy of Lord Nityananda.’

apanara katha likhi nirlajja haiya
nityananda-gune lekhaya unmatta kariya

‘I have written about my own story without any shame. The qualities of Lord Nityananda make me mad and force me to write these things.’

nityananda-prabhura guna-mahima apara
‘sahasra-vadane’ sesa nahi paya yanra

‘The glories of Lord Nityananda’s transcendental qualities are unfathomable. Even Lord Sesa cannot describe them fully with His thousands of mouths.’

sri-rupa-raghunatha-pade yara asa
chaitanya-charitamrta kahe krsnadasa

‘Praying at the lotus feet of Sri Rupa and Sri Raghunath, always desiring their mercy, I, Krishna Das, narrate Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, following in their footsteps.’

This is all written in the ‘Adi-Lila’ of Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and concludes the morning class.]

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami
Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa-kula-churamani Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda Sundar jiu ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gaura Nityananda jiu ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev Subhadra Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Sri Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur, Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math Ekachakra Dham ki jay.
Jay Ekachakleshwar Sivji Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Kadam-kandi ki jay.
Pandav-tala ki jay.
Janu Kunda ki jay.
Jay Bankarai ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Jay Sri Varahadev ki jay.
Varahadev’s avirbhav tithi-bara maha-mahotsav ki jay.
Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s avirbhav tithi-bara adhivas maha-mahotsav ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Devotee: Jay Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj ki jay. Harinam sankirtan ki jay. Gaura premanande Hari bol

* * *

￼Line Line24 February 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Adhivas of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s Holy Appearance Day

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/16) Sri Ekachakra Temple

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam
chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam
govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram
vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

‘I offer my obeisance to him who perfectly fulfils his gurudev’s most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all conceivable and inconceivable aspects of Vedic knowledge; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s line; who is known as ‘Govinda’ (Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj); whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.’

Today, by the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma, we have gathered here at the evening assembly on the eve of the holy appearance day of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu to hear and speak some Hari-katha. The arati will begin shortly, so I will not take much time now. I will speak briefly.

I have got this opportunity to hear some Hari-katha and speak some Hari-katha to you all today. It our great fortune that we have been able to come here. This is Ekachakra Dham, the holy appearance place of Lord Nityananda Prabhu. This holy place is commonly known as Birchandrapur.

When my Param Gurudev, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, established Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Koladwip, many of his godbrothers and many devotees came to him expressing their desire to take Harinam or sannyas initiation from him. Param Guru Maharaj Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj came here, to the birthplace of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu, and prayed to Him for mercy, ‘Prabhu, please bestow Your mercy on me.’ At that time, Param Guru Maharaj received a divine message (akash-dhvani). Nityananda Prabhu told him, ‘You have got Nayana Manjari’s [Srila Prabhupad’s] mercy to preach Rupa-Raghunath’s teachings. You must first distribute this mercy. Do not be a miser – preach and bestow that mercy on others. After that, you can come and ask Me for mercy.’

Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj went back to his temple in Koladwip and gave his godbrothers and other souls an opportunity to take sannyas or Harinam initiation from him. Before that, he had not taken disciples. A householder disciple of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad, Sakhi Charan Ray Bhakti Vijay, would give ten rupees to Srila Sridhar Maharaj every month, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj ran the temple with that money. At the same time, he also saved something from that money (perhaps, five rupees a year) and would send it every year to the temple of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu in Ekachakra on Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance day. I heard about this from Gurudev.

It was Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s desire to establish a temple in Sri Ekachakra Dham, but he only stayed in this world for sixty-four years, so he did not live to fulfil his desire. But by his mercy and by the mercy of our Param Gurudev and the desire of our Gurudev, we managed to acquire this land here in 2008. I remember Gurudev was abroad in America in 2007. This land was purchased in January 2008. Nityananda Prabhu’s festival is held every year in January-February, so that year we quickly made a pandal and held our first festival here. Seeing everyone’s enthusiasm, Gurudev was very pleased. He saw the programme through a live broadcast. Although Gurudev could not come, he always thought about Ekachakra Dham in his mind and heart. Gurudev told me, ‘Before making a temple, you must arrange for devotees’ quarters.’ That is why this four-storey building was built first as servitors’ quarters. Gurudev gave the name to the building: Sri Sri Hadai Pandit Padmavati Smriti Kunja [‘a service grove in remembrance of Sri Hadai Pandit and Sri Padmavati Mayi’]. Devotees follow the line of this name to this day.

(2/16) Parental Sacrifice

It is impossible to get Nityananda Prabhu without the mercy of Sri Hadai Pandit and Sri Padmavati Mayi. It is only by their mercy that we have got Nityananda Prabhu.

Nityananda Prabhu left this village with a sannyasi when He was twelve years old. The sannyasi had come to Hadai Pandit and Padmavati Devi begging them for alms. Nityananda Prabhu’s parents could not let the sannyasi go empty-handed, so they said they would give him whatever he asked for. But the sannyasi asked them for their only son, Nityananda Prabhu. These days, women are such that they will never give their sons, even if they are asked to, even if you give them 100,000 rupees. But Nityananda Prabhu’s parents gave their son away. They made such a great sacrifice in their life! He is the Lord Himself – eka deha dui rupa (Nitai and Gaura are non-different from each other; They are one but manifest as two).

We sing in one of the kirtans:

hari hari! viphale janama gonainu
manusya-janama paiya, radha-krsna na bhajiya,
janiya suniya visa khainu

‘O Lord! My life has passed in vain. I have got a human birth, but I have not served Radha and Krishna. I have been consciously drinking poison (I know it, and I have heard about it from others, but I still drank it).’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

In this kirtan, it is said, ‘Balarama haila Nitai. Balaram became Nitai.’

This holy place here is where Nityananda Prabhu grew up.

Laksman came as the Lord’s younger brother in Treta-yuga, but Lord Ramachandra always followed moral rules and always made sure that no moral rules were broken. In English, there is a saying, ‘Mercy is above justice.’ You can see in India also that someone can be sentenced to execution, but if the Supreme Court pardons the criminal, the execution can be called off and the criminal is pardoned. By judgement, the person must be hanged, but if the court rules to show mercy, then the criminal can be released. Here also, you can get somewhere by justice, but mercy is above justice, and Nityananda Prabhu is that mercy.

You know that Ramachandra was sent to live in the forest. We sing the ‘Dasavatara Stotram’ about the ten incarnations of the Lord. Lord Ramachandra is one of them, but He is not the Supreme Personality of Godhead because all devotional mellows (shanta, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya and madhura) do not exist within His pastimes. For example, there is no proper vatsalya-rasa in Lord Ramachandra’s pastimes. There is some parental love, but it is not fully manifest. Dasarath did not want to send his son to the forest, but he had given his word to Kaikeyi that Rama would be sent to the forest and Kaikeyi’s son would be enthroned. Dasarath cried in his heart, but even if his son died, he let it be. There is also no madhura-rasa. What did Rama do? He made Sita Devi go through a test of fire, and even then, still not satisfied when she had passed the test, He sent her to live in the forest. You all know that her two sons, Lava and Kusha, were born during her exile. So, we see that Dasarath did not oppose it when his own son was exiled to the forest, but what did Vasudev and Devaki do? Breaking his promise, Vasudev took Krishna, carried Him across the Yamuna and kept Him in the house of Nanda Maharaj. This is what love is. This is what vatsalya-rasa (parental love) is…

(3/16) Full Service Sway

Because Laksman was a younger brother, He could not say anything against His brother’s word. When Ramachandra agreed to live in the forest to make sure His father kept his word, Laksman agreed, ‘All right, I will go to live in exile too.’ He could not stay at home – He went with Ramachandra to serve His elder brother. Sita Devi also said nothing. She thought, ‘If Ramachandra goes to live in exile, what will I do here at home? I will go with Him.’ Laksman could not contradict His brother in anything. When Ramachandra made Sita Devi go through the test of fire and exiled her into the forest, it was necessary for the upkeep of moral rules, but Laksman did not like it at all. But because Ramachandra was elder, Laksman could not object.

But in Dvapar-yuga and Kali-yuga, Laksman became an elder brother Himself (Balaram and Nitai, respectively). Because He was elder this time, He even slapped Krishna! One day, Gopal complained to His mother, ‘Mother, do you know what brother did? He has hit Me today!’ It is said that Balaram serves Krishna with ten bodies, just as Nityananda Prabhu serves Gauranga with ten bodies. He serves the Lord as His pillow (balis), shoes (paduka), peacock fan (mayur pakha), bed (sayana), carrier (avahana), house (grha), umbrella (chhatra), garments (vastra), ornaments (bhusana) and seat (asana). So, when Balaram heard that Krishna had complained to His mother, He took Krishna aside to have a word with Him. Grabbing Him by the shoulder, Balaram started shaking Krishna, ‘What do You think?! Do You think Your mother loves You more than I do?! Your mother leaves You and goes to do household chores! When You get into trouble with demons and others, who comes to Your rescue?!’ Gopal started to cry. Such was the relationship between Krishna and Balaram when Balaram was elder.

Here also, Nityananda Prabhu is elder than Mahaprabhu. When we do the parikrama of Sri Nabadwip Dham, we first come to Gaura-Nityananda Mandir. When Mahaprabhu sensed who had come, He sent all the devotees to find that person, saying, ‘Listen, one great personality has come to Mayapur Dham. Go and find Him!’ Nobody could find Him. Who found Him in the end? Mahaprabhu Himself. He came straight to the house of Sri Nandan Acharya and found Sri Nityananda Prabhu sitting there. Nityananda Prabhu is extremely esoteric and hidden – it is not so easy to find Him! Such is the glory of Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan, the place where Gaura and Nityananda’s first meeting took place. Now there is a temple of Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj established at that place. Balaram and Nitai arrange to appear as elder brothers in different ages to be able to serve the Lord. This is the glory of Sri Nityananda Prabhu.

uttama, adhama, kichhu na kare vichara
ye age padaye, tare karaye nistara

‘Nityananda Prabhu does not judge who is good and who is bad: He saves anyone who falls before Him.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.208)

Nityananda Prabhu is hidden and extremely esoteric.

The arati is starting now, so I will not take more time now, I will continue after the arati.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

Actually, we have no quality or qualification to speak about the glory of Sri Nityananda Prabhu. Trying to describe His glories, Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami says:

jagai madhai haite muni se papistha
purisera kita haite muni se laghistha
mora nama sune yei punya ksaya
mora nama laya yei tara papa haya

‘I am more sinful than Jagai and Madhai and lower than worms in stool. If anyone hears my name, they lose all auspiciousness; if anyone takes my name, they commit a sin.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.205–206)

If you make an offence at Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s lotus feet, who will save you? If you make an offence to the Lord, gurus and Vaishnavs can take care of you, but if you make an offence at the holy feet of your guru and Vaishnavs (at the holy feet of those who can protect you from offence), then who is there in this world to save you? We must always remember this.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

Come, let us go to the arati now.

(4/16) Life in Kirtan

[After the arati, there is a lot of commotion and noise in the audience.]

I have told you before – you have a mouth, but you will not hear the Holy Name coming out of it, only other talks come out of it… Did you not hear what is said in one of the kirtans we sang earlier? Srila Lochan Das Thakur says, ‘I throw fire into the mouths of those who have no respect for Nitai!’ When we chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, Krishna Nam does not come to everyone’s mouth. People say, ‘You sing, and we will listen.’ People cannot even hear the Holy Name. I always tell you, ‘I have not come to chant kirtan. I have come to make you chant kirtan.’ You must chant kirtan…

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, all my god-brothers and sisters, all the listeners, all the motherly lady devotees and all devotees in general. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

It is not a cloudy day that is a bad day. A bad day is a day without Hari-katha. So, today is a very fortunate, very auspicious day. We are present here at the holy dham of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu, at Sri Ekachakra Dham in Rarhdesh, where the appearance place of Sri Nityananda Prabhu is, and we have got an opportunity to speak about glories of the Lord.

Will you take any of this with you? You will not cross the Viraja River with your money and material things. You will not get Gauranga’s mercy without the mercy of Sri Nityananda. No matter how much you practise Krishna consciousness, you will not get Radha-Krishna’s mercy without the mercy of Sri Gauranga. That is why I always keep telling you about Mahaprabhu’s advice to Srila Raghunath Das Goswami Prabhu:

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

I have given you an opportunity to chant kirtan, and if you do not let me chant, then what am I to do? Must I chant alone and you will not do anything? You must also chant kirtan. If you do not chant, what result will you get?

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana
mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

‘Associate with sadhus, chant the Holy Name of the Lord, listen to Srimad Bhagavatam, reside in Mathura and worship Deities with faith.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.124)

You must chant the Holy Name in sadhu-sanga (association of saints), and you must listen to the narratives about the Lord in sadhu-sanga (association of saints). You must practise both sravan (hearing) and kirtan (chanting). These are the main limbs of devotion.

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana
mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

‘Associate with sadhus, chant the Holy Name of the Lord, listen to Srimad Bhagavatam, reside in Mathura and worship Deities with faith.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.124)

Among these five main practices, Nama-sankirtan is the highest practice:

tara madhye sarva-srestha nama-sankirtana
niraparadhe nama laile paya prema-dhana

‘Of all practising processes, Nama-sankirtan is the best. If you chant the Holy Name without offence, you will get the wealth of divine love.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.71)

It is not good to chant the Holy Name with offences. You must chant cleaning yourself from any offence. Many of you have read about the ten offences of the Holy Name.

The Ten Offences to The Holy Name

(1)Criticising sadhus.

(2)Considering any of the gods to be lords independent of Krishna.

(3)Disobeying the guru.

(4)Criticising the scriptures.

(5)Considering the Holy Name’s glory exaggerated praise.

(6)Considering the Holy Name imaginary.

(7)Considering that one can sin (and be absolved) because one chants the Holy Name.

(8)Considering chanting the Holy Name equivalent to pious worldly works.

(9)Giving the Holy Name to faithless persons on account of material attachment.

(10) Remaining devoid of love for the Holy Name and filled with egotism and possessiveness even after hearing the Holy Name’s glory.

(5/16) Please Give These Alms

Today, by a great fortune, we have come here, getting this opportunity to hear and speak something about the Lord. You may have heard it when we were singing the kirtans:

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya
kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya be merciful to me? When will I come in the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘When will I leave this material ego? When will I be able to give honour to the Lord’s devotees?’ I am praying to you all with folded palms: please do not speak. If you need something, you can leave and come back later. Do not make noise. I am asking you to give your mind, body, heart, everything, at the holy feet of the Lord as alms for one–two hours. Please give your mind to the Lord’s holy feet as alms. Listen to what we are discussing, and one day, sooner or later, you will get benefit. One day, you will understand the result. We will leave this body and go away one day, and nobody knows what our situation will be in the future. But we have now come to the holy abode of Nitai as the result of our great fortune. Do you think you can see this holy dham with these material eyes? These eyes and our consciousness are covered by illusory environment, but gurudev and Vaishnavs mercifully give us an opportunity to hear and speak about the Lord.

We listen to all sorts of bad talks the whole day, and if we do not like to hear kirtan, if we feel no taste, think why it is so. If you eat something when you have a fever, you will not like the taste; in the same way, if you are sick – as long as you have pancha-roga (avidya, asmita, raga, dvesa, abhinivesa; ignorance, false identification, misdirected love, aversion to anything that goes against one’s enjoyment, being unable to give up unfavourable habits), kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy), rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (desire to enjoy through eyes, tongue, nose, ears, skin) – you will not like to hear all these holy talks. Actually, only intimate devotees of the Lord are qualified and have the right to hear these talks…

Anyhow, you have got this opportunity today. I have been telling you about Sriman Nityananda Prabhu for the past two days.

Sriman Nityananda Prabhu performed His childhood pastimes at this place. He also performed His pastimes in Nabadwip and went to Puri with Mahaprabhu. In Nabadwip, He lived at the house of Srivas Pandit. You know that. Sometimes, Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu went to the house of Sri Gauri Das Pandit in Kalna, and the Deities of Gaura-Nitai, which manifested there after one of Their visits, are still there to this day. Everybody calls Gauri Das Pandit’s house ‘Mahaprabhu’s house.’ Gauri Das Pandit lived there with his brother, Surya Das Sarkhel, who had two daughters, Jahnava Devi and Vasudha. Nityananda Prabhu took both daughters as His two saktis…

It is impossible for a fallen, lowly soul such as myself to utter anything about the glory of Sri Nityananda Prabhu. Only if gurudev bestows his mercy can it be possible. I have heard something from gurudev’s holy mouth, I have read what Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami described, what Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur described, what Srila Lochan Das Thakur described, what Srila Narottam Das Thakur described. These are very beautiful things. Sri Advaita Prabhu also composed a poem in glorification of Sri Nityananda Prabhu. Sriman Mahaprabhu Himself also glorified Sri Nityananda Prabhu to the extent that He said:

madira yavani yadi nityananda dhare
tathapi brahmara vandya kahila tomare

‘Even if Nityananda Prabhu comes drunk with a Muslim lady by His side, He is always worshippable for Lord Brahma.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.6.123)

Mahaprabhu said, ‘Even if Nityananda Prabhu comes holding a drunk Muslim woman, Brahma will pay an obeisance to Him.’

Sri Nityananda Prabhu is avadhut. He has no external consciousness. You know that Mahaprabhu lost His elder brother, Vishvarup, and Sri Nityananda Prabhu performed His pastimes in such a way that Sri Sachi Mata affectionally saw Him as a little boy. Sri Nityananda Prabhu sometimes wore yellows clothes, sometimes blue, sometimes red. He sometimes wore a garland on His wrist, sometimes on His neck. Sometime, He had earrings in His ears.

This Sri Nityananda Prabhu appeared in this land in the family of Sri Hadai Pandit and Sri Padmavati Devi and performed His childhood pastimes right in the fields next to our temple. He played at Jahnu Kunda. The temple in the pond is now unmanifest, but Sri Nityananda Prabhu would play there in His childhood. Later, He travelled to various holy places together with Sri Madhavendra Puri – He took the darshan of Ksir-chora Gopinath, Saksi Gopal and finally received the darshan of Mahaprabhu. Later, Sri Nityananda Prabhu circumambulated Sri Nabadwip Dham with Sri Jiva Goswami Prabhu. You all know about that. You can read about in detail in Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala…

(6/16) Remembering Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Glories

Sri Nityananda Prabhu stayed at the house of Srivas Pandit and treated Srivas Pandit’s wife, Sri Malini Devi, as His own mother. When He called her ‘Mother’, milk would flow from her breasts! Malini Devi was, perhaps, seventy years old, but when she saw Nitai, milk would flow from her breasts.

One time, Malini Devi was doing puja at home when a crow came and took away a pot she was using for puja. Malini Devi began to cry, ‘Prabhu [Srivas Pandit] will come and see it. He will scold me!’ Then, Nityananda Prabhu ordered the crow, ‘Return My Mother’s pot!’ and the crow did that. It flew back and returned the pot.

Sri Nityananda Prabhu rescued Jagai and Madhai. Mahaprabhu ordered Srila Haridas Thakur and Sri Nityananda Prabhu, ‘Go door to door and distribute the Holy Name to everyone!’ Sri Nityananda Prabhu thought, ‘If I could bring these Jagai and Madhai to this path…’ Others had warned Him against it, but He did not listen to anyone. Walking behind Him, Srila Haridas Thakur ran away from the place, but Sri Nityananda Prabhu stayed. In the end, Madhai hit Sri Nityananda Prabhu on the head with a clay pot from wine. Madhai hit Him, but Jagai saved Him. Still, Sri Nityananda Prabhu rescued Madhai. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami writes:

jagai madhai haite muni se papistha
purisera kita haite muni se laghistha

‘I am more sinful than Jagai and Madhai and lower than worms in stool.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.205)

Jagai and Madhai got Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy. When Mahaprabhu came to kill Madhai, Nityananda Prabhu begged Mahaprabhu for Madhai, ‘Prabhu, if You have appeared in this world to rescue lowly, fallen souls, then where will You find anyone more fallen than Madhai? Do not kill him.’ Sri Nityananda Prabhu begged at Mahaprabhu’s holy feet to forgive Madhai. Sri Nityananda Prabhu embraced Madhai, and Madhai became a greatest Vaishnav.

Jagai and Madhai committed many sins, but they never committed vaishnav-aparadha. You must remember this. They did not criticise or offend Vaishnavs. You may think, ‘Madhai hit Nityananda Prabhu, is that not an offence?’ But if Madhai had not hit Sri Nityananda Prabhu, would Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s glory have become manifest in this world? Because he had hit Sri Nityananda Prabhu, Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s glory became manifest in this world. Sri Nityananda Prabhu can give this kind of divine love – ‘Mar’ kheye prema dey’, eman’ dayal ta’ nai he! Lo! No one is as merciful! Even when beaten, He gives divine love in return!’

You can see Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s house nearby, and many acres of land all around it, all these fields, belonged to His family. One time, some thieves tried to rob Sri Nityananda Prabhu. They had tried many times and in many ways, but they could not do it. First day, when they came to rob, they saw there were a lot of scorpions, snakes and thorny shrubs around the house. They did not dare enter the land. Another time, they came and saw there was a whole army of soldiers guarding the place. They could not enter. When they came the third time, the thieves entered the house but became blind. After that, they begged at Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s lotus feet to forgive them. Sri Nityananda Prabhu said, ‘All right, I am giving you one service. You want My mercy, and mercy means service. Here is your service – you must change all the dacoits in this area and make them good.’

This Sri Ekachakra Dham is a pure land. Sri Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra are also here. One time, Sri Hadai Pandit said, ‘I want to go for Jagannathdev’s Ratha-yatra.’ Sri Nityananda Prabhu told him, ‘Father, how will you go for Ratha-yatra at your old age? Will you manage the crowds and the austerity? Better if I bring Sri Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra here.’ This is how Sri Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra appeared here. We will go to Their temple to take Their darshan. The temple used to be very small, but now it has been expanded a lot.

Here is also Sri Ekachakleswar Sivji Maharaj. We will take his darshan tomorrow during the parikrama. The place is very small, so try not to crowd and be careful – people always lose their mobile phones, earrings, golden bangles and other things there. Be careful with your mobile phones and money bags because many people will come and mix with us. But not everybody comes for Krishna consciousness. Somebody comes to steal your money bags. They will come, make friends with you and then rob you. Be careful during the parikrama. Keep your mobile phones, money bags and other things carefully. Better still, leave these things in the room if you are staying in one. The parikrama is just two hours, so you can leave your things in the room. And if you take things with you, be careful.

So, Sri Ekachakleswar Sivji Maharaj is here. Sri Hadai Pandit (Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s father) served this Deity of Lord Siva. This Lord Siva is Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s family Deity.

Here is also Kadam Khandi. One time, Sri Nityananda Prabhu (Balaram) was playing with Krishna in the pond near our temple. Suddenly, Krishna disappeared. He re-emerged many years later at Kadam Khandi, when Jahnava Devi went to the Yamuna River and found the Deities of Krishna and Balaram there. Those Deities are still there.

In front of our temple, there is also Pandav-tala. When the five Pandavs (Yudhisthir, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakul and Sahadev, together with Kunti Devi with Draupadi) lived incognito, they came there and lived there during one year. Vyasadev also came to that place and stayed at a brahman’s house. When I first came in 2004, we saw that brahman’s house. I do not know if that house is still there or not, I have not been there for a long time. I know that they have made a temple there now. A little far from here, there is a place where a demon called Baka lived. The five Pandavs killed him. There is also Radha Kunda and Shyama Kunda here. This Ekachakra Dham is non-different from Vrindavan, so Radha Kunda and Shyama Kunda are also here, but they are quite far from here. I have never had a chance to go there. I usually do not spend much time here – I mostly come here only for the parikrama during the festival, and I have not had time to go there.

(7/16) Sri Sivananda Sen’s Mercy

The glories of Sri Nityananda Prabhu are unlimited. The book Sri Nityananda Mahimamrita describes everything very beautifully. You should buy this book and study it when you go back to your homes.

Sri Nityananda Prabhu bestowed His mercy on Srila Raghunath Das Goswami. I told you about it yesterday, so I will not tell much about it now. Sri Nityananda Prabhu showed by that pastime that it is impossible to attain any result without His mercy. I told you also about Sri Ramahari Chakravati, how Sri Nityananda Prabhu bestowed His mercy on Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur, and how Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur preached about Sri Nityananda Prabhu later. I told you about it yesterday. There is another pastime I would like to tell you about today.

One year, when Sri Sivananda Sen was taking all the devotees to Sri Puri Dham, he got delayed because in those days boats did not take so many people, so it used to take long to get a lot of people across rivers. Also, Odiya people notoriously like to take money…

(You know that during the Ratha-yatra, you can even pay money and climb Jagannathdev’s chariot. One time, a foreign devotee told Gurudev that he was allowed to climb the chariot after he had given his expensive wristwatch and paid very much money to a panda. Gurudev asked him, ‘What for did you climb on the chariot? We never climb on the chariot. We always pay our obeisance from downstairs.’ You think that you have climbed the chariot, so you have received a lot of mercy, but Gurudev scolded that devotee for doing it.)

So, when Sivananda Sen was getting all the devotees across the river that day, some Odiyan man did not want to let a dog that was following Sivananda Sen’s party enter the boat. Sivananda Sen said to the man, ‘You charge for every man crossing the river. I will pay four times more for the dog. Let it go.’ The man agreed. Then, coming to the Odiyan border, everybody was supposed to pay a tax. Sri Nityananda Prabhu went first, so when He was asked for the tax, Sri Nityananda Prabhu replied, ‘Our leader is behind, he will pay.’ Everybody passed in the same way.

Sivananda Sen’s house is in Kulingram. Mahaprabhu said, ‘I love Kulingram devotees so much. I love even the dogs from Kulingram! I love even the parrots from Kulingram because they chant the Holy Name of Krishna!’ Kulingram is near Jogram station. I have been to that place a few times when I was doing collection. Sivananda Sen was one of those Kulingram devotees. He had five sons. One of his sons is Kavi Karnapur, a dear devotee of Mahaprabhu who composed Sri Gaura-gana-desa-dipika describing the identities of the Lord’s devotees, explaining who was who in Dvapar-yuga and who came as who in Kali-yuga. Kavi Karnapur’s other name is Puri Das. When he was a little boy, Mahaprabhu told him, ‘Chant Hare Krishna!’, but he did not chant. Then, Mahaprabhu asked Haridas Thakur, ‘Haridas, what is this? When I go down the street, even tigers and deer chant the Holy Name, but this child is not chanting?!’

‘Prabhu, that is because he has taken initiation from You,’ Haridas Thakur said.

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘You told him to chant Hare Krishna, so he has heard this mantra from You, and a disciple cannot say the mantra in front of his guru.’

‘Has he really taken initiation?’ Mahaprabhu asked.

‘Yes, he has,’ Haridas Thakur confirmed.

Then, Mahaprabhu told Puri Das, ‘Tell me a sloka from Srimad Bhagavatam!’ and Puri Das, a five-year-old boy, started reciting slokas. This is how he cleverly took initiation from Mahaprabhu.

So, coming back to Sri Sivananda Sen’s party travelling to Puri. Everybody passed the border, saying, ‘Our leader is behind. He will pay.’ When Sri Sivananda Sen came to the border, the guards stopped him, ‘You have brought so many people, you must pay!’ Sivananda Sen was a thrifty householder, so it took him some time to bargain with the guards. In the meantime, Sri Nityananda Prabhu went far ahead and became very hungry (it was past their meal time). He was so angry that His words were like bullets! He cursed Sivananda Sen, ‘May Sivananda’s two sons die!’ Sivananda Sen heard that Prabhu was very angry, so he quickly went to Him to pacify Him. He paid a full obeisance to Sri Nityananda Prabhu, saying, ‘Prabhu, please forgive my offence. It is all my fault, it is all my fault!’ He was paying obeisance and apologising, but Sri Nityananda Prabhu kicked him! Hearing Nityananda Prabhu’s curse, Sivananda Sen’s wife began to wail, and Srikanta, Sivananda Sen’s nephew, became angry, ‘Everybody respects my uncle so much, and this sadhu has kicked him! I will complain to Mahaprabhu!’ Srikanta ran to Mahaprabhu. Mahaprabhu is antaryami: He knows everything, He can understand everything. So, when Srikanta came panting to Mahaprabhu, Mahaprabhu asked him, ‘Srikanta, do you want to say something?’ But Srikanta could not say a word – under Mahaprabhu’s influence, he was not able to complain about Sri Nityananda Prabhu. In the meantime, Sivananda Sen’s wife wept, ‘Prabhu has cursed my two sons to die!’ but Sivananda told his wife, ‘You do not understand anything! What Thakur said is not a curse! It is a blessing! If your sons die with His blessing, they will attain the Lord!’ Sivananda Sen began to dance, ‘I have been serving the Lord for so long, but today I have got the Lord’s mercy! The Lord has kicked Me today!’

This is how Sri Nityananda Prabhu bestowed His mercy.

(8/16) Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Eccentricity

When Mahaprabhu took sannyas, He first came to Sri Advaita Acharya Prabhu’s house, and from there He was going to go to Vrindavan, but then He changed His mind and finally went to Puri. On the way to Puri, Sri Nityananda Prabhu contrived a plan.

You know, one time, there was Sachi Mata, Vishnupriya Devi and a few other devotees gathered at the house of Mahaprabhu (Mahaprabhu had not taken sannyas then). Suddenly, Sri Nityananda Prabhu came in stark naked! Vishnupriya Devi became shy and went inside into a room, and Mahaprabhu took a cloth and put it on Sri Nityananda Prabhu. Sri Nityananda Prabhu has no sense – He is not aware whether He is dressed or naked, whether there are women or girls in the room…

So, I was telling you about Mahaprabhu going to Puri. Mahaprabhu went to Puri with Mukunda, Sri Nityananda Prabhu and a few other devotees. Mahaprabhu ran down the road like a madman, and Sri Nityananda Prabhu somehow tricked Mahaprabhu into giving Him His danda. Getting Mahaprabhu’s danda, He broke it into three pieces and threw it into the Bhargi River.

When they reached Atharnala, Mahaprabhu asked Him, ‘Nitai, where is My danda?’

‘Prabhu, the way You are going, chanting the Name of Jagannath and running like a man elephant… Intoxicated with transcendental love, You fell down on Your danda, and the danda broke into three pieces, so I threw it into the Bhargi,’ Sri Nityananda Prabhu lied.

Mahaprabhu became angry.

‘I have left everything in this world and did not bring anything from Nabadwip. I had only My danda with Me, and You have broken it?! Nityananda, You know why I have taken sannyas! You know everything!’

‘Yes, I know, I know,’ said Nityananda Prabhu. ‘You are a make-believe sannyasi. Is it necessary for the Lord to take sannyas?’

Mahaprabhu stopped Him, ‘Hey, what are You saying? Do not say such things!’ Then, He turned to everyone and said, ‘I will not go with you all. Either you go first and I will go behind, or I will go first and you must go later. Decide what you will do.’

Everybody thought, ‘If we go first, we will not see which way Prabhu will go. Better He goes first, and we will follow Him.’

They told about their decision to Mahaprabhu, and Mahaprabhu began to walk so fast that the devotees could not catch up with Him even though they ran.

In this way, Mahaprabhu arrived at the temple of Lord Jagannath. He ran into the temple, saying all the time, ‘Ja-ja-ga-ga, Ja-ja-ga-ga’, with foam coming out of His mouth. Seeing a madman enter the temple and trying to come too close to the Deities, the temple guards rushed to beat Mahaprabhu, but they could not. In the end, Srila Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya ordered the guards, ‘Whoever He is, let Him be. Take Him to my house.’ You all know what happened after that. There is a book, Sri Puri Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala. Everything is there. Mahaprabhu ended up rescuing Srila Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya.

This is the pastime of Sri Nityananda Prabhu breaking Mahaprabhu’s danda. There are so many things described about Sri Nityananda Prabhu.

(9/16) Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami’s Gratitude

This book, Sri Nityananda Mahimamrita, contains the words of our Param Guru Maharaj (Om Vishnupad Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj) and our Gurudev (Om Vishnupad Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj). You can read this book. There are very nice things described in this book.

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami said, ‘I have got Sri Vrindavan Dham by the mercy of Sri Nityananda Prabhu. He ordered me to come there saying that I would get all possible benefit there.’ I told you yesterday about Gunarnava Misra and Ramdas Minaketan.

Ramdas Minaketan was Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s servant, but Gunarnava Misra committed an offence to him. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami’s brother was doing a whole-day-and-night kirtan (similar to the asta-prahar kirtans that people do these days – there is nothing except nama-aparadha in such chanting). Many people assembled at their house that night, and when Ramdas came, everybody offered their obeisances and much respect to him because he was Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s servitor. But Gunarnava Misra showed no respect to him. Ramdas Minaketan thought, ‘What is he doing? My hair stands on end just to think about it! He is an atheist! He is giving honour to one person and gives no honour to another person. This is a half-hen logic (ardha-kukkuti-nyaya)!’

I told you yesterday what this half-hen logic is, Gurudev explained it to me. When I asked Gurudev, ‘What does ardha-kukkuti mean?’ He said it meant that hen drops eggs from its backside and eats with its mouth, so if you think, ‘OK, I will keep the backside since it brings eggs, and I will throw the rest away because it is useless!’ Giving honour to one and not giving honour to the other is being an atheist.

Gunarnava Misra gives honour to Mahaprabhu but gives no honour to Sri Nityananda Prabhu. They are one, so what he did is nothing but being an atheist. Ramdas Minaketan explained this to Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami, and Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami quarrelled with his brother. In the end, he went to bed saying to his brother, ‘I want to have nothing to do with you. Do as you like.’ At night, Sri Nityananda Prabhu came to him in a dream and said, ‘Wake up, wake up, Krishna Das! Do not stay in Jhamatpur anymore. Come to Vrindavan! Do not keep any connection with your brother.’ This is how, in his old age, Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami came to Vrindavan, where he wrote Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. He said:

ei grantha lekhaya more ‘madana-mohana’
amara likhana yena sukera pathana

‘Sri Madan Mohan is writing this scripture through me. My writing is like the repetition of a parrot.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.78)

When Sri Nityananda Prabhu first came to Nabadwip, Mahaprabhu told devotees that a great personality had come, but nobody could find Him. Then, Mahaprabhu personally took all the devotees to the house of Sri Nandan Acharya. There, they saw a beautiful figure of extraordinary radiance sitting at the veranda and understood, ‘Oh, this is that great personality Mahaprabhu was talking about!’ That was the first meeting of Sri Nityananda Prabhu and Sriman Mahaprabhu. We always go to the house of Nandan Acharya during Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama.

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami wrote, ‘I have got Sri Vrindavan Dham by the mercy of Sri Nityananda Prabhu. He ordered me to come there saying that I would get all possible benefit there. When I came here, I attained the lotus feet of Sri Radha-Madan-mohan, Sri Radha-Govinda, Sri Radha-Gopinath. What is more, I have attained the super-mercy of Mahaprabhu’s dearmost devotees, Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Sanatan Goswami, Srila Jiva Goswami and Srila Raghunath Das Goswami. They have embraced me, and I have got the mercy of Sri Rupa-Raghunath.’ When he wrote Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, he wrote in every chapter:

sri-rupa-raghunatha-pade yara asa
chaitanya-charitamrta kahe krsna-dasa

‘Always desiring the lotus feet of Sri Rupa and Raghunath, Krishna Das is narrating this Chaitanya-charitamrita.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.1.110; repeated at the end of every chapter)

(10/16) Unblemished Nitai

One time, there was a brahman in Nabadwip who came to Mahaprabhu to express his doubts regarding Sri Nityananda Prabhu. Mahaprabhu removed his doubts by quoting this sloka from Srimad Bhagavatam:

dharma-vyatikramo drsta isvaranam cha sahasam
tejiyasam na dosaya vahneh sarva-bhujo yatha

‘The status of powerful controllers is not harmed by any apparently audacious transgression of morality we may see in them, for they are just like fire, which devours everything fed into it and remains unpolluted.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 10.33.29)

Fire can consume everything and can remove all impurities, all dirt, but fire itself is not affected by that. In the same way, even if Nityananda Prabhu transgresses the religion of sannyas, He has no fault. He is higher than any rules and regulations. All rules and regulations, all prohibitions exist for the conditioned souls living in illusory environment – they are not meant for the Lord. If somebody criticises Sri Nityananda Prabhu for His behaviour not knowing who He is, they will suffer birth after birth.

This is how Sriman Mahaprabhu expressed the supramundane glories of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu to that doubting brahman. He also said, ‘Sri Nityananda Prabhu possesses supreme qualification. If you have meagre fortune, you can never understand Him (it takes a great fortune to understand Him). Those who look at His supramundane activities with affection receive liberation. Nityananda Prabhu appears in this world to save fallen souls, and all jivas receive liberation by His mercy. His behaviour is above any Vedic regulations. Indeed, who is capable of understanding Nitai?’

One day, when Mahaprabhu came to the house of Srivas Pandit, He asked Srivas Pandit, ‘Srivas, have you let this Man stay at your house? He has no house, no home. Do you even know who He is? What if He steals or does something bad and runs away? What is the point of letting Him stay here?’ Srivas Pandit laughed when he heard it. He replied, ‘Prabhu, have You come to test me? You want to check how much I love Nityananda, do You not? Have You come to test how much faith I have for Nityananda?’ Mahaprabhu was happy to hear Srivas Pandit talk in this way.

Moreover, Mahaprabhu said to that doubting brahman, ‘Who has the capacity to understand Nityananda? If somebody criticises Nityananda not understanding anything, it will obstruct their attainment of devotion to Lord Vishnu. O brahman, go quickly to Nabadwip and explain this to everyone. If anyone criticises Nityananda in any way behind His back, they will not escape the punishment of Yamaraj! Nobody will be able to save them. Go quickly to Nabadwip and see to it that no one blasphemes Nityananda. If someone loves Nityananda, then I think that they love Me, and if someone does not love Nityananda, they do not love Me either. So, if Nabadwip citizens genuinely love Me, they must love Nityananda. Brahman, I am telling you the truth. Even if Nityananda comes holding a drunk Muslim woman, Brahma will pay his obeisance to Him.’

Srila Guru Maharaj also writes that by the wish of Sriman Mahaprabhu, the six goswamis headed by Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatan preached in Vrindavan, and Nityananda Prabhu together with His associates preached massively in Sri Gauda-desh.

We can see that there are two Vyasas of Chaitanya-lila, and both of them received Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy. First, Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur got His mercy and wrote Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, and the second Vyasa of Chaitanya-lila is Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami, the author of Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. Srila Gurudev composed a sloka about both Vyasas of Chaitanya-lila:

dasa-vrndavanam vande krsna-dasa-prabhum tatha
chhannavatara-chaitanya-lila-vistara-karinau
dvau nityananda-padabja-karuna-renu-bhusitau
vyakta-chchhannau budhachintyau vavande vyasa-rupinau
sri-guru-gaura-gandharva-govindas cha ganaih saha
jayanti pathakas chatra sarvesam karunarthinah

‘I offer my obeisances to Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur and Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami, who made public the pastimes of the hidden avatar, Sri Chaitanya. They were both adorned with the mercy-dust of the lotus feet of Nityananda. I offer my obeisances to these two inconceivable sages who assumed the form of Vyasadev, one – explicitly (Vrindavan Das Thakur), another – hiddenly (Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami). Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda and Their associates are ever victorious, and we, the students, pray for Their mercy.’

(Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Therefore, if Nityananda Prabhu had not come, we would not have known anything about the transcendental pastimes of Sriman Mahaprabhu because it is by His mercy that these two Prabhus (Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur and Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami) granted this world the gift of the sweet pastimes of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

After Sri Nityananda Prabhu, Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s sakti, Sri Jahnava Devi, took the helm of His sampradaya. She lived in Vrindavan and gave initiation on behalf of Sri Nityananda Prabhu (she accepted disciples). The other sakti of Sri Nityananda Prabhu, Sri Vasudha Devi, begot a son, Sri Virachandra Prabhu. Sri Virachandra Prabhu took initiation from Sri Jahnava Devi and preached magnanimously and very widely. In particular, Sri Virachandra Prabhu brought many Buddhists to the lotus feet of Mahaprabhu.

This is how, through Sri Nityananda Prabhu, it was and is possible for all jiva souls of this world to get Mahaprabhu’s mercy.

(11/16) Sri Nityananda’s Supreme Mercy

This book Sri Nityananda Mahimamrita is very beautiful. It contains the writings of Gurudev, Guru Maharaj and Srila Prabhupad. I have told you about the pastimes described here, including how Sri Nityananda Prabhu rescued Jagai and Madhai.

[His Divine Grace reads from Sri Nityananda Mahimamrita, 2nd expanded edition.]

Sri Nityananda Prabhu is my only hope. He is supremely magnanimous, He is merciful, and it is easy for us to receive His mercy. Sri Gaura Hari cannot reject somebody who has been approved by Sri Nityananda Prabhu, and when we get Sri Gauranga’s mercy, Sri Radha-Krishna and Their pastimes that take place in Vrindavan will easily come to us. Our highest and innermost aspiration is to attain service to Srimati Radharani. To fulfil this aspiration, it is of foremost necessity to attain the servitude and service to Sri Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s representative, Sri Gurupadpadma, which is the foundation of our highest aspiration. When you are making a house, it is necessary to first have a foundation. If the foundation is not good, the house will not stand. Therefore, the mercy of Sri Nityananda Prabhu and the mercy of gurudev are the real foundation. Our only duty is to attain the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma.

Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy is such that He takes even the lowest meat-eaters on His lap. It exceeds even the mercy of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu! One may consider it superfluous or excessive because it is seen that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was reluctant to accept very heavy offenders. That is because He must always keep an eye on everything and maintain balance. However, there is no such consideration when it comes to Sri Nityananda Prabhu. Sri Nityananda Prabhu does not pay any attention to this, does not judge all these things – He gives divine love to anyone and everyone, without any consideration! Mahaprabhu always considers whom to give mercy and whom not to give, but Sri Nityananda Prabhu makes no such consideration. He tells to chant the Holy Name to whoever He sees. Sri Nityananda Prabhu accepts with raised arms even those whom Mahaprabhu is reluctant to accept. Even Mahaprabhu becomes helpless: Nitai wants to give mercy to somebody, then where will Mahaprabhu go (how can He avoid it)?

Mahaprabhu told the followers of Sri Nityananda Prabhu:

madira yavani yadi nityananda dhare
tathapi brahmara vandya kahila tomare

‘Even if Nityananda Prabhu comes drunk with a Muslim lady by His side, He is always worshippable for Lord Brahma.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.6.123)

Mahaprabhu said to the effect, ‘My mind, My heart is always at the lotus feet of Nitai. I eternally offer My obeisance at His feet.’ We have fallen into this illusory environment, becoming slaves of Maya, and to rescue such fallen souls as ourselves, to save the souls from the clutches of the witch Maya, Mahaprabhu took sannyas. He ran behind fallen souls making them hear Krishna Nam, severing the noose of Maya. And Sri Nityananda Prabhu followed Mahaprabhu everywhere like a shadow and one by one took over all the great responsibilities of Mahaprabhu…

(12/16) Our Only Wealth and Shelter

[His Divine Grace reads from Sri Nityananda Mahimamrita, 2nd expanded edition.]

Sri Nityananda Prabhu says, ‘Those who worship Gauranga are My heart and soul!’ If you glorify and chant the Name of Gauranga, all sins and impurities will go away from you and you will get taste for Krishna-lila. But both results are attained easily if we just pray to Nitai. ‘O Nityananda Prabhu! O gurudev! Please give me a drop of taste for the holy lotus feet of Sri Gauranga, for He is the worshippable connoisseur of the transcendental mellows existing in Sri Vrindavan, He is a combined form of Sri Sri Radha Govinda. Please, bestow your mercy on me so that I may get the transcendental ecstatic loving service in Vrindavan.’

If we do not take shelter of Nitai and Gaura, we cannot attain this service to Sri Sri Radha Govinda even in a dream – our service will be simply imagination. Sri Nityananda Prabhu is extremely merciful to the fallen. He is our only hope. He resides as Sankarshan in the abode of Vaikuntha and Goloka. He is the only main foundation of all living entities. He is Baladev (holder of all divine power), who enables the creation process and the procurement of all necessary ingredients to create the transcendental realm, but He descends in the form of Sri Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Guru and, dancing incessantly down the road, tells everyone, with tears of divine love flowing from His eyes, ‘Take the Name of Gauranga! Buy Me!’

No matter how much humility He displays, I am telling you that He is the greatest and most qualified personality on this path of devotion, and if we throw ourselves at His holy feet, our life will be successful.

We can see in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita and Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata a thorough and ample description of Sri Nityananda Prabhu and His nature. Baladev-Nityananda Prabhu is a repository of the entire creation, of all possible ingredients in the pastimes of Lord Krishna; therefore, our only wealth in spiritual life is to surrender everything and take exclusive shelter at the holy lotus feet of Sri Nityananda and gurudev, who is non-different from Him.

(13/16) Mahaprabhu’s Private Order

[His Divine Grace reads from Sri Nityananda Mahimamrita, 2nd expanded edition.]

One day, when They were in Sri Puri Dham, Mahaprabhu called Nityananda and spoke to Him privately. Do you know what He told Him? After that conversation, Sri Nityananda Prabhu went to Bangladesh and married two daughters of Suryadas Sarakhel, Jahnava and Vasudha, in Kalna. I have told you how it happened. What Mahaprabhu told Sri Nityananda Prabhu privately was this. Mahaprabhu ordered Sri Nityananda Prabhu to marry and preach the Holy Name. Many people say many things, but Sri Nityananda Prabhu did not marry because it was His desire. Many Vaishnav sannyasis look at Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s example and get married, but they must know that there is no proof that Sri Nityananda Prabhu was a sannyasi. Actually, there was no question of Sri Nityananda Prabhu being a sannyasi or a householder because He is above all these designations.

In those days, it was not possible for a sannyasi to mix with public closely because there were many rules and regulations for renounced persons (for example, they could stay in one place, or village, only for one day, not longer than that). Also, many householders did not respect those who were not householders. Sriman Mahaprabhu wanted the Holy Name to be preached in every corner of the world:

prithivite achhe yata nagaradi grama
sarvatra prachara haibe mora nama

‘My Name will spread to every village and town on this earth.’

(Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu)

That is why Mahaprabhu observed the situation and concluded that Sri Nityananda Prabhu had to get married and become an acharya to preach the Holy Name everywhere.

It is seen that after Sri Nityananda Prabhu disappeared, Jahnava Devi’s son, Virachandra Prabhu, flooded the whole of Bangladesh with Nama-sankirtan, and that flood ebbed only three centuries later.

The account of how Sri Nityananda Prabhu married Sri Jahnava Devi is found in Sri Bhakti-ratnakar.

Before getting married, Sri Nityananda Prabhu had already begun preaching in Bangladesh. One day, when He was preaching, He came to the house of Sri Suryadas Pandit, the father of Sri Jahnava Devi. Suryadas Pandit’s brother, Sri Gauri Das Pandit, was a dear and staunch disciple of Gaura and Nityananda, so Suryadas Pandit helped Sri Nityananda Prabhu in His preaching in every way he could. Sri Nityananda Prabhu stayed at his house and preached from there. It was during that time that Suryadas Pandit gave his daughter, Sri Jahnava Devi, to Sri Nityananda Prabhu, and they got married. In fact, Sri Jahnava Devi is an eternally perfected soul and an associate (female counterpart) of Sri Nityananda Prabhu in His eternal pastimes.

It should be noted that there is no mention of Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s sannyas-guru anywhere. Sri Madhavendra Puri (the guru of Sri Advaita Acharya and Sri Ishwar Puri) was His diksa-guru.

(14/16) Nityananda Prabhu’s Campaign

[His Divine Grace reads from Sri Nityananda Mahimamrita, 2nd expanded edition.]

It is mentioned in the scriptures that Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s name is avadhut. Avadhut is the one who is above all obstacles and prohibitions – the one who does not follow any rules and regulations because He has no consciousness of them. ‘Ava’ means ‘low’, ‘dhuta’ means ‘purifier’ – He who purifies the low and the impure is called ‘avadhut’. Even if you see any misconduct in the spiritual practices of the practitioners of the highest calibre, or the perfected souls, they eternally remain pure. There is a sloka in Srimad Bhagavad-gita,

api chet suduracharo, bhajate mam ananya-bhak
sadhur eva sa mantavyah, samyag vyavasito hi sah

‘If even a very sinful person serves Me exclusively with devotion, he should be regarded as saintly because his resolve is perfect.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 9.30)

If you read this sloka, you will understand it.

Another thing that is written here is an explanation of why Sri Nityananda Prabhu broke Mahaprabhu’s danda. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita says (2.5.157), ‘Inho kene danda bhange, tenho kene bhangaya: why did Nityananda Prabhu break the danda, and why did Mahaprabhu allow Him to break the danda?’ To teach others, Mahaprabhu took eka-danda sannyas (mayavadi-sannyas), but this pastime shows that if you are to take a sannyas, you must take a tridanda-sannyas (kaya, mana, vakya – with your body, mind and speech). That is why Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur established the tradition of tridanda-sannyas. At the same time, Sri Nityananda Prabhu also thought, ‘Why will Prabhu carry Me? I Myself am the danda, so why will He carry Me? Besides, why must He take sannyas at all? This danda does not suit Him!’ So, Sri Nityananda Prabhu broke it into three pieces. This is why Sri Nityananda Prabhu broke it, and this is why Sriman Mahaprabhu allowed Him to do it.

Srila Param Guru Maharaj also writes:

There is another misconception that I would like to clarify. Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s behaviour and policy were of different kinds, but His strategy was such that He first and foremost pulled to Himself those who were the worst, the most sinful and extremely fallen among people. He was like Bonaparte Napoleon, who first defeated the enemy’s impenetrable prison. In the same way, Sri Nityananda Prabhu first rescued the lowest and the most fallen souls and threw them at the holy lotus feet of Sriman Mahaprabhu. We have a misconception that a sannyasi runs away from the illusory world thinking, ‘I will go to a cave and meditate twenty-four hours a day.’ In India, sadhus usually preach, ‘Leave everything and go to live in a solitary place. Find a cave in a jungle and engage yourself with full energy in meditation on the Lord.’ However, our gurudev was completely different. Like Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu, he would say, ‘Become a general and attack maya!’ He declared a totalitarian war against maya and all other existing conceptions of religion, proclaiming, ‘Everything belongs to Krishna (isavasyam idam sarvam). Whatever I see, everything that is created in this world, everything is for Krishna’s service, not for my enjoyment. Do not indulge in the wrong conception that “this is mine and that is Krishna’s”. Attack and crush this whole wrong idea! Remove this misconception!’

He [Srila Prabhupad] told us that kirtan means preaching against this misconception and against the illusory condition of the souls charmed by this misconception. Go door to door and preach Krishna consciousness. Preaching Krishna consciousness means preaching about a life in which the very goal is to please Krishna. If they can understand that everything is for Krishna’s enjoyment, they will be saved and rescued. This is plain truth. Why would they not be able to understand it?

In this sense, we see nothing but fear wherever we cast our glance. One time, a Vaishnav who loved solitary life asked our Gurudev, ‘Why do you stay in Kolkata? It is Satan’s place. Here is only a daily competition for enjoyment, for selfish interest. Leave this place and come to a holy dham.’ However, Srila Saraswati Thakur did not listen to it. He said, ‘I want to preach Sriman Mahaprabhu’s conception here, in the most contaminated place.’

For this reason Srila Prabhupad wanted to send men to the West, thinking, ‘Attracted and charmed by the external glitter of the West’s beauty, the people in this country have started to imitate them. The people of this country always try to go to America and London, but I am telling them: you want to leave, but there is a hidden treasure, hidden wealth in this country! Search for it! There is Krishna-prema in this land! The Lord Himself appeared in this land so many times! Gaura-Nitai appeared in this Mayapur, Sri Nabadwip Dham. Search for this happiness!’

Such was Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s enthusiasm. From the beginning, He raised the banner of rescuing the fallen souls of this world and cleared the path for them to become attracted to the holy lotus feet of Sriman Mahaprabhu.

How beautiful these words are. Srila Guru Maharaj (Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj) wrote this. When I read it, I want to read it all day and all night, but I do not get time… Guru Maharaj and Prabhupad wrote very beautifully. Get this book (Sri Nityananda Mahimamrita) and read it.

Srila Prabhupad also wrote very beautiful glorification on Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance day, but I will leave it for tomorrow.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

I will sing a kirtan now.

Hare Krishna, Hari bol.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Amara jivana’.]

(15/16) Humility and Deep Faith

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Amara jivana’.]

amara jivana, sada pape rata,
nahika punyera lesa
parere udvega, diyachhi ye kata,
diyachhi jivere klesa [1]

‘My life is always engrossed in sin. There is not a trace of piety in it. I have been giving others so much anxiety and pain.’

nija sukha lagi’, pape nahi dari’,
daya-hina svartha-para
para-sukhe duhkhi, sada mithya-bhasi,
para-duhkha sukha-kara [2]

‘I am not afraid to commit sins for my own happiness. I am merciless and selfish. I always lie. I feel unhappy to see others happy, and I feel happy to see others sad.’

asesa kamana, hrdi majhe mora,
krodhi dambha-parayana
mada-matta sada, visaye mohita,
himsa-garba vibhusana [3]

‘My heart is filled with endless desires. Angry, arrogant and vain, I am always intoxicated, mad, engrossed in the material world. Pride and envy are my ornaments.’

nidralasya hata, sukarye virata,
akarye udyogi ami
pratistha lagiya, sathya-acharana,
lobha-hata sada kami [4]

‘Ruined by laziness and sleep, I am averse to doing anything good and eager to do nothing. I behave crooked desiring prestige. I am ruined by greed and always want something.’

e hena durjana, sajjana-varjita,
aparadhi nirantara
subha-karya-sunya, sadanartha-manah,
nana-duhkhe jara jara [5]

‘Such a bad person as I is shunned by good souls – I am a constant offender. I do not do anything good – instead, I am always filled with inauspiciousness. I am racked with various miseries.’

vardhakye ekhana, upaya-vihina,
ta’te dina akinchana
bhakati-vinoda, prabhura charane,
kare duhkha nivedana [6]

‘Old and having no way out now, having thus become poor and materially destitute, Bhaktivinod humbly submits his sorrow at the holy feet of the Lord.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must always be humble. I have told you before: the higher a Vaishnav is, the more humility they have.

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana

[Limbs of surrender] ‘Humility, self-submission, accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

First, it is necessary to accumulate sukriti from previous lifetimes. There is ajnata-sukriti, and there is jnata-sukriti. Nobody can practise Krishna consciousness without sukriti.

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.’

mali hana kare sei bija aropana
sravana-kirtana-jale karaye sechana

‘As gardeners, they plant this seed and water it with sravan (hearing) and kirtan (chanting, practising).’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.19.151–152)

Always practise. You must all take kirtan books with you. Always join this parikrama of the holy dham.

sri-gauda-mandala-bhumi, yeba jane chintamani,
tara haya vraja-bhume vasa

‘Those who always think about Sri Gauda Mandal reside in the land of Vraja.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Come and stay in Sri Gaura Mandal! Gauda Mandal is not only Mayapur or Nabadwip. ‘Those who always think about Sri Nabadwip Dham reside in Sri Vrindavan.’ Those who understand what Nabadwip Dham is, who have deep, internal faith live in the land of Vraja. There is no other way to rescue yourself from the circumambulation of this material world except for chanting the Holy Name in the association of sadhus.

sadhu-sange krsna-nama—ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

You can become rescued from this parikrama of the material world if you do the parikrama of the holy dham in good association of sadhus.

(16/16) Save Yourself

Wake up early tomorrow. There will be some Hari-katha and kirtans here, and at 9 o’clock, we will go out on the parikrama. Please do not be late, come quickly. After the parikrama, we will come here, speak some Hari-katha, and then there will be prasad. Try to fast tomorrow. If you skip one meal, it is not a problem. If somebody has health problems, they can eat; other than that, please fast. It is my prayer to you all that you may always come for the dham parikrama – come for the parikrama of Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Ekachakra Dham, Sri Vrindavan Dham, Sri Puri Dham.

I see that so many people have come to Sri Ekachakra Dham this time. Gurudev scolded me, ‘You have made such a big nat-mandir, where will you get so many people to fill it?’ Now you can see that there is no place. We have made so many rooms, but even that is not enough – people still sleep in the nat-mandir; and there are 25–30 people staying in one room. What to do? You have to struggle for one–two days…

‘samsara’ ‘samsara’ kari’ michhe gela kala
labha na haila kichhu, ghatila janjala

‘Time has passed as I have been busy with my material life, and the result is nothing – only garbage.’

kisera samsara ei chhayabaji praya
ihate mamata kari vrtha dina yaya

‘What sort of world is this? It is only a trick, a show. While I affectionately take it as my own, days pass by in vain.’

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

ara kabe nitaichand karuna karibe
samsara-vasana mora kabe tuchchha habe

‘When will Nitaichand give me His mercy? When will my material desires become trifle?’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

kabe nityananda more kari’ daya
chhadaibe mora visayera maya

‘When will Nityananda be compassionate to me and relieve me from mundane illusion?’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When will Sri Nityananda Prabhu give His mercy to me? When will I be free from material illusion?

How can I save myself from this ocean of material existence? I keep coming to this material world, engrossed in eating, sleeping, fearing and mating. Days are passing in vain.

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Please live in the family of Krishna. You must practise Krishna consciousness giving up all bad practices and embracing Krishna’s family. You are uselessly wasting your time. When will we listen to what our guru says? When will gurudev bestow his mercy on us? When will we be able to serve gurudev properly? When will we engage in service all day and night? When will we be able to only serve the Lord the whole day? Make sure that not a single day is wasted – make sure that not a single day passes without service to the Lord. Eating, sleeping, and so on – these things will always be there, and the more you do these things, the more they will increase in your life. I always tell you, ‘Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Always serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

If you want to practise Krishna consciousness all the time, you have to give up the whims and lust of your tongue. Your tongue keeps you bound in the material world.

sarira avidya-jala, jadendriya tahe kala,
jive phele visaya-sagare

tara madhye jihva ati, lobhamaya sudurmati,
ta’ke jeta kathina samsare

‘This body is a net of illusion, and the material senses are the cause of its ruination: they throw the soul into the ocean of mundanity. Among all senses, the tongue is extremely greedy and wicked; it is very difficult to conquer it in the material world.’

krsna bada dayamaya, karibare jihva jaya,
sva-prasad-anna dila bhai
sei annamrta pao, radha-krsna-guna gao,
preme daka chaitanya-nitai

‘Brother, Krishna is very merciful: to conquer the tongue, He has given us His food remnants! Take this nectarean food, sing the glories of Radha-Krishna and with love call out to Chaitanya and Nitai!’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When will Nitaichand bestow His mercy on us so that we could do this?

All these things that I am telling you are not just for the three days that you are here. The jiva soul is an eternal servant of Krishna. You go home and forget it, that is why I keep telling you about it, again and again, again and again. I went house to house inviting you to this festival in Ekachakra:

kaya bara eli kaya bara geli
tabu tattva na sikhili
nijer matha nije khaili
e dosa dibe kare bhai?

‘Coming and going, coming and going, you never learnt anything! You have been eating your own brain – who will you blame for this, brother?’

Who will you blame now? You are your own friend, and you are your own enemy. We have no enemies in this world – we are our own enemies. If we cannot subdue the enemy within us (if we cannot subdue lust, anger, greed, illusion, etc.), what will we do? There are ten senses: pancha-karmendriya (instruments of actions – feet, hands, rectum, genitals, mouth), pancha-jnanendriya (instruments of acquiring knowledge – eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin), and there is also mind, intelligence, and ego. If you regularly chant kirtans and listen to Hari-katha, then one day you will be able to concentrate your mind on the eternal conscious plane and the service of the Lord. We must throw everything – our body, mind, heart, ego – at the lotus feet of the Lord.

diksa-kale bhakta kare atma-samarpana
sei-kale krsna tare kare atma-sama

‘Devotees submit their entire being when they take initiation. At this time, Krishna accepts them as His very own.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.192)

Many make a mistake and live by karma-kanda (engaging in material life and seeking material benefits). Such people turn the Lord into a bribe-taker or their menial servant. ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, yasam dehi: make me rich, make me clever, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me famous.’ People want all these things, but Mahaprabhu said:

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

Gurudev has made all arrangements for us. Just now somebody has called me, asking, ‘Will there be Nabadwip Dham parikrama?’ Of course, there will be Nabadwip Dham parikrama. I will not stop it, no matter what. Why must parikrama be stopped? You must all come for the parikrama. You can see so many people sitting here, and nobody is wearing masks. Corona must have fled. If you get Nitai’s mercy (karuna), you will not get any corona.

Even during the pandemic, I did not stop – I went everywhere. Trains and buses did not run for nine months, but my car went everywhere. I went everywhere to speak Hari-katha. Nobody stopped me.

The construction workers at first ran away, but I told them to come back quickly and finish the works. It is necessary to finish the devotees’ quarters. Everything happened in Nabadwip (Nrisingha Palli) by the mercy of Gurudev. I left Nabadwip, but I did not stop the parikrama: I made a temple in Nrisingha Palli and started doing parikrama from there. There are many rooms there now. Everything is arranged now, there are no problems. During the lockdown, another hundred rooms were built there. If ten people stay in each room, one thousand people can easily come. If the Lord keeps me alive, then another fifty rooms can be built. If my service is needed, then He will keep me alive, and if the Lord wants to take me, He will take me. ‘Janma-mrtyu-biye tin Vidhatar niye.’ There are three things – janma means birth, mrityu means death, and biye means marriage. These three things are not in anybody’s hands, they are only in the hands of the Lord (they come through the Lord). If the Lord needs me for His service, He will keep me alive. Otherwise, I can get corona and die, I can get diarrhoea and die, or I can get cancer and die. It is impossible to stop this. ‘Marabi rakhabi, yo ichchha tohara: whether You keep me or kill me, it is up to You.’ If He wants to kill you, He will kill; and if He wants to protect you, He will protect. Because we have little faith in this, we feel scared.

‘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)

You will have no debt – no debt to your father, no debt to your mother, no debt to any rishis (sages) or demigods; you will become crazy. When will I become crazy?…

One time, Sachi Mata used cooling oil to calm Mahaprabhu when He showed heated behaviour, but Srivas Pandit said, ‘Didi! What am I to say to you? This oil that you are applying will not help Him! I know why He has become crazy, and I too want to become crazy like Him!’ Mahaprabhu became crazy out of separation from Krishna.

You have heard songs of separation sung by Srimati Radharani…

vamsira kono laj’ nai divanise dake-tai
ami yata dure yai vamsi bole eso rai
keno ye samay’ bujhe na
o mora keno more na?

‘The Flute has no shame! It only keeps on calling Me day and night. No matter how far I go, the Flute keeps calling Me, “Come, Rai.” Why does it not understand? It is a dead thing, but why does it not die?’

This is Srimati Radharani’s lamentation… And in Krishna-lila, Krishna says in separation from Radharani, ‘O Subal! My mind is burning in agony, what kind of lila is this? I have become mad for Her!’

That is why Srivas Pandit told Sri Sachi Mata, ‘I too want to become crazy like Him.’

[His Divine Grace sings ‘Kabe habe bolo se dina amara’ and ‘Hari haraye Nama Krsna’ and recites the Jaya Dhvani, concluding the evening class.]

* * *

￼Line Line25 February 2021, a.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s Holy Appearance Day

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/11) Supremely Worshippable Day

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Jay Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev Subhadra Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Sri Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Tadiya sakha math-samuha ki jay.
Sri Mather sevak vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Ananta-koti Vaishnav vrinda ki jay.
Sri Gaudiya Acharya vrinda ki jay.
Tridandi-pad-gan ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Nityananda Prabhu ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Mahaprabhu ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar, Giriraj Govardhan ki jay.
Jay Sri Sri Guru Gaura Nityananda jiu ki jay.
Nityananda Prabhur avirabhav tithi-vara maha-mahotsav ki jay.
Nityananda trayodasi ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math Krishnanusilana Sangha ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Jay all the sannyasi-, brahmachari-, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Devotee: Jay Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj ki jay. Harinam sankirtan ki jay. Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol

Today is a very fortunate day for us. We always wait for this day very much every year – the holy worshippable day when our supremely worshippable Sriman Nityananda Prabhu chose to come to this world. We, especially all devotees of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu, usually have a very special regard for the holy day of Gaura Purnima (Bengali people call this day ‘dol purnima’), but today is the holy appearance day of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu – He without whose mercy this world is plunged into darkness, He without whose mercy we do not see and will never see any light, He without whose mercy the door of Goloka Vrindavan will never open for us, He without whose mercy we can never become saved from this illusory environment. Sriman Nityananda Prabhu accepted Sriman Hadai Pandit and Srimati Pamavati Devi as His parents and appeared on this holy day in this world in the Age of Kali to rescue all the lowly, fallen souls such as ourselves. Therefore, this day, Nityananda-trayodasi, is an extremely worshippable day for us.

Many different sampradayas are observing this holy Nityananda-trayodasi day, but our Gaudiya sampradaya observes this day beautifully, with heart and soul, extracting and smearing mellows of deep love from their hearts. You too come here every year with much enthusiasm, and you will hopefully come here next year, too. Many of you have got an opportunity to come and be here from the dasami-tithi, which is very good, there is no problem with that. You came one–two days earlier and got an opportunity to stay at Nityananda Prabhu’s holy abode, and we have also got this opportunity owing to you. I usually do not get time to come here often because I have to visit all the other temples. This is how time passes. But because you all came before the festival, I too came here a few days earlier and got an opportunity to hear the nectarean narratives about this holy dham (Mahima-charita-amrita, Mahima-amrita, Mahima-katha). This is an extremely pure land, non-different from Sri Vrindavan Dham. Just as everyone says, ‘Jay Radhe Radhe’ in Vrindavan, everyone here says, ‘Jay Nitai’. When people meet each other here, they say, ‘Jay Nitai’. Nityananda Prabhu’s Name is uttered here all the time.

nitai na balila mukhe, majila samsara sukhe,
vidya-kule ki karibe tara

‘If you have never uttered the Name of Nitai and have spent your life immersed in material happiness, what will your knowledge and high birth do for you?’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

We are so proud of our knowledge. We are always controlled by our ego, proud of our wealth, knowledge, bodily beauty and material qualities. This is how we become mad with pride and forget Nitai’s lotus feet (‘Ahankare matta haina, Nitai-pada pasariya’). I have seen Gurudev’s pastimes. One time, when Gurudev had an operation in Kolkata, I saw him being taken to the operation theatre. I cried to see him suffer so much. There was about forty-five minutes before the operation, and Gurudev told the nurse to allow foreign devotees (his servants) to stay. Seeing our crying faces, Gurudev only started chanting kirtan. Lying on the stretchers, dressed in the hospital clothes, he was chanting:

nitai pada kamala, koti chandra-susitala,
ye chhayaya jagata judaya
hena nitai bine bhai, radha-krsna paite nai,
drdha kari dhara nitaiyera paya

‘The world is soothed in the shade of Nitai’s lotus feet, which are cooling like ten million moons. Brother, you cannot reach Radha-Krishna without this Nitai. Firmly grasp His feet!’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

It is necessary to have the strongest faith. If you do not have a very strong faith, you will not have faith in Nitai. People sing at market places:

yadyapi amara guru vesya-bari yaya
tathapio amara guru nityananda-raya

‘Even if my guru, Nityananda Ray, goes to a prostitute’s house, He is still my guru.’

This is what faith is.

(2/11) Do Not Pass Your Life in Vain

I have described to you the qualities and glories of Sri Nityananda Ray earlier. I have told you what Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami also wrote in His glorification.

You all know that we have a temple (a ladies’ ashram) in Kalna. Before making the temple in Kalna, I had visited once the house of Sri Gauri Das Pandit during a parikrama of Kalna Dham with a few foreign devotees. When we were in Ambika Kalna, Bardhaman District, a man came up to me and started calling me, ‘Come here, come.’ He showed me a low wooden stool used for marriages, saying, ‘This is Nityananda’s marriage stool!’ I asked him, ‘Who made this stool? Where have you heard this? Do you think Nityananda Prabhu’s marriage is like any ordinary marriage?’ Nityananda Prabhu accepted Jahnava Devi on the order of Mahaprabhu (I told you about it yesterday). After that, He accepted Vasudha Devi as well. It happened on the same day. You know this story. It was not a wedding as you commonly understand it. Jahnava and Vasudha had been Nityananda Prabhu’s sakti for a long time. When Mahaprabhu told Nityananda Prabhu to preach in Gauda-desh, Nityananda Prabhu went to preach in Kalna as part of that preaching. Mahaprabhu also visited Kalna.

[Clamour in the audience.]

So much racket… People are talking so much! You come to gossip and talk nonsense and do not allow devotees to speak about the Lord. People come to the dham, but they only make dham-aparadha: without knowing it, they are unconsciously making offences… Those who obstruct the glorification of Sri Nityananda Prabhu commit dhama-aparadha. If somebody creates obstruction when somebody is talking about the holy dham, about the glory of the dham, it is an offence. There is seva-aparadha, nama-aparadha, vaishnav-aparadha and dhama-aparadha. All this is written and explained at the end of our calendars. I have also written in the third volume of Guidance about the hellish suffering, where I explained what kinds of hell there are and what suffering living entities undergo in each place within hell. You have come to the holy dham to earn some sukriti – circumambulating this holy dham, glorifying and hearing about the glories of Sri Nityananda Prabhu, you can earn some sukriti that will purify your heart. But if you come here and spend time on idle talks (prajalpa), if you make mischief and disturb, then you have come here in vain. You can get money, food, clothes and a place to sleep in at home also, so it is not like you have come here only for food and a room. Each of you lives in a house. You are all proud of the place where you stay and call it ‘home’ (‘my house’, ‘my room’, ‘my son’, ‘my wife’). You live comfortably in your houses, but you come here and struggle so much (in some rooms, there are thirty people staying together). If you want this struggle to be worthwhile, you must take advantage of Hari-katha and kirtan. Practise sravanam and kirtanam.

adau sraddha tatah sadhu-sango ‘tha bhajana-kriya

tato ‘nartha-nivrttih syat tato nistha ruchis tatah

athasaktis tato bhavas tatah premabhyudanchati

sadhakanam ayam premnah pradurbhave bhavet kramah

‘First, there is faith; then, saintly association and practising life. After that, unwanted habits gradually go away, spiritual life becomes stable, and spiritual taste comes. Then comes attachment, feeling and, finally, transcendental love. This is how love for the Lord comes to those who practise Krishna consciousness.’

(Sri Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, 1.4.15–16)

This is how everything gradually comes. If you do not practise sravan and kirtan in sadhu-sanga (saintly association), your life will pass in vain. If you have any other talks, any other thoughts in your mind, in your heart, then surrender will never come to you. Therefore, I am begging you with folded palms, ‘Only one day is left. Please do not disturb the class.’

(3/11) Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness

Very soon we are going for the parikrama, during which we will speak about different places (Pandav Tala and others). Some places are closed now for reconstruction, but we will still go there – we can pay our obeisances from outside and take the darshan of the place in our heart.

If you cannot concentrate your mind, then it is a very difficult situation. The Lord has given you a mouth to speak about Him. When we wake up in the morning, we sing:

bhajiba baliya ese samsara-bhitare
bhuliya rahile tumi avidyara bhare

‘Forgetting that you came to this world saying, “I will serve You,” you remained engulfed in ignorance.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When we were in our mother’s womb, we promised to the Lord, ‘I will worship You. I will speak about You with this mouth. I will look at Your Deity with these eyes.’ You can see that devotees have decorated the temple so nicely. It takes very much time to do it because the Deities are very big here. Devotees have cleaned everything. Archan means cleaning. Do you think archan is only lighting the pancha-pradip and waving the fan? It is not.

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara
sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

‘May I have the same love and attraction to Your holy feet that I now have for material things.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You can see how you make your own bed – every day you first dust and clean it nicely, then you lie down on it. You must treat the Lord, the Deities, like that, too. The archan of Deities means to keep the Deities’ room clean. Sometimes, there can be some rats’ stool, some cobwebs – it must all be cleaned. There can be dust where the parampara photographs are kept. You must wipe the dust and keep everything neat.

You think Deities’ archan is only to offer the Deities a ghee lamp, wave a yak-tail whisk and a peacock fan in front of the Deities or only to bath the Deities, but archan is more about keeping everything clean, tidy and neat. Many think that archan means just to bath the Deities, and if it is very difficult to bath the Deities, then you must bath Them in your mind, by reciting mantras. It is not only that. It is necessary to keep the room of the Deities clean.

I have heard that the Deities’ room here was very dirty. This is seva-aparadha. You are trying to do service, but instead, you are committing offences. You can make many excuses, ‘Oh, the Deities are so tall, how can I clean Them?’ but you cannot make this excuse when it comes to the guru-parampara photographs because they are not high and you can always clean the place. I have got the news from the devotees who cleaned the Deities’ room how untidy and neglected the room was. Those who do puja must always keep the altar clean!

Archan-puja is part of devotional practice (sravanam, kirtanam, archanam, and so on – archan is part of it). Do not think that you can just recite some mantras, and this is it, you have done the archan. Do I have to check if you keep the altar room clean or not, if you keep the guru-parampara clean or not? I have told you just now – there are nama-aparadhas, dhama-aparadhas, seva-aparadhas, vaishnav-aparadhas. We must all be very careful that we do not make any offences. And this is not only about this temple here. Wherever I go, I tell devotees, ‘Do not turn the Deities’ room into a jungle.’ If you do not keep everything clean and neat, it is not right. It does not work like that. Even Muslim people say, ‘Cleanliness is part of faith’ (pariskara parichhannata imanera anga; similar to the English proverb ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’). In this country, people are campaigning for clean water and sanitation (the famous Swachh Bharat Abhiyan campaign). It is necessary to keep everything clean! The temple must be always clean and neat.

(4/11) Meaning of Discipleship

It will not do to only speak about the glories of Sri Nityananda Prabhu with your mouth.

‘gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Only if you follow Gora’s practice and conception can you get some result.

loka dekhana gora bhaja tilaka matra dhari’
gopanete atyachara gora dhare churi

‘You put on tilaks and show the whole world that you serve Gora, but secretly you do outrageous things. Gora will catch you out, thief (hypocrite)!’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 7, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Many of us are like that. We dress as sadhus, but it is very difficult to actually become a sadhu. I also say that I have not been able to become a sadhu, but I know that if I speak again and again about all these things, then I will become good one day. If I speak again and again about all these things, then I can make myself pure, I can make myself fit for the service of the Lord.

‘Yar hate khai, tar hate khai, yar tar hate khai na.’ Krishna says that He does not take food from anyone and everyone – He eats from the hand of those whose hand He wishes to eat from. The Lord does not accept service or offerings from anyone and everyone.

bhakter jinish prabhu lutiputi khay
abhakter jinish prabhu ulti nahi chay

‘The Lord eats anything and everything when a devotee offers it, but the Lord does not want to take anything from a non-devotee.’

(Based on Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.185)

The Lord does not want to take anything from non-devotees (those who have no devotion). He does not accept raj-bhoga (royal opulent food), but if you feed the Lord with some rice and fire-roasted eggplant with love and affection, extracting and smearing mellows of deep love from your heart, He will accept it. Even if you only fry a green chili or a dry red chili, He will take it and enjoy it more than raj-bhoga, but you must offer it with affection, with care, with love.

You are householders, so you know how to serve your husband, wife and children. When you serve someone, you must serve with heart and soul. When you love someone, you must love with heart and soul. In the same way, you must love the Lord with your whole heart and soul, you must love the Lord’s temple with your whole heart and soul. Some think, ‘I have come here, I have got a room, and when I go away, I will leave the room in a mess.’ This is not right. You have come to the holy abode of your Lord, the holy abode of Sri Nityananda Prabhu, and if you go away leaving the room dirty, you will be making an offence. If you think that those who are staying in the dham will take care of everything, and you can just come, stay here like a madman and go away, leaving everything dirty, this is not right. People smoke bidi and cigarettes in the rooms – this is nothing but offences.

Remember well what I am telling you. Everybody comes, chants kirtan with raised arms, but how many people have been able to come to this line? How many people have been able to become disciples?

Many people come to take the mantra, but how many of them become disciples? At some point, I even gave up and said, ‘I will not give any more initiations!’ because people take initiation and do not practise anything after that, do not keep any connection with their guru, do not keep any relationship with their guru, never think about service to their guru. Gurudev said that there are three kinds of people: guru-bhogi, guru-tyagi and guru-sevi. Some want to use their guru and their guru’s things – they use their guru’s property for enjoyment (they are called guru-bhogi). Some want to serve their guru – they use everything, all properly, all materials in the service to their guru (they are called guru-sevi). And those who do not listen to their guru are called guru-tyagi – they do not respect, do not follow what their guru and Vaishnavs say.

Therefore, I am praying to you all: you have all taken initiation, taken the mantra, but it is necessary to become a disciple. Every single one of you must become a disciple, every single one of you must take part in service. You have come to the house of Sri Nityananda Prabhu, and when you come here, you must utilise yourself for service. There are so many services here. You can sweep, you can wash the dishes, you can clean the temple. If everybody sits down to take prasad, then who will distribute prasad? I cannot bring hired people to do that. This is not right. You can tell it yourself. This is not a marriage venue or some entertainment place. This is a festival of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. You must come to this festival and engage yourself in service.

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant enquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

It is first necessary to surrender. I heard in the morning from upstairs (I was very busy and could not come downstairs) that you were singing:

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

sad-anga saranagati haibe yanhara
tanhara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion. Lord Krishna hears the prayers of those who surrender in these six ways.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Saranagati is the gist of devotion. Until and unless you become surrendered, you will not get any result or real benefit.

(5/11) Ask Yourself, ‘Am I Practising?’

One time, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur was inaugurating a temple. At that time, he did everything himself – he made all the arrangements, did the yajna, and so on. Our Param Guru Maharaj, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, also received one service and was helping Srila Prabhupad. Many were dissatisfied with that, grumbling, ‘Why does Sridhar Maharaj do what Prabhupad would normally do?’ Srila Sridhar Maharaj got to hear about this and was upset, ‘I tried to help Prabhupad, but instead of that, I have to listen to people slandering and abusing me.’ Then, he came to Prabhupad and said, ‘Prabhupad, I did your service. Please forgive me.’ In reply, Srila Prabhupad said, ‘There is no offence for a surrendered soul.’

Therefore, you must ask yourself, ‘Have I become a surrendered soul?’ I am not trying to examine or test you, but you should ask yourself, ‘Am I really practising Krishna consciousness? Do I live following what my guru tells? Do I live in strict adherence to my guru or not?’

‘Jiver seva korte korte atma kalyan labha haya: by serving jivas, your soul will get benefit.’ However, ‘Jiver seva’ does not mean giving people clothes, food and other things. Jiver daya, or seva, means bringing to this path the souls who turned away from Krishna. People say, ‘Jive prema kare yei jana sei jana sevichhe isvara: love God by loving others.’ They say ‘love others’, but they actually mean only humans – what they do not understand is that cows, goat, sheep, cats, dogs and every other living entity also has a soul, and that soul is the same as the soul of a human being. All animals, all living entities have the same soul as human beings, but we only show care for humans – we make sure they have medicine and all other facilities. This is what they call ‘jive prema’ (love for living beings). The main thing is that we do not understand what is called vaishnav-seva. Jive prema, or, as Mahaprabhu would call it, jive daya, means bringing to this path the souls who turned away from Krishna.

Many of you have come with a return ticket, and many of you are ready to go back to your house. You are worrying, ‘When is my train leaving?’ But what happens to your guru’s service? What happens to your guru’s ashram? You go home and live engrossed in your household affairs:

samsara bhajili, sri-gauranga bhulili,

na sunili sadhura katha

iha-parakala, dukala khoyali (mana),

khaili apana matha

‘You worshipped your material life, forgot Sri Gauranga and never listened to the sadhus’ words. O mind, you have wasted both this life and next life–you are eating your own brain (ruining your own life).’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

We go home and worship our material life – we forget Gauranga, we forget Nitai! You come here, stay for a few days, chanting, ‘Nitai, Nitai’, and when you go back to your house, what do you do?…

Our Param Guru Maharaj, Srila Sridhar Maharaj, had a younger sister, Rama Devi. One day, Gurudev was walking around the temple and took me to her. (Rama Devi could not hear so well in her old age. Gurudev would come to see her sometimes, to pay his obeisance and talk to her because she was Srila Guru Maharaj’s younger sister.) That day, Gurudev greeted her and said, ‘Didi, you are chanting your mala and talking – what are you chanting? Are you chanting, “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna”, or are you chanting, “Nitu Satu, Nitu Satu”?’ (Rama Devi had two nephews, Nitu and Satu.) There is also one old lady devotee who is staying in Nrisingha Palli now. She sits and does her mala most of the day, but when you see her, you will see that she has her mala in her one hand and her mobile phone in her other hand. I told her one time, ‘Didi, what are you chanting? Are you looking at your phone and chanting, “Rumu Chumu, Rumu Chumu”?’ (She has two granddaughters, Rumki and Chumki. Both are grown-up ladies now.)

You think about your material life, and you cannot chant the Holy Name. You worship your material life…

samsara bhajili, sri-gauranga bhulili,

na sunili sadhura katha

iha-parakala, dukala khoyali (mana),

khaili apana matha

‘You worshipped your material life, forgot Sri Gauranga and never listened to the sadhus’ words. O mind, you have wasted both this life and next life–you are eating your own brain (ruining your own life).’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

Not listening to what sadhus tells us, we ruin both our present and our future lives.

So, you come to this holy dham, chant, ‘Nitai, Nitai’, and then go home and again become engrossed in your material life, not caring for the Lord, not worshipping the Lord. You must practice archanam (Deity worship), vandanam (praying) even at home! Many take initiation, but you must practise at home too (practise archan, vandan, prasad-seva), then material things will go away from you. We are aparadhi (offenders), that is why we pray,

kabe habe bala se dina amara
aparadha ghuchi’, suddha name ruchi,
krpa-bale habe hrdaye sanchara

‘Tell me, when will that day be mine? When, by the mercy, will my heart become cleansed of offences and the taste for the pure Holy Name arise in it?’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘When will offence go away from me and I get taste for the pure Holy Name?…’

(6/11) Become Pure

One time, I went to Russia with Gurudev. We were returning back, and when we were already sitting in the airport in Moscow, Gurudev spoke to the devotees. I think, devotees must have come to see Gurudev off in about 250 cars. At that time, one foreign guru from another mission asked one of our sannyasis, ‘Maharaj, your Gurudev tells you to chant minimum four rounds, but we do not do like this. We say that we must chant minimum sixteen rounds!’ Then, Maharaj came to Gurudev and told him what that sannyasi had said to him. Hearing it, Gurudev gave a reply and told Maharaj to go and tell that sannyasi what he had said. What was Gurudev’s reply? He said: we tell everyone to chant four rounds, but what is the difference between chanting four rounds and chanting sixteen rounds? Do we chant the real Holy Name? If we chant sixteen rounds, we will be making even more offences! So, we tell everyone to chant four rounds so that there would be less offence. This is what Gurudev said.

We mostly chant with offences. So, the more you chant, the more offences you will be making. And if you chant four rounds, there will be less offence.

That sannyasi thought, ‘I chant more rounds, so I am a greater guru!’ When you practise, do not tell anyone and everyone about your spiritual practice. ‘Apana bhajana-katha na kahibe yatha tatha: Do not tell anyone and everyone about your bhajan, service and practice. Keep it private.’ So, when it comes to doing mala, it is better if you do service and chant while doing service (sevonmukhe). Do service and chant, ‘Krishna, Krishna’ – you must get into this habit. For example, you can stir the subji, wash the dishes, clean vegetables, work in the rice field, whatever you do, only chant the Holy Name of Krishna, chant the Holy Name of Nitai (‘Krishna, Krishna’, ‘Nitai, Nitai’).

Another thing is that when you chant the Holy Name, the Holy Name always judges whether you are making any offence or not:

‘krsna-nama’ kare aparadhera vichara
krsna balile aparadhira na haya vikara

‘The Holy Name of Krishna considers offences: when one who commits ten offences of the Holy Name takes the Name of Krishna, it produces no transformation in them.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.24)

Because you are making offences while chanting the Holy Name, the Holy Name does not produce any transformation in you. That is why when I tell everyone, ‘Say “Hare Krishna”!’, many sit with their mouths shut. I look at everyone’s faces and see that. During kirtans, some people can be clapping, but the Holy Name does not come to their mouths. Gurudev also said that somebody can be chanting 100,000 Holy Names on their mala, but if you hit them in the belly, they will cry, ‘O ma!’, ‘Mother!’, ’Father!’ You will not hear them chant the Holy Name at that time. When you answer the phone, do not say ‘hello’ – you must say ‘Hare Krishna’.

Some become unmindful and forget to even pay obeisance to their guru. Do you know what kind of Vaishnavs some become? Many people phone Gurudev and say, ‘This is so-and-so Prabhu speaking.’ One time, when somebody said this to Gurudev, Gurudev replied, ‘Oh, and this is your servant, Gobe, speaking.’ [‘Gobe’ is an extremely informal ‘village’ variation of the name ‘Govinda’. Srila Gurudev sometimes used this name in the intimate relationship with his Srila Guru Maharaj, saying to Srila Guru Maharaj, ‘I am your Gobe.’] Gurudev lamented, ‘They call themselves prabhu (master)! They feel ashamed to say they are servants or slaves (das).’

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the true relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

saisava-yauvane, jada-sukha-sange,
abhyasa haila manda
nija-karma-dose, e deha haila,
bhajanera pratibandha

‘I enjoyed in my childhood and youth, and as the result, I have developed bad habits. Because of my previous actions, this body has now become an obstacle to practising spiritual life.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We get mixed up with material things, and our habits become bad. You know, before, I would always bath using cold water, even early in the morning in winter. After I went for the operation in 2005, doctors prohibited me to bath in cold water. Since that time, I have got used to using hot water, even when it is hot. But today I did not get hot water. I had to wake up quickly, so I bathed in cold water. I woke up early, at four o’clock, and did not want to disturb and ask anyone to give me hot water. So, what to do? I took bath using cold water. When I go for preaching, I also have to tolerate and use cold water.

Gurudev said, ‘Even if Brahma or Indra personally come and call you, you must say, “I am sorry, I have my service to my guru, I cannot come with you.”’

manasa, deha, geha, yo kichhu mora
arpilun tuya pade nanda-kisora

‘I have offered my mind, body, household – whatever I have – at Your feet, Nandakisor!’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is said in this kirtan:

kita janma hau yatha tuya dasa
bahir-mukha brahma-janme nahi asa

‘May I be born even as an insect, as long as I can be Your servant – I have no wish to be born as Brahma, averse to You.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I do not want to be Brahma, I do not want to be Indra – I do not mind becoming an insect as long as I can be your servant! This is a very beautiful kirtan. You must always sing it to yourself. ‘Kirtana prabhave smarana haibe: chanting (kirtan) arouses remembrance (smaran).’

You are living at your home – do not waste time. Chant kirtans. You can lie down and read the kirtan book, it will be also good. Engage yourself in the service of the Lord, in the kirtan of the Lord. You will not get any benefit if you waste your time on prajalpa (idle talks). You must understand this yourself.

Make yourself fit for the Lord to accept you. If you do not clean yourself, do not make yourself pure, the Lord will not accept you. When we come to the Lord, He will take us only when we are clean and pure. One does not become pure just by bathing in the Ganges. Your heart must become clean. Do you think your heart will become pure just by dunking yourself into the Ganges? You must always speak and listen to Krishna-katha, Hari-katha, then your heart will become purified. Our hearts, our minds are contaminated…

Anyhow, I want to speak about Nityananda Prabhu’s mahimamrita (nectar of Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s glories) today. I will chant one kirtan now. After that, I will read to you what Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur says about the glories of Sri Nityananda Prabhu. The main problem is that we chant kirtans and speak Hari-katha with our mouths, but we do not practise what is written in kirtans. We must understand this…

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘E-ghora samsara padiya’, ‘Bhajahu re mana’ and the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.]

(7/11) Who Is Nityananda Prabhu?

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my God-brothers and sisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

I am going to read to you what Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said on the day of Sri Nityananda-trayodasi. Listen carefully. [Clamour in the audience.] What is it? Are you hungry? What is the problem if you skip one meal? Fast for Nitai a little. It is not even one day, it is only a few hours.

Srila Prabhupad spoke this in Yogapith, in the evening.

amara prabhura prabhu sri-gaurasundara
e bada bharasa chitte dhari nirantara

‘My Master’s Master is Sri Gaurasundar. I always keep this great hope in my heart.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.17.153)

We live in this world surrounded by all sorts of problems, and we cannot place our trust anywhere here. The only hope for us is that Mahaprabhu is the Master of Nityananda Prabhu. Nityananda Prabhu called Mahaprabhu ‘prabhu’ (master), and we have got this Nityananda Prabhu as our Master. Sri Nityananda Prabhu belongs to svayam-prakasa-tattva (the original form of the Lord that manifests itself in the world). The personalities who come as gurus are non-different from the Lord. We sing every morning:

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 so by pious souls, but who is also no doubt the Lord’s dear associate.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur writes, ‘Sri Guru is the Lord Himself.’ The Lord personally comes to this world in the form of a guru, or He sends His own associate. We always sing:

emana durmati, samsara bhitare,
padiya achhinu ami
tava nija-jana, kona mahajane,
pathaiya dile tumi

‘I have fallen into this wicked material world, but You have sent a great soul, Your associate, to me.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘O Lord, You have sent Your associate to this world in the form of a guru.’ It is said in the scriptures also,

acharyam mam vijaniyan, navamanyeta karhichit

na martya buddhyasuyeta, sarva deva-mayo guruh

(Sri Krishna to Uddhava) ‘You should know the bona fide spiritual master as My very Self. Gurudev is the embodiment of all gods. Never dishonour him or find fault in him by ascribing any mundane conception of place, time or circumstances to him.’

(Srimad-Bhagavatam, 11.17.27)

‘Know that the acharya (guru) is I myself.’

So, Srila Prabhupad says that Sri Nityananda Prabhu belongs to svayam-prakasa-tattva (He is a manifestation of the original personality of the Lord). Sri Nityananda Prabhu is non-different from Sri Vrajendra-nandan, He is transcendental. As the original form of the Lord, Nityananda Prabhu is four-armed, and He is also two-armed. He resides eternally in Goloka Vrindavan. Nityananda is non-different from Baladev, a manifestation of the original Lord (Narayan and others).

We were singing yesterday in one of the kirtans, ‘Balarama haila Nitai. Vrajer Balai Nitai haila, Vrajer Kanai Gaura haila. In Kali-yuga, Balaram became Nitai. Balai from Vraja became Nitai, and Kanai from Vraja became Gaura.’ So, Balaram is non-different from Nityananda Prabhu.

eka ‘mahaprabhu’, ara ‘prabhu’—dui-jana
dui prabhu seve mahaprabhura charana

‘There is one Supreme Master (maha-prabhu, Sri Gaurasundar) and two Masters (prabhu, Nityananda Prabhu and Advaita Prabhu). Both Masters serve the holy feet of the Supreme Master.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.7.14)

Sriman Mahaprabhu is the one person, but it is said in the Vedas, ‘He is One, yet there is a Second.’ In other words, there is Gaurasundar, the original personality of Godhead, and there is also His personal expansion, Sri Nityananda Prabhu. So, Sri Nityananda Prabhu is both Sriman Mahaprabhu’s dearmost associate and the Lord Himself. Personal expansions of the Lord manifest themselves in various persons and in various places and become known as an ‘acharya.’ That is why it is said that jiva souls can get benefit if they realise that Sri Gurupadpadma is a worshippable manifestation of the Supreme Lord. In other words, we must understand that the guru is non-different from the Lord. The Lord assumes a Deity form (vigraha), and there is also a manifest form (prakasa-vigraha). This manifest form of the Lord, which is easily accessible for all jiva souls, is Sri Gurudev, or Sri Nityananda Prabhu. One must never feel spiteful or envious towards the guru. Lust, anger, greed, madness and illusion are the five enemies that live all together within spite, or envy. Envy is created when the power of these enemies (lust and others) increases. Those who have much lust, who have a very strong hankering for power, are envious and feel pain to see others’ fortune or success…

(8/11) How and When?

Today is a very happy day. Why? Because today is the appearance day of the worshippable Lord of all Gaudiya devotees, of Him who intoxicated the world with the transcendental love for Gaura, of Him who distributed Sri Gaurasundar to all jiva souls.

Sri Thakur Mahasay (Srila Narottam Das Thakur) said:

ara kabe nitaichand karuna karibe
samsara-vasana mora kabe tuchchha habe

‘When will Nitaichand give me His mercy? When will my material desires become trifle?’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

gauranga balite habe pulaka sarira
hari hari balite nayane bahe nira
ara kabe nitai chanda karuna karibe
samsara vasana mora kabe tuchchha habe

visaya chhadiya kabe suddha habe mana

kabe hama heraba sei vrndavana

‘My body will burst with delight as I chant the Name of Gauranga, and as I constantly chant the Holy Name of the Lord, tears will flow from my eyes. When will Nitaichand give His mercy to me? When will all my material desires become trifle? When will I give up this material world and my mind become clean? When will I behold this Vrindavan?’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Srila Guru Maharaj always chanted this. Many of you have tapes at home, you can hear it in those tapes.

‘When will my mind become pure and I behold Sri Dham Vrindavan? When will I retire?’ What must we retire from? From this material world. When will my heart become gripped and enchanted by taking the Name of Gauranga? In this world, the name and the named are two different things, and whatever we may see, smell, hear, taste, touch, think, and so on in this world remains on the outer, worldly level. When the transcendental Holy Name, that belongs to Vaikuntha, is uttered, it produces transformations (feeling stunned, and so on) that pertain to the land of supramundane knowledge and transcendental love. ‘When will this state come to me?’ There is meditation, knowledge and other things in this world, but when will I leave all material things, when will my mind become pure and when will I be able to feel, see, know and perceive in all other ways the wealth of the Vaikuntha world?

ara kabe nitai chanda karuna karibe
samsara vasana mora kabe tuchchha habe

‘When will Nitaichand give His mercy to me? When will my material desires become trifle?’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

When will material desires leave me? We always think about material things… Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami says in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita:

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya
kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

‘If a devotee aspires for enjoyment or liberation, Krishna hides the knowledge about pure devotion and dismisses them, giving them enjoyment or liberation.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.18)

If you ask the Lord for enjoyment instead of devotion (if you want to fulfil your desire for enjoyment), the Lord will give you all that and make you forget everything, taking devotion from you. You cannot get the Lord through any material activities, mystic powers or knowledge. You can get the Lord only through devotion to Him.

‘When will this day come to me when I get relief from the material bondage of this world?’ We keep coming to this world time and time again. ‘The Lord is our eternal shelter’ – this inference does not occur to us. Until and unless we come to this inference, we will have to remain engaged in temporary relationships. You can never attain pure conception without the mercy of Sri Nityananda Prabhu.

We find ourselves in such a deplorable position, struggling amidst worldly suffering and agonising misery, then, really, why cannot we even once think about the Lord? Even though we suffer so much in this world, we still forget the Lord, we do not remember or think about the Lord! Srila Narottam Das Thakur wrote,

nitaiyera charana satya, tanhara sevaka nitya,
nitai-pada sada kara asa

‘The holy feet of Nityananda Prabhu are the truth, and His servitors are eternal. Always aspire for Nitai’s feet.’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Our only hope is the holy lotus feet of Sri Guru Nityananda. Quoting Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur,

amara prabhura prabhu sri-gaurasundara
e bada bharasa chitte dhari nirantara

‘My Master’s Master is Sri Gaurasundar. I always keep this great hope in my heart.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.17.153)

ara kabe nitai chanda karuna karibe
samsara vasana mora kabe tuchchha habe

visaya chhadiya kabe suddha habe mana

kabe hama heraba sei vrndavana

‘When will Nitaichand give His mercy to me? When will my material desires become trifle? When will I give up this material world and my mind become clean? When will I behold this Vrindavan?’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

(9/11) Scattered Heart

By becoming attracted to Nityananda Prabhu, you can rescue yourself from this terrible material world.

Those who forget Krishna have no memory or knowledge of Krishna.

krsna-bahirmukha hana bhoga vanchha kare
nikatastha maya tare japatiya dhare

‘When souls become averse to Krishna and desire enjoyment, Maya, who is always nearby, pounces on them.’

(Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.2, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

krsna bhuli’ sei jiva—anadi bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsara-duhkha

‘Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

pisachi paile yena matichchhanna haya
maya-grasta jivera haya se bhava udaya

‘Those who are possessed by a ghost become delirious, and the same condition arises in those who are seized by Maya, illusion.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.3, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

When you forget Krishna, the Master of the World, when you become removed from the service of the Lord, then Maya, who is always near, jumps and catches you.

krsna-bahirmukha hana bhoga vanchha kare
nikatastha maya tare japatiya dhare

‘When souls become averse to Krishna and desire enjoyment, Maya, who is always nearby, pounces on them.’

(Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.2, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

Srila Prabhupad says:

For as long as you remain oblivious of Krishna, you will always be cheated out of service to the Lord and remain in the clutches of Maya. Just as an ant always crawls everywhere looking for a hole, Maya is also always around us, always looking for hole to catch you. As soon as you forget the Lord and think about something else, Maya will jump on you:

krsna-bahirmukha hana bhoga vanchha kare
nikatastha maya tare japatiya dhare

‘When souls become averse to Krishna and desire enjoyment, Maya, who is always nearby, pounces on them.’

(Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.2, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

You cannot practise Krishna consciousness without taking shelter at the holy lotus feet of Nityananda Prabhu. Many people think you can practise without a guru. This is a wrong conception. If you do not practise Krishna consciousness (if you do not worship and serve the Lord), do you know where you will go after death? To the abode of Lord Yama. You do not even need to worry about it – the road to his abode is already laid for you. On account of their pious merits, those who are averse to Krishna may go to heaven, and on account of their sins, they go to hell and suffer from hellish miseries. Unless our intelligence awakens amidst the agony of the threefold miseries, how can we hope to attain any auspicious destination?

visaya chhadiya kabe suddha habe mana

kabe hama heraba sei vrndavana

‘When will I give up this material world and my mind become clean? When will I behold this Vrindavan?’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

(10/11) Learn the Truth

When will I stop thinking within the framework of material worldly enjoyment (of taste, form and other aspects) and come to live close to Krishna? When will I give up enjoyment and renunciation by always thinking about Krishna and become enchanted by the nectar of devotion to Krishna? Vrindavan is jivas’ eternal object of worship.

[Clamour in the audience, a devotee tries to quieten the noise-makers.] It is no use telling them… If everybody was to go to the Lord, there would be no place left in Goloka.

People say, ‘If I come to the temple, there will not be place for me, so why bother practising Krishna consciousness?’ Some people know nothing about the Lord… The Lord is transcendental. He is the owner, the master of the whole creation. This whole world is created by Brahma on His order. Even Vishnu, even Siva obey His orders, but people forget it and only run following Maya’s orders.

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur prays, ‘Kabe nija sukha bhuli’ sudina-hrdaya. When will I forget my own happiness? When will my heart become extremely humble?’ But we can never forget our own happiness – we are always thinking about ourselves. We are only always busy with food, money, clothes and all the other material things.

‘Taddh tad-vanam nama tad-vanamity-upasitavyam.’ The word ‘tad-vanam’ means ‘His forest’ (vana), or ‘a forest’ in a broader sense. The worshippable substance that is referred to by the word ‘tad-vanam’ is Sri Vrindavan Dham, where there are no threefold miseries. It is said in Srimad Bhagavatam, ‘Vedyah vastavam atra vastu sivadam tapa-trayonmulanam. Unless you learn what the truth is, there is no way for you to escape the threefold misery of this world.’ That is why it is necessary to know what the truth is. Everything you see in this world is false. The Holy Name is the only truth. Guru Maharaj also often said, ‘What you have in your hand is true, and the Holy Name is true.’ Only the Holy Name is true in this world. Everything else that is created will go away. It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita also that everything in this world will be destroyed one day.

(11/11) What Do You Need?

Those who are averse to the service to Lord Krishna are called ‘griha-vrata’ (‘vowed to their house’), or ‘griha-medhi’ (‘house-minded’). Such persons, attached to their homes, can never develop attachment to Krishna. When talking about his father, Sri Prahlad Maharaj expressed his judgement:

sravanam kirtanam visnoh smaranam pada-sevanam
archchanam vandanam dasyam sakhyam-atma-nivedanam
iti pumsarpita visnau bhaktis chen nava-laksana
kriyeta bhagavaty addha tan manye ‘dhitam uttamam

‘Prahlad Maharaj said: Hearing about the Lord, chanting the Lord’s Name, remembering the Lord, serving the Lord’s feet, worshipping the Deity of the Lord, offering prayers and obeisances to the Lord, serving the Lord as a servant, serving the Lord as a friend and surrendering yourself to the Lord – these nine processes constitute pure devotional service. Those who have dedicated their lives to the service of Krishna through these nine methods should be understood to be the most learned persons for they have acquired complete knowledge.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 7.5.23–24)

When Prahlad Maharaj’s father asked him what good teaching he had learnt at school, what was the highest in this world, and what he had learnt so far, Sri Prahlad Maharaj replied to him with this sloka.

Those who desire the highest benefit need only one thing – the shelter of Sri Nabadwip Dham. Their duty is to take shelter at the holy lotus feet Sri Gaura-Nityananda. Their duty is to serve Their Names, holy dham and desires. Consisting of nine islands, Nabadwip is the highest place for practising the nine kinds of devotions (nava-vidha bhakti). Those who leave strict adherence to their guru and Vaishnavs and become materialists, pursuing knowledge and sensual pleasures, do not serve the transcendental Lord.

acharyam mam vijaniyan, navamanyeta karhichit

na martya buddhyasuyeta, sarva deva-mayo guruh

(Sri Krishna to Uddhav) ‘You should know the bona fide spiritual master as My very Self. Gurudev is the embodiment of all gods. Never dishonour him or find fault in him by ascribing any mundane conception of place, time or circumstances to him.’

(Srimad-Bhagavatam, 11.17.27)

The meaning of this sloka does not enter such people’s heads. They only think within the framework of material intelligence, perceiving Sri Guru as a mere mortal. They see, ‘Oh, the guru passes stool just like me, he does everything just like me.’ Those who are attached to their houses (grha-vrata) are always busy with the trifle worldly knowledge perceived by their senses.

This is what is written here, and I am telling you the same things. Guru Maharaj always said, ‘If you want to get great things, you must leave small things.’ If you want to get something valuable, you have to throw away fake things. You can remember the story of Jivan Chakravarti, who later became known as Jivananda Goswami. Jivan Chakravarti came running to Vrindavan for the sake of his daughter, but in the end he threw away a touchstone and chose to chant the Holy Name. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami left his wife, beautiful as an angel, and immense wealth and accepted the path of chanting the Holy Name, taking shelter of Sriman Mahaprabhu and Sri Nabadwip Dham. Unless you receive the blessing and mercy of Sri Rupa-Raghunath, you cannot understand or know Sri Nityananda Prabhu. We need the mercy of Sri Rupa-Raghunath. Without their mercy we cannot know Mahaprabhu, Nityananda Prabhu or anyone else. We need the mercy of Vaishnavs.

Srila Prabhupad says that it is necessary to give up all attachment to your house and become a proper grihastha. You must follow the example of Srivas Prabhu. What did Srivas Pandit do? He gave up even begging for alms. He used to collect alms, but because he was a householder, people criticised him, committing offences. That is why Mahaprabhu ordered him not to beg anymore. Srivas Pandit gave up begging and took an exclusive vow of chanting the Holy Name. He chanted the Holy Name the whole day, and everything (food and other necessities) was supplied to him on its own.

One day, Mahaprabhu came to Srivas Pandit and said, ‘Srivas, from tomorrow you must not go begging! People criticise you and make offences, thinking you beg to maintain your family and life comfortably.’ Srivas Pandit listened to Mahaprabhu and gave up begging, but he said at first, ‘One clap, two clap, three clap.’ What does it mean? He was saying, ‘I will see one day, I will see two days, and on the third day, I will jump into the Ganges!’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘Oh, so, this is how much faith you have? Even if Laksmi Devi has to personally come from Vaikuntha and beg, you will not go begging to people’s houses!’ After that, Mahaprabhu sent a lot of people with all sorts of things and ingredients to Srivas Pandit.

When a prostitute, Laksmihira, was sent to Haridas Thakur, she became a great Vaishnavi by the influence of the Holy Name (by hearing Haridas Thakur’s kirtan). She left everything and started serving Tulasi Devi and the Holy Name. People would bring food to her, and she knew no want.

Look at all these examples and look at ourselves. Those great devotees left everything and lived by chanting the Holy Name knowing no lack of anything, but we always feel we lack everything… Sri Govinda Gosh writes, ‘Bhajahu re mana Sri Nanda-nandana. O mind! Worship the Son of Sri Nanda Maharaj!’

I will tell you more later. We shall finish at this for now.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

[His Divine Grace retires to prepare for the parikrama of Sri Ekachakra Dham.]

* * *

￼Line Line25 February 2021, noon

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s Holy Appearance Day

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/6) Sri Advaita Prabhu’s Nityananda Stuti

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Are bhai, Nitai amara daya avadhi’, ‘Nitai mora jivana dhana’, ‘Rarha majhe eka chaka name achhe grama’, ‘Gora preme garagara Nitai amara’, ‘Iha Kali-yuga dhanya’, ‘E-bara karuna kari Chaitanya-Nitai’ and ‘Nitai-Chaitanya dohne bara avatara.’]

Sri Advaita Prabhu sang in praise of Sri Nityananda Prabhu, and his stuti (glorification) is recorded in Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata:

dekhiya advaita nityanandera sri-mukha
hena nahi janena janmila kona sukha

‘Seeing Nityananda’s face, Advaita could not understand the kind of joy he suddenly felt.’

‘hari’ bali’ lagilena karite hunkara
pradaksina dandavata karena apara

‘Roaring loudly, he chanted the Name of Hari and walked around Nityananda, offering Him obeisances.’

kara-yoda kariya advaita mahamati
santose karena nityananda-prati stuti

‘Broad-minded Advaita folded His hands and happily offered prayers to Nityananda.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.5.470, 471, 477)

One day, Nityananda Prabhu came to have a meal at Sri Advaita Prabhu’s house. Nityananda Prabhu kept saying, ‘Give more! Give more!’ And He ate everything! He ate whatever He had been given. Advaita Prabhu said, ‘What is this? We are a poor brahman family. Why are You doing like this?’ Saying, ‘Why did you invite Me then?’, Nityananda Prabhu took a handful of rice and threw it in Advaita Prabhu’s face! ‘You are telling Me such things while I am taking prasad! How can you! You have made an offence!’ Mahaprabhu saw this and laughed, thinking, ‘Maha Vishnu and the Lord have met, and now They are having a fight!’

dekhiya advaita nityanandera sri-mukha
hena nahi janena janmila kona sukha

‘Seeing Nityananda’s face, Advaita could not understand the kind of joy he suddenly felt.’

‘hari’ bali’ lagilena karite hunkara
pradaksina dandavata karena apara

‘Roaring loudly, he chanted the Name of Hari and walked around Nityananda, offering Him obeisances.’

kara-yoda kariya advaita mahamati
santose karena nityananda-prati stuti

‘Broad-minded Advaita folded His hands and happily offered prayers to Nityananda.’

“tumi nityananda-murti nityananda-nama
murtimanta tumi chaitanyera guna-dhama

‘You are an embodiment of constant joy (nitya-ananda), and Your name is also Nityananda. You personify the holy abode of Lord Chaitanya’s qualities.’

sarva-jiva-paritrana tumi maha-hetu
maha-pralayete tumi satya-dharma-setu

‘Because You are the ultimate cause of all souls’ deliverance, You protect religious principles during the universal annihilation.’

tumi se bujhao chaitanyera prema-bhakti
tumi se chaitanya-vrkse dhara purna-sakti

‘You preach Lord Chaitanya’s transcendental loving devotion. You are a fully empowered branch of Lord Chaitanya’s tree.’

brahma-siva-naradadi ‘bhakta’ nama yanra
tumi se parama upadesta sabakara

‘You are the supreme instructor of all devotees, including Brahma, Siva and Narada.’

visnu-bhakti sabei payena toma’ haite
tathapiha abhimana na sparse tomate

‘Everyone attains devotional service to Lord Vishnu by Your mercy, yet You are never touched by any pride or ego.’

patita-pavana tumi dosa-drsti-sunya
tomare se jane ya’ra achhe bahu punya”

‘Seeing no fault in others, You are the deliverer of all fallen souls. Only those who have amassed much piety can understand You.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.5.470, 471, 477–483)

It is necessary to have mercy to be able to understand Nitai.

“sarva-yajna-maya ei vigraha tomara
avidya-bandhana khande’ smarane yanhara

‘You are the embodiment of all possible sacrifices. Simply by remembering Your form, all bondage of ignorance is destroyed.’

yadi tumi prakasa na kara’ apanare
tabe ka’ra sakti achhe janite tomare?

‘Unless You reveal Yourself, who has the power to know You?’

akrodha paramananda tumi mahesvara
sahasra-vadana-adi deva mahidhara

‘Never angry and always extremely blissful, You are the supreme controller. You are the thousand-headed original Lord who sustains the universe.’

raksa-kula-hanta tumi sri-laksmana-chandra
tumi gopa-putra haladhara murtimanta

‘You are Sri Laksman Chandra, the destroyer of the demoniac dynasty. You are Haladhara, a son of a cowherd.’

murkha nicha adhama patita uddharite
tumi avatirna haiyachha prthivite

‘You have incarnated in this world to deliver foolish, fallen and wretched souls.’

ye bhakti vanchhaye yogesvara muni-gane
toma’ haite taha paibeka ye-te jane”

‘By Your mercy, anyone and everyone can attain devotional service, which is desired by the best of the mystic yogis and sages.’

kahite advaita nityanandera mahima
ananda-avese pasarilena apana

‘As he glorified Nityananda, Advaita became absorbed in ecstasy, forgetting himself.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.24.484–490)

(2/6) Sriman Mahaprabhu’s Nityananda Stuti

When Sriman Mahaprabhu was in Panihati, He also sang in praise of Sri Nityananda Prabhu. Mahaprabhu is the Supreme Lord Himself, and Sri Nityananda Prabhu is non-different from Mahaprabhu – He manifests only to serve Mahaprabhu, that is why it is said ‘eka deha dui rupa’ (one body but two forms).

panihati-grame haila parama-ananda
apane saksat yatha prabhu gaurachandra

‘The village of Panihati became filled with ecstasy for Lord Gaurachandra was personally present there.’

raghava pandita-prati sri-gaurasundara
nibhrte karila kichhu rahasya-uttara

‘Sri Gaurasundara spoke on some confidential topics to Raghav Pandit in a solitary place.’

“raghava, tomare ami nija-gopya kai
amara dvitiya nahi nityananda bai

‘O Raghav, I have something confidential to tell you. Nityananda is non-different from Me.’

ei nityananda yei karaya amare
se-i kari ami, ei balila tomare

‘I am telling you, I do whatever Nityananda wants Me to do.’

amara sakala karma—nityananda-dvare
akapate ei ami kahila tomare

‘I am telling you frankly that all My activities are performed through Nityananda.’

yei ami, se-i nityananda—bheda nai
tomara gharei saba janiba ethai

‘There is no difference between Myself and Nityananda. Everyone in your house should know this.’

maha-yogesvare yaha paite durlabha
nityananda haite taha paiba sulabha

‘You will easily get from Nityananda that which is rarely attained by the best of mystic yogis.’

eteke haiya tumi maha-savadhana
nityananda seviha—yehena bhagavan’

‘Therefore, you should very carefully serve Nityananda, knowing Him to be the Supreme Lord Himself.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.5.99–106)

If you look at a Deity and see stone, brass or any other materials, it means that you do not know what service is. In other words, even if you try to serve with this kind of mentality, it will not be service. The Deity is not a doll or an idol – the Deity is the Lord Himself! Krishna Himself played here with Nityananda Prabhu. He disappeared at that time, but later, His Deity was found at Kadam Khandi. When you went for the parikrama, you saw the last place – there is Krishna’s Deity in the temple, worshipped together with Jahnava and Vasuddha. Jahnava and Vasuddha found that Deity of Bankarai Krishna floating in the Yamuna here in Sri Ekachakra Dham.

tilarddheka nityanande dvesa yara rahe
satata bhajileo se mora priya nahe

‘Those who are envious of Nityananda can never become dear to Me, even if they always worship Me.’

(Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu)

gopi-ganera sei prema kahe bhagavate
eka nityananda haite paibe jagate

‘If you worship Nityananda, you can get the deepest transcendental love of gopis. Without Him, you can never attain it.’

samsarera para hai’ bhaktira sagare
ye dubibe, se bhajuka nitai-chandere

‘If you desire to cross the ocean of material existence and dive into the ocean of devotion, may you serve Sri Nitaichand!’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.1.77)

If you are to cross this ocean of material existence, you must worship Nityananda Prabhu, or gurudev. You cannot make it without worshipping the guru.

mukheha ye jana bale ‘nityananda-dasa’

se avasya dekhibeka chaitanya-prakasa

‘Those who say, even just lip-deep, that they are servants of Nityananda Prabhu will, no doubt, see Lord Chaitanya manifest before them.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.28.192)

madira yavani yadi nityananda dhare
tathapi brahmara vandya kahila tomare

‘Even if Nityananda Prabhu comes drunk with a Muslim lady by His side, He is always worshippable for Lord Brahma.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.6.123)

‘svatantra’ kariya vede ye krsnere kaya
hena krsna para tumi karite vikraya

‘Nityananda, You can sell Krishna, who is proclaimed to be Independent by the Vedas, to others (although Krishna is not controlled by anyone, through Your service, You have gained right over Him – He has become Your property).’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.7.43)

Nitai can sell Krishna to you! Do you understand this? He has this kind of power!

prabhu bale,—“ei nityananda-svarupere
ye karaye bhakti-sraddha, se kare amare”

The Lord says, ‘Those who have devotion and faith for this Nityananda Svarup have devotion and faith for Me.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.12.55)

Mahaprabhu says, ‘It is those have faith in Nityananda Prabhu that have actual faith in Me. You can never get Me without faith in Nityananda Prabhu.’ Without devotion to the guru, without devotion to Sri Nityananda Prabhu, you cannot get the Lord.

inhana charana—siva-brahmara vandita
ataeva inhane kariha sabe prita

‘Nityananda Prabhu is worshipped even by Lord Siva and Brahma, that is why He is dear to everyone.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.12.56)

How can you recognise Nityananda Prabhu? We will not recognise Him by looking at Him with our eyes because our eyes are blinded with material dust and we cannot see anything without these eyes. We see the Deity as an idol made of stone, wood or brass.

How beautiful these words are. Do you understand what I have just told you? We must sing this kirtan very well.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Nitai amara parama dayala.’]

(3/6) Approaching Nityananda Prabhu

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami is describing the glory of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu in a very beautiful way. Listen to it.

sri-chaitanya—sei krsna, nityananda—rama
nityananda purna kare chaitanyera kama

‘Sri Chaitanya is Krishna, and Nityananda is Balaram: Nityananda fulfils all desires of Chaitanya.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.156)

Nityananda Prabhu takes charge in fulfilling Mahaprabhu’s desire – He do whatever Mahaprabhu wants to do. Mahaprabhu gave Him charge, ‘Nityananda, preach in Bengal. Otherwise, if You leave for Jagannath Puri, what will become of this land?’ This is why Nityananda Prabhu preached Mahaprabhu’s message in this world. He said:

bhaja gauranga, kaha gauranga, laha gaurangera nama re
ye jana gauranga bhaje, sei amara prana re

‘Worship Gauranga! Say Gauranga! Take Gauranga’s Name! Those who worship Gauranga are My heart and soul!’

(Sri Nityananda Prabhu)

yare dekhe tare kahe dante trna dhari’
amare kiniya laha bhaja gaura hari

‘With a straw in His teeth, Nityananda says to whoever He sees: “I will be sold to you! Please accept and serve Gaura Hari!”’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami himself received Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy. Nityananda Prabhu came to him in a dream and prohibited him to associate with his brother. After that, Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami left his house and went to Vrindavan.

nityananda-mahima-sindhu ananta, apara
eka kana sparsi matra,—se krpa tanhara

‘The ocean of Nityananda’s glories is infinite and unfathomable. Only by His mercy can one touch even a drop of it.’

ara eka suna tanra krpara mahima
adhama jivere chadhaila urdhva-sima

‘Please hear about more glory of His mercy. He made a fallen living being climb to the highest peak.’

veda-guhya katha ei ayogya kahite
tathapi kahiye tanra krpa prakasite

‘To disclose it is not proper because it should be kept as confidential as the Vedas, but I shall still speak of it to make His mercy known to all.’

ullasa-upari lekhon tomara prasada
nityananda prabhu, mora ksama aparadha

‘O Lord Nityananda, I write about Your mercy out of great exultation. Please forgive my offences.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.157–160)

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami then mentions the Vedas, saying, ‘I am not fit to speak about Nityananda Prabhu’s glory, which are as sacred as the topics of the Vedas, but I am speaking about it now to reveal His mercy to the world. If there is any fault in what I say, please forgive my offence.’

What should we pray for when we come to Nityananda Prabhu? We should pray, ‘Please forgive me, Nityananda. Please forgive my offences.’ This is all we can want from the Lord. Consciously or unconsciously, we are always making offences. We are offenders! We are offenders to the Holy Name, that is why the Holy Name does not come to our mouths. It is said, ‘Krsna-bahirmukha jivera nahi Krsna smrti-jnana – the souls that are averse to Krishna have no knowledge or remembrance of Krishna.’ The Holy Name does not come to the mouths of such persons – even if they chant the Holy Name, their chanting will not produce any transformation in them.

‘krsna-nama’ kare aparadhera vichara
krsna balile aparadhira na haya vikara

‘The Holy Name of Krishna considers offences: when one who commits ten offences of the Holy Name takes the Name of Krishna, it produces no transformation in them.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.24)

The Holy Name always judges whether the person chanting the Holy Name is an offender or not, and the Holy Name never comes to the mouths of offenders because such persons always want something from Krishna, from Nitai. You can see so many people coming here – somebody comes to receive mercy, and somebody comes to earn money. Do you think everyone is the same? I have been to the market here – they sell chamara fans for a double price, and people queue at the shop to buy it, but all their chamara fans are fake (made of nylon). Some people come here thinking, ‘What should I get for my granddaughter?’ You worry about your grandchildren because when you come back, they will ask you, ‘Grandma, what have you brought? What have you brought for me?’ I can see everything. We come to a place to chant kirtan, but somebody goes to the shop to buy something. Instead of the Holy Name, their minds go to shopping…

(4/6) Know Your Place

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami describes in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita how he had received Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy. I have told you about it before, so I will only mention it briefly now.

His brother had made an offence because he had no faith in Nityananda Prabhu’s servitor. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami objected. His brother had made an offence to Nityananda Prabhu’s servitor, Ramdas Minaketan, and Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami did not accept his brother’s position; instead, he took Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s side. Later that night, Nityananda Prabhu came to him in a dream and told him to leave for Vrindavan. It is owing to Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami that we now have Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. I have brought some copies here, you can get this scripture.

In the weekly Gaudiya magazine, Srila Prabhupad wrote an article in honour of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance festival. There, he quotes from Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata:

adhikari bai kare tahana achara
duhkha paya sei-jana, papa janme ta’ra

‘If any unqualified person imitates His behaviour, they will suffer, becoming implicated in sin.’

rudra bine anye yadi kare visa-pana
sarvathaya mare, sarva-purana pramana

‘If anyone other than Rudra tries to drink poison, they will die. All Puranas attest to it.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.6.30–31)

It says here that Siva can drink poison, but do you think you can do that? Take poison and see how you feel after that. So, if somebody has the right, or qualification, to do something, they can do it. Nityananda Prabhu can wear blue clothes, saffron clothes, He can wear anything He wants (bangles, necklace, anything). But you do not have the right to do what Nityananda Prabhu did. For example, many imitate Nityananda Prabhu and take two wives. Those who have the right to do that can do that, they can digest everything, but you do not have the right to cross the viddhi-marga (rules and regulations).

visayira anna khaile malina haya mana

malina mana haile, nahe krsna-nama grahana

‘If you eat food that comes from materialistic people, it will contaminate your mind. And if your mind becomes contaminated, you will not be able to chant the Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.278)

That is why we do not eat anything and everything without discrimination. If we go somewhere, we personally make the offering to the Lord and then take that as prasad. That is why it says here:

rudra bine anye yadi kare visa-pana
sarvathaya mare, sarva-purana pramana

‘If anyone other than Rudra tries to drink poison, they will die. All Puranas attest to it.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.6.30–31)

If anyone takes poison like Lord Siva (Rudra), they will die. Therefore, one can do only what one is fit to do.

ista-deva vandon mora nityananda-raya
chaitanya-kirti sphure yanhara krpaya

‘I offer my respectful obeisances unto Sri Nityananda Raya for He is my worshippable Lord. By His mercy, the glories of Lord Chaitanya become manifest.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.1.11)

chaitanya-chandrera priya-vigraha balai
tana-sthane aparadhe mare sarva thani

‘Balai is the dearmost deity of Sri Chaitanyachandra. If anyone commits any offence at His feet, they are done for.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.1.42)

samsarera para hai’ bhaktira sagare
ye dubibe, se bhajuka nitai-chandere

‘If you desire to cross the ocean of material existence and dive into the ocean of devotion, may you serve Sri Nitaichand!’

vaisnava-charane mora ei manaskama
bhaji yena janme-janme prabhu-balarama

‘My only prayer at the holy feet of Vaishnavs is that I may worship my Master Balaram birth after birth.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.1.77–78)

You cannot get Krishna without Balaram, and you cannot get Gaura without Nitai. If you worship Nitai, you can get Gaura, and if you worship Gaura, you can get Radha-Krishna in Vrindavan. But many go straight to Vrindavan, before getting the mercy of a bona fide guru…

(5/6) Amidst ‘Dal’ and ‘Gal’

People come to Vrindavan before getting the mercy of a bona fide guru and sit there, doing bhajan at Radha Kunda or in some cave. Have you heard the story of ‘Gita family’?

One time, a man thought, ‘Gurudev has told me to read Bhagavad-gita, but it is very hard to read it among all these people. It will be better if I go somewhere else and read Gita on my own.’ So, he left the temple and went to Rishikesh to read Gita. He found a cave in the mountains and settled there, but how was he to read Gita? His mind was not right. So, when he read Gita, he felt drowsy and kept falling asleep.

One day, a mouse came and started eating his book. When he woke up with a jerk, he saw that half the book had been finished. He got annoyed, ‘What is this? I am reading Gita, and this mouse is disturbing me! I must do away with it!’ What did he do? His bad desires had not left him – he still had desires and envy inside him. So, thinking how to get rid of the mouse, he thought of getting a cat. He went looking around for a cat, and when he found one, he brought it to his cave, thinking, ‘Now I can read Gita peacefully!’ A few days later, the cat started meowing in the cave. The cat had to eat something. Then he thought, ‘Ugh, I must get some milk for this cat. I should find a cow.’ He found a cow and got milk, but then the cow started to moo, and he thought, ‘Who will take care of the cow? If I look after the cow, when will I read Gita? I should get somebody to take care of the cow!’ Then he found a girl. He brought the girl to his cave, and eventually they got married and had children. He ended up having a big family.

In the meantime, the guru of that man wondered how his disciple was getting on, ‘He said he was going to Rishikesh to read Gita. Let me go and see how he is.’ When he came to Rishikesh and found that disciple, he saw a big family in a cave squabbling with one another. One child was crying, ‘Daddy, give me a motorcycle!’ Another child was crying, ‘Daddy, I have seen a pretty girl. Arrange my marriage with her!’ The guru asked the man, ‘Is this how you are reading Gita?!’ The man replied, ’Gita? I do not even know where it is!’ This is the ‘Gita family’ for you.

Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur told this story. You can find it in his (Bengali) book called Upakhyane Upadesh. One time, when Srila Prabhupad was at some preaching programme, he was informed that the cooking had not been completed and the cooks were running late, and the host of the programme was concerned that people were hungry. Srila Prabhupad replied, ‘Do not worry about it. You can delay the cooking for another hour. I will tell everyone such things that they will forget all about food. They will not feel any hunger anymore.’ Such were Srila Prabhupad’s stories. I have told you many stories from that book (Upakhyane Upadesh).

People want gawa ghee and balam chal (high-quality ghee and high-quality rice). They say, ‘Oh, I do not want to live at the temple! I would rather stay at home and eat nice ghee and rice!’ When you stay at the temple, you have to take dal and gal: you have to take simple food and take abuse, or chastisement.

You can see that everyone here has come with a return ticket. They are thinking about their house, but if you tell them to stay here for ten days, for four–six months (Gurudev has built so many temples for your shelter!), what will they say? First, they will say, ‘Oh, I will come to stay at the temple when I am retired.’ Then, they say, ‘Oh, I must get my grandchildren married.’ After that, you ask them what has happened, and it will turn out that before the grandchildren could get married, the person has gone to ‘collect patol’ [a Bengali euphemism for ‘kick the bucket’]. Such is life.

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Our life is not eternal, so we will have to leave one day. We are all eternal servants of Krishna. We are not servants for two–three or four days only. No. We are eternal servants. But we forget it:

‘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)

Do not forget this. We are eternal servants of Lord Krishna.

(6/6) Increase Your Fortune

We must not forget that we are eternal servants of Krishna. You must know your identity – you must know who you are. I am not ‘so-and-so Ray’, ‘so-and-so Chowdhury’, ‘so-and-so Prabhu’ or ‘so-and-so Maharaj’! I am not a brahmachari, I am not a ksatriya, I am not a vaisya! What did Mahaprabhu say?

naham vipro na cha nara-patir napi vaisyo na sudro
naham varni na cha grha-patir no vanastho yatir va
kintu prodyan-nikhila-paramananda-purnamrtabdher
gopi-bhartuh pada-kamalayor dasa-dasanudasah

‘I am not a brahman, not a ksatriya, not a vaisya, not a sudra; neither am I a brahmachari, a householder, a vanaprastha or a sannyasi. I identify Myself as a servant of the servant of the servant of the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krishna (the beloved of gopis), who is an ocean of nectar, eternally self-effulgent (self-manifest) and filled with the entire scope of all possible highest ecstasy.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.13.80)

‘I am a servant of devotees.’ I am a menial servant of devotees. People are too proud to call themselves menial servants. They think, ‘I like it when people call me “Prabhu” because then I feel I am being given honour. And if somebody called me a servant, it hurts me.’ But we should give honour to others. That is why we sing every morning:

sakale sammana, karite sakati,
deha natha yatha-yatha

‘Master! Give me the strength to give everyone appropriate honour.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We say ‘ki jay’ to everyone. Nitai Gaurachandra Prabhu ki jay. You must give honour to everyone. Pray to gurudev, ‘Gurudev, please hijack me!’

Recently, I sent Sripad Niriha Maharaj for collection with one devotee. Somebody scolded them, ‘What are you begging for? Go chant your Holy Name! Go worship your Deities! Do you think you can practise Krishna consciousness just by bringing a sack of rice from Shantipur?’ One time, I went to a house in Midnapore. A man came out to me and said, ‘Do not come to this house, I will not be able to help you.’ I told him, ‘I have not come to take your help. I have come to help you!’ To help people, sadhus go house to house and take a sack of rice or even just a handful of rice or potato because people cannot offer anything to the Lord themselves – they enjoy with the Lord’s things, eating everything themselves and not offering anything to the Lord.

When I was going down the street recently, I saw a very hungry man. He bought some khaja (a sweat) and started stuffing it into his mouth. Seeing me, the man tried to say, ‘Nitai! Nitai!’, but his mouth was full of khaja. That is ‘pahu tule Hari bolo’ (chant the Holy Name with your arms upraised) for you – He is holding khaja in one hand and raises the other arm, saying, ‘Hari bol!’ He cannot even say ‘Nitai, Nitai!’ You cannot practise Krishna consciousness like that.

Mahaprabhu said,

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

Your mind must serve Radha-Krishna.

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This life is always passing, always going away. We have to leave this world, but how much have you chanted the Holy Name? How much have you listened to Hari-katha? You will have to give answer to these questions.

You have come to this holy abode of Nityananda Prabhu as the result of a great fortune. The Lord has bestowed His mercy on you and brought you to this holy dham. If you had not got Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy, you would not have been able to come here. So many millions of jiva souls take birth and live only by eating, sleeping, fearing and copulating in this world, but how many people come here? One thousand can come, two thousand can come, even if a hundred thousand people come, that is all – definitely not more than that. You are always thinking about your enjoyment, you are always thinking, ‘I want more, I want more’, but you have got this tongue for chanting the Lord’s Name, to chant the Lord’s kirtan. If you do not chant the Holy Name of Krishna and Nitai with this tongue, this tongue will simply decay and get eaten by insects. If your tongue does not chant the Holy Name of Nitai, it is a waste of tongue – it is not necessary to keep a tongue then! You do not need a mouth if it does not chant the Holy Name of Nitai! Lochan Das Thakur said, ‘I do not want to go to any place where there is no Nitai.’

Sadhus are merciful – they come to people’s houses. You feel proud, ‘Oh, he has taken a sack of rice/potato/sugar/dal from me!’ but you do not realise that you are so fortunate! Some sadhu came to your house, took a sack of rice or a sack of potato from you, took all the trouble of carrying it back to the temple and used it for the service of Nitai. You cannot offer it to the Lord yourself – you are not vegetarian, you eat non-vegetarian food, you do not follow ekadasi, you do not chant the Holy Name – even if you try to offer something, the Lord will not accept it from you. That is why devotees and sadhus come to your door, right to your room, and take some rice, dal or potato to use it in the service to Lord Govinda.

Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s dham parikrama has finished, but soon there will be Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. Please come. Everyone can come. There are now one hundred rooms more in Nabadwip, so there is not problem with accommodation. After this festival, I will not go for preaching so much. There is a six-day preaching programme planned, and after that I will be in Nrisingha Palli, arranging everything so that you can stay there nicely…

[His Divine Grace concludes the festival programme by chanting the ‘Bhoga Arati’ and arati kirtans and commences the grand, renowned prasad distribution.]

* * *

￼Line Line25 February 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s Holy Appearance Day

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/14) Free Yourself From Deceit

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my God-brothers and sisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all the devotees, and I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Today, on this auspicious day, we have observed the festival of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance. It has passed very well. The devotees have made the parikrama of Sri Ekachakra Dham, and everybody has helped this festival in their own way. Many helped distribute prasad, many were helping in the kitchen, many were also with us at the front, chanting and dancing. Sripad Niriha Maharaj also arranged many things whenever it was necessary to bring anything from outside. He also arranged the accommodation for everyone. Many devotees did service. I have seen many helped clean and cut the vegetables. I do not know the names of many of you, but you have all served in your own way, and Nityananda Prabhu notices everything, He will arrange the best for you. I pray for this at His holy lotus feet. I pray that He may keep you all well so that we can celebrate Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance day in this beautiful way next year too, so that we can come to the holy dham, do the dham parikrama. This is what I pray for to Sriman Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Ekachakleshwar, Dhameswar Sivji Maharaj.

Many have helped this festival, but you cannot help with money only. You can see the decoration of the temple – Kamlendu Prabhu, Sudevi Didi, Dharitri Didi from Colombia and Ranjana Didi from Nepal cleaned and decorated the temple and the altar. In one or another way, many do some service. Those who do service are very fortunate.

If you behave deceitfully and try to cheat, you can never succeed like that. You cannot hide anything from gurudev, you cannot hide anything from Nityananda Prabhu – they do not bestow mercy on deceitful persons. If a person says one thing but has something else inside, it will not do. What you say and what you have inside must be the same; otherwise, if you are deceitful, you will not get the Lord’s mercy. Always serve the Lord without deceit. Do not keep any deceit. If you keep dirty, filthy things inside but externally speak in another way, that is not right, it will not take you anywhere. Nityananda Prabhu bestows His mercy on whoever falls at His feet, sincerely, without any deceit. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘Saralata-i vaisnavata. Being a Vaishnav means being simple.’ You will not get any result if you do not have simplicity. Do not keep any insincerity or duplicity (kutinati). This is good, that is bad – if you have such duplicity in your mind (if your external behaviour does not align with your internal mood), you cannot practise Krishna consciousness like that – no matter whether you have taken initiation, no matter how many rounds of the Holy Name you chant, everything will be in vain.

hena krsna-nama yadi laya bahu-bara
tabu yadi prema nahe, nahe asrudhara
tabe jani, aparadha tahate prachura
krsna-nama-bija tahe na kare ankura

‘If you chant this Name of Krishna many times but still there is no love, no tears streaming from your eyes, then you can know that there are too many offences and the seed of Krishna’s Name does not sprout in you.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.29–30)

koti janma yadi kare sravana-kirtana
tabu na paya vrajendranandana

‘Even if you practise hearing and chanting for millions of lives, you will not get Krishna, the Son of King of Vraja.’

You must chant the Holy Name rejecting all offences. Practise Krishna consciousness properly, with a simple heart and sincerity.

(2/14) Be Truthful, Pious and Sincere

You must be simple-hearted. Do not resort to lying (do not ‘take shelter’ in lying). You must never ever lie to your guru – you cannot think, ‘I will tell him this, but I will not tell him that.’ The Lord does not like this. Lying means you have lust (kama-sakti). All diseases take shelter in lying (in other words, a lie contains all diseases). Never lie. Always take the path of the truth. Always speak the truth. No matter what happens, even if you are beaten, you must speak the truth. This is how we must serve our guru and Vaishnavs…

If you wear tilaks and Tulasi neckbeads, but inside you do wrong, one day, sooner or later, your character will be exposed. You will not get anywhere by trying to hide something from the Lord. You cannot hide anything from gurudev. What you do at your home or not do – gurudev can understand everything.

Therefore, always speak the truth. You must always tell the truth to gurudev. If you take shelter in lies in the relationship with your guru, the Lord can never like this because gurudev wants to keep everyone engaged in the service of the Lord. You always say, ‘Gurudev, give me mercy!’ ‘Gurudev, give me mercy!’ You offer flowers to gurudev’s photograph, you offer gurudev a garland, you say, ‘Give me mercy’, but mercy means service. We must do service despite any unhappiness, ‘Tomara sevaya yata haya duhkha, seo ta’ parama sukha – Even whatever unhappiness I feel when serving You is a source of great happiness for me’ (Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur).

If you can see my example, you should feel hope. One year, I was giving the class here in Ekachakra, and the police came and took me to jail. You know about that. But all those lies did not last – everything became exposed. Later, those who had arranged that came to me and apologised. Now too, we went for the parikrama, and my feet hurt a lot, I had a headache. I had to struggle, but I did the parikrama. I never used to be like that. I used to go to forty houses a day without any difficulty. When you come to practise Krishna consciousness and do something wrong (if there is some fault inside you), all that fault falls on the body of your guru. Your guru has to suffer for your wrongdoings.

One time, I asked Gurudev, ‘Gurudev, is your health all right?’ Gurudev replied, ‘Today, my health is good. You know why? Because I did not give initiations today.’ In other words, when people come to take initiation, they place the burden of all their sins and actions on Gurudev’s shoulders. Gurudev has to suffer for the result of all their actions.

Our bodies are made of flesh and blood, and many anarthas and problems are always with us – our bodies are wrecked by five diseases (vardhakye ekhana, pancha-roge hata). But you must be careful. Always think, ‘How can I serve gurudev?’ Even those who have no money can serve – they can serve with their mind, heart and soul.

How can you help gurudev? When Gurudev told me one day, ‘Maharaj, come with me abroad for preaching, you can help me,’ I thought, ‘Gurudev is taking me for preaching, but I do not cook for Gurudev, I do not massage his body with mustard oil, I do not take care of his prasad, then what service can I do? What does Gurudev want me to do?’ I thought deeply about it and realised that when Gurudev was abroad, he preached only once a day, for forty-five to sixty minutes in the evening. So, I woke up early every morning, led the morning arati, gave the class, and in the evening, came to the arati again or went to the hall where the programme was held and started kirtan there. When the time for Gurudev’s lecture came, Gurudev called me and asked, ‘Have the people gathered?’ I said, ‘Yes, the hall is full.’ And Gurudev would come and deliver lectures. Their halls are very big, accommodating, perhaps, a thousand or two thousand people, with a stage, chairs and microphones. Foreigners listen to lectures sitting on chairs. They listen to Hari-katha and come to this line, and when they come, they put on tilaks, chant on their beads and sit on the floor like us. Nobody comes to this line very easily. But how the people from that country are serving now! They are serving heart and soul. Our country’s people cannot understand it…

What does gurudev want? What does gurudev like? We do not know this. We do not understand this. What makes gurudev happy? I have written about the relationship with the guru in the fourth volume of Guidance. Read it and try to understand what is necessary to genuinely serve the guru.

(3/14) Chastity In Preaching

When you live at the temple, you cannot be choosy, ‘I will do this, I will not do that.’ Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur gave sannyas to a disciple but later said to him, ‘I am taking off the sannyas cloth I gave you!’ That sannyasi went to some place, but he did not go there to preach for Prabhupad – he took sannyas from Prabhupad and went to Badarikashram. Prabhupad actually took his sannyas back. Gurudev told me about that. It is necessary to have chastity. For example, Mukunda was very good at singing kirtan, but Mahaprabhu called him khar-jhatiya. Why? Because he went everywhere and mixed with everyone.

We do not go everywhere. One time, there was a programme arranged in Uluberia. When I later saw the photos taken during that programme, I told the Lord, ‘O Lord, You have saved me!’ We are not politicians. We do not do politics, so I do not want to go to such programmes. I have my service. If politicians are taking part in a programme, I do not want to go there. Mahaprabhu did not do such things either. Mahaprabhu went door to door chanting the Holy Name. He would go to BJP’s door, He would go to Trinamool’s door, just as He went to Muslims’ doors, He went to Christians’ doors, He went to Buddhists’ doors, He went to Hindus’ doors, He went to mlechhas’ doors, and so on. He did not discriminate where to go and where not to go. He simply told whomever He saw to chant the Holy Name.

uttama, adhama, kichhu na kare vichara
ye age padaye, tare karaye nistara

‘Nityananda Prabhu does not judge who is good and who is bad: He saves anyone who falls before Him.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.208)

Nityananda Prabhu also does not look who is higher, who is lower – He rescues whoever falls at His feet.

We must serve gurudev – we must not use gurudev. If you do something using gurudev’s name, it is bad. Do not do business using gurudev’s name. We have not come here to do business, and we do not want to do other things covering it up with the name of gurudev. We must preach in the same way that gurudev preached, and we must only preach his teachings. That is why we must understand properly, truly what gurudev’s teachings and preaching mood are.

(4/14) Cry, Pray and Serve

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I start thinking that I have become a Vaishnav, then I will not be able to give honour to others. We sing in one of the kirtans, ‘Gurudev, please give me strength so that I can give proper honour to everyone, then I will be able to happily chant the Holy Name and all my offences will go away.’

sakale sammana, karite sakati,
deha natha yatha-yatha
tabe ta’ gaiba, hari-nama sukhe,
aparadha habe hata

‘Master! Please give me the strength to give everyone appropriate honour, then I will happily chant the Holy Name and all my offences will be destroyed.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I can give honour to everyone, my offences will go away because if I pay dandavat to someone, my ego and pride go away. I must offer obeisances to everyone. It can even be somebody younger than me by age, but I will still offer them my obeisance. When we do Tulasi parikrama, we pray,

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha

patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

Do you understand what I am saying? We must offer obeisances to everyone. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘Daso ‘smi. I am your servant. You are all not my disciples; rather, I am your servant.’

visaya chhadiya kabe suddha habe mana

kabe hama heraba sei vrndavana

‘When will I give up this material world and my mind become clean? When will I behold this Vrindavan?’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

When will I leave this material world and my mind become clean? When will material desires be removed from me? We must always cry and pray for this. Always cry, ‘When will material desires go away from me? When will I forget all material desires?’ We have lived a family life for so long, and so many things have happened. We have crossed 8,400,000 species and have lived in 8,400,000 material families, and more is yet to come. Now you have reached old age, but the older you get, the more you think, ‘I want to live more and more! I want to enjoy my material life more and more!’

Sometimes you can find ants inside molasses. Nobody puts them there. They come themselves to enjoy the sweet molasses, but once they come there, they are finished – they fill their bellies so much that they get stuck in the molasses and die. Our material life is just like that – we have become entangled and stuck in material life just as ants get stuck in molasses.

When I was preaching before Gurudev’s festival, I told one lady, ‘There is nobody to wash the dishes at the temple. The lady who used to wash the dishes has sores on her hand and cannot do it anymore. Come and do this service, it will be good,’ but she refused. The next morning she died, and she was rather young, not so old. Do you know if she had any sons? [Devotees say she had two daughters.] Yes, she had arranged her daughters’ marriage and stayed alone at home, without any income. I told her, ‘Why are you staying alone and eating on your own? Stay at the temple, serve there.’ But she did not have enough fortune for that… She refused, and the next day she died. What will you do? Such is fate. This life is not eternal. We do not know when we will have to leave this world.

We carry on our material life with its happiness and unhappiness, and we have become so deeply entangled in it. What happiness is there in it? If only we could throw our life for the service of the Lord! How long, how long more are you going to sleep on the lap of Witch Maya? Wake up, wake up, brothers! There is no time! Worship Krishna! Loudly chant the Holy Name of Krishna!

uthare uthare bhai, ara ta samaya nai,
‘krsna bhaja’ bale uchchaihsvare

‘Wake up, wake up, brother! There is no time! “Worship Krishna!” they call out loudly.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Gurudev opened these temples so that we can live there and sincerely serve the Lord…

(5/14) Service: Labour of Love

Before you light a big lamp (pradip), you must light a small lamp and keep it always burning. Why? Because if you do not keep a lamp burning, then, when the big lamp’s light goes off, everything will become dark. This is the truth…

Gurudev explained everything and made this fallen, lowly soul sit in his chair. I never wanted to sit on a throne! Gurudev said, ‘I am sitting on a very hard throne.’ When Gurudev said this, I did not understand the meaning, but now I understand it. Making temples and buildings is not a big matter, but it is important to maintain them.

You can see that we have been here for so many days already, but only two fans work. Can you see it? There are so many fans in the nat-mandir, but they do not work. So many people gather in the nat-mandir. Somebody could call me and let me know, ‘Gurudev, the fans are not working,’ and I would arrange to fix them. So many people come for kirtan, and it is difficult to chant. ‘Kirtaniyer parisram jane Gaura Ray. Gaura Ray knows the struggle of those who chant kirtan’ [Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 14.1.38: Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu understood the labour of all the kirtan singers; therefore, He was very eager to feed them sumptuously.] Nobody understands how hard it is to chant kirtan. I have made an outbuilding kitchen here, and I still have to see what adjustments are necessary to make. How many things must one person see to? What is good, what is necessary to make – those who are staying here must look after it. How much time do I spend here? I mostly come here in winter, when nobody turns the fans on because it is cold, and I usually come in the morning, offer my obeisance to the Lordships and leave in the afternoon. How am I to know that the fans do not work? Those who stay here must know it and must check whether everything works properly or not. I have to think whether there are buckets in the bathrooms and whether the bathrooms are clean. Actually, when I was coming, I brought more buckets just in case there were not enough. But how am I to know that the fans do not work?…

This is the problem.

It is necessary to have service mood.

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant enquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

You must ask honest questions. Honest questions are ‘Who am I?’, ‘Why am I suffering?’, ‘How can I get benefit?’

There was a sadhu who stayed in a small room and practised Krishna consciousness on his own. He cooked something, offered bhoga to the Deities and took prasad. The sadhu had one broken chair. One day, a big mayavadi came to him and sat in that chair, shaking his leg impatiently. He said, ‘Listen, sadhu, everybody comes to you for knowledge. Give me some knowledge!’ The sadhu thought, ‘Oh, so, he has come to me for knowledge! All right, I will teach him a lesson.’ Whenever somebody came, the sadhu gave the visitor some sherbet (sweet, flavoured water). This time too, he put a glass of sherbet on the table, but then, he started pouring water into it! The water overflowed and started running first on the table and then on the chair and finally the mayavadi. The man jumped up, ‘Is this how you are giving knowledge to me?! You are a fool! You have wetted my pants and shirt! Can you not see there is water in the glass?! Why are you pouring water into it when there is water in the glass?!’

‘Sir,’ the sadhu answered, ‘I am doing it for you.’

‘How so?’ the man asked angrily.

‘You see, you have come to take knowledge from me, but your head is already full of knowledge. If I put more knowledge there, it will overflow and fall.’

There was recently a debate with a mayavadi during preaching, and I told the man the same thing. Finally, I said, ‘I do not want to see the face of a mayavadi!’ He was asking me the same question, over and over again, and when I answered it, he kept challenging me, ‘What is the proof? Who wrote Bhagavatam?’ Srila Prabhupad wanted to keep a hundred feet away from such people. Such people do not even accept the existence of God. That man tried to say there was no Lord, that there was only Brahman! I stopped him, but he still did not leave. So, I said, ‘Sorry, I am very busy. I have to go now…’ and left.

(6/14) Service: Adherence and Attachment

Actually, sahajiyas are better than mayavadis (because, unlike mayavadis, sahajiyas believe in the existence of God). You have seen today at the Bankarai Krishna’s temple that somebody was chanting some ‘kirtans’, dressed as Krishna. This is what sahajiyas are like. They only dress as Krishna. Lord Siva also once dressed as a gopi, but the difference is that Lord Siva had anugatya (strict adherence and submissive devotion), that is why he was able to take part in the Vrindavan pastimes. There can be no Krishna consciousness without anugatya. If you practise Krishna consciousness without anugatya, it is Maya consciousness (serving Maya). You must remember this. If somebody practises Krishna consciousness without strict adherence and devotion to the guru, it is Maya (illusion).

One time, I went to collect rice. Some man told me, ‘I can give you rice! How much will you take?’ I told him, ‘Give me one quintal (100 kg).’ He said, ‘All right, I’m going, you can take it.’ I said, ‘Wait, give the rice first,’ and then I saw that the sack the man had given was full of rice-husk paddy! I still took it because it is good paddy for cows. Another time, I went to some place, and the man said, ‘I have not got any rice, I only have husk paddy.’ I took it, and everybody laughed at me, ‘Maharaj has brought husk paddy!’

We must always think how we can help our gurudev – whatever our capacity is. There is no question that everybody must give money. I never ask anyone for money. When I come to your house, I say, ‘Give me a sack of potato,’ ‘Give me five kg of rice’, and so on. Why do I say this? Because when a sannyasi comes from a temple, everybody knows that you must give him something. In the same way, everybody knows that when you come to a sannyasi or to the Lord, you must bring something, some food items. You can see that whenever I come to a temple, I always give some pranami. This is a rule. Whenever I go to Nabadwip, Vrindavan or Puri temples, I never leave the temple without giving some pranami (a small donation). Gurudev taught me this. Even when I go to the Kolkata temple, Gaura-Nitai are there, so if I go out for preaching, even if I come back late, I always bring some bhoga for Them (especially if I know I am passing a shop where good bhoga is available). It can be offered to Them the next day in the morning. You must bring something for the Deities. When I come here, I bring some fruit and vegetables. When I go to Nrisingha Palli, when I go to Tarakeshwar or other places, I always bring something. This is a rule, and I do this wherever I go. This is what Gurudev taught me.

One time, Gurudev told me, ‘Let us go to Hapaniya. My Guru Maharaj told me Hapaniya is my temple, so I want to go there.’ On the way, Gurudev gave me 100 rupees and told me to buy some yoghurt and sweets. When I came back, Gurudev told me, ‘Why did it take you so long? Were you bargaining? When you buy something for the Lord, you must never bargain.’ This is what Gurudev taught me.

How should we serve Vaishnavs?

ki-rupe paiba seva muni durachara
sri-guru-vaisnave rati na haila amara

‘I am so wicked, how will I ever get service? I have not got any attachment to Sri Guru and Vaishnavs!’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

‘I do not have attachment to the lotus feet of Sri Guru and Vaishnavs! I am wicked, ill-natured…’

We must practise Krishna consciousness. Krishna consciousness means we must please the Lord. Therefore, we must please the Lord, we must please our gurudev. You can never please the Lord without pleasing gurudev. Krishna Himself says, ‘Worshipping My devotees is higher than worshipping Me.’ That is why we always say we are devotees of Gauranga Mahaprabhu, devotees of Nitai. Before you become a devotee of Krishna, you must become a devotee of Srimati Radharani.

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

‘If you did not become devoted to the worship of Srimati Radharani, your worship of Krishna was in vain.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must worship Srimati Radharani. Her worship is this:

matala hari-jana kirtana-range
pujala raga-patha gaurava-bhange

‘We will worship the path of raga-marga (spontaneous loving service) from afar and live in adherence to the Vedic rules and regulations.’

(Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

(7/14) Forging Our Fortune

Our Param Guru Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, the Founder Acharya of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, was very strict. One time, he turned Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj out of the temple just because he had gone to listen to some melodious sahajiya kirtans. Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj was the one who composed our Sri Gaudiya Gitanjali (the Kirtan Guide). His samadhi temple is in Vrindavan – if you go to Vrindavan, you can find it near Pavan Sarovar (Nandagram), where Srila Sridhar Maharaj practised bhajan for some time. When this Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj went to listen to some lila-kirtan chanted near the temple, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj got to hear about it, Srila Sridhar Maharaj told him to leave. Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj left. As he was about to cross the Ganges to go to Mayapur, he met a disciple of Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, who asked him, ‘Maharaj, where are you hurrying off to?’ Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj replied, ‘Srila Sridhar Maharaj has turned me out.’ The devotee said, ‘Srila Sridhar Maharaj? I heard he never turns anyone out… You must have done something.’ Srila Babaji Maharaj confessed, ‘Yes, I went to listen to lila-kirtan.’ Then, the disciple of Srila Prabhupad said, ‘Oh! That is why! You are a tin-lakhiya babaji (a great babaji, chanting 300,000 Holy Names every day), but you are not getting taste for the Holy Name, so you went to get that taste from boys’ and girls’ kirtan?!’ Gurudev told this story very nicely.

One time, I told Gurudev, ‘Gurudev, so-and-so devotee has left because of some problem…’ Gurudev replied, ‘This is not the cause. Yaowata-i svabhavik, thakata-i asvabhavik. It is natural one will leave; rather, it is unnatural (uncommon) that one would stay.’ How many people can stay at the temple? Who can tolerate all the austerities and practise Krishna consciousness, do service? Who has such a fortune?

alpa bhagye seva nahi haya
koti janma thakle bhagya
visaya chhede haya vairagya

‘Service does not come by just a little fortune. It takes ten million births of good fortune to become renounced and give up this material world.’

Not everybody gets this kind of fortune…

Once somebody complained to Gurudev, ‘Gurudev, I sit and chant kirtan every day at 6 o’clock. I play the mridanga, and that fellow comes and plays karatals completely out of tune!’ Gurudev replied, ‘Yata chila nadabune haye gela kirtane ara kaste bhenge gadano kattala’ (lit. ‘all the foolish peasants come to do kirtan with broken scythes as karatals’ – synonymous to ‘clodhoppers have turned artists’ or ‘fools have turned leaders’). Gurudev’s words were like that. He explained it, ‘I live in a family with all the children who have been turned out of their houses by their parents. So many people come here from all walks of life – somebody will play in this way, somebody will play in that way. Why are you complaining to me? Everybody is not right here, but slowly they will come right.’ I still remember Gurudev’s words… I always remember his words…

Gurudev told me many things. He told me many things about the history of Gaudiya Vaishnavs, but I do not speak about those things so much openly… My Gurudev spoke in this way – ‘sada hasya mista bhasi susila kavitva: always smiling, speaking sweet words, always with perfect poetry.’ He always chanted the Holy Name laughing and speaking sweetly.

(8/14) Concentrate Your Mind on Nityananda Prabhu’s Service

Gurudev always chanted the Holy Name laughing and speaking sweetly. He would say, ‘People brag that they chant 100,000 Holy Names, but when I chant just four rounds, I start sweating so much!’ One time, a servant told Param Guru Maharaj, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, who had become virtually blind by that time, ‘Maharaj, shall I give you your mala?’ Param Guru Maharaj replied, ‘Give that mala to Govinda Maharaj. I will not chant on my mala anymore.’ He did not chant on his mala during last two years – he withdrew into his internal bhajan and only kept saying, ‘Nitai Gaura Hari bol, Nitai Gaura Hari bol, Nitai Gaura Hari bol. Doyal Nitai. Doyal Nitai.’ He chanted in this way. He did not know anything except Nitai.

Srila Sridhar Maharaj appeared in this world on the same day that Sri Virachandra Prabhu, Nityananda Prabhu’s son, appeared (navami-tithi, the ninth lunar day). His name at first was Ramendra Bhattacharya…

Param Guru Maharaj forcefully took Gurudev by the hand and made him the acharya. At the temple, many criticised Gurudev and said many bad things about Gurudev. They said that Guru Maharaj’s decision was wrong. They criticised Srila Guru Maharaj’s(!) decision… But where are they now? Now everyone can understand who was the recipient of Srila Guru Maharaj’s mercy. There has never been a guru like our Gurudev in this world. He could chastise you, and he could also treat you with affection…

Gurudev is always merciful. This is what a guru must be like. He always thinks about everyone’s spiritual benefit – he always thinks about how we can get attachment to Lord Krishna, love for Lord Krishna, how we can practise Krishna consciousness…

‘samsara’ ‘samsara’ kari’ michhe gela kala
labha na haila kichhu, ghatila janjala

‘Time has passed as I have been busy with my material life, and the result is nothing – only garbage.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

They do not understand what Sri Guru’s mercy is. When you are given some service, that is mercy, and if you can do that service, that should be your joy. Austerity will come, it must come, but:

tomara sevaya, duhkha haya yata,
seo ta’ parama sukha

‘Even whatever unhappiness I feel when serving You is a source of great happiness for me.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If you can do your service, that should be your source of joy.

Many think, ‘I will leave my family!’ – they say this with their mouth, but in the meantime, the poison of material life is slowly growing… If you listen to what the guru and sadhus say and can put aside your material desires – if Nitaichand gives His mercy to you – then all desires will become trifle. Concentrate your mind on the service to Nityananda Prabhu. Always serve Nityananda Prabhu.

(9/14) Direct Your Mind to Bhagavatam

You have been listening to the glories of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu for several days already. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami said, ‘I am lower than warms in stool, but I am speaking about the glories of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu.’ Gurus and Vaishnavs rescued such fallen souls as us, who are lower than worms in stool (if you take worms out of stool, they always go back to stool), from illusory environment and engaged in the service of the Lord, but our minds still always go to maya. Such is our sad position. But gurudev is always merciful:

durdaive sevaka yadi yaya anya-sthane
sei thakura dhanya ta’re chule dhari’ ane

‘If, by some misfortune, a servant goes in a wrong direction, glorious is that master who catches him and by the hair and brings him back.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.47)

It is loving search for the lost servant. We are lost children, and the Lord is searching for us. When a son is lost, his father searches for him – he gives an advertisement on TV, in newspapers, declares the boy missing, does everything he can to find his boy. In the same way, the Lord has lost His children – us, the fallen souls – and is searching everywhere for us, ‘When will these souls start practising Krishna consciousness and come back to Me?’ This is what Krishna consciousness is. ‘Tava nija-jana kona mahajane pathaiya dile tumi. The Lord sent His own man to tell me about Him.’

If you send a letter to the Lord, you will not get any reply, but if you give your letter to gurudev and ask him something, you will get a reply and receive the news about the Lord. That is why it is not necessary to go to the Lord directly because the Lord’s very own associate has come to this world as a guru, as an acharya: you can come to him and make your honest enquiry. Honest enquiry means asking, ‘Who am I?’, ‘Why am I suffering?’, ‘How can I get benefit?’, ‘What is the goal?’, ‘How can I achieve this goal?’ We must make honest enquiry (pariprasna).

How can we get spiritual benefit?

Pariksit Maharaj asked a sixteen-year-old naked young boy, Sukadev Goswami, ‘How can I get spiritual benefit?’ And the answer that this sixteen-year-old boy spoke during seven days is what later became Srimad Bhagavatam. Bhagavatam was not originally composed by anyone. Later, at Naimisaranya (Uttar Pradesh), sixty thousand rishis asked Suta Goswami to repeat what Sukadev Goswami had told Pariksit Maharaj, and this is when Bhagavatam was recorded.

prthivite yaha kichhu dharma name chale
bhagavata kahe taha paripurna chhale

’Bhagavatam says that whatever is going on in this world in the name of religion is complete cheating.’

(Based on Srimad Bhagavatam, 1.1.2)

You must listen to Srimad Bhagavatam as it is all about devotion only. Although Srimad Bhagavatam is the highest scripture, there is no mention of Srimati Radharani in it – Her devotion is such a high topic that it is not even mentioned anywhere in Srimad Bhagavatam. That is why Sri Vasu Ghosh wrote:

yadi gaura na ha’ta, tabe ki haita,
kemane dharitam de
radhara mahima, prema-rasa-sima,
jagate janata ke?

‘If Gaura had not come, what would have happened? How would we have lived? Who would have revealed to the world Radha’s glory and the extremes of Her ecstatic divine love?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

If Gauranga had not come, who would have revealed Srimati Radharani in this world? Krishna took Srimati Radharani’s heart and halo and appeared as Gauranga. When He was in Sri Puri Dham, Gauranga Mahaprabhu revealed that form in front of Sri Svarup Damodar and Sri Ramananda Ray. Sivji Maharaj said, ‘Aham vedmi, Suka vetti, Vyasa vetti na vetti va. I know it, Sukadev Goswami knows it, but I do not know whether Vyasadev knows it or not.’ Therefore, if Vyasadev (the guru) gives his mercy to somebody, that person must certainly know it. When Srila Raghunath Das Goswami came to Vrindavan, he said, ‘What I have got from Rupa and Sanatan is even more than I have got from my guru, Svarup Damodar, and even more than I have got from Mahaprabhu Himself!’ Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami also wrote at the end of every single chapter of Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita,

sri-rupa-raghunatha-pade yara asa
chaitanya-charitamrta kahe krsnadasa

‘Praying at the lotus feet of Sri Rupa and Sri Raghunath, always desiring their mercy, I, Krishna Das, narrate Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, following in their footsteps.’

‘By the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, I have got Vrindavan. By the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, I have got Rupa and Raghunath. By the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, I have got Mahaprabhu.’ These are very beautiful words.

(10/14) Keep Yourself On Track

Srila Prabhupad left this world on 1 January, 1937. So many days later, through Gurudev, his desire was finally fulfilled here, in Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s dham.

When we were on the parikrama today, a lady recognised me and came up to me to offer her obeisance. I had bought some bamboo from her for fifty rupees when I came to Ekachakra for the first time. I remember it was a Sunday because it was prohibited to cut bamboo on Sundays. I explained everything to that lady, spoke some Hari-katha to her and brought her to this path. This is how I managed to bring bamboo to our land (I gave her fifty rupees because she had to pay a worker to cut it). With that bamboo and some tin sheets that I had got before, I made a small hut at the place where the generator is kept now. Soon after that, we made a festival. And then some bamboo seller filed a case against me claiming that I had taken his land. I told him, ‘Why will I take your land? Our temple’s land is to this side of the road.’ Before, there was no road here – I made the road leading to the Pancha Pandav’s place nearby (before that, there were fields all around it). Santosh Prabhu from Nadanghat knew a man who used to be the PM in Siuri, Birbhum District. When that bamboo man filed a case, I spoke to the ex-PM, and he agreed to fight the case. He spoke to the man who had filed the case (‘What is this? You are filing a case against a sadhu? Stop it!’), and the man withdrew the case. Then, after Gaura Purnima, I started the construction works here. I bought the land in 2008, and in 2009 Gurudev saw that the four-storey building had been completed in just one year. Having seen the building, Gurudev could leave peacefully. At that time, the temple and the nat-mandir had not even been started yet – and Gurudev left this world…

Anyway, much has happened. There is so much history.

I always tell you that if any of you wants to stay in the holy dham, come. We have temples in many dhams – there is a temple in Tarakeshwar, in the dham of Lord Siva, where Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur received Sivji Maharaj’s mercy (he was thinking to go to Vrindavan, but having received the mercy of Taraknath Sivji Maharaj, he cancelled his plan and went to Nabadwip instead). You can come and stay there. There are facilities here in Ekachakra also. We have a temple in Nrisingha Palli and in Bankura district, where Srila Sridhar Maharaj went to bring Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj back.

After the disappearance of Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, Srila Goswami Maharaj was very sad and pained: he went back to his family and got married. Srila Sridhar Maharaj went to his house to bring him back. He told him, ‘You are a senior preacher, you should be preaching Prabhupad’s teachings, but instead you are sitting here at home with your family. Who will preach Prabhupad’s teaching then?’ Srila Goswami Maharaj replied, ‘If you give me sannyas, I will leave my family and come back to the temple.’ So, Srila Sridhar Maharaj gave him sannyas. Later, Srila Goswami Maharaj established Gaura-Nityananda’s temple at Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan. Near his temple, there is also Srila Madhusundan Maharaj’s temple. Srila Madhusudan Maharaj always did parikrama together with Srila Sridhar Maharaj. Srila Madhusudan Maharaj was one of the devotees who brought our Gurudev to Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math from Nadanghat in 1947. Srila Vaibhav Puri Maharaj (at that time, his name was Nrisinghananda Brahmachari) was there too – he spoke Hari-katha, and after Gurudev heard it, he came to the Math.

So, who will come, how one will come and through whom one will come to the temple, who has it written in his destiny and who not, nobody can say this. Therefore, I am praying to you all – you have taken initiation from a guru (yesterday also many people took initiation), but do not think that you take initiation and that is it, you have got everything. It is not like that. You are only admitted to a school. Please always practise when you go to your homes, always try to serve your guru. Those who have wealth should serve with their wealth; those who have a body should serve with their body; those who have a mind should serve with their mind; those who have life in them should serve with their life. Whatever your capacity is, whatever your qualification is, everyone must serve their guru with that capacity.

Actually, we have no qualification: ‘Yogyata vichare kichhu nahi pai – tomara karuna sara! When I examine myself, I find no qualification – your mercy is everything.’ How can we get that mercy? Gurudev has given you service, but you are neglecting that service, you are slacking in that service. If Gurudev says, ‘Sit here,’ then this is what service is, but the problem is that we go in another direction – our mind carries on going wherever it fancies…

(11/14) Are You Getting Off?

Srila Sridhar Maharaj said very nicely, ‘Start the fire, and the wind will come automatically. Even if your boat is sinking, keep on rowing – do not leave the boat.’ Gurudev is the captain of the boat, the helmsman. We sing in one of the kirtans (‘Ke yabi ke yabi re bhai’):

hari-namera tarikhani sri-guru-kandari
sankirtana-keroyala du’bahu pasari

‘The Lord’s Names are the ferryboat, Sri Guru is the captain, and the arms raised in sankirtan are the oars.’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

So, if you can stay in the boat that gurudev drives, you will be able to reach the destination where that boat is going. If, however, you jump off that boat, you will never be able to take that boat again. Gurudev has got you a ticket to Vrindavan, but you get off half way to Vrindavan and go to Kashi. You must understand what I am saying. Gurudev has given you a ticket to Vrindavan, but you get off in Kashi. Or you come to the Howrah station to go to Vrindavan but do not look carefully to see which train is going to Vrindavan – you just get on a random train that looks pretty, and it turns out that train is going to Mumbai or some other place, not to Vrindavan! It is necessary to understand these things. You must not take any other train – we must get on the train that gurudev is taking us in. You must go with your guru.

Many people like to travel to various places, but Srila Sridhar Maharaj calls it ‘eye-exercise’. People disregard what gurudev says and go for a walk or go travelling to some places. For example, I know some people come here and go to Tarapith. That is ‘Jay Ma kara maina dhara’ (a joking rhyme, ‘Glory to Mother Kali! Now give me my salary!’). [Devotees laugh out loud.] What do ‘devotees’ do there? They all take ganja; not only that, the ‘sadhus’ there actually eat from dead people’s skulls! I have seen it with my own eyes when I was passing the place. Can a sane person do that? One time, my karatals got stolen there. I was sad because we were going on a parikrama, but we had no karatals. I went to the town to buy some karatals. Suddenly, an old lady came up to me and said, ‘I have two pairs of karatals! Do you want to buy them?’ I said, ‘Yes, I will. How much are they?’ I gave her four hundred rupees, and when I looked at the karatals, I saw that those were my karatals that had been stolen!

People come to practise Krishna consciousness at a temple, but when it comes to winter and you give them a hundred-rupee blanket, they run away with that blanket! Where will they run from their fate? What is a blanket to me? I started from scratch with nothing in my hand, and I had no problem. This year I see nobody has so far complained that their mobile phones or other things had got lost. I have told you to be careful with your mobile phones, gold chains and other valuables.

You know, one time, I told one man to come for Nabadwip Dham parikrama, but he did not go with me. He said, ‘What is the point going for the parikrama? I can just bath in the Ganges!’ We sing in one of the kirtans:

gangara parasa haile paschate pavana
darsane pavitra kara ei tomara guna

‘After touching the Ganges, one attains salvation later; but one can become pure just by seeing you. Such is your quality.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

One becomes pure by getting the darshan of a Vaishnav, but he says he will bath in the Ganges!

One time, a Muslim man came to another man and asked him to give him something, addressing him as ‘mesho’ (mother’s sister’s husband). The man was surprised, but the Muslim man said, ‘Yes! You are my mesho! Can you not recognise me?’ The man believed him and gave him what he had asked for. After that, he went to take a bath in the Ganges. When he came out, he went around shouting, ‘Whose mesho am I? Whose mesho am I? Who took the things from me saying I was his mesho?’ [His Divine Grace laughs.]

So, we must understand what devotion to the guru is. If you want to receive gurudev’s mercy, you must take birth in his family. What does it mean to be born in gurudev’s family, or be part of gurudev’s lineage? It means taking shelter in gurudev and serving gurudev. Gurudev’s wealth is not temples, great buildings or other things. Gurudev’s wealth is divine love. If you can get this kind of wealth, then there will be nothing else to be attained. What is the use of all the temples and buildings? If you have money, you can make them, and if you do not have money, you do not need all that. Srila Jagadananda Pandit wrote that if anyone comes to the temple, you must give them prasad with affection, and if you have no prasad, you must serve them sweet words and affection. Give affection and sweet words.

(12/14) Gentle Clean Hearts

So many devotees come to the holy dham of Lord Nityananda Prabhu. It is necessary to be wise. If you run a temple, you do not have to worry about money. If you behave gently with devotees, money will come automatically – money will not be leaving, money will be coming. So, it is not necessary to think how to force anyone. All this is not necessary.

Sridhar Prabhu told the Lord, ‘Why do You not go to somebody else? I am a poor brahman, and You keep coming to steal my thor (banana stems). You always come and bargain with me!’ Mahaprabhu said, ‘No matter what you say, I will always come to take from your shop!’

We must understand what this means. In some lila-kirtan, they sing, ‘Yar hate khai, tar hate khai, yar tar hate khai na. Krishna says that He does not take food from anyone and everyone – He eats from the hand of those whose hand He wishes to eat from.’

bhakter jinish prabhu lutiputi khay
abhakter jinish prabhu ulti nahi chay

‘The Lord eats anything and everything when a devotee offers it, but the Lord does not want to take anything from a non-devotee.’

(Based on Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.185)

The Lord never takes anything from the hand of a non-devotee. The Lord never took Duryodhan’s raj-bhoga (royal opulent food), but He took banana skin from Vidura’s wife. He also took chipped rice from Sudama Vipra! When Sudama Vipra came to Krishna, Krishna personally massaged his feet and also told His queens, Satyabhauma, Rukmini and others, to massage his feet. ‘Sudama has come from so far, his feet must be hurting. Let us massage his feet! I am massaging his feet, and you all must help Me!’ Krishna Himself served His devotee.

Therefore, service to devotees is the highest service. We do not know anything except service to devotees. We have nothing else to aspire for. We must serve devotees.

Many say with their mouth, ‘I will leave my family! I will leave my material life!’ but you must come to the level when you actually feel, with all your being, with all your heart, that your (material) family is nothing. You must make so that all material desires become insignificant, trifle, and so that you feel only attachment and devotion to the Lord.

Our Param Guru Maharaj said, ‘We are looking for the Lord, but at the same time, the Lord is also looking for us.’ We are lost sons, and the Lord is looking for us! What sort of pull is there! The Lord looks for us and calls us, ‘Come back to your home! Come back to God, back to home!’ We lost our home so long ago! We have lost our address! To bring us to our real home, sadhus come to this world:

mahanta-svabhava ei tarite pamara
nija karya nahi tabu yana tara ghara

‘It is the innate nature of great souls to deliver vile fallen souls. Great souls never come to their homes for any personal purpose.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.8.39)

Sadhus have no business of their own. Why do they go house to house? For some sort of personal interest? No! Because they do not have enough food or clothes? No! Sadhus have no eyes – they do not know anything about food and clothes! They only know to bestow mercy onto you – they only want to bring you to this path and to help you practise Krishna consciousness nicely. If you think only about big buildings, temples and other material things, you can never become your guru’s devotee like that. If you can get your guru’s love and affection, that is everything. Even if your guru beats you with a stick, you must continue serving him. Your guru can chastise you, your guru can scold you. I told you yesterday how Nityananda Prabhu bestowed His mercy unto Sri Sivananda Sen and Srila Raghunath Das Goswami. Even Advaita Prabhu is a very elderly person, but Nityananda Prabhu threw rice into his face! Advaita Prabhu said, ‘Yes, right. How can You possibly fill Your stomach at my house? I am only a poor brahman.’ What he said is right – can we, mere poor brahmans, possibly serve the Lord? The Lord is the master of the entire world, and we cook some boiled potato and rice for Him. Even if you give the whole world to Him, He will eat it all! Nevertheless, we must try to give everything to the Lord…

(13/14) Do Not Give Up

Param Guru Maharaj (Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj) always said, ‘Start the fire, and the wind will come automatically’, ‘Even if your boat is sinking, keep rowing!’ Srila Prabhupad also said, ‘When you go to preach, you must sweat and fight to preach about the Lord! And if you run out of money, you will have to go to householders and preach more!’

One time, Srila Bon Maharaj went out for collection. As he was begging and collecting, he accidentally came to a quarter where fallen women lived. Realising where he was, he was crushed, ‘I am finished! I have been practising Krishna consciousness for so long, but today I have come to the quarter of these fallen people!’ Some women gave him donation, one–two or five–ten rupees, and Srila Bon Maharaj came back to the temple. He gave that money to Srila Prabhupad, saying with tears in his eyes, ‘Prabhupad, my spiritual life has been ruined today!’ Srila Prabhupad asked him, ‘What has happened to you today?’ Srila Bon Maharaj replied, ‘I have accidentally come to a place where fallen women live…’ In reply, Srila Prabhupad said, ‘If you think you have done wrong, then I am also doing wrong. I bring all these brahmacharis from their homes so that they can practise Krishna consciousness, but then I send them back to those gross householders. What do I do this for? To bring those fallen souls to this path. Am I doing wrong too?’ Gross materialists are no better than prostitutes. Srila Prabhupad explained, ’Those prostitutes gave you the money they got by selling their bodies, and you can use that money for the service of the Lord. So, what is the problem? I send brahmacharis to householders’ homes, and they do not lose their spiritual life by going there, even though householders are intoxicated with their material life and do so many bad things.’

The other day, a devotee phoned me and said, ‘Gurudev, you have told me to go preaching house to house. I have been to fifty houses today, but only one person opened the door!’ I told him to go house to house and preach the Holy Name to everyone. It is not good for a brahmachari to sit at home. Go out! Go house to house! So, when he said that only one out of fifty houses opened the door, I told him, ‘So what? Tomorrow two houses will open the door. Even if they kick you out, even if they beat you, you must still go to them. Go to them, preach to them and bring them slowly to this path! Even if you bring a little rice from them, even if you bring one plate from them, even if you bring one flower from them, you can still use it in service. Go again! Go again and again, and one day they will understand that no matter how much they chase you away, no matter how much they scold you, you do not go away, you are not listening. Srila Prabhupad said, “To create one brahmachari, to create one sannyasi, to create one devotee, you must shed gallons of blood!”’

Our country is also like that. Srila Sridhar Maharaj said, ‘You receive the Holy Name from a guru, but you can also just buy some beads in a shop. Is that one and the same? If you go to a homeopathic shop and say that you have some disease, they will measure the potency and give you the medicine in globules. But you can also buy some empty globules on the street – will those globules cure your disease? So, when you take the Holy Name from a guru, the guru places his power within the Holy Name.’

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 receive guru’s prasad (mercy); otherwise, without the mercy of the guru, without faith in your guru, there is no use chanting on beads. Even if you chant on beads for a million of lifetimes, you will not come to the Lord because there is too much offence in such chanting.

hena krsna-nama yadi laya bahu-bara
tabu yadi prema nahe, nahe asrudhara
tabe jani, aparadha tahate prachura
krsna-nama-bija tahe na kare ankura

‘If you chant this Name of Krishna many times but still there is no love, no tears streaming from your eyes, then you can know that there are too many offences and the seed of Krishna’s Name does not sprout in you.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.29–30)

(14/14) False Attachments

In Sri Bhakti Raksak Hari-kathamrita, Srila Guru Maharaj tells one nice story.

Once, there were two sadhus sitting on the bank of the Ganges in Haridwar. You must have seen how fast the current is in Haridwar – the river is not deep, you can see the stones, but the current is very fast. Suddenly, one sadhu says to the other one, ‘Look, there is a blanket floating over there!’ They thought it would be nice to take it out, dry it and use at night. So, one of them jumped into the river to get the blanket, but when he caught it, he realised that this ‘blanket’ was a bear! The bear was struggling in the water, going down the current, and could not get out, so when it saw a man, it grasped onto him, trying to save its life. The sadhu and the bear started fighting in the water. The sadhu who stayed on the bank saw the first sadhu struggling in the water and cried to him, ‘Hey, leave the blanket! Leave it!’ The first sadhu replied, ‘I have left the blanket, but the blanket is not leaving me!’

So, we want to leave the material life, but the material life does not want to leave us. It is not so easy to practise Krishna consciousness. These days, be it a brahmachari or a sannyasi, everybody keeps in touch with their home and thinks about material things, about their material family house. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami was sent 400 rupees (coins) from his house, and he would arrange vaishnav-seva with that money, but Mahaprabhu did not like it. He said that because of that pratistha was coming to Srila Raghunath Das Goswami Prabhu. All the Vaishnavs thought and spoke among each other, ‘When will Raghunath make vaishnav-seva again? When will I get some pranami?’ Mahaprabhu said it was not good. When Srila Raghunath Das Goswami Prabhu understood it, he sent a message to his house, saying, ‘Do not send any money to me! I do not need it.’

visayira anna khaile malina haya mana

malina mana haile, nahe krsna-nama grahana

‘If you eat food that comes from materialistic people, it will contaminate your mind. And if your mind becomes contaminated, you will not be able to chant the Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.278)

After that, he did not take money from anyone. But these days, sannyasis keep in touch with their previous home… I had not given any news to my family for fourteen years, and they had even made my sraddha ceremony, offered pindu and did all the other rites, thinking I was dead. Very good! So what? I am still alive. In Gurudev’s time also, there was someone who did not know much and would say, ‘Astottara-sata-sri nitya-lila pravistha [“who has entered his eternal pastimes”]…’ When Gurudev heard it, he said jokingly, ‘Hey, I am alive! I am alive! I am not nitya-lila pravistha! I am still alive!’ That is why Gurudev said sadly, ‘This is my family… The person has taken sannyas but he does not understand the meaning of nitya-lila pravistha…’

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’, recites Sri Jaya Dhavani and finished the evening class.]

* * *

￼Line Line26 February 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Evening Class

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/10) Main Festivals

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my God-brothers and sisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

By the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma, by the mercy of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu, we are present here today. Today is the final day of our festival. We have been observing the festival of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance for the past four days. We came on the dasami day (tenth lunar day), and today is chaturdasi (fourteenth lunar day). We make this festival of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu in Sri Ekachakra Dham every year, from ekadasi to chaturdasi. Our two biggest festivals are here in Ekachakra (the appearance day of Sri Nityananda Prabhu) and also in Nabadwip (the appearance day of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu).

It is very good that you all keep connection. Without Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy, we cannot enter the kingdom of spiritual life. It is first necessary to have Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy, and Nityananda Prabhu means Gurupadpadma. They are asraya-vigraha (worshippable embodiment of shelter). Without asraya-vigraha, we cannot get the mercy of visaya-vigraha (embodiment of the object of worship). So, if you want to practise Krishna consciousness, or serve the Lord, without strict adherence to gurudev, it is means foolishly bypassing the right channel (goda dingiye ghas kayoya). You cannot worship Gauranga bypassing the guru.

We always want to be close to the mercy of our guru, Vaishnavs and Nityananda Prabhu.

(2/10) Serve with Faith

One takes initiation to serve the guru. Initiation means service to the guru. Service can be different. One can serve close to the guru, and one can serve from far, too. Personally, I did not stay with Gurudev so much. I listened to what Gurudev said and did whatever he ordered me to do. Gurudev kept me in Nabadwip and wanted to go abroad. At first, during six–seven years, I did not spent even one night anywhere outside our Nabadwip temple. After that, Guru Maharaj told me to preach, so I started going out to preach. Otherwise, before that, even if I went to Kolkata to meet with Gurudev, I would come back to Nabadwip the same day.

‘Guru-mukha-padma-vakya, chittete kariya aikya ara na kariha mane asa. Make the teachings from Sri Guru’s lotus mouth one with your heart and do not desire anything else.’ We sing this in the kirtan, and by singing, singing and singing it, we must bring ourselves to this path. We must make the teaching from Sri Guru’s lotus mouth one with our hearts and not desire anything else, but we have many desires and hopes… We must always be surrendered to Krishna and do service. Suppose you go to school or college. If you cheat or bunk off school, you will not pass the exam. The same is true here. You cannot cheat or bunk off your service to the Lord. Worshipping the Lord, practising Krishna consciousness means service, so if you cheat or bunk off your service, there is no use practising Krishna consciousness then. You must surrender yourself completely. We sing this kirtan every morning:

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must have faith that Krishna is my protector, Krishna is my maintainer. As soon as you lose this faith, Maya will catch you.

krsna bhuli’ sei jiva—anadi bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsara-duhkha

‘Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

samsarera para hai’ bhaktira sagare
ye dubibe, se bhajuka nitai-chandere

‘If you desire to cross the ocean of material existence and dive into the ocean of devotion, may you serve Sri Nitaichand!’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.1.77)

We are working so hard for Him, for Nityananda Prabhu. We arrange a big festival, and all devotees come to help us. You can see the Bokaro devotees. They live in their homes and work, some of them have families, some do not, but although they work, they come here and every time distribute prasad. They are here, and I know that I do not need to worry about devotees getting prasad. They always help during every festival, every parikrama. I have seen also that ladies were distributing prasad, too. Many devotees helped. Thousands of people took prasad during these four days, and arranging prasad for them does not happen just by saying it – it can only be possible by Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy. Today also, the festival has finished, and there is no bhoga left – three quintal (300 kg) of rice has finished.

Many could not wait and left. I do not want anyone to go back. I want everyone to take prasad. Everybody in this world is Nityananda Prabhu’s family, and if I give some rice to one person, what loss is there for me?

(3/10) Service Duty (1)

Many devotees are helping – the cooks’ department, the storeroom department and others. Devotees cleaned everything. Sripad Niriha Maharaj went to the market and helped to bring some things. Although sick, his father also took care of everything. It is necessary to take responsibility for service.

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara
sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

‘May I have the same love and attraction to Your holy feet that I now have for material things.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We love our wives, sons, brothers and sisters, we have a relationship with them, but that kind of love must be there for our guru, the temple and the Lord. This is the Lord’s house. This is what our consciousness must be like. We must prepare, mould, ourselves in this way.

‘samsara’ ‘samsara’ kari’ michhe gela kala
labha na haila kichhu, ghatila janjala

‘Time has passed as I have been busy with my material life, and the result is nothing – only garbage.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We do not understand the meaning of janjal (trash, unwanted burden). It is the burden that material life places on you. Many people say, ‘If it was not for the family, I would have come.’ Maya, illusion, always stops them. You come every year, but this time you cannot come – this is Maya Devi’s play.

We must become full-timers. How many of you can do that?

If we can serve the Lord twenty-four hours a day, we will get the highest benefit. You can learn from Guru Maharaj – he left everything and came to the temple. You leave everything and stay at the temple, but you must not think only about your enjoyment and pleasure when you are there, this is not right. You are staying here, at the holy land of Nitai – you must keep everything clean. You must think, ‘How can I serve Nitai?’ This is what you must always be alert about. People come to serve, but next moment they give it up and run away. Just as the Holy Name of Krishna does not come to the mouths of offenders, service goes away from those who make offences to service and the guru. If I make offences, I will be set free – my service will go away from me.

It is necessary to be steady in your service. This is what I learnt from Gurudev.

‘Jive daya, Name ruchi, vaisnava-seva’: be kind to other souls, relish chanting the Holy Name and serve Vaishnavs. Many devotees have come today to Nityananda Prabhu’s holy land. Not only outside materialists came – so many devotees also came. I have been going house to house, I keep connection with everyone, so people come. I keep in touch with everyone – even during the lockdown, even amidst the pandemic situation. I have a relationship with all the devotees, and I keep that relationship. I may not visit everyone’s houses, and some may think that I have died, but I always keep connection with everyone here, at festivals.

Some ISKCON devotees have come to see me today. They said they had seen me and were looking for me. I spoke to them for an hour. I told them about the relationship between our temple and ISKCON, what relationship there was and what relationship there is now. I have explained everything to them nicely. They were very pleased. They wanted to hear about the glories of Nityananda Prabhu. They asked some questions, and I answered them. They came from different countries – Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and some other countries. I gave them some time in the afternoon.

Whoever you see, tell them to chant the Name of Krishna (yare dekha tare kaha, ‘Kara Krishna Nam’)! ‘Prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara: you have life, you are alive, then you must preach.’ For as long as you have life in your body, you must continue preaching. For as long as you are alive, you must go door to door and tell people about the Lord. I am trying to do that. No matter what sadness, pain or difficulty comes, I am trying to deliver Hari-katha to people’s houses.

(4/10) Service Duty (2)

I am trying to go door to door and get people to hear about Gurudev, Guru Maharaj, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu. This is the duty that Gurudev, or the Lord, has given me, and I am trying to carry out this duty.

I am coming back to Kolkata tomorrow (Friday). After that, there is a programme in Basirhat on Sunday. On Monday, there is another programme in another place, and then there is a programme in Tarakeshwar on Wednesday, and then Thursday again… There is not even a one-day break in-between. The festival has finished today, and I am leaving tomorrow. I do not waste time. Those who are staying at the temple have their duties. We are enjoying with Nityananda Prabhu’s property and cannot serve with heart and soul, but it is necessary to serve Nityananda Prabhu with heart and soul. Those who serve in the goshala, who wash the dishes, who cook – everyone must do their service nicely. Everybody has service, everybody has their duty.

You are spending your life thinking all the time about material things, but one day you will have to give an answer. One day will come when you will be asked, ‘You have been at My place for so many days, what did you do there? What did you do at My house? How did you take care of it?’ It is necessary to live at the temple so that the preaching about the Lord and the property of the Lord do not get destroyed. Everything must be used for service. You offer bhoga to gurudev, and gurudev uses that in service – He offers it to the Lord and arranges for us to take that prasad.

When I first came here, I spent the first night sleeping under a tree. After that, we stayed in a rented house, worshipping a photograph of the Deities for one year. From time to time, I came here, supervised the works and brought materials all the way from Nabadwip. It was a big struggle to build everything, so please try to take care of everything well. This is your service. If you do not do it, I will have no loss – I can pay a hundred rupees to a worker and get everything cleaned. The problem will be yours – you are staying at the temple, and if you do not increase your sukriti, then when your sukriti is burnt, what are you doing next? How much service do you do here? You will have to go through this examination; you will be asked about it. If you think, ‘This is my service’, ‘That is his service’, you will never pass the test. All service is Nityananda Prabhu’s service. There is no question of ‘your’ service and ‘his’ service. Nothing is yours. Everything is Nityananda Prabhu’s property.

I cannot come here all the time because I do not sit in one place. I have just told you that I am leaving for Kolkata tomorrow, will spend one night there and then go to different programmes.

(5/10) Heed My Word

I have recently spent four days in Tarakeshwar. During those four days, I collected four hundred sacks of potato. It will be used for Gaura Purnima that is coming soon and will also last the whole year for all our temples.

I do not want money from anyone. I am happy, whatever you give. This big festival has just happened here – can anyone say that I took money from them? I have taken some pranami – I took from those who were giving some donation themselves. I do not want anything from anyone, and I do not worry about anything. If somebody does not serve Nityananda Prabhu, if somebody evades it, somebody else will come and do it. When I was coming here, somebody had left thinking they would avoid meeting me. Who are they cheating? They are only cheating themselves. You come here, spend a few days and then go away, but who are you trying to cheat? You are trying to cheat Nityananda Prabhu.

Gurudev also said, ‘Nobody can make me poor.’ I left the main temple empty-handed – I went away from there only taking my clothes. Bu, I have never lacked anything. When I was in South India, they attacked the building in Dum Dum Park and took everything, even my soap(!). But it did not harm me in any way. The Lord protects me. We have faith in Nityananda Prabhu, we have faith in Gurudev, so we have no fear. Gurudev told me, ‘Danger will come, but later everything will be resolved.’ And I see that. I am not afraid of danger. I know that one day I was born and one day I have to die.

I will have to die, but if I can leave this world knowing that I have done something good, that I have done some service to the Lord, then I will be very grateful. I am telling it to you all too – learn from my example. I always keep telling everyone: if you try to cheat and avoid the Lord’s service using various pretexts, it is not good, it is wrong. And this refers to everyone. It does not matter what service you do, you must remember this.

You can see **. He is a disciple of Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj (he later took initiation from Gurudev and recently sannyas from me). He is always only walking around distributing books – he does not even sit down. You can see him standing over there, at the book stall. He cannot speak English well, he does not know Bengali, but he distributes books and takes some donation in exchange, saying to everyone somehow, ‘Take this book for ten rupees. If you read it, you will get benefit.’ In these four days since we are here, he has sold books for 20–25,000(!) rupees – he has just given that money to me.

I went out to the market to get some potato and dal today, but I saw that the market was empty. Whatever I had brought – lau, oil and other things – everything is finished. But it is not a problem. In any case, all the potato I collect is for spending, not for keeping. Nityananda Prabhu has sent us His property, and His devotees came, took prasad and left. There is no problem. There is no lack or want of anything. It is those who think that there is some lack that lack a lot (they always run behind money).

I never run behind money. I only run behind the Lord, behind devotees, that is why the Lord sends me money – by hook or by crook, but He sends money somehow. Money comes to me through the Lord’s medium. But those who run behind money always feel they lack something – they always do not have enough, and their lack will never be fulfilled. Srimad Bhagavad-gita also says, ‘You are enjoying with My property! Use My property in My service, then you will know no want of anything.’ You must learn from Srivas Pandit’s example.

Srila Raghunath Das Goswami left all his wealth, left his wife, who was beautiful as an angel, and went to Mahaprabhu. Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Sanatan Goswami left their big posts in the government and came to Mahaprabhu. Mahaprabhu Himself also left Nabadwip and stayed in Puri. All devotees are like that (they make sacrifice for the service to the Lord). Our Param Guru Maharaj and our Gurudev also left their families and came to practise Krishna consciousness. Prabhupad also came like that – he was a son of a great magistrate, but he left everything. Therefore, I am praying to you all as well – always practise Krishna consciousness, always think about the Lord.

The Lord Himself says, ‘Think about Me, and I will think about you.’ If you think about yourself, if you worry about yourself and your interests, the Lord will never think about you. But if you rely and depend on the Lord, the Lord will certainly arrange everything for you. If we lose faith, we will become cheated out of devotion – devotion will be removed from us. So, you must always try your best to make sure your devotion does not go away from you.

(6/10) Perverted Tastes and Habits

You are living here, in this holy abode (Sri Ekachakra Dham). It is a very beautiful place. Even I have not got this kind of great fortune, but you have – you are here, in the holy abode of Nitai. This is Ekachakra Dham, where all the dust is Nitai’s footdust. You must never desire to leave this holy footdust and go anywhere else. We also do not want to leave, but we have no other way – we have to go to different temples, we have to go for preaching. I do not stay in one place…

Gauri Das Pandit tried to keep Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu at his home. He said, ‘I will not let You go! You must stay here!’ Because Gauri Das Pandit was Their devotee, Nityananda Prabhu and Mahaprabhu became Deities and stayed at his house. Gauri Das Pandit’s temple and those Deities are still there, in a very beautiful place in Kalna.

If our fortune becomes bad and we make vaishnav-aparadha, then service will go away from us. If that happens, we must not blame anyone for this – we must always look for faults in ourselves. We will not look for holes in others. Gurudev said, ‘I am not a drain inspector.’ What is there in the drain? You go to the bathroom, pass stool, and it goes away into a drain. So, if you dig in a drain, you will only get bad small. If you always go about saying bad things, the faults you speak about will come to you. That is why Gurudev said that we must never look for faults in anyone.

Somebody may have some faults, but there is also something good in them. Suppose you have seen somebody steal prasad – they did what they did, it is their offence, but if you go about telling others about it, then you are making an even bigger offence. You can talk to the person who stole prasad and try to explain to them that it is wrong to do that, ‘Brother, it is not right to do this. Do not steal the Lord’s things.’ You can try to explain and correct them politely.

Listen to what I am saying. If you do not learn to be like that, you will never be able to practise Krishna consciousness. You only look for faults in others, you look for holes in others, but Vaishnavs are adosa-darasi – they never see others’ faults. We must look for our own faults, ‘What faults do I have?’ ‘Gurudev has kicked me out, Gurudev is bad’ – no! We will only see that we are guilty, that we have faults; we will not see faults in anyone else.

What did Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur say?

vaisnava-charitra, sarvada pavitra,
yei ninde himsa kari’
bhaktivinoda, na sambhase tan’re,
thake sada mauna dhari’

‘The character of Vaishnavs is always pure. Bhaktivinod keeps quiet and does not associate with those who are envious of Vaishnavs and who criticise Vaishnavs.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If anyone criticised Vaishnavs in front of Bhaktivinod Thakur, he would always keep quiet. He would become grave and said nothing – he did not like to hear such things.

Even in Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s time, there were some brahmacharis who would fight and complain to Prabhupad, ‘He did this!’, ‘He did that!’ – they blamed each other and never saw their own faults. Such people have ego and they are offenders of Vaishnavs, that is why they can never see their own faults. They only roam around looking for faults in others, criticising others and gossiping about others.

I know you do not like to hear all this, but I am telling it to you straight.

If you eat rice, your stomach will be full – if you eat chanachur (a common Indian snack), it may be very tasty, but will chanachur fill your stomach? So, criticising others, talking bad about others may taste delicious to you, but it carries no spiritual benefit. This is the example that Srila Prabhupad gave. You can eat chanachur, bhujia and other tasty things, it tastes very good – does it not? – but it will not fill your stomach.

So, never search faults in others. You must always say, ‘I am the offender. I will never look for faults in others.’

Those who make offences against Vaishnavs can never get any good result – they cannot even chant the Holy Name, no matter how much they count the beads. We are told to chant the Holy Name giving up the ten offences, and the first offence is sadhu-ninda – criticising devotees. Always remember this. I always tell you this. Mahaprabhu also told:

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

Gramya-katha, gramya-katha means prajalpa (idle, useless talks) – gossiping about others, criticising others. For as long as you do this, you will neither ever attain any spiritual benefit nor ever chant the Holy Name; you will be making offences, and gradually everything will be finished for you. You will be left with nothing. Therefore,

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

Never speak and never listen to all these so-called pleasant-sounding talks (what somebody’s daughter or daughter-in-law did, what this person did, what that person did, and so on). Enjoying such talks is only cheating yourself. You may like to hear such things, but it will damage your spiritual life.

(7/10) Snowball of Offences

When we come to Puri, we hear the story of Ramachandra Puri. Ramachandra Puri and Ishwar Puri were godbrothers – they had one guru, Srila Madhavendra Puripad. But everybody knows Ishwar Puri on the account of him being Mahaprabhu’s guru, and everybody knows Ramachandra Puri on the account of him being a big offender. Ramachandra Puri has no other fame – all he is known for is his big offences and criticising others. This is what finished him. There is not any mention of him in the guru-parampara, whereas we always mention Sri Ishwar Puri’s name when we chant the guru-parampara song:

madhavendra puri-bara, sisya-bara sri-isvara,
nityananda, sri-advaita vibhu
isvara-purike dhanya, karilena sri-chaitanya,
jagad-guru gaura mahaprabhu

‘The best disciples of great Madhavendra Puri were Sri Ishwar Puri, Sri Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Advaita Prabhu. Sri Chaitanya, who is the Supreme Lord and the guru of the whole universe, blessed Sri Ishwar Puri by accepting him as His Guru.’

(Sri Guru-Parampara kirtan)

And when we ever mention Sri Ramachandra Puri, all we have to say about him is that he made offences against Vaishnavs. Driven out of Puri, he was eventually nowhere to be found. He kept making offences and ended up criticising Mahaprabhu for eating. Devotees invited Mahaprabhu and gave Him prasad. Everybody invited Mahaprabhu all the time. We are also often invited to people’s houses, and they bring various offerings to us – I barely touch it just to try it (I do not eat and enjoy that food – I only touch it to try it). So, one day, when Mahaprabhu was invited to take prasad, Ramachandra Puri came there and secretly watched what Mahaprabhu was eating. He thought, ‘Oh my! This sadhu sannyasi is eating such nice things!’ Then, he came out and said, ‘How come you do not invite me?’ When Mahaprabhu heard what he had to say, He declared, ‘Do not invite Me again. And if you do invite Me, then make only one–two preparations – I will not take more than that!’ Very sad, devotees came to Jagannath and prayed, ‘O Lord Jagannath, please remove this Ramachandra Puri from Puri Dham; otherwise, we will not be able to invite Mahaprabhu anymore!’

Another time, Ramachandra Puri came to Mahaprabhu’s room in Gambhira to see what He ate and what He did there. When he was there, he noticed there were many ants in Mahaprabhu’s room. So, he said to Mahaprabhu, ‘Oh, why are there ants in Your room? You, new sannyasi, must be eating lots of sweets, right?’ Mahaprabhu said, ‘Yes, My tongue is very greedy and I follow My tongue. I like to enjoy, that is why I eat sweets!’ What will Mahaprabhu do or say? It did not matter. Ants always come on their own. If there are no sweets, does it mean no ants will come?

This is how, if one keeps making offences, these offences reach the guru. Do you understand what I am saying? If you keep making and making offences, these offences will go up to your guru. You can never get any benefit like this. Such people become alienated because nobody likes them. Nobody.

(8/10) Path to Indigestion

You have been listening to me for so many days. Does anyone have any questions?

[A devotee asks about Mahaprabhu’s instruction to Srila Raghunath Das Goswami.]

Gramya-varta means prajalpa (idle talks). It means you must not talk about anything except Krishna. Have you not seen what happens in the afternoons?

Devotee: People sit and tell stories to each other.

When they finish cooking, all the young wives sit and talk, ‘What did your mother-in-law do?’, ‘What did your father-in-law do?’ This is all like chanachur – it neither fills your stomach nor brings any benefit to your health, but it tastes good.

[A devotee asks a question.]

This is very high things. Hladini- and sandini-sakti is a very high topic. Everyone must act and live according to their qualification. Do not venture so far. Do you understand? People sing about all this in lila-kirtans. No, it is all right if you ask about this. Why keep quiet? I will explain it to you.

Do you think that the love of Radha and Krishna is the same as the love between the boys and girls in this world? Is the love of Radha and Krishna the same as all the photos that boys and girls look at in their mobile phones? You tell me. If people go into all the hladini and other high subject matters, they will go for a walk and become pregnant. Such things must not be discussed. I read to you yesterday:

matala hari-jana kirtana-range
pujala raga-patha gaurava-bhange

‘We will worship the path of raga-marga (spontaneous loving service) from afar and live in adherence to the Vedic rules and regulations.’

(Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

Sivji Maharaj can take snake poison, he can digest it, but we do not have this kind of capacity. It is said in the scriptures:

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)

When a seed sprouts, you need to water it. Is that not so? But if you water it too much, what will happen? It will rot. So, those who sing all these lila-kirtans and discuss high things are rotten – their devotion(?) is destroyed.

Here in Ekachakra we talk about vatsalya-rasa (parental love). There is santa-rasa (neutrality), dasya-rasa (servitude), sakhya-rasa (friendship), vatsalya-rasa (parenthood) and madhura-rasa (consorthood). Madhura-rasa is spoken about only in Vrindavan, nowhere else. Do you understand it? We do not speak about it anywhere else except Vrindavan.

[His Divine Grace is distracted by something and tells one of the devotees] Are you using any medicine in the Tulasi garden? The trees are not growing well. You must spray some medicine. Worship and service to Tulasi (Tulasi-bhajan) is not just watering the plant. You must take care of her and spray her also when necessary. There are Tulasis growing so beautifully in other places. Serving Tulasi is also service, and it is not only about watering Tulasi – you must serve Tulasi. ‘Tulasi dekhi’ judaya prana madhava-tosani jani’: seeing Tulasi Devi soothes my soul, for I know she pleases Madhava’ (Saranagati). Seeing Tulasi should fill your very heart with joy.

You are old now, are you not? Can you eat the same amount as a young person? You cannot. Therefore, a young person has a bigger qualification and right to eat than you. If you speak about the things that are beyond your right, you will have indigestion – your devotion will be destroyed.

matala hari-jana kirtana-range
pujala raga-patha gaurava-bhange

‘We will worship the path of raga-marga (spontaneous loving service) from afar and live in adherence to the Vedic rules and regulations.’

(Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

Therefore, we keep raga-path (the path of spontaneous loving devotion) in our hearts. Our hearts’ aspiration is Radha-Krishna’s lotus feet. This is what we will meditate on. Inside. Do not show anything to others. Do not show off in front of others, saying, ‘I will not leave Radharani!’ Keep this inside you. Externally, chant, ‘Hari bol!’, ‘Nitai Gaura!’, and internally, meditate on Radha-Krishna.

You must have heard kirtans when ‘Radhe Radhe Radhe’ is chanted. Many like to chant, ‘Radhe Govinda, Radhe Govinda.’ Do you see us do that? We only chant this in Vrindavan when go for the parikrama, nowhere else. Srila Sridhar Maharaj, Srila Guru Maharaj (Srila Govinda Maharaj), Srila Prabhupad did not like it at all when anyone chants this freely. This is our line.

You may have heard people sing on the trains, ‘O my Golden Gora, I will keep You in my heart and never leave You.’ They say ‘my Gora’, but if you go to their homes you will see they sing kirtans for money and there is no service to Gora whatsoever there. They use Gora to fill their stomaches. Such people use Gauranga. This is a great offence!

You can also see many shops in Nabadwip and Mayapur where the shopkeepers hang Gurudev’s or Prabhupad’s photos. When people come, they become impressed, ‘Oh, our Guru Maharaj’s photo is here! I will buy the things here.’ These shopkeepers use Gurudev’s photos for their business. In other words, they use the Lord for their own pleasure.

So, do not use your guru, do not use the Lord. You must serve your guru, not use him.

(9/10) Memorable Pastimes

I have remembered one story that Srila Gurudev told me. The name of Srila Prabhupad’s guru is Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj. His photograph on the altar is next to Srila Prabhupad’s.

When Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj came to Nabadwip from Vrindavan, people thought he was like a madman – nobody could recognise who he was. But when people threw stones at him, he would say, ‘Do not be naughty with me, Gopal! I will tell Mother Yasoda!’ Where did this Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj sleep? In a public toilet. Somebody asked him, ‘Babaji Maharaj, how can you stay here? Are you not getting the stench?’ Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj replied, ‘This smell can be tolerated, but it is very difficult to tolerate the stench of materialists (of those who live by enjoying the material world).’

When Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj was alive, nobody would come to him and ask how he was, nobody cared – only Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur would come to visit him and later persuaded him to stay at Svananda Sukhada Kunja. But when Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj eventually left his body, all the babajis started crying, ‘This is my gurudev!’, ‘This is my gurudev!’ They wanted to take his body, make his samadhi and earn money through that. When Srila Prabhupad got the news that Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj had left his body, he came to him with Sri Kunja Babu (later he became Srila Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj). Srila Prabhupad declared, ‘None of you is a disciple of Babaji Maharaj! It is all lies! You all mix with women.’ There was a policeman at the place, and he asked Prabhupad, ‘How do you know that they mix with women?’ Srila Prabhupad explained, ‘I am a strict brahmachari, and nobody can tell a lie in front of me.’ Then, Prabhupad told the assembled babajis, ‘Tell me who of you has not mixed with women for six months?’, then, ‘Who of you has not mixed with women for three months?’, then, ‘Who of you has not mixed with women for one month?’, then, ‘Who of you has not mixed with women for three days?’ and finally, ‘Who of you has not mixed with women since last night?’ (Even if you think about a woman, it is also considered mixing with a woman.) One by one, everyone dispersed. Then, Srila Prabhupad took Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj’s body and brought it to Mayapur…

(10/10) Kali Yuga Brahmans

[A devotee asks a question.]

This is true not only for our age. Even before, all those who killed cows and brahmans in previous ages – in Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dvapar-yuga – are born as brahmans in Kali-yuga. But if a brahman becomes a Vaishnav, then there is no question about that. Who is great, a brahman or a Vaishnav? If you have 100,000 rupees, it automatically means you have 1,000 rupees as well. So, 1,000 rupees is a brahman, and 100,000 rupees is a Vaishnav – it means that those who have the qualities of a Vaishnav automatically have all qualities of a brahman. Gurudev said that if a Kali-yuga brahman becomes a Vaishnav, then he will become exalted. Other than that, Kali-yuga brahmans live in sin – they associate with widows, they eat wrong food and do many other wrong things. These things about who brahmans were before are written in the scriptures, in Gaudiya Kantha-hara, in Sri Padma Purana. But, as I have already said, if a brahman becomes a Vaishnav, then there is no such question. All our guru-varga were brahmans – our Gurudev, our Param Gurudev were both brahmans, but they left everything and came to this line.

[A devotee asks a question about Brahma-jnana.]

Today, brahmans do not even recite the gayatri-mantra. In previous ages, when brahmans spoke, fire would come from their mouths! But now nothing good comes out of their mouths. When they hear us speak like this, they start talking about rules and regulations. Suppose, somebody dies at home – they say you must not water Tulasi Devi and you cannot come into a temple. They only take people away from the service of the Lord. They say that if somebody dies at home, you cannot come to a temple for one year. What did Mahaprabhu say?

ki sayane, ki bhojane, kiba jagarane
aharnisa chinta krsna, balaha vadane

‘Whether you are sleeping, eating or waking up, incessantly think about Krishna and chant the Name of Krishna with your mouth.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.28.28)

iha haite sarva-siddhi haibe sabara
sarva-ksana bala ithe vidhi nahi ara

‘By chanting the Holy Name, everyone can attain all perfections. There are no other rules except to chant the Holy Name at every moment.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.23.78)

If somebody dies, everybody at the house continues eating, but the service to the Lord stops – you cannot water Tulasi Devi, you cannot worship the Deities. They cook for themselves, but they cannot serve the Lord. If you see such brahmans, bring them to me – I will shave their heads and pour whey on their heads [fig., a way of public denouncement]! But they will not come – they are too proud of their brahman caste! What did Mahaprabhu say? ‘Ye jana Krsna bhaje sei bada chatur: those who worship Krishna are very clever.’

kiba vipra, kiba nyasi, sudra kene naya
yei krsna-tattva-vetta, sei ‘guru’ haya

‘It does not matter whether one is a brahman, sannyasi or sudra – whoever knows who Krishna is can become a spiritual master.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.8.128)

yei bhaje, sei bada, abhakta—hina, chhara
krsna-bhajane nahi jati-kuladi-vichara

‘Only a nondevotee can be considered as worthless and abominable: anyone who takes to devotional service is great – there is no consideration of class, caste or any other status for those who have taken up service to Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.67)

Whether one is Muslim, a cow-eater or whoever else, it does not matter. Even those who stay with me and go to different places with me used to eat beef. I do not take anything, not even water, from the hands of brahmans, but I eat from their hands. Today’s brahmans drink alcohol and eat meat! [Devotee: Then they are the chandals (lowly meat-eaters).] This is said in the scriptures.

All right, it is nine o’clock already. I am finishing here.

[His Divine Grace sings ‘Sarvasva tomara’ and ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and recites the Jaya Dhvani, concluding the final class at the festival in Sri Ekachakra Dham.]

* * *

￼Line Line28 February 2021, noon

Basirhat (West Bengal)

Preaching Programme

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/8) Be Serious

You only say with your mouth, ‘I am a devotee of Gopal’, but you do not know what Gopal eats, where Gopal sleeps, where Gopal lives. You think you will fan Gopal, offer Him some fruit with a Tulasi leaf, and that is Gopal-seva. Many keep Gopal at their homes, but very few treat Gopal with affection. What does it mean to take responsibility for feeding Gopal? You think Gopal is like your son, but does Gopal eat what your children, husband or wife eat? Gopal does not eat like them. You must give Gopal the things that He likes. You must feed Gopal minimum five times – Gopal actually eats 56 times (chapana-bhoga), but you must feed Gopal minimum five times…

Srila Prabhupad explained what is called asat-sanga (inauspicious association). Bad association is the association of those who do not practise even one of the nine practices of devotion. In other words, if somebody does not practise even one of the nine kinds of devotional practices, their association is called bad, or inauspicious.

We are eternal servants of Krishna, but we come to serve Gopal only once a year. You dance with your Gopal today, but the rest of the year – the other 364 days of the year – you forget everything and worship Maya. What result do you think that gives? Many people chant kirtans, but not many people will come to help others chant kirtans – people chant kirtans, get money for it and go away. The problem is that we do not appreciate Nityananda Prabhu’s devotees, we do not know what Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy is…

If you love your son, you will think about him a lot: you will always pay attention to what he eats, to how he feels, whether he needs any medicine or a doctor, whether he is eating well or not, whether he is sleeping well or not, whether he needs a fan when it is hot, whether he needs warm clothes when it is cold. You will always worry about all this. You do not only say, ‘I love my son’ with your mouth – you always take care of your son if you really love him. It is the same with the guru. People of Kali-yuga, who have fallen into illusory environment, know very well who their mother, father, brother, sister, relatives, friends and other people are, but they do not know who their guru and who the Lord is.

I see that people mostly call their gurudev ‘baba’ (father), but Srila Prabhupad said to his brother, ‘Baba badha Radha: seeing Bhaktivinod Thakur as a father is an obstacle to seeing him as Radharani.’ Srila Prabhupad had received all mercy from Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, but one of his brothers thought, ‘I am also his son, so I am entitled to my father’s wealth too!’ He called Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur ‘father’ and knew him only as his father. All this ‘father-mother’ is a relationship of this world, it is mundane, but gurudev is spiritual.

You will get a father, a mother and friends in any birth. When we were born as dogs, sheep or pigs, we did not appear in the world without any parents – we had parents too (dogs, sheep or pigs). In the same way, when we were born as humans in this birth, we did not come to this world without parents. But parents only give us our bodies, they do not give us that which we are. The problem is that we do not know who we are – we do not know our actual identity. We become very proud of ourselves: ‘Ahankare matta haina, Nitai-pada pasariya: intoxicated by ego, we forget the lotus feet of Nitai.’ Overcome with pride, we think, ‘I am so-and-so Maharaj’, ‘I am so-and-so Ray’, ‘I am so-and-so Chowdhury’. Jiva souls are eternal servants of Krishna, but the souls who have forgotten everything have no memory or knowledge of Krishna.

You must keep the Lord in centre of your heart, and it must not be only lip-deep:

‘gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

You say you keep the Lord in your heart, but you must actually do it, not only say it. How do you keep the Lord in your heart? You must have space in your heart for that, but your hearts are full of other things – kanak, kamini, pratistha (desire for money, women and fame), kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy), rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (desire for enjoyment through eyes, tongue, nose, ears and skin). All these enemies are there in your heart. You call gurudev, ‘Can you come to my house, please?’ but if there is no place where one can sit in your house, where will your gurudev sit? In the same way, you must have some place in your heart for the Lord, but to do that, you must first clean your heart. You cannot clean your heart with a bar of soap or by bathing in the Ganges. You must clean your heart through sadhu-sanga and through the chanting of the Holy Name.

You cannot only dress as a sadhu – you must become a sadhu. Gurudev told that many people dress as sadhus, but how many people are there in this world who are genuine sadhus? There are many people who dress as sadhus, but we do not see them practising Krishna consciousness. If you are to practise Krishna consciousness, you must surrender at the lotus feet of the Lord.

Many blame the Lord, ‘Oh, the Lord is not taking care of Me!’ Why will the Lord take care of you? The Lord says in the scriptures, ‘I will not take care of you unless you become My devotee. If you become surrendered to Me, then:

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant enquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

You must surrender, you must make honest enquiry… We all have read this in Srimad Bhagavad-gita (many also pretend they read Gita), but we do not understand the meaning of what is written in Gita. The ultimate meaning of Gita is this:

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

‘Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

‘Leave all religions.’ There is a religion of a father; there is a religion of a mother; there is a religion of a friend; there is a religion of a wife; there is a religion of a daughter. The Lord says, ‘Leave all these religions and surrender to Me! I will take care of you!’ But how do you become surrendered? You have already sold your head in some other place! If you sell your head to Krishna, if you sell your head to gurudev, then you will not be able to keep your head in any other place. You will feel, ‘I have sold my head to Krishna, I cannot give my head to any other person’, or, ‘I have given my head to gurudev, and can I cannot give this head to any other person’, ‘I have given my heart, my mind, my body to gurudev.’ You have got this body, but what have you got it for? You must practise Krishna consciousness. Krishna consciousness is not some tradition. You must take it seriously.

(2/8) Quality Is Not Cheap

Krishna consciousness is not some tradition or custom. You must take it seriously. You think that you wake up at leisure in the morning, offer some flowers and do some puja at 10 o’clock, go to work, come back home in the evening, blow a conch, and that is puja. This is not Krishna consciousness (Hari-bhajan).

One time, somebody asked Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur a question. (I have written ‘108 Questions and Answers’ in Guidance 3. If you read it, you can find it there.) Many people blow the conch, put some flowers at gurudev’s feet – is this what Krishna consciousness is? No, it is not. This is not Krishna consciousness. It is mano-dharma (mental concoction).

‘dvaite’ bhadra-abhara-jnana, saba—mano-dharma
‘ei bhala, ei manda’—ei saba ‘bhrama’

‘The conceptions of good and bad are all a mental concoction. Saying, “This is good, and this is bad” is all a mistake.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.176)

‘I have just prayed to the Lord, and now I forget the Lord and worship Maya’ – this is what people think Krishna consciousness is about. But sadhus, gurus and surrendered souls always think about the Lord. They may work, run their business or do any other work, but they always think about the Lord.

There is another question also that Srila Prabhupad was asked: What is the duty of man? Srila Prabhupad replied:

Mahaprabhu teaches:

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

Our only duty is Hari-kirtan. If you always, constantly chant the Holy Name, then all other endeavours (enjoyment, search for liberation, and so on) will stop. Unless you always stay on the path of remembering the Lord, you will be enjoying your material life. If you do not know how every single thing is related to the Lord, you will feel no need for divine love. Foolish people pray for some material religion, things, money, lust, liberation. In the words of Sri Gaurasundar, these are the basic things taught to children, but He taught higher, the highest things. Upanisads and Gita are taught in the infant class, but if you want to enter higher studies, you must discuss Srimad Bhagavatam.

Who can chant kirtan? Those who can sing well? No. Only those who have the right to chant kirtan can chant kirtan. How does one earn that right? Those who can become humble and tolerant and can give honour to others get the right to chant kirtan. Nobody else has this right.

There is also another question: Are Kali, Krishna, Ganesh and others one and the same? No, they are not. One is jagat (world), and the other is Jagannath (master of the world). Jagat and Jagannath are not one and the same. Jagat is the material, mundane world, and Jagannath is the Lord. How can they be one and the same? You can make yoghurt, curd or condensed milk from milk, but you can never make milk from yoghurt. So, Krishna can become Kali, but Kali, Ganesh or Durga can never become Krishna. You must always remember this.

Many people do not understand this. They think that Krishna consciousness is like a fair. When people celebrate Durga-puja, they bring Durga, make a four-day festival (sasthi, saptami, astami, navami) and then throw her away. And here they are making Gopal-puja today – you bring Gopal, do puja, and that is it, finished! Devotion cannot come like this. This only destroys devotion. There is no use doing such ‘puja’. Even if you practise this your whole life, even if you practise this for ten million lifetimes, you will not get any result.

Devotees go district to district and turn people into devotees – this is how large nat-mandirs become full. (Have you been to Ekachakra this year? The temple has a very big nat-mandir, but it was full.) This is how devotees practise Krishna consciousness. They take Krishna consciousness seriously. They give up jungles and come here.

prema vanyaya nadiya bhasaila
ninduka-pasandi-gana dhaiya palaiya

‘When the Lord flooded Nadiya with divine love, all offenders and faithless people fled at once!’

All faithless people will run away, and those who are pure will stay. It is necessary to give up pretence and insincerity.

(3/8) Tie Your Mind

All of us have attended primary school. When you study in primary school, there are one–two hundred students (now even more), but when you progress to high school, only half of the students stay. After that, when you go to college, you may not find more than ten of the old students there. And when you go to university, only one of your old schoolmates may be there. So, many people come to dance and chant, but how many people are there who come to hear Hari-katha, who are thirsty for Hari-katha? Until and unless you are thirsty for Hari-katha, you cannot get real benefit. Just as mental hunger causes mental stress, in the same way spiritual hunger causes stress for the soul. So, those who listen to Hari-katha listen to it for the benefit of their souls. Srila Prabhupad also said that so many people come to the temple – when you chant kirtans, the hall is full, or when you make festivals, the place gets filled with people (you cook twenty quintals [2 tones] of rice, and everything is finished), but who of these people is hungry for food (bhojan), and who of them is hungry for spiritual life (bhajan)?

[His Divine Grace is distracted by some clamour] You must listen carefully, leave your phone. If you listen attentively, you can get benefit. What is the need to use your phone? You must leave all this in the drain! What is the use of your phone? I have written my Hari-katha in books. If you only read these books, you will get Hari-katha.

So, there is another questions here (Guidance 3, Chapter ‘108 Questions and Answers’): Is it devotion to imagine some idol of a God, offer Him flowers, Tulasi, ring the bell, recite verses in His praise and sit in front of Him and do japa, meditate? Answer: No, it is not. Have you heard it? All this is not devotion! You come to the Lord because you want something for your body, health or family. People come to the Lord, offer Him some flowers and recite some prayers for the welfare of their family, but the main thing should be devotion – you cannot get the Lord through fruitive actions (selfish work), knowledge or any austerities (mystic practices). It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, ‘How can you get the Lord? Through devotion.’ How does one get devotion? Through the pure association of pure devotees. If you associate with devotees, you will get devotion. If you keep listening to Hari-katha, you will gradually attain devotion. Ringing a bell, offering flowers, etc. – this is not devotion. Devotion comes from the heart. Every morning, when we wake up, we sing in one of the kirtans:

suddha bhakta-palana, suska-jnana-tadana,
chhala-bhakti-dusana-rama

‘Gauranga Mahaprabhu is the maintainer of pure devotees. He drives away dry knowledge and destroys the wickedness of false devotion.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

What people do in this world is pseudo-devotion. It is a pretence. There are such people in our country also. There are such people in Midnapore, and there are such people here, in Basirhat, also. People will grab your feet and wash them with tons of water, with tears flowing from their eyes and falling into the pots with water. Do they really cry for the Lord or is it a show to impress others? All this is crocodile tears! When I went to Midnapore, people actually queued in a long line to wash my feet, and when I became thirsty and asked them for a glass of water, one hour passed and no water came. Is that devotion? You can understand it yourself. That is why it is said: Is it devotion to imagine some idol of a God, offer Him flowers, Tulasi, ring the bell, recite verses in His praise and sit in front of Him and do japa, meditate? No, it is not. All this is not devotion.

Devotion means you must feed the Lord with much affection and care. You have nothing, you do not know any mantras – how many of us know anything about the right or wrong pronunciation? But when you feed your husband, you feed him with much affection and much care; you do not ring a bell to feed your husband, you do not recite any mantras to feed him. It is the same with the Lord. The Lord is your own. This is what you must think, and this is how you must love the Lord. The Lord is the master of your house – without offering it first to Him, we cannot even drink a glass of water. You must do arati at 4 o’clock, so wake up at 3 o’clock every day. But people sleep till 8 or 6 o’clock – they do not have time to wake up the Lord. Women usually wake up at 6, take a shower and, leaving all work aside, first send their husbands to work and children to school, then they go to the prayer room at 10 to ring the bell. Is that what you call devotion? This is not devotion!

‘gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

loka dekhana gora bhaja tilaka matra dhari’
gopanete atyachara gora dhare churi

‘You put on tilaks and show the whole world that you serve Gora, but secretly you do outrageous things. Gora will catch you out, thief (hypocrite)!’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6–7, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

‘If you stealthily behave bad, thinking that nobody will know about it, you are wrong – Gora will catch you out!’

We have unwanted, bad elements within us (anarthas). How will these elements go away? Why do we not feel any taste for chanting the Holy Name? Because we do not chant the pure Holy Name. When we chant the Holy Name on our beads, no matter how much we chant, other thoughts always come to our minds. ‘Oh, my son has gone out. Is he all right or not?’, ‘My husband has gone to work. Is he all right or not?’, ‘This person went to see a doctor. Are they all right or not?’, ‘Where will I find money to buy food tomorrow? I must think of something.’ Is it so or not? You can never chant the Holy Name like this. But Srila Prabhupad said that if you chant the Holy Name loudly, forcefully, then your mind will not go in a bad direction. You can chant loudly on your beads or without them. If you chant loudly, you will see that other thoughts will not be coming to your mind so much (this bad tendency will slowly go away). That is why Srila Prabhupad advised to chant the Holy Name loudly. We get shy that others will hear us chanting, that we will disturb others, but you must not get shy – you must be firm, ‘No! I will chant loudly!’ If you do this, your mind will not be scattered everywhere, it will not go in any other direction.

(4/8) Ask Your Heart

One time, somebody asked Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur: Is there difference between service to Krishna, service to Krishna’s devotee and Nama-sankirtan? Srila Prabhupad replied: Although they are different, their purpose is one.

You can often see that when you ask somebody to cook, they say, ‘No, no! I am doing mala now [I am chanting on my beads]!’ They make an offence. The Lord needs service. It is necessary to cook and offer bhoga to the Lord, it is necessary to feed the Lord. If I sit and chant on the beads the whole day, who will cook then? Who will clean the vegetables? Who will wash the dishes? That is why the purpose is one. If you cook for the Lord, you are doing Nama-sankirtan through that. If you serve devotees, you are automatically serving Krishna. What does Krishna Himself say? He says, ‘If you serve My devotee, you will be automatically serving Me.’ If you read Srimad Bhagavad-gita, you can find it there. I am not reciting the particular verse now because you will not understand the Sanskrit, but the gist of Gita is this: ’If you serve My devotee, you will be automatically serving Me.’ There is no problem with that. You must remember this. If you serve devotees today, you are automatically serving Krishna.

There are many good questions and answers in Guidance 3. If we do not read them and do not understand them nicely, we will not be able to do anything. That is why Guru Maharaj said: there is quality, and there is quantity. It is necessary to practise Krishna consciousness yourself, and do it properly, genuinely. Even then, Srila Prabhupad said: among ten million of karmis, you can get one jnani; among ten thousand jnanis, you will get one liberated person; and among ten million liberated souls, you will get only one devotee of Krishna. But even if there is only one devotee of Krishna in the entire universe, that single devotee of Krishna can rescue the entire universe (visva-brahmanda). But our hearts, our minds, our entire beings are not attracted, not drawn to Krishna consciousness. We are not attracted to devotion. Our hearts and minds do not go in this direction.

How many times we have been coming to this world?!

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 Visnu Purana)

You have already heard this. I have told it to you so many times. We have been born 900,000 times in water (as fish, crocodile, shark and other aquatic species). We have been born as trees, plants, mountains and other non-moving entities 2,000,000 times. We have been born as worms, insects, spiders and other species like that 1,100,000 times. We have been born as birds, flying in the sky, 1,000,000 times. We have been born as animals (cows, goats, sheep and all other species) 3,000,000 times. And we have also been born as humans 400,000 times. But:

bharata-bhumite haila manusya janma yara
janma sarthaka kari’ kara para-upakara

‘One who has taken birth as a human being in the land of India should take advantage of this birth by bringing benefit to others.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.9.41)

What is benefit to others? This is what we do not understand. We say, ‘Love all souls.’ Are souls only humans? We do not understand what it means to show compassion, love for the soul. Mahaprabhu told Srila Sanatan Goswami,

jive daya name ruchi vaisnava seva
iha bahi sanatana nahi ara dharma

‘Be merciful to the souls, chant the Holy Name happily and serve Vaishnavs. Sanatan, except for this, there is no other religion.’

You must be kind to jivas, you must have taste for chanting the Holy Name, and you must serve Vaishnavs. There is no other religion beyond that. It is necessary to bring the souls who have turned away from Krishna to this path. This is how we must practise Krishna consciousness…

(5/8) Tired of Struggling?

We must practise Krishna consciousness with religious determination and firmness (nistha), but the problem is that we cannot give up small things, cannot genuinely come to the pure path.

We blame the Lord, ‘Oh, the Lord is not taking care of me! The Lord is giving me hardships!’ But the Lord wants to take us to Himself – through a little bit of sadness, pain, hardships and suffering, He will wash and clean us and take us to Himself. The more you suffer, the more mercy you have. You will struggle with food, clothes and other things, and the more you will call out to the Lord, the more austerity He will give you! You must remember this! You will get austerity! But if you get this austerity and pass all the tests successfully, you can come to the Lord! You can reach your own home!

What do sadhus come to you for? Genuine sadhus come to tell you about all this, and they ask you to bring people to this path. If even only one person comes to this path to practise Krishna consciousness, it brings enormous benefit. Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that instead of making ten million hospitals, instead of tending to ten million patients, you will get ten million times more benefit if you bring to this path just one person who is averse to Krishna. It is necessary to become real sadhus, real devotees. We are living now only thinking about our own happiness and enjoyment.

krsna-bahirmukha hana bhoga vanchha kare
nikatastha maya tare japatiya dhare

‘When souls become averse to Krishna and desire enjoyment, Maya, who is always nearby, pounces on them.’

(Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.2, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

Maya is always near, and she slowly, slowly comes and grasps those souls who live enjoying and who desire enjoyment. If you want to enjoy, thinking, ‘What will I eat?’, ‘What will I wear?’, ‘How will I sleep?’, ‘Where will I live?’ (if you always only think about yourself), then the Lord says, ‘I will not think about you. I will not worry about you. But if you leave everything to Me, I will take care of you.’ That is why it is said:

sad-anga saranagati haibe yanhara
tanhara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

‘Lord Krishna hears the prayers of those who surrender in six ways.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When Duhsasan and Duryodhan tried to disrobe Draupadi, Draupadi tried to protect herself by pulling on her clothes and trying to resist the assault. The Lord did not protect her. Then, seeing that she could not protect herself, she raised one arm in prayer to the Lord and was still trying to keep her clothes on with her other hand. The Lord did not protect her even then. When she finally became hopeless, she called out to the Lord with both her hands upraised, letting off her clothes – she surrendered everything to the Lord, ‘Prabhu, You are mine, and I am Yours. Only You can protect me, nobody else can’ – then the Lord actually entered her clothes and made so that no matter how much Duhsasan and Duryodhan were pulling and pulling the cloth, it never finished.

The Lord has sent Kali-yuga to this world, and He has also sent Maya. Maya Devi cheats us and keeps us away from the Lord’s service. She removes us and keeps us away from the Lord, but if we become genuinely surrendered, Maya will run far away from us. Krishna created Maya, and it is said:

krsna bhuli’ sei jiva—anadi bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsara-duhkha

‘Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

Because we have forgotten the Lord, we are now suffering from the three-fold miseries in this world. The only way for us to save ourselves from this suffering is to take shelter at the holy lotus feet of the Lord. ‘Bhagavata pada Vaisnavera sthane, ekanta asraya kara Chaitanya-charane! Read Bhagavatam under the guidance of bona fide Vaishnavs and take shelter at Mahaprabhu’s lotus feet!’ We must read Bhagavatam among Vaishnavs, and we must take shelter of Mahaprabhu’s lotus feet.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

Let us chant some kirtan now.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Sri Guru-charana-padma’ and continues the class.]

(6/8) Proper Worship

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’

svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari

‘To bestow His mercy to jiva souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Sri Krishna Chaitanya means the Supreme Lord. When Nimai Vishvambhar took sannyas, His name became Sri Krishna Chaitanya. ‘Chaitanya’ means Krishna who comes to this world to awaken jiva souls’ consciousness (chetan). To bestow His mercy on living entities, He comes to this world together with His associates (parsada). All the associates who performed their pastimes with Krishna in Dvapar-yuga came in this Kali-yuga with Mahaprabhu.

Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is a combined form of Sri Sri Radha Krishna – He is Krishna who has taken the heart and halo of Sri Radha. We sing in one of the kirtans:

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

‘If you did not become devoted to the worship of Srimati Radharani, your worship of Krishna was in vain.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

They are making a festival for Gopal here, but if you do not worship Srimati Radharani and only keep saying, ‘Gopal, Gopal’, what result will you get? In Mahaprabhu’s time, there was a devotee called Vallabha Bhatta Goswami who always chanted the Name of Gopal and worshipped Gopal. He was very proud of his commentary on Bhagavatam, but he did not respect Sridhar Swami’s commentary. Mahaprabhu said:

prabhu hasi’ kahe,—‘swami na mane yei jana
vesyara bhitare tare kariye ganana’

‘Smiling, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu replied, “If one does not accept Swami [Husband] as an authority, I consider them a prostitute.”’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrta, 3.7.115)

When the wife does not respect and obey her husband, what do you call such a woman? A prostitute. So, when Vallabha Bhatta Goswami said, ‘My commentary on Bhagavatam is better than Sridhar Swami’s!’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘If one does not respect Swami [the husband or, in another way, Sridhar Swami], then such a person is like a prostitute.’ After that conversation with Mahaprabhu, Vallabha Bhatta left his worship of Bala Gopal and started to worship Sri Sri Radha Govinda. If you read Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, you can find this pastime there.

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

‘If you did not become devoted to the worship of Srimati Radharani, your worship of Krishna was in vain.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must worship Radharani. At the same time, who has taken Radharani’s mood? Who embodies Her mood? Gauranga. Therefore, if we do not worship Gauranga, if we do not worship Nityananda, we can never come to Radharani. ’Nitaiyer karuna habe Vraje Radha Krsna pabe: when Nitai bestows His mercy, you will reach Radha-Krishna in Vraja’ (Srila Narottam Das Thakur).

The religion of Dvapar-yuga was archan and puja, but the religion of Kali-yuga is Harinam-sankirtan. So, if you do not practise chanting the Holy Name, then what can we say? Nityananda Prabhu is guru-tattva – ‘Guru bade Gauranga bhaje, sei papi raurave padi maje: the sinner who worships Gauranga without the guru falls into a terrible hell.’

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

‘If you did not become devoted to the worship of Srimati Radharani, your worship of Krishna was in vain.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It means that we must become devotees of Gauranga. Before you become a devotee of Krishna, you must become a devotee of Gauranga. What does Krishna Himself say? ‘Those who say they are My devotees, are not My devotees. Those who are My devotees’ devotees, are My real devotees.’ Identifying Himself with the ego of a devotee (bhakta-abhiman), Mahaprabhu personally said, ‘I am devotees’ devotees’ devotee!’

naham vipro na cha nara-patir napi vaisyo na sudro
naham varni na cha grha-patir no vanastho yatir va
kintu prodyan-nikhila-paramananda-purnamrtabdher
gopi-bhartuh pada-kamalayor dasa-dasanudasah

‘I am not a brahman, not a ksatriya, not a vaisya, not a sudra; neither am I a brahmachari, a householder, a vanaprastha or a sannyasi. I identify Myself as a servant of the servant of the servant of the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krishna, who is the beloved of the gopis, an ocean of nectar, eternally self-effulgent (self-manifest) and filled with the entire scope of all possible highest ecstasy.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.13.80)

This is how Mahaprabhu worshipped the Lord. Do you understand it?

(7/8) Watch the Road

Wha happens to those who do not understand what Krishna consciousness is, who do not follow the proper line? What happens when a train derails? It falls over. So, if we go off track – if we stop following the line of devotion – we will fall over into a hole. We must follow the proper line that is described by the Bhagavatam.

krsna-varnam tvisakrsnam sangopangastra-parsadam
yajnaih sankirtana-prayair yajanti hi su-medhasah

‘In this Age of Kali, intelligent souls will always worship Sri Gaurasundar through sankirtan-yajna (the sacrifice of chanting the Holy Names). He appears as dark-complexioned (Krishna) but with a non-dark, or golden, halo (couched in the heart and halo of Sri Radha). Together with His associates, He searches for Krishna by chanting His Holy Names. His limbs (anga) are Sriman Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Advaita Prabhu; His accessory limbs (upanga) are Srivas Acharya and all pure devotees; His weapons (astra) are the words of the Holy Name; and His associates (parsada) are Sri Gadadhar, Sri Svarup Damodar, Ramananda, Sanatan, Rupa and others.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 11.5.32)

This means that Krishna steals Radharani’s colour and mood and appears in this Kali-yuga as Gauranga Mahaprabhu. We always say, ‘Krishna, Krishna’, but the worship of Radha-Krishna is the highest subject matter.

matala hari-jana kirtana-range
pujala raga-patha gaurava-bhange

‘We will worship the path of raga-marga (spontaneous loving service) from afar and live in adherence to the Vedic rules and regulations.’

(Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

If you step into raga-marga first, the seed of your devotional creeper will be destroyed.

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.’

mali hana kare sei bija aropana
sravana-kirtana-jale karaye sechana

‘As gardeners, they plant this seed and water it with sravan (hearing) and kirtan (chanting, practising).’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.19.151–152)

You can nourish your seed by watering it with sravan (hearing) and kirtan (chanting, practising), but if you pour too much water, your seed will rot and die. This is what sahajiyas do. They pour too much water, and their devotion becomes destroyed. There is no devotion in sahajiya (imitation). What they show is called chhala-bhakti (pretence of devotion).

suddha bhakta-palana, suska-jnana-tadana,
chhala-bhakti-dusana-rama

‘Gauranga Mahaprabhu is the maintainer of pure devotees. He drives away dry knowledge and destroys the wickedness of false devotion.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must know the proper line of Krishna consciousness.

In the kirtan we were singing, it is said that Mahaprabhu comes together with His associates. The next question that can arise is how can we come to the Lord?

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to have humility and surrender.

diksa-kale bhakta kare atma-samarpana
sei-kale krsna tare kare atma-sama

‘Devotees submit their entire being when they take initiation. At this time, Krishna accepts them as His very own.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.192)

We think that initiation means just getting the beads. ‘I have got the mantra, so I have taken initiation.’ No! It is necessary to surrender yourself. Initiation (diksa) means divine knowledge (divya-jnan). Do we have divine knowledge? We have so much material knowledge, but do we have divine knowledge? Many people have taken initiation, many people have much material knowledge, but how many people actually have divine knowledge?

diksa-kale bhakta kare atma-samarpana
sei-kale krsna tare kare atma-sama

‘Devotees submit their entire being when they take initiation. At this time, Krishna accepts them as His very own.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.192)

What is initiation? It means surrendering everything and leaving both enjoyment (bhoga-tyaga) and renunciation (tyaga-tyaga). How do you renounce renunciation? For example, you are following ekadasi and thinking, ‘I will get this result,’ or you are practising Krishna consciousness thinking, ‘I am practising because I will get this result.’ We must leave such thoughts. Do not do something in the hope of getting something in return. This hope that ‘I will get something’ means lust. Devotees never want anything. Genuine devotees want only one thing: they want love for the Lord. They always think, ‘How can I please the Lord?’

(8/8) Regulated Life

[Distracted by something, His Divine Grace comments] People are so worried about the vaccine now. Some disease comes, they create a vaccine. Another disease comes, they again have to create another vaccine. People spend their entire lives only talking and thinking about vaccine, vaccine, vaccine; but you will not hear ‘Hare Krishna’ come out of their mouths even once…

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

‘(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must do that which is favourable to devotion.

Listen carefully. If you listen once nicely and remember it, you will get a good result.

What do you usually do? You do what is favourable to devotion, and at the same time, you also do what is unfavourable to devotion. People say, ‘I will eat meat, and I will chant the Holy Name!’ It is the same as saying, ‘I will drink liquor, and I will take medicine!’ Will your disease be cured like that? It will not. Suppose you have a problem with bloating, or gas, in your stomach. If you continue eating spicy food, chilli and other unfavourable things, thinking, ‘It is OK, I will just take the medicine,’ will you get red of your illness like that? Suppose you have blood sugar. You take the medicine, and you also eat sweets and potato. Will that help you? It will not. So, when the doctor tells you, ‘Do not eat this, do not do this, this and this,’ you must follow the doctor’s advice and take medicine, then you will be cured. Our medicine is chanting the Holy Name, and alongside that, we must also follow a wholesome, healthy ‘diet’. You think that you can chant the Holy Name and eat meat, but:

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

What you chant may sound like ‘Hare Krishna’, but it is not the Holy Name proper. It is said in the scriptures that we must do that which is favourable to devotion and we must reject that which is unfavourable to devotion.

When you come to a doctor, the doctor will tell you, ‘Do not eat this.’ Depending on your disease, the doctor will give you recommendations and prescribe some medicine. If you have blood sugar, the doctor will prescribe you one medicine; if you have some other disease, the doctor will prescribe you another medicine, and so on. Why do people these days have a heart attack at a very young age? They eat much oily, fried food, much paneer and other unhealthy foods that increase their cholesterol. People do not walk, do not exercise, do not work hard. This is how cholesterol increases and people end up having a stroke or a heart attack… So, if you come to a doctor, the doctor gives you some recommendations and prescribes some medicine, but if you do not follow all this properly, if you do not understand the importance of following what the doctor says, you will end up doing both what is favourable and what is unfavourable. Suppose you are doing a yajna – you put some ghee into the fire, and then you put some water into the fire. You will not be able to do any yajna in this way. So, you think, ‘I will eat everything,’ but you all know that every action has an equal opposite reaction – that which you are eating in this birth will later come to eat you.

I have told this to you all before.

If I were to come here, to Basirhat, and tell everyone, ‘Eat whatever your soul wants! Drink liquor! Smoke ganja! Do whatever you want!’ you will see so many people will come to take initiation. There is a system, and it is necessary to follow this system. The scriptures say that when such do-whatever-you-like gurus take disciples, both the guru and the disciples go to hell. This is written Srimad Bhagavatam. Such gurus clear your path to hell. This is what is called sahajiya.

* * *

￼Line Line28 February 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sevak Bhavan, Kolkata

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/7) Overflowing and Grand Festival

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan Dham, Sri Mathura ki jay.
Sri Ekachakra Dham ki jay.
Jay Sri Sri Guru Gaura Nityananda jiu ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
All the sannyasi, brahmachari, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

I am very happy to see you all after one week. I was very busy with the festival of Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance day in Sri Ekachakra Dham last week. So many devotees came to this festival. There were crowds and crowds of people. This is first time such a great crowd has come since last Gaura Purnima and the beginning of the pandemic situation. Even the local government had to stop all traffic in the area because the streets were overcrowded. So many devotees came to Sri Ekachakra Dham to observe this day, and so many devotees also stayed at our temple.

The temple was overflowing with devotees. So many people came from all over Bengal, and outside also (Jharkhand and other areas), and stayed for four–five days, joining this holy appearance day.

I came back to Dum Dum Park (Kolkata) last night. I had a preaching programme scheduled in Basirhat today, so I went there in the morning and came back at about four o’clock. I must go for preaching to another place tomorrow also. Anyhow, I am very happy that all devotees joined this festival, chanted kirtan, listened to the class, took prasadam, joined the programme. So many thousands of devotees came. Not just a few thousand – many thousands of devotees joined the appearance day of Sri Nityananda Prabhu this year. The temple was overflowing with people. This is only the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu and the mercy of Gurudev.

We also went on the parikrama with so many people joining us. There were no outside people during this festival – mostly only devotees joined it. The number of devotees at the parikrama of Ekachakra Dham was huge, more than even at Gaura Purnima time! But I am also very sad because many foreign devotees could not join this parikrama and the appearance festival…

Still, I know you made this festival in your houses. I have seen some photographs from various countries. I saw that devotees had made festivals, and even if they made a small festival in their own house or at the temple in their country, that is their happiness…

I was very tired after the festival, and I am also a little tired today, but I meet with you all every Sunday, and I do not want to miss this holy meeting with you all. That is why I did not schedule any programmes for this evening.

(2/7) Mission in Sri Ekachakra Dham

Nityananda Prabhu bestowed His mercy all over the world. Our Param Gurudev, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, was first to recognise that Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad is a saktya-vesha avatar of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. He gave this title to Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad.

We can see the influence of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu even in Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s life also. When he got a message from Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur and finished his bhajan in Nandagram (Pavan Sarovar), he came to Koladwip (Nabadwip) and opened a centre called Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. After that, many godbrothers and many followers wanted to receive sannyas or diksa initiation from Srila Sridhar Maharaj, but Srila Sridhar Maharaj did not agree to do that. Then, one day, he went to Ekachakra to ask Sriman Nityananda Prabhu whether he should give initiation or not. When he came there and asked Sriman Nityananda Prabhu for His mercy, Sriman Nityananda Prabhu told him, ‘You have already got so much mercy from Bhagavan Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. First distribute the mercy you have got, then you can come and ask Me for mercy.’ After that, Srila Sridhar Maharaj came back to the temple and started to give initiations and sannyas.

We can understand from all this how glorious Sriman Nityananda Prabhu is. I have also heard from Gurudev that in Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s time the temple condition was very poor. In the beginning, Sripad Sakhi Charan Prabhu Bhakti Vijay (a disciple of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur and a godbrother of Srila Sridhar Maharaj) used to give Srila Sridhar Maharaj ten rupees per month for the expenses of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. Saving something from that money, Srila Sridhar Maharaj posted a five-rupee money order to Ekachakra on every appearance day festival of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. I heard about this from Gurudev.

I came to Ekachakra for the first time in 2004. Gurudev also visited Ekachakra. Before starting his world tour, Gurudev went to preach in a village near Ekachakra, and at that time he came to visit Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s appearance place and offer his obeisance there. Gurudev started his world tours in 1992, so this was 1989 or 1990. When I came to Ekachakra with some foreign devotees in 2004, I wanted to make a branch of Chaitanya Saraswat Math there, but Gurudev did not agree so much. But when Gurudev went on his last world tour in 2007, he fell very sick – at that time, he called me from America and gave me permission to try to buy a land in Nityananda Prabhu’s place and start the mission’s branch there.

I bought the land where our temple stands in January 2008. That year, the land was vacant, and we made a festival programme in a pandal. Gurudev saw the programme through live video broadcast, and he was very happy. He was always very eager to come to Ekachakra, but due to his health condition he could not come. But he saw the guesthouse building [through photographs and video recordings]. He told me, ‘Before making the temple, you must first make a guesthouse for devotees. Its name will be Sri Sri Hadai Pandit Padmavati Smriti Kunja.’ This is how Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math happened in Ekachakra.

The temple was finished and the Deities were inaugurated after Gurudev left this world. The Deities in Ekachakra are Sri Sri Guru Gaura Nityananda jiu (Gaura-Nitai). They are very beautiful and very big. Everybody knows it, everybody has seen Them. Actually, Gurudev gave the size measurement for the Deities, it was not my idea. Gurudev made the Deities of the actual size as Gauranga and Nityananda are. Gurudev also personally chose the person who would make the Deities and gave the measurements to that man. It is all Gurudev’s vision – everything is coming from Gurudev. The Deities in Ekachakra manifested Themselves in a very beautiful form. All acharyas from various Gaudiya Maths, including ISKCON, have seen those Deities, and they were all very impressed to have the darshan of Sri Sri Guru Gaura Nityananda jiu. This is how Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Sri Ekachakra Dham appeared…

(3/7) Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s Line

Srila Sridhar Maharaj glorified Sriman Nityananda Prabhu in his poem Sriman Nityananda Dvadasakam. Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur composed Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, where he profusely glorified Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami expressed Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s glorification in his Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. Advaita Prabhu sang Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s stuti (glorification). Even Sriman Mahaprabhu Himself glorified Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. You know about it. So many nice things are told about Sriman Nityananda Prabhu.

Mahaprabhu said to the effect, ‘If somebody worships Nityananda Prabhu, it is the same as worshipping Me, but if somebody worships Nityananda Prabhu, it pleases Me more than anything else.’ This Sriman Nityananda Prabhu in turn says, ‘You can buy Me if you worship Gauranga!’

Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur composed Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, where he described Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s glorification in a very nice way. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami also says, ‘By the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, I have got Vrindavan, I have got Rupa, Sanatan, Jiva Goswami, Raghunath Das Goswami – I have got the mercy of every great Vaishnav by the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu!’

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami was born and lived most of his life in Jhamatpur Baharan. This place is situated a little far from Nabadwip – it is two train stations after Katwa, the place where Mahaprabhu took sannyas. One time, Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami’s brother arranged some kirtan at their house and engaged a brahman called Gunarnav Misra to do the puja. In the meantime, a servant of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu called Ramdas Minaketan came to their house, but Gunarnav Misra showed no respect to him – everybody treated Ramdas Minaketan respectfully except for Gunarnav Misra. Understanding that Gunarnav Misra did not like him because he was a servant of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu, Ramdas Minaketan was very unhappy. Later, he spoke to Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami. He said, ‘What is your brother doing?! This is ardha-kukkuti nyaya (half-hen logic)! He worships Gauranga but does not worship Nityananda! What is this? It is not good for him!’ In the evening, Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami quarrelled with his brother. He told him straight, ‘What are you doing? You are wrong! You have arranged some kirtan where Nityananda Prabhu is not respected! It is not good. What you are doing is all bogus! You say you obey Gauranga, but you do not obey Nityananda. It is not good for your life.’ That night, Nityananda Prabhu personally came to Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami in a dream and said to him, ‘Krishna Das, wake up, wake up! Come to Vrindavan, do not stay here in Jhamatpur with your brother. His association is bad.’ In the morning, Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami left his home and went to Vrindavan, despite his old age. And it was there, in Vrindavan, that he composed Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. As you know, at the end of each and every chapter he famously wrote:

sri-rupa-raghunatha-pade yara asa
chaitanya-charitamrta kahe krsna-dasa

‘Always desiring the lotus feet of Sri Rupa and Raghunath, Krishna Das is narrating this Chaitanya-charitamrita.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.1.110; repeated at the end of every chapter)

There are so many pastimes related to Sriman Nityananda Prabhu…

Another time, a brahman came to Mahaprabhu and criticised Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. Mahaprabhu stopped him, ‘Listen, brahman. Even if Nityananda Prabhu takes a Muslim woman and drinks alcohol, He is still worshippable – even Lord Brahma will worship Him! Go and tell all citizens of Nabadwip what I have told you about Nityananda Prabhu!’

Later, following Mahaprabhu’s advice, Sriman Nityananda Prabhu accepted Jahnava Devi and Vasudha Devi. Both of them were His sakti (potencies) even before, so their relationship is not like mundane married life that we know in this world. They were daughters of Gauri Das Pandit’s brother Surya Das Sarkhel from Kalna. Nityananda Prabhu accepted his two daughters, Jahnava and Vasudha, as His wives, but they are His eternal sakti.

Nobody knows how or when Sriman Nityananda Prabhu disappeared – nobody knows where He went bodily. He finished His lila and left. After that, Jahnava Devi continued Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s line. She also took disciples. Vasudha Devi’s son, Virachandra Prabhu, took initiation from Jahnava Devi. In the end, when Jahnava Devi went to Vrindavan, Virachandra Prabhu held and carried Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s line. This is how this line continued. Moreover, we call the village where Nityananda Prabhu was born Ekachakra Dham, but it is actually officially known as Virachandrapur…

(4/7) Sriman Nityananda Prabhu: Ocean of Mercy

So many things happened in Nityananda Prabhu’s pastimes…

Every time we go for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, we always come to see the place where Mahaprabhu first met with Nityananda Prabhu. That place is Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan, where Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj’s temple is now. When Nityananda Prabhu came to that place, Mahaprabhu told everybody, ‘You must go and search Him out! Some big personality has come to Mayapur! Go and find Him!’ Devotees went to look for that great personality, but nobody could find Him – Sriman Nityananda Prabhu is very mystic, esoteric, so nobody can find Him so easily. Then, Mahaprabhu went to search Him out Himself. He knew everything, so He went straight to Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan. Eka-i dehe dui rupa: Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu are One. They are non-different from each other, only One is ashraya-vigraha (the embodiment of shelter), and the other One is visaya-vigraha (the embodiment of a worshippable Deity). To satisfy and nourish Their pastimes, They become two: one is Gauranga, and one is Nityananda.

There are many pastimes that happened in Mayapur after Their meeting. When Nityananda Prabhu came to Mayapur, He lived in the house of Srivas Pandit, and He would call Srivas Pandit’s wife Malini Devi ‘mother’. Not only that, although she was a very old lady at that time, when she heard Nityananda Prabhu calling her ‘ma’ (mother), milk would flow from her breasts. She felt an extremely strong parental affection for Nityananda Prabhu. One time, Srivas Pandit’s wife Malini Devi was cleaning Deities’ paraphernalia when a crow came and took away a pot. She began to cry, but Nityananda Prabhu said, ‘Mother, do not cry – I will tell the crow, and it will give it back!’ And that happened.

Another time, when Nityananda Prabhu came to the house of Sri Advaita Prabhu, He had a fight with Sri Advaita Prabhu! Nityananda Prabhu was hungry that day. When Sri Advaita Prabhu gave Him some prasad, He ate everything and demanded more, but Sri Advaita Prabhu said, ‘I am a very poor brahman, and You are eating too much! Where will I find more food for You?’ Hearing this, Nityananda Prabhu took some prasad and threw it into Advaita Prabhu’s face, saying, ‘You have invited Me, but you are not feeding Me! You are giving Me only half-stomach prasad!’ Such was their sweet pastime of playful fighting.

Actually, Nityananda Prabhu is known as avadhut. ‘Ava’ means ‘very fallen souls’ and ‘dhut’ means ‘cleaning’ – He who cleans fallen souls, who gives mercy to fallen souls is called avadhut.

samsarera para hai’ bhaktira sagare
ye dubibe, se bhajuka nitai-chandere

‘If you desire to cross the ocean of material existence and dive into the ocean of devotion, may you serve Sri Nitaichand!’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.1.77)

uttama, adhama, kichhu na kare vichara
ye age padaye, tare karaye nistara

‘Nityananda Prabhu does not judge who is good and who is bad: He saves anyone who falls before Him.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.5.208)

When somebody comes to Mahaprabhu, Mahaprabhu judges whether they follow all the rules and regulations properly or not, He sees what they do. Mahaprabhu’s judgement is quite strict, but Nityananda Prabhu does not judge anyone – He embraces whoever comes to Him and pays obeisance to Him. His personality is like that. Nityananda Prabhu accepts even those whom Mahaprabhu cannot accept – then, even Mahaprabhu cannot avoid such persons. Mahaprabhu says, ‘If Nityananda Prabhu has accepted this person, then what can I do? I cannot shun away from them now.’ So, when Nityananda Prabhu accepts somebody, Mahaprabhu cannot reject them – He cannot give any objection.

As you know, in Treta-yuga, Nityananda Prabhu came as Laksman, Lord Ramachandra’s younger brother. At that time, Ramachandra followed many rules and regulations very strictly – so much so that He even went to live in the forest without giving any objection to His father’s decision. Laksman tolerated everything because He could not cross His elder brother. So, when Lord Ramachandra, Laksman’s elder brother, decided to go to the forest with Sita Devi, Laksman had to go too. Lord Rama did not ask Sita Devi to go with Him – she said that she wanted to go with Him to serve Him. Laksman went with them to serve Lord Rama, too. Kaikeyi also actually wanted only Ramachandra to go to the forest, but Laksman and Sita Devi went with Him of their own accord… So, Ramachandra is sometimes very strict, He is maryada-purusottama (the Supreme Personality of Godhead who strictly follows all moral rules). Later, to please His kingdom’s subjects, He put Sita Devi into fire and even sent her to live in the forest! Although it was unbearable for Laksman, He could not protest because He was younger. That is why in the Ages of Dvapar and Kali, He comes as elder to the Lord (as Balaram and Nityananda, respectively). Laksman said, ‘I do not want to be Your younger brother again! I want to be elder!’ So, in Dvapar-yuga, when Lord Krishna sometimes did something naughty, Baladev could chastise Him and even give Him a slap. He is elder, so He can control the Lord. In the same way, Nityananda Prabhu also sometimes crosses Mahaprabhu – Mahaprabhu can be strict, but Nityananda Prabhu is always merciful…

One time, Nityananda Prabhu came to Sachi Mata’s house stark naked. Sachi Mata and Vishnupriya Devi were there. Seeing Nityananda Prabhu come in like that, they quickly hid in another room. Mahaprabhu put His own cloth on Nityananda Prabhu to cover Him. Nityananda Prabhu came like a child, a baby without any clothes on. Such things happened sometimes in His pastimes.

You know the pastimes of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami and Sri Sivananda Sen. One time, Sivananda Sen was going to Puri with all the devotees and Nityananda Prabhu. Nityananda Prabhu was going first, and at some point He felt very hungry. Sivananda Sen was walking far behind, and by the time He reached Nityananda Prabhu, Nityananda Prabhu had lost His patience and cursed Sivananda Sen’s two sons to die. Sivananda Sen’s wife was there, and when she heard it, she began to cry. When Sivananda Sen came, he paid a full obeisance to the Lord and apologised for coming late. In return, Nityananda Prabhu kicked him – Nityananda Prabhu put His leg on Sivananda Sen’s head! Such was His mercy. Sivananda Sen began to jump out of intense joy, but his nephew Srikantha got angry. He rushed to Mahaprabhu to complain about Nityananda Prabhu, but when he came to Mahaprabhu, he could not do that.

Another time, Mahaprabhu wanted to test Srivas Pandit. He told him, ‘Listen, Srivas, you are giving shelter to Nityananda Prabhu in your house, but you do not know where He is from, who He is. What if some problem comes, what will you do then?’ Srivas Pandit replied, ‘Oh, so You are testing me! I know why You are asking me this: You want to see how much I love Nityananda Prabhu, You want to see how much affection I have for Him!’ Mahaprabhu was very happy to hear that.

You also know the story of Jagai and Madhai. Mahaprabhu rejected Madhai, but Nityananda Prabhu accepted him. Mahaprabhu said, ‘I will not forgive him, I will not save him because he has beaten My friend!’ But Nityananda Prabhu earnestly appealed to Mahaprabhu, ‘Please, save him! You have come to this world as a patita-pavan, saviour of the fallen. If You do not rescue him, who will do it?’ Nityananda Prabhu accepted Madhai, and He begged Mahaprabhu on behalf of Madhai. Such is the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu. He is guru-tattva, ashraya-vigraha (He embodies shelter and the guru). The Lord may not tolerate something, but Vaishnavs and the guru accept everybody.

There are so many pastimes of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu… You know what happened in Srila Raghunath Das Goswami’s life. He could not overcome Maya, but after he had arranged the chira-dahi mahotsav in Panihati, it became possible for him to overcome Maya. He did vaishnav-seva on the order of Nityananda Prabhu, and Nityananda Prabhu put His leg on his head. This is how Nityananda Prabhu bestowed His mercy on Srila Raghunath Das Goswami.

There are also many pastimes of Nityananda Prabhu that happened in Sri Ekachakra Dham. One time, some dacoits came to Ekachakra. They wanted to rob Nityananda Prabhu’s house. The first night, when they were about to do so, many insects and a dust storm attacked them – they could not see anything around them, so they did not go there. When they wanted to break into the house on the second day, they saw all the roads had become flooded, and because there was water everywhere, they could not go there again. On the third day, they saw many guards at the house, and they could not break into the house again. Finally, on the fourth day, the dacoits became blind. Then they understood their mistake. They came to Nityananda Prabhu and prayed to Him, ‘Please forgive our offence. We wanted to burgle Your house. Please forgive us!’ Nityananda Prabhu said, ‘All right, I can forgive your offence. Do you want to do some service here?’ The dacoits said, ‘Yes, we do!’ What service did Nityananda Prabhu give them? He said, ‘There are many dacoits in this area. You must covert and purify them! Bring them to the proper line. This is your service.’

Another time, there happened one pastime at the land of Nityananda Prabhu’s father (it is near our temple). The land was used for cultivation, and many labour workers were employed to do the farming. One day, Nityananda Prabhu’s mother, Sri Padmavati Devi, sent her son (He was eleven–twelve years old at that time) to the field with a bucket of rice for the workers. On His way to the field, Nityananda Prabhu suddenly felt very hungry, so He ate all that rice. (He alone ate twelve people’s rice!) Later that day, the workers came to Sri Padmavati Devi and Sri Hadai Pandit to complain, ‘You have not sent any food for us today! We cannot work like this!’ Sri Padmavati Devi was surprised, ‘I did send food for you with Nitai.’ Then she asked Nityananda Prabhu, ‘Nitai, what happened? I sent that rice with You…’ Nityananda Prabhu told the truth, ‘I was very hungry, so I ate it!’

There are so many pastimes in Sri Ekachakra Dham. Nityananda Prabhu performed so many pastimes in His childhood there. Eventually, one day, a sannyasi came to Sri Hadai Pandit and Sri Padmavati Devi. Generally, when a sannyasi comes, he does not leave the house without taking something. That sannyasi begged Sri Hadai Pandit and Sri Padmavati Devi for their son…

(5/7) Sri Ekachakra Festival: Beyond Imagination

In the end, our big festival lasted four days – ekadasi, dvadasi, trayodasi and chaturdasi. Everybody started coming one day before ekadasi. It is very difficult to handle so many people. One thousand kilograms of rice was cooked on Nityananda-trayodasi. Prasad was served beginning from twelve o’clock until six o’clock in the evening, and many people came again late in the evening. People came from many areas all over Bengal and from Jharkhand, and five–six hundred people came from Siliguri. Mostly devotees and disciples of Gurudev joined this festival and stayed at the temple.

Srila Ashram Maharaj: How many kg rice did you distribute?

The total amount for this festival was 2,500 kg of rice, and we distributed 1,000 kg on Nityananda Prabhu’s day. I left Ekachakra yesterday in the morning, and there were still about two hundred people staying there. Some of them left yesterday after lunch, and some of them left today. This year, devotees had to buy a special train ticket with reservation. They could not buy tickets at the station as before.

Now the cows in Ekachakra are very happy and live much more comfortably. There are many more cows now, and the old goshala was getting too crowded for them, so I expanded the goshala using the land that I had purchased some years ago, to the south of the guesthouse, in the direction of the Pandav Tala. Actually, it is hard to understand now where is what because so many people are buying the nearby land and start to live there. The temple used to stand alone, surrounded by vacant land, but now all the land is getting covered – people are building many houses and starting to live there. People want to stay near our temple, and the town is becoming more of a tourist place. When people go to Tarapith and other places, they come to our temple on the way to pay their obeisance. Ekachakra is getting quite crowded now.

If you read Nityananda-mahimamrita (The Nectarean Glories of Sri Nityananda Prabhu), you can find there descriptions of so many pastimes from Nityananda Prabhu’s life and also many very nice songs written by Srila Lochan Das Thakur, Srila Kanu Ram Thakur, Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur. You can see there how much mercy Nityananda Prabhu distributed in Gauda-mandal, Gauda-desh.

When Mahaprabhu took sannyas, He told Nityananda Prabhu to preach Krishna consciousness, but Nityananda Prabhu liked to preach about Gauranga Mahaprabhu:

bhaja gauranga, kaha gauranga, laha gaurangera nama re
ye jana gauranga bhaje, sei amara prana re

‘Worship Gauranga! Say Gauranga! Take Gauranga’s Name! Those who worship Gauranga are My heart and soul!’

(Sri Nityananda Prabhu)

Nityananda Prabhu bestowed His mercy to us, fallen souls. If you read the lectures of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, Srila Guru Maharaj and Srila Gurudev, if you read what they said about Nityananda Prabhu, you will see that they always stress that we cannot enter Vrindavan without the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu. His mercy is the main thing for us. Without Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy, we cannot enter devotional life.

First, it is necessary to understand that Nityananda Prabhu is non-different from guru-tattva.

asraya laiya bhaje, tare krsna nahi tyaje,
ara saba mare akarane

‘Krishna never leaves those who have taken shelter in His devotees and worship them; everyone else simply dies in vain.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

It is necessary to first surrender (saranagati) and to have faith (sraddha, visvas). Faith is the main thing. It is necessary to have the strongest faith and proper chastity. If you do not have proper chastity, you will not be able to understand Nityananda Prabhu (you will not be able to understand who Nitai is), because His behaviour and everything about Him is inconceivable. Only those who have some proper simple-hearted sukriti can understand Nityananda Prabhu.

Sri Ekachakra Dham is non-different from Sri Dham Vrindavan. There is Sivji Maharaj (Ekachakreshwar Sivji Maharaj) here, who is worshipped by Sri Hadai Pandit, Nityananda Prabhu’s father. There is also Lord Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra… You know, this year our parikama managed to go inside the birthplace of Nityananda Prabhu (‘Nitai bari’) with the loud speaker. This year, they did not stop us. Actually, the situation at that temple is not so good now because the babaji from the temple died of coronavirus. There was no virus in Ekachakra (nobody had it there), but that babaji somehow got it and died of it. So, the temple went through this bad experience. Before, they used to impose too many restrictions every year, stopping our microphones and kirtan. But this time they did not stop us. I was very surprised to see it.

During the festival, I did not answer so many phone calls because my schedule was very busy. I gave a class two times a day, many people came to take initiation. I had to manage everything and also preach. I had to handle so much. Some foreign devotees helped with the decoration – mainly, Kamalendu Prabhu and Sudevi Didi. Sripad Sajjan Maharaj and Krishna Sundari Didi sold many books this festival. Sripad Sajjan Maharaj had brought six hundred copies of Original Source, and all the copies were sold during the festival. Many bigger books were sold too, including Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata and Nityananda-mahimamrita. This is brihad-mridanga preaching. Krishna Sundari Didi was at the bookshop, and Sripad Sajjan Maharaj was preaching and distributing brochures and books in front of the temple to all the people who came. Jharkhand and many other devotees helped distribute prasad. There were twenty cooks who worked day and night. Twenty-five people continuously cut vegetables in shifts, working twenty-four hours a day. This is how the festival went. We brought only cabbage, cauliflower, pumpkin, eggplant, beans, tomatoes and potatoes. So many people came to take prasad that all our wood finished. We had to bring more. All our vegetables finished. We had to bring more two–three times. Everything was finishing all the time. Our idea of the scope of this festival proved a failure.

Actually, so many people are coming as the result of preaching. If I did not preach, these people would not join Krishna consciousness. We preach because Srila Prabhupad said, ‘Prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara: you must preach for as long as you are alive. Go door to door.’

People worry about coronavirus, but you see that two of my disciples had taken the vaccine and now they are sick. They say that they were feeling good before, but when they went for the vaccine, they became sick. Whether you take the vaccine or not, what does it change? You can get vaccinated against coronavirus, and some other disease will come. You are always thinking about the vaccine, but you cannot think about Nityananda Prabhu. You always think, ‘Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine! When will the vaccine come?’ It is not necessary to wait for the vaccine – wait for service! We should be anxious about, ‘When will service come to me?’ We must wait for service!

ara kabe nitaichand karuna karibe
samsara-vasana mora kabe tuchchha habe

‘When will Nitaichand give me His mercy? When will my material desires become trifle?’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

visaya chhadiya kabe suddha habe mana

kabe hama heraba sei vrndavana

‘When will I give up this material world and my mind become clean? When will I behold this Vrindavan?’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

kabe nityananda more kari’ daya
chhadaibe mora visayera maya

‘When will Nityananda be compassionate to me and relieve me from mundane illusion?’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘When will Nityananda Prabhu give His mercy to me? When will my family attachment go far away?’ This is what we must be always thinking about. Kabe habe bolo se dina amar? When will that day be mine?

ara kabe nitaichand karuna karibe
samsara-vasana mora kabe tuchchha habe

‘When will Nitaichand give me His mercy? When will my material desires become trifle?’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

(6/7) Real Family Life

Does anyone have any questions?

Question: I do not really like reading, but I understand that it is necessary to read. Should I force myself to read?

Of course. You must force yourself. Do not follow your mind. Your mind tells you not to read, but you must read – I am telling you that you must read. Do not follow your mind. You must read. You must practise kirtan and everything else. Do everything properly. Wake up early in the morning, do mangal-arati, cook bhoga, do the offering, and so on. You must live a real family life without attachment (asakti bihina samsara). ‘Yatha-yogya visaya bhunja’ anasakta hana: serve accepting material things, but without attachment’ (Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.16.238).

We say all this, but in reality:

samsara bhajili, sri-gauranga bhulili,

na sunili sadhura katha

iha-parakala, dukala khoyali (mana),

khaili apana matha

‘You worshipped your material life, forgot Sri Gauranga and never listened to the sadhus’ words. O mind, you have wasted both this life and next life – you are eating your own brain (ruining your own life).’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

We forget Gauranga! Instead, we worship and become deeply attached to our material family life. Ask yourself: do you worship Krishna or do you worship your material life? People are always thinking about what they will eat tomorrow, what they will cook tomorrow and other mundane things.

deha-geha-kalatradi-chinta avirata
jagichhe hrdaye mora buddhi kari hata

‘Endless thoughts about my body, home, wife, and so on arise in my heart, destroying my intelligence.’

haya, haya! nahi bhavi—anitya e saba
jivana vigate kotha rahibe vaibhava?

‘Alas! Alas! I have never thought that all is temporary. When my soul departs, where will all this opulence be?’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

People always think about how they can get more property, more wealth, more things, but what will happen to all these things after they die? We must think about gurudev’s service… The other day I spoke to one of my disciples. I told the lady, ‘Your husband has died, your two daughters have already got married and live in their own houses. What for do you live alone? You only cook, offer the bhoga and take prasad on your own. It will be better if you come to stay at the temple. One Didi has a problem with her finger at the Tarakeshwar temple. You can come and serve there.’ She did not agree. She said, ‘I do some labour work…’ What labour work?! I told her, ‘You get two hundred rupees per day. What will you do with your money? You are alone now. Come and stay at the temple. You can do some service there. You will get prasad and anything else you need.’ She did not come. She made some excuse, saying that she was working from time to time (not even every day!) and could not leave that work… Then, on the Nityananda-trayodasi day, as Gurudev used to say, ‘she went to collect patal’ (’kicked the bucket’). She was sitting in her room, then she went to the bathroom and suddenly left her body there. She was relatively young, only fifty years old. I told her to do service, but she did not listen. People have too much attachment to their houses… That lady lived in a small house. It was not even a thatched house, she lived in a mud house. Even if people live in a not very good house, they still cannot leave it because they are very much attached to their life and things. Such is their misfortune…

[Addressing one of the devotees] I have got your message today. Do not worry, everything will be good. We are praying for the soul of your son. You know, one day Srivas Pandit’s only son died. Srivas Pandit did not inform Mahaprabhu about it, but when Mahaprabhu came and was doing kirtan at Srivas Pandit’s house that day, He asked Srivas Pandit, ‘What has happened? Why is the kirtan not going well today? Something must have happened.’ When Mahaprabhu heard that Srivas Pandit’s son had died, He spoke to the dead boy. Mahaprabhu asked him why he had left, and the dead boy replied, ‘I have been here for as long as You have kept me here, but now You are calling me to some other place, and I am going there.’ This is what happened at Srivas Pandit’s house. Mahaprabhu was very pleased with Srivas Pandit. At first, Mahaprabhu chastised Srivas Pandit, but inside, in His heart, He was very pleased because He understood that Srivas Pandit had not told anything not to disturb the Lord’s kirtan. This is how much attachment Srivas Pandit has towards kirtan and Mahaprabhu…

Are there any other questions?

Question: We hear that Sriman Nityananda Prabhu is very merciful and that His son is Virachandra Prabhu is even more merciful. How can we even begin to understand the meaning of that?

You can understand it from the example of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami. When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Srila Svarup Damodar Prabhu left, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami was very sad and wanted to commit suicide. But when he met Srila Sanatan Goswami and Srila Rupa Goswami, they protected his life and gave him very much nourishment. Srila Raghunath Das Goswami said in the end, ‘What I have got from Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Rupa Goswami is so much more than what I got even from my guru-varga (Mahaprabhu and Svarup Damodar).’

There are many people who claim to be disciples of Srila Sridhar Maharaj and who proudly say with their mouths, ‘I am a direct disciple of Srila Sridhar Maharaj!’ but actually it was Gurudev who protected them. Srila Sridhar Maharaj could not handle foreign devotees, so he gave everything to the hands of our Gurudev. That is why devotees have got so much more mercy from Gurudev – they have got from him the mercy that they had never got from Srila Sridhar Maharaj. They must admit and understand that. In the same way, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur gave so much mercy to Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, and we have got from Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur so much more than from Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur himself. That is why also Sivji Maharaj says, ‘Aham vedmi, Suka vetti, Vyasa vetti na vetti va.’ Vyasadev composed Srimad Bhagavatam, but who did we actually get Srimad Bhagavatam from? From Srila Sukadev Goswami. It was his mercy. So, Sivji Maharaj says, ‘I know the meaning of Bhagavatam, Sukadev knows it, but Vyasadev may or may not know it.’ In short, sometimes so much more mercy can be bestowed and distributed through the successor rather than through the guru…

(7/7) ‘My Life Is for My Gurudev’

There are some devotees who are helping me, who have sent donations to buy the land for the Prasadam Hall [Nrisingha Palli], but, obviously, I do not always mention their names…

I remember many years ago, when Gurudev left this world and gave the charge for the temple into my hands, some sannyasi told the Venezuelan leader not to give any money to Acharya Maharaj. That is one of the reasons why I do not tell any names and why I always try to hide the names of the devotees who give donations. I do not tell their names publicly because there are jealous persons who will try to create confusion. This is like chanachur [Indian spicy snack, similar to the Western crisps] – all these rumours, all this confusion may taste nice to you, but it will not fill your stomach. Do you understand what I am saying? There are people who like to hear gossips and like to speak about gossips.

That is the reason why I do not want to tell the names of the devotees who are helping me. Who is giving, who is not giving, I do not tell their names publicly because those who have less faith will be attacked by others. It is also not necessary to want to know who says such things.

All I can say is that I left Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math empty-handed, I had zero. Somebody says that I do not serve Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math anymore, and somebody does not help Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math anymore, but Gurudev’s mercy is always with me. I can understand now the meaning of what Gurudev told me. He said, ‘If one door closes, another one will open.’ So, it is not a problem for me. I know some devotees from Ireland say these things because they have been brain-washed, and I know by whom. I do not want to complain against anyone. All I know is that I always ask them to please forgive my offence.

I am a very naughty, a very bad boy, but it is not my fault that Gurudev chose me. If you can see why he chose me, you will understand it. At the same time, it is Gurudev’s will: he can do whatever he pleases, he is independent and can do anything he wants. I can be a crow, and he can make me Garuda. I am his goat, and he can cut my tail or my head…

I want to serve devotees, I have never wanted to be a guru. Gurudev has given me this service in this life, that is why I sometimes give initiations, but when I give somebody initiation, it does not mean I am giving somebody my mercy; on the contrary, they come to give mercy to me. I want to be their servant, and they come and give me an opportunity to be a disciple of my gurudev. That is why I always tell everyone: please respect everybody, please give honour to everybody.

But for the help of the devotees, how would I be able to buy the land in Mayapur and do all the other services? Those who stayed close to Gurudev know better than me whether Gurudev gave me any money or not because they lived near him whereas I did not – I always stayed far, but Gurudev bestowed only mercy on me. They say that Gurudev must have given me a lot of money, that is how I am able to do so much construction. In one way, it is true. Gurudev has given me money – through the devotees. So many devotees are helping me despite this pandemic situation. Even though I did not go abroad, and did not go for collection here in India also, so many foreign devotees are helping me to buy the land and build the guesthouse, the Prasadam Hall and other facilities.

I do not want to mention everyone’s names one by one because it is not good for them, but what I want to say is that I want to serve you all. I want to engage you all in service, and even if one rupee comes to me from you, I want to use that rupee for the service to the devotees, for the service to my gurudev, for the service to the Deities and the temple. If you had not helped, how would so many temples have expanded, how would so many devotees have come after Gurudev left?

Whatever the situation was, I did not run away. So many things have happened, I have even risked my life, but I know that my life is not for me – my life is for my gurudev, for the devotees. If I run away with my life, what will that be like? I have never run away, and I never will. They wanted to kill me, and I almost died. The doctors said, ‘It is a miracle that you are alive now. When this disease happens, only one out of a hundred thousand patients may stay alive!’ Such was my condition, but by the will of all the devotees, by the will of Gurudev I am still alive, and I am talking to you all, I am preaching, I am making parikramas, I am walking miles and miles. This all is only the mercy of the devotees, the mercy of the guru, Vaishnavs and Bhagavan. All the senior devotees – Srila Ashram Maharaj, Srila Janardan Maharaj, all of my guru-varga, and so many of my godbrothers and godsisters – are here, and they are giving so much mercy and support to me. It is owing to their support that I am still alive.

You are all my family. I do not know my biological family, I have not seen them for more than thirty or thirty-five years now. Not only that, after I came to Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math and took sannyas, they actually did a sraddha (funeral) ceremony for me at the house in my birthplace. But I am still alive, and I am with you all, because I live for the devotees and you also live for me and for Gurudev’s service.

I would like to finish here for today. Please forgive my offence. I will try to meet with you all again next Sunday. I may be in the preaching field on that day, but anyhow I will make time for you next Sunday.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line28 February 2021

Sevak Bhavan, Kolkata–Colombia

Harinam Initiation

(English)￼Line Line

Be Undefeatable

I have received and read your letter. You are a very fortunate soul – you want to take initiation. I am very happy to see you. I apologise for coming late. I know you have been waiting for your initiation…

In this Age of Kali, the only way to come to your real home, to your own home, is by chanting the Holy Name. The Holy Name comes to this foreign abode from above (from Goloka Vrindavan) through a guru-parampara (disciplic succession). It was first transmitted from Krishna to Brahma, then from Brahma to Narad, from Narad to Vyasadev, from Vyasadev to Madhvacharya, and so on. Eventually, this Holy Name was transmitted from Madhavendra Puri to Ishwar Puri, and from Ishwar Puri to Mahaprabhu. Mahaprabhu Himself also took initiation from Ishwar Puri to teach us; otherwise, why will we take initiation? Whatever you do in this world, it is always necessary to first receive initiation. It is like this in any sphere. First you must accept a guru, who is asraya-vigraha (worshippable embodiment of shelter), because the guru is the closest personality to the Lord. Even Krishna Himself told Uddhav Maharaj, ‘Acharyam mam vijaniyan – know the spiritual master to be non-different from Me.’ Also, if you send an email to the Lord, you will not get an answer, but if you send a letter to your guru, you will get an answer from him.

So, you are a very fortunate soul. I know that you have already received the beads, and now I am going to give you initiation.

As I said before, this Harinam came to our Gurudev through a guru-parampara: through Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj and our Gurudev Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj. In his lifetime, Gurudev told me, ‘If somebody is a perfect soul – if somebody can practise properly and is eager to take initiation – you can give initiation to them.’

The biggest bead on the beads is called sumeru. Hold it and say:

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda

sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrnda

This is the Pancha-tattva’s Name. Ask Them for mercy. Say, ‘I am a fallen soul, I do not have any quality or qualification, please give me some mercy so that I can chant the Holy Name.’ Then, start chanting from the big beads. You can see that there are bigger beads on one side. Start from the big beads. I will show you now how you will do it, and you should only listen now, do not repeat after me.

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Chant this maha-mantra on the first bead, then repeat it on the next bead, and so on, one by one:

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Chant in this way, bead by bead, from the big beads to the small beads; then, without crossing the sumeru bead, continue to chant from the small beads to the big beads, then again from the big beads to the small beads, and again from the small beads to the big beads, and so on. Chant sixteen rounds or more in this way every day. If you are busy with service any day, you can chant at least four rounds. Four rounds must be chanted every day. Chant the Holy Name, and Krishna will reveal Himself in your heart, you will be successful in your spiritual life.

There is also this book about the ten offences of the Holy Name. You must read the entire book, especially the ten offences. You must read what these offences are and avoid them. If you chant this Holy Name without offence, you will get the result quickly. You will get the result quickly.

Your name will be Aparajita Devi Dasi.

Thank you so much. Now please chant four rounds. And always take some service. Start serving the mission of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Gurudev’s mission. That is the service for you. OK? Thank you.

Do you have any questions? Actually, I know what you are going to ask: What is the meaning of ‘Aparajita’? ‘Aparajita’ means the one who is never defeated. We are always defeated by maya, but we will not surrender to maya – that is the meaning of aparajita.

All right, thank you.

[His Divine Grace takes his leave.]

￼Line Line7 March 2021, p.m. (WA)

Begampur (West Bengal)

Evening Class & Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/7) Perfect Mood

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I spoke about it this morning. Sambandha, or relationship, means realising that we are always eternal servants of the Lord, servants of the devotees. The problem is that we always want to be masters, we do not want to be servants.

Suppose somebody takes sannyas. If this sannyasi’s father is a householder or even a non-devotee, he must still pay obeisance to his son because his son has taken sannyas. This is Mahaprabhu’s teachings, and we should follow it. Even if a ten-year-old boy takes initiation and practises Krishna consciousness, you must address him as ‘Prabhu’. This is the rule. Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur often said, ‘Everybody is my guru, and I am only a disciple. I want to always remain a disciple.’

‘Sambandha janiya bhajite bhajite abhimana hau dura: if we practise Krishna consciousness understanding this proper relation, our ego will be removed.’ Sometimes, we like to say, ‘Oh, we are disciples of Srila Sridhar Maharaj!’, ‘We are disciples of Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj!’ Some people have this kind of ego. They think that they are disciples of a bona fide guru, and somebody else is a disciple of a smaller guru. People discriminate others based on who their guru is, but this is not right. Whoever comes to Krishna consciousness, you must give them an opportunity to practise.

kiniba, lutiba hari-nama-rasa,
nama-rase mati’ haiba vivasa

‘I will buy and then distribute the ecstasy of the Holy Name – I will forget myself, becoming mad with the ecstasy of the Holy Name.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You will ‘buy’ and then you will distribute what you have received. After you have received initiation from your guru, you must distribute what you have got to others. This is very important. If each devotee preaches to at least one other person and brings at least one more devotee per year, there will be so many devotees in Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. But the problem is that we do not even know how to practise, let alone preach. It is necessary to practise properly. ‘Sambandha janiya bhajite bhajite abhimana hau dura.’ Ego always creates problems. We think, ‘I am a sannyasi, and he is a householder (or: I am a sannyasi, and he is a brahmachari). I am senior, and he is junior!’ This is not the right behaviour. If somebody takes initiation and serves their guru, even if it is a ten-year-old boy, you must address them as ‘Prabhu’ (master): ‘You are the master, and I am your servant.’

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says:

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I think that I am a Vaishnav – if this feeling comes to me – then I will not be able to give respect to others. Mahaprabhu’s conception is humility, tolerance and giving honour to others. Sometimes, I give somebody initiation and then sannyas, and they start thinking, ‘I am a sannyasi now, and my guru is also a sannyasi. We are equal. Our position is the same.’ This is pratistha. We are always running behind name and fame. Most people in this world pray, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, yasam dehi: make me rich, make me clever, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me famous.’ This is kanak, kamini, pratistha – we always want gold, women and fame.

kanaka-kamini, pratistha-baghini,

chhadiyachhe yare sei ta vaisnava

‘Those who have given up money, women, and fame the tigress are the true Vaishnavs.’

(‘Vaishnav Ke?’, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur)

Who is a Vaishnav? A Vaishnav is the one who can avoid kanak, kamini, pratistha. If I think that I have become a Vaishnav, then I will not be able to give honour to others.

Somebody thinks, ‘I know everything!’ I was reading Srimad Bhagavatam today, and I saw there one sloka that says: Who can be a guru? Having a lot of knowledge, being a great scholar or pandit, knowing the conception very well does not make one a guru. Srimad Bhagavatam says that first one must become a proper disciple, then only can one become a guru. You cannot be a proper guru without being a proper disciple. That is why we pray to Vaishnav Thakur, ‘I will always remain a disciple’; otherwise, ‘pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe’ – when pratistha (desire for fame and prestige) comes, our hearts will become dirty, and we will go to hell.

tomara kinkara, apane janiba,
‘guru’-abhimana tyaji’
tomara uchchhista, pada-jala-renu,
sada niskapate bhaji

‘I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru. I will always earnestly worship the remnants of Your food, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must worship the foot dust of Vaishnavs. You know, in Bengal people will often try to wash your feet, but we always stop them because I do not consider myself a Vaishnav – why will they wash my feet? I am a servant of the servants of Vaishnavs. Why must they wash my feet? Why will they even touch my feet? I never think that I am a Vaishnav. It is also a tradition in Bengal to touch one’s feet when offering an obeisance, but we do not accept this. We always consider ourselves servants (tomara kinkara). We must always avoid and reject the ego that ‘I am a guru!’, ‘I am an acharya!’ This is guru-abhiman. It is necessary to give it up. ‘Tomara uchchhista pada-jala-renu’ – we always worship our masters’ remnants, and we do it without any deceit (niskapate).

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada,
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest”, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We like to think that we belong to a very high class, that we have the greatest position (srestha). If I take prasad and then distribute my remnants to others, my ego will grow (‘I take prasad, and you take my remnants!’). That is why we do not distribute our prasad (food remnants). It is not the proper etiquette for a guru: if somebody distributes their remnants, they are not a proper guru. We always consider ourselves fallen souls, we are servants of servants. Even Mahaprabhu Himself said:

naham vipro na cha nara-patir napi vaisyo na sudro
naham varni na cha grha-patir no vanastho yatir va
kintu prodyan-nikhila-paramananda-purnamrtabdher
gopi-bhartuh pada-kamalayor dasa-dasanudasah

‘I am not a brahman, not a ksatriya, not a vaisya, not a sudra; neither am I a brahmachari, a householder, a vanaprastha or a sannyasi. I identify Myself as a servant of the servant of the servant of the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krishna, who is the beloved of the gopis, an ocean of nectar, eternally self-effulgent (self-manifest) and filled with the entire scope of all possible highest ecstasy.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.13.80)

‘I am not a brahman, I am not a ksatriya, I am not a vasya, I am not a sudra. I am a servant of devotees’ servants.’

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada,
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest”, I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I will always be a disciple. I will not take worship from anyone. Somebody may become a guru and say, ‘You must do arati for me every day!’, ‘You must give me “jay”!’, ‘You must give me a garland!’ Whatever I take, whatever I accept, even if it is a simple garland, I must give ‘jay’ to Gurudev. I place that garland, or whatever else I get, at Gurudev’s lotus feet.

Who is the proprietor of kanak (money)? Narayan. Who is the proprietor of kamini (women)? The only proprietor of kamini is Krishna – all kama-sakti (power of lust) is for Krishna. As for pratistha, all pratistha belongs to gurudev. Therefore, we pray, ‘I will always remain a disciple.’ Gurudev always says, ‘If you are thinking of becoming a guru, then first become a proper disciple, then only can you be a guru.’ We do not want to be gurus – we always want to be disciples. We are servants of devotees. This is the best position. Therefore, we will not accept worship from anybody. We do not want anyone to worship us.

amani manada, haile kirtane,
adhikara dibe tumi
tomara charane, niskapate ami,
kandiya lutiba bhumi

‘When I become free from the desire for honour and learn to give honour to others, you will give me the right to chant Your kirtan. Rolling on the ground, I will earnestly cry at Your holy feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Who is qualified to sing kirtan? Those who have a good voice and can sing a nice tune? No. Those who follow the rules and regulations properly are qualified to sing kirtan. What are these rules and regulations? Humility, tolerance and giving honour to others. Mahaprabhu said, ‘Who has the right to chant the Holy Name?’

trnadhika hina dina akinchana chhara
apane manabi sada chhadi’ ahankara
vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana
pratihimsa tyaji’ anye karabi palana

jivana-nirvahe ane udvega na dibe
para-upakare nija-sukha pasaribe

‘Give up ego and always consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and wretched. Practise forgiveness like that of a tree; do not be vindictive, nurture others. Live without causing anxiety to others; do good unto others, forsaking your own happiness.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka Giti, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Amani manada haile kirtane adhikara dibe tumi: you will give me the right to chant kirtan if I give honour to others.’ ‘Tomara charane niskapate ami kandiya lutiba bhumi: rolling on the ground, I will earnestly cry at Your holy feet.’ What is devotion? Devotion must be without deceit (niskapata).

diksa-kale bhakta kare atma-samarpana
sei-kale krsna tare kare atma-sama

‘Devotees submit their entire being when they take initiation. At this time, Krishna accepts them as His very own.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.192)

We pay obeisance to our gurudev, but our devotion is deceitful. It is very rare to come across devotion that would be without any deceit. Our devotion is such that outside, or externally, we do or say one thing, but we have something else inside, in our heart. This is called kapata-bhakti, or chhala-bhakti (deceitful, fake devotion):

suddha bhakta-palana, suska-jnana-tadana,
chhala-bhakti-dusana-rama

‘Gauranga Mahaprabhu is the maintainer of pure devotees. He drives away dry knowledge and destroys the wickedness of false devotion.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We sing this every morning at the mangala-arati:

kali-kukkura-kadana yadi chao he
kali-yuga-pavana kali-bhaya-nasana,
sri-sachi-nandana gao he

‘If you want to slay the dog Kali, the destroyer of religion, chant the Name of Sri Sachi-nandan, the saviour in the Age of Kali and the destroyer of the fear of Kali.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Mayavadis have suska-jnana. Chhala-bhakti means kapata-bhakti – you say one thing with your mouth, but you have something else in your heart. Such devotion is not good. Vaishnavs must always be simple.

suddha bhakta-palana, suska-jnana-tadana,
chhala-bhakti-dusana-rama

‘Gauranga Mahaprabhu is the maintainer of pure devotees. He drives away dry knowledge and destroys the wickedness of false devotion.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

(2/7) What Are You Doing With Your Life?

parama karuna, pahu dui jana,
nitai gaurachandra
saba avatara-sara siromani,
kevala ananda kanda [1]

‘Nitai and Gaurachandra are two most merciful Lords. They are the best, the crest-jewels of all incarnations of the Lord and the only source of joy.’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

So many incarnations of the Lord have come to this world, but in this Age of Kali, Krishna takes Srimati Radharani’s heart and halo and becomes Gauranga, who is Radha-Krishna’s combined form.

mahaprabhu sri chaitanya, radha-krsna nahe anya,
rupanuga janera jivana

‘Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is non-different from Sri Sri Radha-Krishna and is the life of Sri Rupa’s followers.’

(Sri Guru-Parampara kirtan)

Who is Sri Krishna Chaitanya? He is Mahaprabhu, none other than Radha-Krishna, and He is the crest-jewel of all avatars (incarnations of the Lord).

bhaja bhaja bhai, chaitanya nitai,

sudrdha visvasa kari’

visaya chhadiya, se rase majiya,

mukhe bala hari hari [2]

‘O brothers! Serve! Serve Chaitanya-Nitai with firm faith! Give up all worldly affairs, merge into this ecstasy and chant aloud, “Hari! Hari!”’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

We must leave material world, material ego,

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya
kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya be merciful to me? When will I come in the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I honour the Lord’s devotees?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Those who are rich have ego, those who are beautiful have ego, those who are powerful have ego. But how will we leave this ego? When will we be able to give respect to Vaishnavs?…

This is a very good song. We always sing it, but we may not always understand its meaning.

It says in this kirtan, ‘Bhaja bhaja bhai Chaitanya-Nitai sudrdha visvasa kari’. Brother, serve, serve Sri Sri Chaitanya-Nitai with firm faith!’ It is necessary to have the strongest faith. Faith is the main foundation in devotional life. When I am born, my mother tells me, ‘This is your father,’ and we believe it. So, when sastra, grantha, so many scriptures, all the rishis, all the munis tell us something, we must believe it. It is necessary to have the strongest faith. There are four types of faith – kamala-sraddha (tender faith), taranga-sraddha (fickle faith), drdha-sraddha (strong faith), sudrdha-sraddha (strongest faith). If you have little faith, you can leave this line very quickly. It is necessary to have the strongest faith. ‘Sudrdha visvasa kari’ – always keep the strongest faith.’

Mahaprabhu told about Nityananda Prabhu,

madira yavani yadi nityananda dhare
tathapi brahmara vandya kahila tomare

‘Even if Nityananda Prabhu comes drunk with a Muslim lady by His side, He is always worshippable for Lord Brahma.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 3.6.123)

‘Even if Nityananda comes drunk, even if He takes a Muslim lady, He will be still worshippable, even for Lord Brahma.’ That is why, it is necessary to have the strongest faith in your guru – Nityananda Prabhu is guru-tattva. Keep the strongest faith in your guru.

visaya chhadiya, se rase majiya,

mukhe bala hari hari [2]

‘Give up all worldly affairs, merge into this ecstasy and chant aloud, “Hari! Hari!”’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

Giving up all visaya means,

asakti-rahita, sambandha-sahita,
visaya-samuha sakali madhava

‘When you are free from material attachment and establish the relationship with the Lord, then you will see that everything around you is Lord Madhav Himself.’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’ Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur)

We must be detached. It is not necessary to be materially attached to anything. One time, somebody asked Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj when he was staying in a public toilet, ‘Babaji Maharaj, why are you staying here? Are you not getting the bad smell?’ Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj said, ‘Yes, I am getting the bad smell, but this smell of stool and urine can be tolerated. What I cannot tolerate is the smell of gross materialists – their smell is very dangerous!’

visaya chhadiya, se rase majiya,

mukhe bala hari hari [2]

‘Give up all worldly affairs, merge into this ecstasy and chant aloud, “Hari! Hari!”’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

We tell many things, but how much time do we spend chanting the Holy Name? How much time do we spend practising properly? And how many hours do we spend on our own self, on our own body?

bhala manda khai, heri, pari, chinta-hina
nahi bhavi, e deha chhadiba kona dina

‘I eat, see and wear whatever I fancy without a worry. I never think that I will ever leave this body.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We think, ‘I will never leave this body! I will eat fancy food, wear fancy clothes!’ This is what we are doing. But Sriman Mahaprabhu told Srila Raghunath Das Goswami:

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

Therefore:

visaya chhadiya, se rase majiya,

mukhe bala hari hari [2]

‘Give up all worldly affairs, merge into this ecstasy and chant aloud, “Hari! Hari!”’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

We must always think about the Lord! It is not necessary to think about anything or anyone else. We must go back to our home! We are all relatives because we are all sons and daughters of nectar (amritasya-putra), and we must go back to that nectar. We have lost our own address, we have lost our home…

dekha ore bhai, tribhuvane nai,

emana dayala data [3]

‘O brother! Look! There are no such merciful benefactors in the three worlds as They are.’

(eman’ dayala ke ba achhe)

(nitaiyera gaurera mata

eman’ dayala ke ba achhe)

(mar’ kheyeo nama prema yache)

(eman’ dayala ke ba achhe)

‘Is there anyone else as merciful? Is there anyone as merciful as Nitai and Gaura? Even when They are beaten, They bestow divine love. Is there anyone as merciful?’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

They are very kind! We are fallen souls, and Nityananda Prabhu is perfect for fallen souls – only He can rescue us from this situation. We are constantly attacked by the illusory environment (we have fallen into the net of illusion), and He is our only hope. Madhai beat Him, but Nityananda told him, ‘You can beat Me, I have no objection, but please chant the Holy Name!’ Even Mahaprabhu was very angry with Madhai, but Nityananda begged Mahaprabhu for Madhai, ‘Give him to Me! Please give him to Me as alms!’ How merciful Nityananda Prabhu is!

sri-krsna-chaitanya-daya karaha vichara
vichara karile chitte pabe chamatkara

‘Just consider Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mercy! If you do, you will feel astonished in your heart.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.15)

How much mercy of Chaitanya-chandra Nityananda Prabhu bestowed all over the world! Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj and Srila Gurudev also distributed Chaitanya’s mercy and Prabhupad’s mercy everywhere, all over the world.

pasu pakhi jhure, pasana vidare,
suni’ yara guna-gatha [3]

‘Hearing about Their glory, birds and animals cry and stones melt.’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

Hearing the glorification of Nityananda and Gauranga, even birds cry! When Mahaprabhu went to Jharkhand, all tigers and deer sat together and chanted, ‘Hari bol! Hari bol!’ When Mahaprabhu was walking down the street, even birds would cry, but our hearts are as hard as rock! Our hearts never melt. Even though we hear about Nitai-Gaura, even though we hear the glorification of Nityananda, our hearts, our minds remain very hard, as hard as rock! Even birds and beasts start crying, but our hearts do not melt!

samsare majiya, rahili padiya,
se pade nahila asa [4]

‘Fallen and immersed in the material life, I have never aspired for Their feet.’

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

We are too much attached with family life. We always think about kanak (money) and kamini (women), but we do not think about Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy, we do not think about gurudev’s mercy. We are so engrossed in material life that we have no time, no energy to think about Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy, about Gauranga’s mercy. We have no time for anything! But,

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Day by day our life is passing, and each day our age is not increasing – our age is decreasing! Day by day, our lifetime is becoming shorter. We are suffering from the results of our actions that we did in our previous lives, and in this life also.

This ‘Parama Karuna’ song was composed by Srila Lochan Das Thakur. It is a very nice song.

samsare majiya, rahili padiya,

se pade nahila asa

apana karama, bhunjyaya samana,

kahaye lochana dasa [4]

‘Fallen and immersed in the meterial life, I have never aspired for Their feet. Now Yamaraj subjects me to my karma’, says Lochan Das.

(Srila Lochan Das Thakur)

bhaja bhaja nitai bhaja
nitai bhajle gaura pabe bhaja bhaja nitai bhaja
nitai bhajle gaura pabe bhaja bhaja nitai bhaja
doyal nitai doyal nitai doyal nitai doyal nitai

‘Worship, worship Nitai! If you worship Nitai, you will get Gaura. Worship, worship Nitai! O Merciful Nitai!’

(3/7) Sell Your Heart

gaurangera duti pada, yara dhana sampada,

se jane bhakati rasa-sara

gaurangera madhura-lila, yara karne pravesila,

hrdaya nirmala bhela tara [1]

‘Those whose wealth and treasure is Gauranga’s two feet know the excellence of devotional ecstasy. When Gauranga’s sweet pastimes enter one’s ears, their heart becomes pure.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Gauranga’s pastimes are as sweet as honey! If you read about Gauranga’s pastimes, if these pastimes enter your ears – if you hear about it with your mind and heart – your heart will become clean, pure. If only you listen to the pastimes of Gauranga and Nityananda! Their pastimes are very beautiful. They perform audarya-lila – They are so magnanimous that They always bestow Their mercy all over the world. Not only that, if you say, ‘O Gaura! O Gauranga!’, a surge of ecstasy and paramour love will awaken within you.

ye gaurangera nama laya, tara haya premodaya,

tare muni yai balihari

gauranga-gunete jhure, nitya-lila tare sphure,

se jana bhakati-adhikari [2]

‘When one chants Gauranga’s Name, divine love arises in them – I feel astonished at that. Eternal pastimes are revealed to those who shed tears hearing Gauranga’s qualities – such persons are qualified for devotion.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Always chant the glory of Gauranga and His pastimes – not just for one day. You must chant about His pastimes every day, regularly. Those who do it get the right for devotion – they actually get devotion. You cannot buy bhakti (devotion) at the market or in a supermarket with money. The price of devotion is faith (sraddha-mulya). How do you ‘buy’ devotion? ‘Bhakta-sangena parijayate: devotion comes from devotees’ association’ (Brihan-naradiya Purana). Devotion comes through good association. What is good association? If somebody practises the nava-vidha bhakti properly (or practises at least one of the nine devotional practices), their association is good. The nine devotional practices are sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). If somebody does not follow at least one of these practises, their association is bad. So, every single one of you must practise properly. You have taken initiation, but only taking initiation is not sufficient for spiritual life. Taking initiation is mere admission. Having taken initiation, you must then practise properly every day. When students enter university or college, they only get enrolled; after getting enrolled, they must study. Here too, you must practise spiritual life. It is necessary to study. You cannot practise spiritual life without studying and learning. Practice is necessary.

So, those who stay in the association of Gauranga are eternally perfect beings (nitya-siddha).

gaurangera sangi-gane, nitya siddha kari mane,

se yaya vrajendra-suta-pasa

sri-gauda-mandala-bhumi, yeba jane chintamani,

tara haya vraja-bhume vasa [3]

‘Those who consider Gauranga’s associates to be eternally liberated reach Krishna, the son of King of Vraja. Those who always think about Sri Gauda Mandal reside in the land of Vraja.’

sri-gauda-mandala-bhumi, yeba jane chintamani,
tara haya vraja-bhume vasa [3]

‘Those who always think about Sri Gauda Mandal reside in the land of Vraja.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

The land of Sri Gaura Mandal is non-different from Sri Vrindavan. Those who know that, who think that and who always practise that live in Vraja. You must think about it every day.

I know that you cannot come this year because of the covid situation – you cannot get the visa this year because of the government restrictions. Still, if you are thinking about this Nabadwip Dham parikrama and do Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama with us (if you read about the places we will go to every day, if you read and remember Sri Nabadwip Dham), it will be good for you. We will first go to Antardwip, then Simantadwip, Rudradwip, Madhyadwip, Godrumdwip, Koladwip, Ritudwip, Modadrumdwip and Jahnudwip. If you remember Sri Nabadwip Dham from far away, you will think that you are actually in this Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. I know you will feel very sad every day because you cannot come, but you must remember Sri Nabadwip Dham from far, it will be very nice for you. This is the proper practice and proper etiquette for you. It is very important.

sri-gauda-mandala-bhumi, yeba jane chintamani,
tara haya vraja-bhume vasa [3]

‘Those who always think about Sri Gauda Mandal reside in the land of Vraja.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

If you circumambulate Sri Nabadwip Dham, it is the same as circumambulating Sri Vrindavan Dham. When you circumambulate Tulasi Devi, you get the result of doing the parikrama of Vrindavan. So, if you do Tulasi parikrama every day, you do Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama every day. When Srila Sanatan Goswami Prabhu became very old and could no longer do the parikrama of Govardhan, Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu brought him a small Govardhan sila, saying, ‘Circumambulate this Govardhan sila, then you will be doing the parikrama of Govardhan.’ Some devotees have Govardhan silas at home, then you can do Govardhan parikrama every day. This is one of the sixty-four limbs of devotion (bhaktyanga). The main practices among them are:

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana
mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

‘Associate with sadhus, chant the Holy Name of the Lord, listen to Srimad Bhagavatam, reside in Mathura and worship Deities with faith.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.124)

Sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). Read about all this all the time.

gaura-prema-rasarnave, se tarange yeba dube,

se radha-madhava-antaranga

grhe va vanete thake, ‘ha gauranga’ bale dake,

narottama mage tara sanga [4]

‘Those who dive into the waves in the ocean of divine love for Gaura are intimate associates of Radha-Madhav. No matter whether one lives in a house or a forest, if they call out to Gauranga, Narottam begs for their association.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

‘Grhe va vanete thake’ – wherever you are, you must practise Krishna consciousness. I came to Dum Dum Park, Kolkata, the day before Gurudev left his body. At that time, I asked him, ‘Gurudev, you have so many disciples and followers all over the world. What is your message for everybody?’ Gurudev said at that time: Whatever your situation is, wherever you are staying (on the train, bus, plane or anywhere else, no matter what your position is, no matter what problem happens), you must chant the Holy Name, you must remember the Lord, remember your practising life. Do not forget your practising life. Practise Krishna consciousness wherever you are. Whether you are in a jungle, forest, room or house, whether you are staying in a rich house or a poor house, whatever your position is, always call out to Gauranga.

‘Narottam is begging for the association of such devotees (narottama mage tara sanga).’ Srila Narottam Das Thakur is a highest Vaishnav, and he is praying for the association of devotees who always think about Gauranga.

Moreover, Nityananda Prabhu said, ‘You can buy Me if you worship Gauranga!’ He was the one who first started chanting:

bhaja gauranga, kaha gauranga, laha gaurangera nama re
ye jana gauranga bhaje, sei amara prana re

‘Worship Gauranga! Say Gauranga! Take Gauranga’s Name! Those who worship Gauranga are My heart and soul!’

(Sri Nityananda Prabhu)

Sriman Mahaprabhu told Sriman Nityananda Prabhu to preach Krishna consciousness, but Sri Nityananda Prabhu thought the people in this world would not take the Holy Name of Krishna very easily, so He chanted and spread the Name of Gauranga instead. This is the proper line.

jaya gaura hari, jaya gaura hari
gaura hari, jaya gaura hari

(4/7) Tottering Intelligence

bhajahu re mana, sri-nanda-nandana,
abhaya-charanaravinda re

durlabha manava, janama sat-sange,
taraha e bhava-sindhu re [1]

‘O mind, serve the holy lotus feet of the Son of Nanda, which make one fearless. You can cross this ocean of material existence in this rare human birth by saintly association.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

It is very rare to get this human body!

durlabha manava janma labhiya samsare
krsna na bhajinu duhkha kahiba kahare?

‘I have got a very rare human life in this world, but I have not worshipped Lord Krishna. Whom will I tell about my misery?’

‘samsara’ ‘samsara’ kari’ michhe gela kala
labha na haila kichhu, ghatila janjala

‘Time has passed as I have been busy with my material life, and the result is nothing – only garbage.’

kisera samsara ei chhayabaji praya
ihate mamata kari vrtha dina yaya

‘What sort of world is this? It is only a trick, a show. While I affectionately take it as my own, days pass by in vain.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

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 Visnu Purana)

After 8,400,000 species you have finally got this human body, and you have also got good association – you have got a bona fide guru, our Gurudev! But even though you have already got all this, you still need to practise.

It is necessary to practise and to have patience. We sometimes lose patience, thinking, ‘Oh, I took initiation thirty years ago!’ Thinking in this way, we start reducing, slacking our practice. Having got this rare human birth, you can cross the Viraja River and come to your real home. How? By spending this life in sat-sanga, good association.

How much we are struggling! Winters and summers come and go, and we are suffering so much from heat, cold, rain and all other problems. This is how our days are passing.

sita atapa, vata varisana,
e dina yamini jagi re
viphale sevinu, krpana durajana,
chapala sukha-lava lagi’ re [2]

‘Day and night I remain awake, suffering from the heat and the cold, the wind and the rain. For a moment of flickering happiness I have uselessly served wicked and miserly men.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

We are struggling so much serving others in vain. Who do we worship? Who do we serve? We serve material life (samsara)!

gardabhera mata ami kari parisrama
kara lagi’ eta kari, na ghuchila bhrama

‘I toil like a donkey. Who am I doing this for? Still my illusion has not been dispelled.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

For whom or for what do we struggle so much? We will have to leave everything here – money, wealth, house, everything. One day, we will leave everything and go to the cremation ghat.

smasane sarira mama padiya rahibe
vihanga patanga taya vihara karibe

‘My body will be left at a crematorium, and birds and insects will feast on it.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You keep saving what you earn, but you must spend what you earn on the Lord, on the service to the Lord and devotees. Some people tell me, ‘Why do you build so many big buildings? You have already made so many buildings at the main temple, and you had to leave it! Now you are again making another building!’ What must I do with the money then? Hoard it? I make buildings so that devotees can come and stay there; otherwise, where will they go? Besides, I did not leave the main temple of my own accord – they removed me from there forcefully. They wanted to kill me, this was their plan, but the Lord gives us lifetime, so they could not do it.

sita atapa, vata varisana,
e dina yamini jagi re
viphale sevinu, krpana durajana,
chapala sukha-lava lagi’ re [2]

‘Day and night I remain awake, suffering from the heat and the cold, the wind and the rain. For a moment of flickering happiness I have uselessly served wicked and miserly men.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

Why must we be misers? For the sake of your so called relatives who are all disguised dacoits svajanakhya-dasyu? They call me and ask, ‘Why do you not answer my call?’ They are disguised dacoits, that is why. They look like relatives, but in fact they always suck your blood. You know, if the husband gets pension and dies, the wife will get his pension after his death – even after his death, he does not get free, she will be taking his pension (sucking his blood) even after his death! Who do you do so many things for? No matter what we do, our illusion does not go away, instead of that we are only losing our intelligence.

e dhana, yauvana, putra, parijana
ithe ki achhe paratiti re
kamala-dala-jala jivana talamala
bhajahu hari-pada niti re [3]

‘What is there in having wealth, youth, sons, and family? Life is tottering like water on a lotus petal (it is here, and then it is gone). O mind, serve the Lord’s feet.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

When girls are young, everybody looks at them, and when they get old, nobody looks at them. So, wealth, youth – all this will go, you will not be able to take anything with you. If you have money, everybody will be spending that money after you – and if you have no money, nobody will stay by your side in the end. Have you ever seen a Muslim funeral? So many people come! When a poor man dies, not even four people come, but when a rich man dies, two hundred people will come to eat, feast and drink wine at his funeral, and they also bring a goat with them! I have seen it in Nabadwip. They go to the cremation ghat with goats by their side: they kill them after the cremation and eat that meat. What for are you struggling so much? Have you seen drops of water on a lotus? They totter, totter and as soon as some wind blows, these drops of fall down. Our life is just as like that – our life is uncertain. Every time you go outside, you must walk with death in your pocket (nobody can guarantee that you will return).

sravana, kirtana, smarana, vandana
pada-sevana, dasya re
pujana, sakhi-jana, atma-nivedana
govinda-dasa-abhila sare [4]

‘Govinda Das desires to engage himself in the nine practices of devotion: hearing about the Lord, chanting the Lord’s Names, remembering the Lord, praying to the Lord, serving the Lord’s feet, serving the Lord as a servant, worshipping the Lord, serving the Lord as a friend and submitting yourself to the Lord.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

There are nine types of devotion: sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). When Hiranyakasipu asked Prahlad Maharaj, ‘What is the highest thing that you have learned at school?’ Prahlad Maharaj answered that the highest thing he had learned was this nava-vidha bhakti (nine-fold devotion). Prahlad Maharaj was only five years old at that time.

So, this is the highest engagement in life – to hear and chant the glories of the Lord, to take the Name of the Lord. That is the only aim in life. Sravanam, kirtanam and good association is our main goal in life. This is what we need in our life the most.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Jaya Radha Madhava’ and concludes the kirtans with the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.]

(5/7) Escaping Maya

Please tell me, does anyone have any questions?

Question: How to know when Gurudev manifests himself in the heart of a devotee?

That is a good question for you. If you practise properly, if you always follow gurudev’s order, and if gurudev is pleased with the service you are doing, then you can realise, you can understand that gurudev has touched, or has covered, your heart. This realisation will come automatically. When gurudev is happy with your service, when you can please him properly, then you can understand gurudev has touched your heart. Also, it is necessary to surrender properly. If you surrender to your guru properly, fully (sad-anga saranagati), you can realise that gurudev has touched your heart.

…I am actually now in the preaching field. I have been attending an almost week-long preaching programme before Sri Gaura Purnima – it is called Dham Pracharani Sobha. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur first started preaching at small programmes before Sri Gaura Purnima, and it was called Dham Pracharani Sobha. We come to different places and tell everyone about Sri Nabadwip Dham, about the glories of Sri Nabadwip Dham, the glories of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu and the glories of Srila Prabhupad, Gurudev. We try to attract and call everyone to come for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama.

Question: How can a conditioned soul escape the nets of illusion and uncover its consciousness?

There are different types of consciousness, or chetan sakti – achchhadita-chetan (fully covered consciousness), sankuchita-chetan (closed, subdued consciousness), mukulita-chetan (budding consciousness), vikachita-chetan (blooming consciousness) and purna-vikachita-chetan (fully blossomed consciousness). Everybody’s consciousness is not the same. Gurudev gave one example. When somebody slaughters goats, the goats are killed one by one, and while some goats are being killed, other goats are sitting nearby and eating (it never occurs to them that they are going to be slaughtered next). Humans have a more developed consciousness (vikachita-chetan), but it can sometimes be covered by the illusory environment.

The main thing is that the soul is an eternal servant of Lord Krishna, but when we forget about it, at that time Maya, who is always near us, grabs us.

‘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)

krsna-bahirmukha hana bhoga vanchha kare
nikatastha maya tare japatiya dhare

‘When souls become averse to Krishna and desire enjoyment, Maya, who is always nearby, pounces on them.’

(Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.2, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

When we forget that we are eternal servants of the Lord, Maya Devi gets her chance and uses that ‘hole’ to catch us. We must always remember that we are not this body – we are jivas. This body and we are not one and the same thing. I am a soul, and the body is pancha-bhautik (made of five material elements: earth, water, fire, air, ether). As soon as we forget that we are eternal servants of the Lord and start to think that I am so-and-so Maharaj, I am a brahmachari, I am a man, I am a woman, and so on, Maya attacks us. If you practise and practise, if you always keep good association, if you always read scriptures and keep practising, Maya Devi will run away from you.

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant enquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

And:

daivi hy esa gunamayi, mama maya duratyaya
mam eva ye prapadyante, mayam etam taranti te

‘My supramundane trimodal illusory potency (alluring those who are averse to Me) is extremely difficult to overcome. However, this insurmountable potency of Mine can be overcome by those who exclusively surrender to Me.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 7.14)

When jivas surrender to the Lord and realise that they are eternal servants of the Lord, eternal servants of devotees, at that time Maya Devi always runs away. Maya cannot stay in a place where there is sadhu-sanga, or when there is kirtan. Maya has the right to stay only where there is darkness; she has no right to stay where there is light. That is why, it is necessary to always keep good association.

There are different ways you can get good association. You can associate with pure devotees, you can also get good association by reading scriptures. We should always read scriptures. There is Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Srimad Bhagavatam, Sri Sri Prapanna-jivanamritam, Sri Guru and His Grace; we also have so many Guidance books composed. Read these books and always think about what is written in them.

If you can surrender to the Lord properly, fully, then Maya Devi will run away from you. Maya always attacks those who cannot surrender, who have a lack of surrender. That is why it is said,

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya,
sadhu-guru-krpa bina na dekhi upaya

‘It is impossible to conquer illusory environment and become released from it. I see no other way to get relief except by the mercy of saints and Sri Guru.’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

There is no other way to conquer Maya (illusory environment) without the mercy of the devotees, sadhus, the guru. The mercy of the guru and Vaishnavs is always necessary. Their mercy is the main thing in our life.

(6/7) Two Important Questions

Question (from a Spanish-speaking devotee): I have lately received on Facebook friend requests from some Gaudiya Missions, and I do not want to sound arrogant by not accepting those requests. Should I agree to associate with them?

This depends on your faith. Actually, if you have proper chastity to your guru, you will listen only to your guru. This is the main point. Those who have chastity listen to what Gurudev says. Sometimes, other Gaudiya Maths may not like our Gurudev, somebody can be offensive to our Gurudev, offensive to Srila Sridhar Maharaj. We always avoid such association. We may sometimes show some formal respect to other Gaudiya Maths, but we do not associate with them. It is good to show respect, but do not become too close, or too attached, to them. It is necessary to understand this.

Besides, we have so many devotees of our own Mission. There are so many Spanish devotees, you can get good association from them. What is the problem? There are so many Spanish devotees all over the world – Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Spain, and so on. Perhaps, 80% of all devotees in our Mission are Spanish speaking. Do you not find anybody to associate with among them?

Srila Guru Maharaj used to say, ‘You cannot take one tree’s bark and attach it to another tree…’

If somebody is an offender to the holy lotus feet of Gurudev, it is better not to associate with them. That is called chastity. Must I pay obeisance to those who kick my guru on his head? If somebody comes and hits your father, will you pay obeisance to them? Tell me. This is the rule.

[His Divine Grace explains the question and answer in Bengali.] What can I say? I do not like to say such things, but they ask me about it, so I must give an answer.

Question: When I read Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, I cannot pronounce the Sanskrit verses properly. Is that very bad if I make mistakes?

What is the problem? The answer to this question is this. When Mahaprabhu went to Kurmaksetra in South India, He met a brahman who was reading Srimad Bhagavad-gita. The brahman was reading and crying, but his pronunciation was not right. He read the slokas wrong, and everybody laughed at him. But Mahaprabhu did not laugh. Remaining serious, Mahaprabhu asked that brahman, ‘O brahman, what are you reading?’ The brahman replied, ‘I am foolish, I do not know anything…’ Mahaprabhu asked him again, ‘Then why are you crying?’ The brahman explained, ‘I do not know what I am reading, but when I am reading this book, I can see Krishna driving Arjuna’s chariot.’ Then, Mahaprabhu said, ‘Yes, you are the one who has the right to read Srimad Bhagavad-gita!’

So, proper or wrong pronunciation is not a question. You must have devotion, faith. Do you think we all have proper pronunciation? Those who have studied Sanskrit or who are big pandits can pronounce these verses properly, but we do not know anything about wrong or right pronunciation. Only Gurudev knows it…

(7/7) Embracing the Fortune

Question: What should be our consciousness when we go for Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama?

When you are doing parikrama, you must think that this land is not an ordinary land. ‘Agartala’ and ‘Choukirtala’ is not the same thing! [A Bengali saying meaning ‘Where is Agartala, a famous grand city, and where is the floor under your bed?’] This holy dham is a place where Mahaprabhu, the Lord Himself, appeared. This is an extremely pure land, non-different from Sri Goloka Vrindavan.

We must always pay obeisances to all dham-basis and pray for their mercy, pray that we may not commit any offence to them (‘dhama-basi jane pranati kariya magiba krpara lesa’; Saranagati). We must not contaminate the holy abode.

How does one do the parikrama of a dham? On their head. We must do parikrama with our heads. It means that we must take the dust of the holy dham on our heads. All demigods reside here. Bhagavan Sri Krishna (Gauranga Mahaprabhu) Himself joins this parikrama, Nityananda Prabhu and all other associates of Gauranga Mahaprabhu come for this parikrama, but we have no eyes to see that. Our eyes are always covered by the illusory environment, our eyes are full of illusory dust. We do not know anything, we cannot see anything, we cannot understand who comes and when they come to this parikrama. We cannot recognise what demigod, what devotee comes to this parikrama. We cannot recognise it when Mahaprabhu comes, when Srivas Pandit comes, when Advaita Acharya, Gadadhar Pandit and other devotees come. They all come to this parikrama, but we cannot recognise them. So, we must always pay our obeisances at all the places of the parikrama, and we must be always serious about Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. It is necessary to have this kind of consciousness. We must not do anything bad when we come to the dham. That is all there is to it.

[Addressing one of the devotees.] …How is your preaching going on? Try and try, and you will be successful. If you are to make one devotee, you have to shed gallons and gallons of blood. Do you think people come to this path so easily? Everybody is too much attached to their material life. All foreign countries are very materialistic, and India now also looks like that. Still, you must try to preach and recruit devotees. It is not easy, but you will try and try, and you will be successful. Try and try, you will be successful. You can see my example. I preach village to village, going door to door, sometimes visiting up to 140 houses a day. I come and tell everyone to come and join Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. I started preaching like this in my brahmachari life in 1992 when Gurudev sent me for village preaching, and I am still doing the same thing.

Practise properly. Everybody should practise properly. The problem is that we practise properly, but then we sometimes also accept that which is unfavourable for devotion. There are six faults and six urges that we suffer from. For example, atyahara. People eat too much, keep too much money. If you always save money, it means you have no faith that Krishna will protect you. Money cannot save you. There is also prajalpa. We always engage in empty talks and gossip…

Gurudev gave a good analogy. If you pour milk into a pot and see that the level of milk is slowly going down, it means there is a hole in the pot. So, you can practise properly, following all rules and regulations, but if you also accept that which is not proper for practising life, you will be reducing the result you get from your spiritual practice. That is why it is necessary to practise properly. Practise properly accepting that which is favourable to devotion (bhakti-anukula karya) and reject that which is not favourable (bhakti-pratikula bhava varjanangikara). We have to always reject and avoid such things. Always gossiping, always seeing others’ faults and not seeing your own fault – this is the problem. Vaisnava habe adosa darasi. Vaishnavs will never see others’ fault – they will always think about their own fault.

Question: Is Govinda Das who wrote ‘Bhajahu re mana’ different from Govinda Das who was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s servitor?

Yes, they are two different devotees. Mahaprabhu’s servitor is from Odisha, and the other Govinda Das is from Bardhaman District.

Govinda Das who composed this song used to be a worshipper of Mother Kali, and his brother worshipped the Lord. One day, when Govinda Das was offering a flower to Mother Kali, she did not accept it and indicated that he had to worship her Lord instead. After that, he gave up worshipping Mother Kali and started to worship Lord Krishna. Then he composed this song, ‘Bhajahu re mana Sri-Nanda-nandana abhaya-charanaravinda re. O mind, serve the lotus feet of Nanda’s son. He feet remove all fear.’

Does anyone else have any questions?

Question: Can people take initiation if they sell fish?

What to do? They can chant the Holy Name, there is no problem with that. If they do not eat fish, they can chant the Holy Name. Sometimes, somebody sells eggs also. They can chant the Holy Name. But if somebody hunts or kills animals (goats, cows, and so on), it is very hard for them. Such people should not take initiation because they are very sinful. Also, such people do not easily come to the path of chanting the Holy Name. If somebody finds themselves in this kind of situation, they must cry to the Lord, ‘O Lord please rescue me from this job!’

Many ladies come to take initiation, but their husbands do not come to this line, so the ladies have to cook for them. Gurudev had one disciple whose husband would put meat in the fridge on ekadasi just out of spite. Moreover, when Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj, the founder of ISKCON, preached abroad, he went to the USA alone. At first, when he stayed in the house of a non-devotee, he would cook something in the morning, take prasad and then go out to preach the whole day, and he would keep some prasad in the same fridge where the host kept cow’s meat! Was his spiritual life destroyed by that? It was not. Srila Sridhar Maharaj said that he was a saktya-vesa avatar of Nityananda Prabhu! He gave him this title.

So, if somebody wants to come to this line, we must give them a chance to come. It is not easy to come to Krishna consciousness. Almost all foreigners who come used to eat cow’s meat before, but look what service they do now! Can devotees from India serve like them? You must have seen at the Math that one sannyasi (a sannyasi!) would come from abroad, get off the plane, come to the temple and go to clean the bathrooms. If I told some sweeper to clean the bathrooms, he would get upset, ‘You have taken my service from me!’ They have this kind of attachment to service. Here in India nobody practises Krishna consciousness like them. As they say, although the candle gives light, there is always darkness under the candle (pradiper niche andhakar)…

Indian people do not understand so much, and they do not come to this path so easily. I was asked about preaching recently, and I was saying that it is easy to preach to those who come from a Christian or Muslim background, but it is very difficult to preach to those who come from a Hindu background because such people worship Durga, Kali, Laksmi, Ganesh, Kartik, Manasa and other gods. Brahma took initiation from Krishna and then instructed many others, but all disciples are not the same, so if somebody does not hear their guru properly, some misconception starts spreading. But Brahma did what Krishna instructed him to do (he created this world according to Krishna’s instruction), that is why people worship Kali, Durga, Laksmi or Ganesh, that is why somebody is a kasatriya, somebody is a brahman, somebody is a vaisya, and so on.

I have to go to Dum Dum Park, Kolkata, today, so I would like to finish a little earlier today. Please forgive my offence. I am requesting everybody to participate in Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. You must all contribute to your Nabadwip Dham parikrama. You cannot come this year, but I do not want to stop your service to Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama because of that. If you contribute your service for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, I will be very happy and it will be good for you also. I will be thinking about you all every day, especially about Srila Ashram Maharaj, Srila Janardan Maharaj, Sripad Puri Maharaj. I have also invited **, but I do not know if he will come or not. He told me that he had not decided yet. I told him to please come. Anyhow, I do not want to give pressure to him because he is mature now, he is not below eighteen anymore. He can do as he decides. I told him, ‘This is Gurudev’s, Guru Maharaj’s and Srila Prabhupad’s big festival, and you have an opportunity to come because you are in Vrindavan. You should come and join this parikrama.’

Srila Prabhupad told that secluded practice (nirjan bhajan) is mere self-deception (kevala kaitav, atma-vanchana). We sometimes want to practise in a secluded place (we want to go to some cave or stay in Vrindavan at Radha Kunda), but Srila Prabhupad says it is all self-deception.

vrndavane giya na thakiya chira kala
govardhane uthiya na dekhiya gopala

‘When you go to Vrindavan, do not stay there for a long time and do not climb on top of the Govardhan Hill to see Gopal.’

But:

kirtana-prabhave, smarana haibe,

se kale bhajana nirjjana sambhava

‘Chanting the Holy Name (kirtan) arouses remembrance (smaran) – at that time, it becomes possible to worship the Lord in seclusion (nirjan-bhajan).’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

When you practise remembering through kirtan, at that time you become a babaji and you can practise this privately, it is not a problem. But Srila Prabhupad has given ** an opportunity to preach – he has accepted sannyas life, and it is necessary for him to preach. You must preach what you have received. You have some knowledge, and you must preach. Srila Sridhar Maharaj also went to Nandagram, stayed in Vrindavan, but when he later got a message from Srila Prabhupad, he left Vrindavan and came to Nabadwip. After that, one day he went to Ekachakra to beg Nityananda Prabhu for mercy, but Nityananda Prabhu told him, ‘You must first distribute the mercy, the wealth that you have got from Srila Prabhupad! First distribute what you have got!’ Anyhow, ** thinks that he is not a proper person to distribute anything. He feels he is not ready to distribute it. In another way, it is also good because he is thinking about himself in a very humble way. So, it is OK, no problem…

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Sarvasva tomara charane sampiya’ and ‘Hari Haraye Krsna’ and finishes the programme.]

* * *

￼Line Line21 March 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Evening Class

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/8) Keep Your Guard Up

[His Divine Grace recites Jaya Dhvani and Sri Vandana.]

We are going to start Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama in two days, and tomorrow is the adhivas, the eve and inauguration of the festival. Many devotees have already come, and you all have got an opportunity to hear about the Lord, to chant kirtan. I will also say something today, too, for everyone’s benefit and, most of all, for my own benefit. Now we are going to chant some kirtans.

[His Divine Grace sings ‘Sri Guru-charana-padma’.]

‘Sri-guru-charana-padma, kevala-bhakati-sadma, vando muni savadhana mate. With great care, I worship the lotus feet of the guru. They are an abode of pure devotion.’ Why must we worship gurudev and pay obeisance to gurudev with great care?

[Noise in the audience.] Please keep quiet. Do not speak. You must not speak, especially any gramya-katha, sitting in front of the Deities. And keep your mobile phones switched off. You must listen to the class, it is for your own benefit (for the benefit of your family, for the benefit of all your children and others). It is necessary to worship the lotus feet of the guru with great care. You have taken so much trouble coming here amidst the lockdown by the mercy of Gaura Hari, by the mercy of gurudev. Do not waste your time. Take prasad, take rest, do everything as you are habituated, and amidst that, every day, when we return from the parikrama, come here and listen to Hari-katha. Even when you go for the parikrama, you will hear about Vaishnavs, about the Lord – you must take it in, you must take it into your heart. You must keep and take all this katha with you. When you want to cross a river, you give some money to the boatman and you get transported to the other bank, but here you cannot make it with money – you can cross the ocean of material existence only with devotion. You must listen to Hari-katha through devotion. It is necessary to engage yourself in sravan and kirtan. So, if you speak during the class, it is a sin against the Lord, the Lord gets offended. You are sitting in the Lord’s house, so you must not talk.

I began saying, ‘Sri-guru-charana-padma, kevala-bhakati-sadma, vando muni savadhana mate. With great care, I worship the lotus feet of the guru. They are an abode of pure devotion.’ We always make offences to the guru – we do not follow what he tells us. Gurudev tells us to do this or not to do that, but we always go against that.

guru-mukha-padma vakya, chittete kariya aikya,
ara na kariha mane asa

‘Make the teachings from Sri Guru’s lotus mouth one with your heart and do not desire anything else within your heart.’

(Sri Prema-bhakti-chandrika, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

We were singing this just now, and I heard you were singing earlier (after the arati):

karuna na haile, kandiya kandiya,
prana na rakhiba ara

‘If I do not get your mercy, then I will weep and give up life.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We sing all this, but how many people cry because they do not get service? We say, ‘I will cry and give up this life,’ but how many people actually cry when they do not get service? Even if gurudev gives them mercy, they cannot keep it! I always tell you: you want to keep some water or milk in a pot but if that pot has holes, all the water or milk will come out. There are holes in our service, so all our effort comes out through these holes. No matter how much we try to serve, we do not get any result because besides service we at the same time do wrong and other things more (we speak gramya-katha and do what is unfavourable to devotion, bhakti-pratikul). We do everything right, but sometimes we also make mistakes: you want to keep water in a pot, but the pot has holes, so all the water will come out through the holes (the pot will remain empty). This is how we become deceived and deprived of gurudev’s mercy. This is how all kinds of dangers and bad things come to our life. If you do service and at the same time you do other, bad things more, then you are in for trouble. You must remember this. That is why we chant in the kirtan, ‘Vando muni savadhana mate: I worship the lotus feet of the guru with great care.’ We pray, we worship and pay obeisance to the guru’s feet with great care. Once we lose our guard – if we do not watch out for holes – all water will fall through the holes. In the same way, we must watch out if there are any mistakes in our service. We must watch out and make sure we do not cheat, do not try to deceive the Lord while doing service. We must watch out whether we want something from the Lord or not. We must always be aware of this and watch out for this.

‘Guru-mukha-padma-vakya, chittete kariya aikya ara na kariha mane asa – make the teachings from the guru’s lotus mouth one with your heart, and do not desire anything else within your heart.’ You must keep what gurudev says in our hearts, and it is not necessary to want, or expect, anything else. If you can just keep his word in your heart, that is sufficient…

(2/8) Clear Vision

yanhara prasade bhai, e-bhava tariya yai,
krsna prapti haya yanha haite

‘Brother, by the guru’s mercy it is possible to cross over this world and reach Krishna.’

(Sri Prema-bhakti-chandrika, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

How does one get Krishna? Worshipping Lord Gauranga without worshipping gurudev gets one nowhere. ‘Guru bada diye Gauranga bhaje, sei papi raurave padi maje: the sinner who worships Gauranga without the guru will fall into a terrible hell.’ I have told you many times about this. I have also written about this in the books. If you read my books, you will see it there. One does not become a disciple just by getting the mantra or taking initiation. You may take initiation, but this only does not make you a disciple. Proper disciples will always live and serve following the guidance of their guru.

There is service (seva), and there is material activity (karma). People come to the temple and do many kinds of things – they do this, this, that, they do what they want to do, they do what they like to do. I have seen many devotees like that: they always think about their own benefit. But this is not right. There is karma and there is seva. If you do what gurudev tells you to do, that will be service, and if you do something that gurudev did not tell you to do, that will be karma. Karma and seva look the same. Materialists always do karma. They always live following the whims of their minds, and they do everything for their own pleasure.

I once heard some sannyasi give a class saying, ‘Karma is the dharma.’ No. This is wrong. Karma is not dharma (religion). Mahaprabhu never said that. You did not come here to learn such things. When you do something (some action, or karma) for the Lord, that is called dharma. It is necessary to live for the Lord, then it will be service (seva), not karma (reactionary actions). Service is when you live following the guidance of your guru and Vaishnavs, not for your own pleasure but for the pleasure of your guru. Service means pleasing your guru. If you go about trying to satisfy your own self, that will be karma. You must remember this. If your guru is taking prasad and asks you for some water or salt and you quickly supply what he wants, that will be service. Guru Maharaj gave an example at a lecture. If your guru says, ‘I like singara (samosa),’ then no problem – you must make some singara or arrange for some singaras to be made. But you think, ‘No, better I give something sweet to gurudev.’ This is not right. If gurudev says a singara, you must give him a singara. Gopal says, ‘Give me a laddu,’ then you must give Him a laddu – you cannot give Him a singara instead. You must remember these things. It is necessary to hear what gurudev wants.

guru-mukha-padma, vakya chittete kariya aikya,
ara na kariha mane asa

‘Make the teachings from the guru’s lotus mouth one with your heart and do not desire anything else within your heart.’

(Sri Prema-bhakti-chandrika, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

We must not have any other desires or expectations. What should we do?

sri-guru-charana-padma, kevala bhakati-sadma,
vando muni savadhana mate
yanhara prasade bhai, e-bhava tariya yai,
krsna prapti haya yanha haite

‘I carefully offer obeisance at the guru’s lotus feet, which are an abode of exclusive devotion. Brother, by his mercy it is possible to cross over this world and reach Krishna.’

(Sri Prema-bhakti-chandrika, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

We keep on coming to this material world. Having crossed 8,400,000 species we have got this human birth, and if you do not want to keep on coming and going through all these species, you must do something about it. How many species we have already crossed! It is said in the scriptures that we have crossed 8,400,000 species, but who knows how many more births we have crossed due to our offences. We have got a human birth now, but we may not get it again because if we get this human birth but do not worship the Lord, we will have to again go back to this ceaseless roaming. How many times we come and go? There is no end to this roaming. Who can say when it will end? Therefore, you must remember, ‘Yahara prasade bhai e bhava tariya yai krsna-prapti haya yaha haite. By gurudev’s mercy we can cross over this world and reach Krishna.’ We can get Krishna! How? By gurudev’s prasad – does it mean you can make it if gurudev simply gives you his prasad (food remnants)? No. Prasad means mercy, and mercy means service. If gurudev gives me service, if he engages me in something, that is his mercy. In whichever way, in whatever work, but if he engages us in any kind of service, that is our highest aspiration.

guru-mukha-padma vakya, chitete kariya aikya,
ara na kariha mane asa
sri-guru-charane rati, ei se uttama-gati,
ye prasade pure sarva asa

‘Make the teachings from the guru’s lotus mouth one with your heart and do not desire anything else within your heart. Attachment to Sri Guru’s holy feet is the highest path. By his mercy all desires are fulfilled.’

(Sri Prema-bhakti-chandrika, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

We sing this kirtan all the time, but we do not understand its meaning. We must think about the meaning of kirtans. Even if you read or give a class on Srimad Bhagavad-gita, this is also not sufficient because you must apply Srimad Bhagavad-gita in your own behaviour, in your own life (not only speak about it or give a class about it). For example, it is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita:

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

‘Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

But we think that we must follow mano-dharma, pita-dharma, mata-dharma (we think our duty in life is to do what we want, to serve and follow our fathers, our mothers, and so on), this dharma, that dharma. We try to please everyone, but Gita never told you to do that. Gita says, ‘Sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja. Leave all religions and surrender to Me!’ Gita does not tell you to follow any pita-dharma, bandhu-dharma, brahman-dharma, Christian dharma, Buddha dharma or your own concocted dharma. ‘Leave all religions and surrender to Me. I will look after you, there is no sin in that!’ This is what Gita teaches, but how many people actually follow this?

Anyhow, I have spoken a lot. We must continue with the kirtans.

chaksu-dana dila yei, janme janme prabhu sei,
divya-jnana hrde prakasita

‘He who has given me the gift of eyes is my master birth after birth. He manifests divine knowledge in my heart.’

(Sri Prema-bhakti-chandrika, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Everybody gets a father, a mother, friends and everything else. When I was a goat or a cow, I also had a mother, a father and many friends. Even when I was a pig, I had parents. My parents give me a body, but they do not produce that which I am. They do not give me birth; they only give me a body, nothing else. Such parents are called ‘biological parents’. So, you get parents in every birth, you get friends in every birth, you get a family and relatives in every birth, but it is not in every birth that you can get a guru. You can get a guru only in this human birth, and if you can practise Krishna consciousness taking shelter of a bona fide guru, you will get supreme benefit. We must think about the benefit of our souls.

We always think about food, clothes, about some temporary happiness, but we do not think about the spiritual benefit of our souls. Even the scriptures say that the souls who think about their eternal benefit are very rare. ‘Out of ten million workers, you will get one wise person; out of ten million wise people, you will get one liberated soul, and out of ten million liberated souls, you will get one devotee of Krishna.’ There are very few such souls in this world. That is why Mahaprabhu bestows so much mercy on us by coming to this world in Kali-yuga to save such lowly fallen souls as myself, and He comes in this Kali-yuga together with Nityananda Prabhu.

What more can we say? You have come to do the parikrama of this very holy abode, which is non-different from Sri Vrindavan Dham, where Mahaprabhu appeared.

The place where you are sitting is called Devapalli, or Nrisingha Palli. Lord Nrisinghadev appeared in this world and, having protected His devotee Prahlad Maharaj and defeated Hiranyakasipu, He came to take rest in this place. People from all over the world come to this place. People come here from thousands and thousands of miles away. You can see that this year many also could not come because of covid. You know, it is almost night here now, but in some places the sun is only rising, and devotees come from these very far-away places and join us. What pulls them to come here? We do not understand this. Because our eyes are blind, we cannot understand the glory of this place. ‘Agartala’ and ‘Choukirtala’ is not the same thing! [A Bengali saying meaning where is Agartala, a famous grand city, and where is ‘the floor under your bed’?] For some, muri (puffed rice) and murki (chicken) is the same. People think everything is the same, but when they get some sukriti, when the Lord bestows His mercy upon them by the mercy of the guru and Vaishnavs, then they will understand it.

Try to understand these things. For as many days you are here in this world, try to practise Krishna consciousness and engage yourself in service. Washing dishes, sweeping, cutting vegetables, and so on is also service. Tomorrow is adhivas and so many more people will come to do this Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. I have been going house to house in many places with Dham Pracharani Sobha, inviting everyone to come: ‘Please come! Come to this Nabadwip Dham where Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared!’ We must do this parikrama walking on our heads. We are going to start the parikrama the day after tomorrow, and we must prepare ourselves in this way…

(3/8) Cries of a Fallen Child

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Sri Krishna Chaitanya daya kara more’.]

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu daya kara more
toma bina ke dayalu jagata majhare [1]

‘My Lord, Sri Krishna Chaitanya, please be merciful to me. Who other than You can be merciful in this world?’

patita-pavana-hetu tava avatara
mo-sama patita prabhu na paibe ara [2]

‘Because You are the saviour of the fallen, You have appeared in this world. My Lord, You will not find another soul as fallen as I am.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

How can you recognise a Vaishnav? Gurudev said that you can recognise a Vaishnav by his quality: the higher a Vaishnav is, the more humility they have. Vaishnavs are always humble, they always stay in the background. Do you see what is said in this kirtan? ‘Mo sama patita prabhu na paibe ara. Mahaprabhu, You have come to this world to rescue fallen souls, but You will not find a soul as fallen as I am. I am so fallen!’ Do you know what foreign devotees always write in their letters? They always sign their letters with ‘your fallen servant’. I also signed my letters to Gurudev ‘naradham’ or ‘patita adhama’, but these things should not be just written – your behaviour should be like that, too. We must always feel, ‘I am your fallen child.’

ha ha prabhu nityananda premananda sukhi
krpavalokana kara ami bara duhkhi [3]

‘O Nityananda! You are overjoyed with divine love. Please cast Your merciful glance upon me, I am very sad.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

I told you this when we were in the holy dham of Nityananda Prabhu: without the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, you cannot get mercy from Gauranga Mahaprabhu. If you get Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy, you will get Gauranga, and if you get Gauranga Mahaprabhu’s mercy, you will get Radha-Krishna. ‘Nitaiyer karuna habe Vraje Radha-Krsna pabe: when Nitai bestows His mercy, you will reach Radha-Krishna in Vraja.’ That is why we pray, ‘O Nityananda Prabhu, please cast Your merciful glance on me! Please look at me, give some mercy to me!’ When we pray for ‘mercy’ it means we pray for service, ‘Please give me the right to serve Your lotus feet. Please make me qualified for some service. Please give me an opportunity to serve You.’

Service is not only feeding and clothing your guru or massaging your guru’s feet. You can do service even if you are far away. For example, many devotees are very far away, but they arrange for some funds for this parikrama. They are staying so far, but they are serving from far. I can give give you one example also. There is a small boy of perhaps thirteen–fourteen years old. Every day he saves a little money from his pocket money: he saves, saves, saves and then sends it to me. (He has just called me today and said, ‘Maharaj, it is Sunday today, so I will send it tomorrow.’) He saves little by little in this way and has accumulated ninety thousand rupees in one year! And that is coming from just a small boy! He gets some money for ice-cream, chocolates and other things, but he saves that money for his gurudev, thinking, ‘I will go for Nabadwip Dham parikrama and give it to my guru.’ He could not come this year, so he said he would send it tomorrow. This is what service mood is. There are such devotees among Bengali devotees, too. Some devotees here also do a lot of collection. I told them that foreign devotees could not come, and many devotees did collections here, going and begging door to door every day. I also sent Sripad Niriha Maharaj and Ashok Prabhu to go house to house. They returned late at night yesterday – I was waiting for them, and when they came I saw they had brought much rice, dal, potato, some money and other things. I cannot go to all houses and programmes myself, I even had to cancel some programmes, but devotees have gone to many houses and done all that collection. Somebody gave dal, somebody gave sugar, oil or some other bhoga; people give whatever they can, according to their capacity. Everybody helped this Nabadwip Dham parikrama in this way. I give an opportunity to serve to everyone, so everybody can come and serve.

You know that when gurudev gives second initiation, he sends everyone to beg to teach them how to do that, and he told me to go outside for collection after I got my initiation. Since then I have been going on collection all the time. This time when I went for potato collection, sometimes I went to 130–140 houses a day! I did not even struggle or feel any austerity doing it. I would go out in the morning, collect, take prasad in the afternoon, rest for one hour and then again go out at four o’clock and do collection till late evening. This is how we collected six hundred bags of potato.

In this way, I give everyone an opportunity to serve, and those who have some fortune serve, and those who have no fortune do not get such a chance. Therefore, we pray here, ‘O Nityananda Prabhu, please cast Your merciful glance on me! Please give some mercy to me, please look at me! I am very sad (ami bara duhkhi). There is no one sadder than me in this world. Why? Because I have not been able to get the Lord’s mercy! I could not get the Lord’s mercy!’

daya kara sita-pati advaita gosani
tava krpa-bale pai chaitanya-nitai [4]

‘O Advaita Gosai, the spouse of Sita Thakurani! Please be merciful to me. By Your mercy, I will reach Sri Chaitanya and Nitai.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Sri Advaita Prabhu is one of Pancha-tattva (Sri Krishna Chaitanya, Prabhu Nityananda, Sri Advaita, Gadadhar, Srivas-adi Gaura-bhakta-vrinda). If Advaita Prabhu had not come in this world, how would we have got Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu? It was Sri Advaita Prabhu who brought Mahaprabhu to this world. Mahaprabhu Himself said, ‘I was sleeping, but then My sleep was broken by the cries of My caller.’ Mahaprabhu called Advaita Prabhu ‘nera’ (‘caller’, ‘he who calls and invites’). The Lord resides in Goloka Dham, and Sri Advaita Prabhu brought Him from Goloka to this world, praying, ‘My Lord, You must come now. This world has become void of religion.’ It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita:

yada yada hi dharmasya, glanir bhavati bharata
abhyutthanam adharmasya, tadatmanam srjamy aham

‘O Bharata, whenever there is a decline of religion and an uprising of irreligion, I personally make My advent.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.7)

When irreligion become prominent in the world, the Lord makes His advent. This happens in every age: the Lord came in Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dvapar-yuga, and He came in Kali-yuga, too. Srimad Bhagavatam contains the proof that Gauranga Mahaprabhu is the Lord Himself:

krsna-varnam tvisakrsnam sangopangastra-parsadam
yajnaih sankirtana-prayair yajanti hi su-medhasah

‘In this Age of Kali, intelligent souls will always worship Sri Gaurasundar through sankirtan-yajna (the sacrifice of chanting the Holy Names). He appears as dark-complexioned (Krishna) but with a non-dark, or golden, halo (couched in the heart and halo of Sri Radha). Together with His associates, He searches for Krishna by chanting His Holy Names. His limbs (anga) are Sriman Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Advaita Prabhu; His accessory limbs (upanga) are Srivas Acharya and all pure devotees; His weapons (astra) are the words of the Holy Name; and His associates (parsada) are Sri Gadadhar, Sri Svarup Damodar, Ramananda, Sanatan, Rupa and others.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 11.5.32)

Mahaprabhu came to this world 536 years ago, and Bhagavatam existed long before that, but Sukadev Goswami says in Bhagavatam that Krishna, the Supreme Lord, comes in Kali-yuga with His associates. What are His weapons in this age? His devotees. Lord Ramachandra killed, Krishna killed, but in this age, the Lord only gives Krishna-prema (transcendental love for the Lord). Gauranga Mahaprabhu comes in this Kali-yuga as a combined form of Radha and Krishna. We sing in one of the kirtans:

yadi gaura na ha’ta, tabe ki haita,
kemane dharitam de
radhara mahima, prema-rasa-sima,
jagate janata ke?

‘If Gaura had not come, what would have happened? How would we have lived? Who would have revealed to the world Radha’s glory and the extremes of Her ecstatic divine love?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

Even Srimad Bhagavatam does not mention Radharani’s Name because this is such a high conception that Sukadev Goswami, Vyasadev did not want to pronounce Her name! They thought, ‘We have no right, no qualification to utter Her name!’ That is why they never mentioned Her name in Srimad Bhagavatam. But Sri Vasu Ghosh writes that Mahaprabhu comes to tell the whole world about Srimati Radharani. Gauranga Mahaprabhu is a combined form of Radha and Krishna: Krishna steals the heart and halo of Srimati Radharani and comes to this world as Gauranga Mahaprabhu.

Coming to this world, what does Mahaprabhu tell everyone? ‘Krsna bala, sange chala, ei matra bhiksa chai. I am begging you only for one thing: come with us and chant “Krishna”!’

jiva jaga jiva jaga gorachanda bale
kata nidra yao maya-pisachira kole

‘Gorachand says, “Wake up, souls! Wake up! How much longer will you sleep in the lap of the witch Maya?”’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Stop sleeping! Wake up! Worship Krishna! You have no time! But we continue sleeping… We pray, ‘Give me Krishna-prema’, but we have no attachment, no real hankering for that…

daya kara sita-pati advaita gosani
tava krpa-bale pai chaitanya-nitai [5]

‘O Advaita Gosai, the spouse of Sita! Please be merciful to me. By Your mercy, I can come to Chaitanya and Nitai.’

gaura-premamaya-tanu pandit gadadhara
srinivasa haridasa dayara sagara [6]

‘O Gadadhar Pandit, embodiment of love for Gaura! O oceans of mercy, Srinivas (Srivas) and Haridas!’

ha ha svarupa sanatana rupa raghunatha
bhatta-yuga sri-jiva ha prabhu lokanatha [7]

‘O Svarup, Sanatan, Rupa, Raghunath, Raghunath Bhatta, Gopal Bhatta and Sri Jiva! O Lokanath Prabhu!’

daya kara sri-acharya prabhu srinivasa
ramachandra-sanga mage narottama dasa [8]

‘O Sri Acharya Srinivas! Please be merciful! Narottam Das prays for the association of Ramachandra.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

(daya kara prabhupada sri-gaura-prakasa)
(tava jana krpa mage ei adhama dasa)

‘O Prabhupad, manifestation of Sri Gaura! Please be merciful to me. This fallen servant prays for your associates’ mercy.’

(4/8) Exclusive Current

ha ha svarupa sanatana rupa raghunatha
bhatta-yuga sri jiva ha prabhu lokanatha

‘O Svarup, Sanatan, Rupa, Raghunath, Raghunath Bhatta, Gopal Bhatta and Sri Jiva! O Lokanath Prabhu!’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Mahaprabhu sent Srila Sanatan Goswami and Srila Rupa Goswami to Vrindavan. Before that, Mahaprabhu went to Ramkeli in Malda to collect His associate friends.

Mahaprabhu is a combined form of Radha-Krishna. As you know, there are gopis, sakhis and manjaris among the closest associates of Krishna. Gopis are a little older (for example, Mother Yasoda); sakhis are Lalita, Visakha and others, they are about the same age as Srimati Radharani; and manjaris are nine–ten-year-old girls. When Radharani experiences separation, only Rupa Manjari, Lavanga Manjari, Guna Manjari, Nayana Manjari stay with Her at that time: only manjaris know what this mood of separation is.

So, Mahaprabhu comes together with His associates:

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’

svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari

‘To bestow His mercy to jiva souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

All the associates who participate in Krishna’s pastimes in Dvapar-yuga come to this world together with Mahaprabhu in this Kali-yuga.

sri krishna chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura bhakta-vrinda

‘Pancha-tattva: Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Nityananda Prabhu, Sri Advaita, Gadadhar and all other devotees of Gaura headed by Srivas.’

jaya rupa sanatana bhatta raghunatha
sri-jiva gopala-bhatta dasa raghunatha

‘All glory to Sri Rupa, Sanatan, Raghunath Bhatta, Sri Jiva, Gopal Bhatta and Raghunath Das!’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

There are also many others. There is Srila Narottam Das Thakur, Ramachandra Kaviraj, Lokanath Goswami and many others. All of them come to this world to preach about Mahaprabhu. In the case of Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami, Mahaprabhu Himself went to Ramkeli in Malda. He roamed and searched, ‘Where are My own? Where are My dearest associates?’ In the meantime, Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami were working for a Muslim emperor Hussein Shah as chief ministers, they were known as Dabir Khas and Sakar Mallik, but Mahaprabhu rescued them. He met with them and took them to Vrindavan to preach about the Lord, but they preached about Mahaprabhu. Srila Sanatan Goswami was first to install Mahaprabhu’s Deity in Vrindavan. After that, Srila Jiva Goswami came, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami came, and they all preached Mahaprabhu’s message in this world. It is said:

yadi gaura na ha’ta, tabe ki haita,
kemane dharitam de
radhara mahima, prema-rasa-sima,
jagate janata ke?

‘If Gaura had not come, what would have happened? How would we have lived? Who would have revealed to the world Radha’s glory and the extremes of Her ecstatic divine love?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

After Mahaprabhu left, this current flowed in a proper and pure way up until Srila Narottam Das Thakur. After him, this line had gradually become extinct and corrupted. At some point, people actually hated Vaishnav-dharma. I have been to many places, and people still often call holy temples ‘akhra’, which means ‘a club’ or ‘a place for musical or sports exercises’ (in other words, a dirty place). This line had become extinct, but seeing this, Jagad-Guru Srila Prabhupad and Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came to this world to revive it. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was a deputy magistrate in Krishnanagar. Before that, he also worked in Puri, where he was in charge of the Ratha-yatra festival. It was in Puri that he got a son by the mercy of Bimala Devi: his son’s name was at first Bimala Prasad, and after that he became known as Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. He is our Param Gurudev’s gurudev. We know that Srila Prabhupad is Nayana Manjari, and Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur is Guna Manjari. They came to this world to preach about Mahaprabhu.

(daya kara prabhupada sri-gaura-prakasa)
(tava jana krpa mage ei adhama dasa)

‘O Prabhupad, manifestation of Sri Gaura! Please be merciful to me. This fallen servant prays for your associates’ mercy.’

We pray for the mercy of this Srila Prabhupad. If this Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur had not come, this current, this line would have been lost. He came and cleared all misconceptions. There were thirteen prominent apa-sampradayas in this world at that time (aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, ativadi, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari), and now there must be thirteen thousand different conceptions. There are so many conceptions and lines in this world now, but please leave all this – accept only Mahaprabhu’s line, which is the line of Jagad-Guru Srila Prabhupad.

(5/8) Mahaprabhu’s Teachings

We have just sung:

(ohe) vaisnava thakura, dayara sagara,
e dase karuna kari’
diya pada-chhaya, sodha he amare,
tomara charana dhari

‘O worshippable Vaishnav, an ocean of grace, be merciful to this servant. Please give me the shade of your feet, please purify me. I clasp your feet.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Prabhu, I am your servant.’ We are not anyone’s master. We are all servants. Why do we call each other ‘Prabhu’? Because he is my master (prabhu), and I am his servant (das). You must always remember this. Even if you do not get on well with somebody, you must still offer each other obeisances so that you do not make any vaishnav-aparadha. This is the remedy. The only way to save yourself from vaishnav-aparadha is to offer obeisance to each other. This is the custom.

We have come to this line – we have not come here for fighting. There had been so much fighting before, so I fled and came here, thinking, ‘Good luck to you all! I am out of there!’ I have no greed for big buildings. We made everything ourselves, and they are now spoiling everything. It is painful to see this because it is all the Lord’s property. I made everything on Gurudev’s order: Gurudev gave his order, and I made everything that he wanted. Anyway, I am happy to be here. At least I can sleep peacefully now. You know what my position was when I left that temple. I was on the verge of death. I am not sad about anything because I know you are all with me. Everybody accepted me as their servant; that is my happiness. There are many senior devotees from the time of Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj, and there are many of his disciples in our society. After Srila Swami Maharaj Prabhupad, they came to Gurudev, and Gurudev accepted them. Now they are accepting me as their menial servant, they have given me a place at their feet, and this is my happiness. I do not need any money, great buildings, wealth or anything else.

nahi magi deha-sukha vidya dhana jana
nahi magi svarga ara moksa nahi magi
na kari prarthana kona vibhutira lagi

‘I do not wish for any bodily happiness, knowledge, wealth, friends or followers. I do not wish to attain heaven or liberation, neither do I pray for any supernatural powers.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This is Mahaprabhu’s kirtan. Mahaprabhu put it so nicely.

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

Outside people will not understand all this. They always say, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, yasam dehi: make me rich, make me clever, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me famous.’

nahi magi deha-sukha vidya dhana jana
nahi magi svarga ara moksa nahi magi
na kari prarthana kona vibhutira lagi

‘I do not wish for any bodily happiness, knowledge, wealth, friends or followers. I do not wish to attain heaven or liberation, neither do I pray for any supernatural powers.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This is Mahaprabhu’s teachings. It is necessary to hear it. Read Siksastakam nicely and learn what is said in it. What does Siksastakam say?

chetodarpanamarjanam bhavamahadava nirvapanam
sreyah kairava chandrikavitaranam vidyavadhujivanam
anandambudh ivardhanam pratipadam purnamrtasvadanam
sarvatmasnapanam param vijayate srikrsnasankirtanam

‘The Holy Name of Krishna cleanses the mirror of the heart and extinguishes the fire of misery in the forest of birth and death. As the evening lotus blooms in the moon’s cooling rays, the heart begins to blossom in the nectar of the Name. And at last the soul awakens to its real inner treasure a life of love with Krishna. Again and again tasting nectar, the soul dives and surfaces in the ever-increasing ocean of ecstatic joy. All phases of the self which we may conceive of are fully satisfied and purified and, at last, conquered by the all-auspicious influence of the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.12)

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

Who has the right to chant kirtan? Those who can sing well? No. Whom does Mahaprabhu give the right to chant kirtan? To those who are humbler than a blade of grass, who are more tolerant than a tree. Be humble, tolerant and give honour to others. Those who have these qualities have the right to chant kirtan. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, ‘Kirtana chhadiba pratistha magiba. “I will give up kirtan and seek prestige.” O naughty mind, what kind of a Vaishnav are you?’ You think you have become a Vaishnav, but ask your mind: has your mind become a Vaishnav or not? We always suffer from greed, lust; we always pray, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, yasam dehi. Make me rich, make me clever, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me famous.’ Can we give all this up? Can we give up kanak, kamini, pratistha? Are our senses controlled? Have we controlled our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, mind, intelligence, ego? Have we learnt to control our mind? Is your mind sitting here right now, or is it sitting at home or in some other, bad place? Many people are sitting here, but many people’s minds are not here. So, if you cannot control and conquer your senses, then how is it that you have become a Vaishnav? Who of us is a Vaishnav here? We have all come here to become servants of Vaishnavs, not Vaishnavs. You must remember this.

nahi magi deha-sukha vidya dhana jana
nahi magi svarga ara moksa nahi magi
na kari prarthana kona vibhutira lagi

‘I do not wish for any bodily happiness, knowledge, wealth, friends or followers. I do not wish to attain heaven or liberation, neither do I pray for any supernatural powers.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘I do not pray for any extraordinary riches or powers.’ This is Mahaprabhu’s teachings.

(6/8) Practise What Is Preached

Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur writes in his poem ‘Vaishnav ke?’, ‘Dusta mana, tumi kisera vaisnava? Kirtana chhadiba pratistha magiba – My wicked mind, what kind of a Vaishnav are you? You think you will give up kirtan and instead seek name and fame!’ Those who chant lila-kirtans and pala-kirtan have ego. They think, ‘I can chant kirtan!’ This is not kirtan. Such chanting actually means that you give up chanting kirtan. What does such chanting give? Nothing. When you chant kirtan, you chant it to please the Lord, to please your gurudev – not for your own fame.

We were singing just now:

(ohe) vaisnava thakura, dayara sagara,
e dase karuna kari’
diya pada-chhaya, sodha he amare,
tomara charana dhari

‘O worshippable Vaishnav, an ocean of grace, be merciful to this servant. Please give me the shade of your feet, please purify me. I clasp your feet.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

chhaya vega dami’, chhaya dosa sodhi’,
chhaya guna deha dase

‘Please subjugate the six urges, rectify the six defects and bestow the six good qualities upon this servant.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You all know what the six urges are, what the six defects are, what the six good qualities are. This all is written at the end of our calendars. What is favourable to devotion, what is unfavourable – everything is there. The six urges are mana-veg, krodha-veg, jihva-veg, udar-vega, upastha-veg, vakya-veg (mental urge, urge of anger, tongue, stomach, genitals, speech). The six defects are (1) eating too much, hoarding things (atyahara); (2) engaging in material activities that are not favourable to devotion (prayasa); (3) talking too much or talking nonsense (prajalpa); (4) following inferior practices or neglect activities favourable to devotion (niyamagraha); (5) associating with non-devotees (janasanga); (6) being fickle-minded (laulya). We must always pray for six good qualities, ‘Please cut off these six urges and faults, please give me six good qualities – give me that which is good for practising.’ This is what we must pray to Vaishnavs. The six good qualities are (1) enthusiasm; (2) firm faith; (3) perseverance; (4) engaging in activities that satisfy the Lord and His devotees; (5) abandoning all bad association and wrong attachment; and (6) following the behaviour prescribed by pure devotees.

chhaya vega dami’, chhaya dosa sodhi’,
chhaya guna deha dase

chhaya sat-sanga, deha he amare,
basechhi sangera ase

‘Please subjugate the six urges, rectify the six defects and bestow the six good qualities upon this servant. Please give me the six kinds of good association. I am waiting and yearning for this association.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We always pray for the good association of devotees. Without good association you can never be successful. We always want to keep good association, we always want to practise spiritual life. We must read and study gurudev’s books, listen to gurudev’s lectures. Always remember this.

ekaki amara, nahi paya bala,
hari-nama sankirtane
tumi krpa kari’, sraddha-bindu diya,

deha krsna nama dhane

‘On my own, I am not getting strength to chant the Holy Name. Please give me a drop of faith, please grant me the Holy Name of Krishna.’

krsna se tomara, krsna dite para,
tomara sakati achhe
ami ta kangala, ‘krsna krsna’ bali,
dhai tava pachhe pachhe

‘Krishna is yours, you can give Krishna – you have such power. I am very poor – calling out, “Krishna! Krishna!” I am running after you.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Who can give Krishna? You always sing in one of the kirtans, ‘Vaisnaver hridaye Govinda visram: Govinda always rests in the heart of a Vaishnav.’ Govinda always stays with Vaishnavs. One does not become a Vaishnav just by putting on tilaks and wearing Tulasi beads.

‘gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Those who live in Nabadwip are proud, ‘We come from Mahaprabhu’s land!’ but do they follow what Mahaprabhu teaches? It is the same in Ekachakra. People proudly say that they are from the same place as Nityananda Prabhu, but they do not follow Nityananda Prabhu’s teachings. Many people say that Mahaprabhu went to Puri Dham being overwhelmed by the mood of Radharani, but Gurudev says that Mahaprabhu rejected Nabadwip and accepted Puri. The mood of Nabadwip people was very bad, they even tried to kill Mahaprabhu. Mahaprabhu said:

kiba vipra, kiba nyasi, sudra kene naya
yei krsna-tattva-vetta, sei ‘guru’ haya

‘It does not matter whether one is a brahman, sannyasi or sudra – whoever knows who Krishna is can become a spiritual master.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.8.128)

And all the brahmans opposed it, ‘Never! Brahmans are the highest caste, only they can be gurus!’ Then, all the big, famous brahmans of the time came to Nitai and said, ‘Hey, You are one of us! Why do You speak against Your own kin? All the chandals and sudras must sit on the ground, and we, brahmans, must be given a higher seat!’ Mahaprabhu said, ‘No. If a sudra knows Krishna consciousness, he can be given a higher seat, and if a brahman is not a devotee of Krishna, he must be given a lower seat.’ The brahmans could not accept this. They started torturing Mahaprabhu, and Mahaprabhu left: ‘They do not have to kill Me. I will take sannyas and leave.’

That is why it is said:

‘gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

People say with their mouths, ‘We are devotees of Mahaprabhu’, ‘We are devotees of Gurudev’, ‘We are disciples of Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj’, ‘We are disciples of Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj’, but they do not follow the words of their guru. We say, ‘Guru-mukha-padma-vakya chitete kariya aikya ara na kariha mane asa: Make the teachings from the guru’s lotus mouth one with your heart and do not desire anything else within your heart’ – but we do not follow what gurudev says.

‘gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

It is necessary to accept Gora’s practice (achar) and Gora’s conception (vichar). We must follow in our lives what Gauranga Mahaprabhu says, we must learn how to practise it; otherwise, we will not get anything. There are many people who show that they worship Gaura. People drink tea, alcohol, smoke, eat meat, fish and other things, but when somebody hires them, they dress up as Vaishnavs and come to sing kirtans. What will you learn from them?

loka dekhana gora bhaja tilaka matra dhari’
gopanete atyachara gora dhare churi

‘You put on tilaks and show the whole world that you serve Gora, but secretly you do outrageous things. Gora will catch you out, thief (hypocrite)!’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.7, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

You cannot cheat Gora, He knows what you are doing. Jagadananda Pandit wrote it so beautifully in his Prema-vivarta.

So, what does it say in this kirtan we have just sung? ‘O Vaishnav Thakur! Please remove six faults and six bad urges from me. Please give me six good qualities and six types of good association. Alone I do not have the ability to properly chant the Lord’s Name. Please give me a drop of your mercy so that I can chant the Holy Name…’

(7/8) Know Best

We have sung Nityananda Prabhu’s kirtan:

nitai pada kamala, koti chandra-susitala,
ye chhayaya jagata judaya

‘The world is soothed in the shade of Nitai’s lotus feet, which are cooling like ten million moons.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

The sun gives light, but when it gives light, it heats (its rays are hot), but the moon never produces heat – it gives light, but its rays are not hot. Lord Nityananda Prabhu’s feet are compared to ten million moons. One moon is cooling, but if you take shelter of Nityananda Prabhu’s lotus feet, or the lotus feet of Sri Gurudev (gurudev is non-different from Nityananda-tattva), you will feel the invigorating, soothing coolness of ten million moons.

…Our programme is as follows. Tomorrow is adhivas. Do not go roaming here and there; our parikrama starts the day after tomorrow. We will go from here to the ghat by bus and will take prasad during the parikrama. This year, we are going to a new place, Sri Rudradwip. We have not been going there every year because we did not have enough time, but since we are going by bus, we can go there this year. We will take prasad, and after that we will get on the buses and go there. I went there the other day by car; it is several kilometres from the place where we usually take afternoon prasad [near the temple of Lord Jagannath]. I spoke to the Maharaj who is in charge of the temple, told him that we would come and asked him not to close the temple. The temple is situated on the bank of the Ganges (in the north of Nabadwip, a little to the north-west of Antardwip). So, the day after tomorrow is the parikrama of Sri Antardwip, Sri Simantadwip and Sri Rudradwip, three islands in one day. When you go to Mayapur, you only go to ISKCON, but we do not do that. We go with the parikrama and visit all the places of Mahaprabhu’s pastimes, all the places where Mahaprabhu walked.

gaura amara, ye-saba sthane,
karala bhramana range
se-saba sthana, heriba ami,
pranayi-bhakata-sange

‘In the company of loving devotees, I will behold all the places my Gaura roamed during His ecstatic pastimes.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Last year we also went to a new place, Khalovecha Sridhar’s house. Mahaprabhu would often take rest at his house. We had searched that place out and found it in the jungle. We will go there this year, too. Sridhar Prabhu was a very poor brahman. When Mahaprabhu came there, He took water from a glass with a hole. You know that Krishna took banana skin at Vidura’s house, but He did not take Duryodhan’s raj-bhoga. Mahaprabhu also did not accept any raj-bhoga, but He would go to the house of Sridhar Prabhu and forcefully take bananas, fruit, banana stems, banana flowers and other things from him.

bhakter jinish prabhu lutiputi khay
abhakter jinish prabhu ulti nahi chay

‘The Lord eats anything and everything when a devotee offers it, but the Lord does not want to take anything from a non-devotee.’

(Based on Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.185)

The Lord accepts everything from His devotees, but He does not even look at non-devotees, no matter what they offer Him. Krishna says in Srimad Bhagavad-gita also, ‘I only know My devotees, and My devotees also do not know anyone except Me – they only know Me.’ You can read Srimad Bhagavad-gita, and you will see it there. That is why we must try to become servants, slaves of the Lord’s devotees.

I have made all the arrangements for you. I know that you have come to Sri Nabadwip Dham from far, so I have taken care of everything so that you do not have to struggle. We are far from the ghat, so we will go there by buses, and when we finish the parikrama, it is also very far from here, so the buses will bring us back. Do not worry. Everybody must try to go for the parikrama.

When we go by buses, not everyone will get a seat, but the ride is not very long – you can stand for 10–20 minutes. You know how people go by buses in villages (when I go by car, I often see it): many people get on the bus, and everybody is standing on each other’s heads. Even when young people go to school or college, they struggle so much in crowded buses. I see that, too. There are about fifty seats in a bus, and another fifty people go standing. Not everyone can get a seat, but do not be mean to each other – let the elderly, especially elderly ladies, and the children take seats. This is the general etiquette. Give respect to everyone.

sakale sammana, karite sakati,
deha natha yatha-yatha

‘Master! Give me the strength to give everyone appropriate honour.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We sing this in the kirtan. The proper etiquette is, ’Even if I cannot sit myself, I will let others sit.’ But these days everything has become topsy-turvy. The school master stands on the bus, and all the students sit. The students take after their school masters.

When we were students, as soon as we saw our teacher, everybody would keep a big distance from him. When I used to teach and the students saw me, they would actually flee, crying, ‘Gees, he is coming! Run!’ They were afraid of me because I would catch them bunking off school or college lessons. And now, students are smoking after the lessons, and the teachers are smoking with them; the teachers are looking at photos in their phones, and the students are also looking at photos in their phones. Like teachers, like students. Like guru, like disciples.

You must learn these things.

sakale sammana, karite sakati,
deha natha yatha yatha

‘Master! Give me the strength to give everyone appropriate honour.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Give due respect to everyone. Everybody should be given some appropriate respect, and you must give that due respect to everyone. We always sing this in the kirtan, but you must remember this. You must not only sing it with your mouth; you must follow it in your own life and behaviour. Now we will sing one more kirtan, Mahaprabhu’s kirtan…

[His Divine Grace sings ‘Emona durmati’.]

(8/8) Best News

(prabhu he!)
emana durmati, samsara bhitare,
padiya achhinu ami
tava nija-jana, kona mahajane,
pathaiya dile tumi [1]

‘O Lord! I have fallen into this wicked material world, but You have sent a great soul, Your associate, to me.’

daya kari’ more, patita dekhiya,
kahila amare giya
ohe dina-jana, suna bhala katha,
ullasita ha’be hiya [2]

‘Seeing me so fallen, he took pity on me and came to me, saying: Poor soul, listen to this good news, it will make your heart rejoice.’

tomare tarite, sri-krsna-chaitanya,
navadvipe avatara

‘Sri Krishna Chaitanya has appeared in Nabadwip to deliver you.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Why will we feel happy in our hearts? Hearing what will we feel happy? Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (Nimai, Sri Sachinandan Gaurahari; after taking sannyas, His name became Sri Krishna Chaitanya) has come to save me! He personally comes in Kali-yuga to awaken the consciousness (chetan) of such fallen, lowly souls as myself. That is why His name is Chaitanya (‘He who awakens consciousness’).

toma hena kata, dina-hina jane,
karilena bhava-para [3]

‘He has already brought many poor and bereft souls like you to the shore of the ocean of material existence.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

The place where we are sitting now is also in Nabadwip. This place is called Godrumdwip, and it is part of Nabadwip. All temples, all pilgrims come to this place. Those of you who have come here before know about it, and you will see tomorrow also that so many parikrama parties will come here.

vedera pratijna, rakhibara tare,
rukma-varna vipra-suta
mahaprabhu name, nadiya mataya,
sange bhai avadhuta [4]

‘To fulfil the promise of the Vedas, He has appeared with a golden complexion as a brahman’s son, bearing the name Mahaprabhu, and has driven all Nadia (the whole world) mad with divine love in the company of His brother Nityananda.’

nanda suta yini, chaitanya gosani,
nija-nama kari’ dana [5]

‘Chaitanya Gosai, who is Krishna (the son of Nanda), has freely distributed His own Name.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

The Holy Name is non-different from the bearer of the Name (Lord Sri Krishna). The Lord’s Name, the Lord’s beauty, the Lord’s pastimes, the Lord’s associates, the Lord’s features, even the books about the Lord are completely non-different from the Lord Himself. The Lord comes personally to give His Holy Name to everyone. He went door to door saying:

harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam
kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha

‘Chanting the Holy Name, chanting the Holy Name, chanting the Holy Name – there is no other way, no other way, no other way.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.7.76)

There is no other path, or way, in Kali-yuga except for chanting the Holy Name.

toma hena kata, dina-hina jane,
karilena bhava-para [3]

‘He has already brought many poor and bereft souls like you to the shore of the ocean of material existence.’

vedera pratijna, rakhibara tare,
rukma-varna vipra-suta
mahaprabhu name, nadiya mataya,
sange bhai avadhuta [4]

‘To fulfil the promise of the Vedas, He has appeared with a golden complexion as a brahman’s son, bearing the name Mahaprabhu, and has driven all Nadia (the whole world) mad with divine love in the company of His brother Nityananda.’

nanda suta yini, chaitanya gosani,
nija-nama kari’ dana
tarila jagat, tumi-o yaiya,
laha nija paritrana [5]

‘Chaitanya Gosai, who is Krishna (the son of Nanda), has freely distributed His own Name. He has already saved the whole world – you too come and receive your deliverance.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

The Lord has come to this world to rescue everyone in it, and you too can come. If you want to save yourself from the endless circumambulation (parikrama) of this material world, you too can take shelter at the Lord’s lotus feet! That is why it is said, ‘Bhagavata pada Vaisnavera sthane, ekanta asraya kara Chaitanya-charane: Read Bhagavatam under the guidance of a Vaishnav and take exclusive shelter at the lotus feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.’ You too can come! If you come, you too can be rescued from the agony of this material world. We sing every morning:

samsara-davanala-lidha-loka
tranaya karunya-ghanaghanatvam
praptasya kalyana-gunarnavasya
vande guroh sri-charanaravindam

‘I offer my obeisance unto the lotus feet of Sri Guru, who is an ocean of good qualities and auspiciousness and who, as a thick rain cloud of mercy, brings relief to this world devoured by the forest fire of material existence.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

We always suffer and struggle in this material world, but there is only one way to get relief from all this, ‘Bhagavata pada Vaisnavera sthane, ekanta asraya kara Chaitanya-charane: Read Bhagavatam under the guidance of a Vaishnav and take exclusive shelter at the lotus feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.’ There is no other way, no other shelter. That is why Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says, ‘Go, too, and accept your deliverance. Take shelter at the Lord’s lotus feet, and you will be delivered!’

se katha suniya, asiyachhi, natha!
tomara charana-tale
bhakati-vinoda, kandiya kandiya,
apana-kahini bale [6]

‘O Lord, hearing this message, I have come to Your holy feet. Crying, Bhaktivinod is telling his story.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Sriman Nityananda Prabhu first started this Nabadwip Dham parikrama together with Srila Jiva Goswami. When Mahaprabhu was leaving Nabadwip and going to go to Puri after taking sannyas, He begged all the devotees for one thing. Everybody cried and lamented, ‘Please do not leave us! Please do not leave us!’ What did Mahaprabhu tell them?

yadi ama’-prati sneha thake sabakara
tabe krsna-vyatirikta na gaibe ara

‘If you all have love and affection for Me, then do not chant anything else except “Krishna”.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.28.27)

This is what Mahaprabhu told to all the residents of Sri Nabadwip. He said, ‘You can still see Me here. I am not going anywhere.’ It is a very well-known fact that Mahaprabhu is always present at the house of Srivas Pandit (Srivas-angan), at the house of Raghav Pandit (Raghava-bhavan), in the dance of Nityananda Prabhu (Nitayananda-nartana) and in the kitchen of Sri Sachi Mata (Sachir randhansala).

The Lord says, ‘Wherever Nityananda Prabhu dances, I am present there.’ When Mahaprabhu chanted kirtans, He would divide devotees into four groups that would chant kirtan with mridangas, karatals and other instruments. Mahaprabhu was present in each of the groups (everybody could see Mahaprabhu was present in their group). Somebody said, ‘Oh, Mahaprabhu was in our group!’, and somebody else from another group said, ‘Oh, we have also seen Him in our group!’

adyapiha sei lila kare gora raya
kona kona bhagyavane dekhibare paya

‘Gora Ray continues performing His Pastimes. Some fortunate sounds can see it.’

Even now His pastimes are going on, but not everyone is fortunate enough to see it. Everybody’s fortune is not the same. Fortunate souls can see it, but our situation is:

andhibhuta chaksu yara visaya dhulite
ki-rupe se paibe para-tattva dekhite

‘My eyes are blind with the dust of visaya, the material world – how can I see the transcendental world?’

Our eyes are blind with the dust of material life. What can you see with your illusory eyes? Nothing! You cannot understand anything with your material eyes. How will we see anything when our eyes are blinded by the dust of material life? That is why it is important to practise sravan and kirtan. If you listen, listen, listen and listen to Hari-katha, if you serve, serve, serve and serve, your heart will become clean.

kabe habe bala se dina amara
aparadha ghuchi’, suddha name ruchi,
krpa-bale habe hrdaye sanchara

‘Tell me, when will that day be mine? When, by the mercy, will my heart become cleansed of offences and the taste for the pure Holy Name arise in it?’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Gurudev has placed the Holy Name in my heart, but when will this Holy Name come to my tongue?

kabe navadvipe, suradhuni-tate,
‘gaura-nityananda’, bali’ niskapate,
nachiya gaiya, bedaiba chhute,
batulera praya, chhadiya vichara,

‘When will I wander along the banks of the Ganges in Nabadwip, sincerely calling out, “Gaura-Nityananda!”, dancing, singing and running about without any thinking, as though mad?’

kabe habe bala se dina amara

‘Tell me, when will that day be mine?’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must always sing kirtan in your heart in this mood.

Anyhow, much has already been said today. As I have told you, our first-day parikrama will be around three islands, Antardwip, Simantadwip and Rudradwip, and the next day will be Koladwip. The third day is ekadasi. I have told everyone that it is not necessary to struggle walking in the sun, fasting. You will take rest for one day on ekadasi, and we will continue the parikrama on the next day. There will be a day of rest in the middle. But rest does not mean sleeping! It means Hari-katha! There will be Hari-katha and kirtans the whole day here. When we go on the parikrama, we do not get time to speak at each place for a long time, so we can speak about all the places here on the ekadasi day.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and finishes the class.]

* * *

￼Line Line22 March 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Evening Class: Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama Adhivas

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/10) Parikrama Adhivas: Forsake Your Happiness

vande ‘ham sri-guroh sri-yuta-pada-kamalam sri-gurun vaisnavams cha
sri-rupam sagrajatam saha-gana-raghunath-anvitam tam sa-jivam
sadvaitam savadhutam parijana-sahitam krsna-chaitanya-devam
sri-radha-krsna-padan saha-gana-lalita-sri-visakhanvitams cha

‘I worship the holy lotus feet of my initiating and instructing guru as well as all predecessor gurus, all Vaishnavs, Rupa Goswami, Sanatan Goswami, their dear associates Raghunath and Jiva, Advaita Prabhu, Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Krishna Chaitanyadev along with all His near and dear ones, and Sri Radha-Krishna, along with Their associates headed by Lalita and Visakha.’

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

‘I offer my obeisance to Sri Guru, who has opened my eyes, rescuing me from the illusory darkness of ignorance, by applying the salve of knowledge upon my eyes.’

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam
chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam
govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram
vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

‘I offer my obeisance to him who perfectly fulfils his gurudev’s most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all conceivable and inconceivable aspects of Vedic knowledge; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s line; who is known as “Govinda” (Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj); whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.’

devam divya-tanum suchanda-vadanam balarka-chelanchitam
sandrananda-puram sad-eka-varanam vairagya-vidyambudhim
sri-siddhanta-nidhim subhakti-lasitam sarasvatanam varam
vande tam subhadam mad-eka-saranam nyasisvaram sridharam

‘I worship Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, the bestower of all auspiciousness, my only shelter and the master of all renunciates. He is my Lord who possesses a transcendental form, whose face expression is very grave, who is clad in the holy clothes the colour of the newly risen sun. He is an abode of intense joy; the only genuine master whom one can accept and surrender to; and an ocean of divine knowledge of renunciation. He is a repository of holy scriptural teachings and pastimes of the highest devotion and a great follower of Srila Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad.’

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha
patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

vrndayai tulasi-devyai priyayai kesavasya cha
krsna-bhakti-prade devi satyavatyai namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to Vrinda Devi (Tulasi Devi), who is very dear to Lord Kesava, who bestows devotion to Krishna and is known as Satyavati.’

atha natva mantra-gurun gurun bhagavatarthadan
vyasan jagad-gurun natva tato jayam udirayet

‘Before reciting scriptures that can conquer material world, let us offer obeisances to our initiating guru, to the guru who teaches us the meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam, to Sri Vyasadev and all gurus in the universe.’

jayah sa-parikara sri-sri-guru-gauranga-gandharva-

govindasundar-padapadmanam jayastu

‘All glory to the lotus feet of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva-Govindasundar and all Their associates.’

vande rupa-sanatanau raghu-yugau sri-jiva-gopalakau

‘I worship Sri Rupa Goswami, Sri Sanatan Goswami, Sri Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, Sri Raghunath Das Goswami, Sri Jiva Goswami, and Sri Gopal Bhatta Goswami.’

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrnda

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Today, by the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma, by the mercy of Lord Nrisinghadev, by the mercy of Nabadwip Dham, by the mercy of Nitai and Gaura, we are present here at Sri Godrumdwip, Nabadwip Dham. The name of this place is Nrisingha Palli or Deva Palli. Today is the adhivas day of Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama.

Our Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama will start tomorrow. During the next few days, we will walk through the nine islands of Nabadwip (nava-dvip, ‘nine islands’).

gaura amara, ye-saba sthane,
karala bhramana range
se-saba sthana, heriba ami,
pranayi-bhakata-sange

‘In the company of loving devotees, I will behold all the places my Gaura roamed during His ecstatic pastimes.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You all know that Nabadwip Dham consists of nine islands. We always begin this parikrama from Antardwip (Mayapur), which is situated in the centre of Nabadwip, surrounded by the other eight islands. We will start out tomorrow in the morning, at about half past five. Many of you live in householders’ houses and are not used to waking up early, but everybody must wake up one hour thirty-six minutes before the sunrise.

udila aruna purava-bhage
dvija-mani gora amani jage
bhakata-samuha la-iya sathe

gela nagara-vraje

‘The sun arises in the east, and the jewel of the brahmans, Sri Gorachand, awakes. Taking His devotees along, He goes out to stroll about the town.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘Aruna’ time (the time when the horizon turns crimson with the first rays of the rising sun) means one hour thirty-six minutes before the sunrise time. The morning arati is at 4–4:45 a.m. every day. After the arati, we will start out with the parikrama. We will first go to pay obeisance to Lord Nrisinghadev, and then we will get on the buses that will be waiting near the temple. We will go to the ghat by buses, it is a ten–fifteen-minute ride. At the ghat, we will take a boat (the tickets have already been bought; everyone will be given the tickets at the ghat or on the bus). I know it is a little difficult for you to go by bus because not everybody can get a seat, but you will have to stand for ten–fifteen minutes. Do not stray and roam anywhere please because tomorrow is Nabadwip Dham parikrama. You have come to do this parikrama, to earn some sukriti, but instead of that you can commit an offence to the holy abode (dham-aparadha). Try not to make any offences. You must do this dham-parikrama forsaking your own happiness. Do not think about your own happiness. The Lord always takes care of His devotees, He takes care and makes sure that His devotees stay happy. We used to do the whole parikrama on foot, but we left the main temple of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, and it would be very difficult for you to walk so far, so we have arranged buses to take us to the ghat. The buses will also pick us up on the way back. In this way, you will not have to struggle so much.

So, our Nabadwip Dham parikrama starts tomorrow. First, we will go to Antardwip, then Simantadwip, from there we will get on the buses and go to Rudradwip. Everybody must get off the bus and offer obeisances there, do not stay in the buses. Many think, ‘If I get off the bus, I do not know if I will get the seat again or not.’ I know it. I can understand what you are all thinking about. I can see everything. I see what you are doing or not doing. Have I not told you about that?

‘gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

loka dekhana gora bhaja tilaka matra dhari’
gopanete atyachara gora dhare churi

‘You put on tilaks and show the whole world that you serve Gora, but secretly you do outrageous things. Gora will catch you out, thief (hypocrite)!’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6–7, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

By the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma, the Lord has given me the power to understand everything, to understand who does what, to understand how much everyone practises, how much service everyone does. I can understand everything. You do not need to show anything in front me. I can see who shows false renunciation, who worships Gaura only to impress others. Externally, somebody may show that they are a ‘tyagi’ (renunciate), but inside they are actually a ‘bhogi’ (enjoyer). ‘Vaisnavi pratistha tate kara nistha. Firmly establish yourself as a servant of the Lord.’

So, I am praying to you all: please take part in Nabadwip Dham parikrama properly. Everybody must wear Tulasi beads on their necks. You can buy the neck beads for ten rupees at the bookstore…

(2/10) Parikrama Adhivas: Fixed In Service

Nabadwip, as well as Mayapur, is not a place for strolls and outings; this is not a place for eye-exercise. You must do dham-parikrama (circumambulate the holy abode). Go on this parikrama being intently fixed on chanting kirtan with all the devotees. We will go with kirtan to different places within this holy land, and we will sit at different places and listen to Hari-katha.

Crossing the Ganges, we will go first to one temple, offer obeisance there, and after that we will go to the temple where Gaura and Nityananda met for the first time. When Nityananda Prabhu left Ekachakra Dham, He first came to that place here in Nabadwip. You all know this place. It is the house of Nandan Acharya (Nandan Acharya Bhavan). We will go there to offer our obeisances. After that, we will go to offer our obeisances at the puspa-samadhi of the founder of ISKCON, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad, and speak some Hari-katha there. From there, we will go straight to Yogapith, the house of Sachi Devi and Jagannath Misra, where Mahaprabhu appeared under a neem tree. We will chant kirtans and speak Hari-katha there, too. From there, we will go to Srivas Pandit’s house, the place where Chand Kazi broke the mridanga. Nearby, there are also Advaita Acharya Prabhu’s and Sri Gadadhar Pandit’s houses (Advaita Acharya came to Mayapur from Shantipur and stayed there). We will not stop there for a long time because there is not much time or place there, so, from there, we will proceed to Chaitanya Math, the place where the bhajan-kutir and samadhi of Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur is. We will sit there for some time, speak some Hari-katha about Chaitanya Math. From there, we will go to Chand Kazi’s samadhi. You know that this is that Chand Kazi who broke the mridanga. He did wrong at first, but later he became a devotee of the Lord, a devotee of Mahaprabhu, and his samadhi is there now, under a great tree. Before that, we will also go to Jagai-Madhai Ghat. That ghat is the place where Madhai hit Nityananda Prabhu. Although Mahaprabhu at first could not forgive him for this, Nityananda Prabhu forgave him, and later Mahaprabhu also forgave his offence. The current of the Ganges has changed now, but before, the Ganges used to flow through those places, and there were many ghats in that area. When Madhai approached Mahaprabhu and asked what service he could do, Mahaprabhu gave him the service of cleaning the bank of the Ganges. A lot of people came to Nabadwip to bath in the Ganges, and there used to be no toilets (people would pass stool and urine on the bank of the Ganges), so Mahaprabhu put Madhai in charge of cleaning that ghat. Later, the ghat became known as Madhai Ghat, or Jagai-Madhai Ghat. We will go there, offer our obeisances and speak some Hari-katha. There is a new temple there now, and we started going there just two years ago. From there, we will go to Yogapith. So, after Chand Kazi’s samadhi, we will go to the place where we always take prasad. Everybody will get prasad, water, etc. at the same place as always. In the morning, we will also take prasad at the Math of Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj (the place where Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu met). Whatever is cooked here in the morning will be given there. We will cross the Ganges and take prasad at the first stop. Later, after taking prasad at noon, we will go to the temple of Lord Jagannath and then to the place of Sridhar Pandit (Sridhar Angan). From there, we will walk a little and take the buses again. About seven kilometres away from there, there is Rudradwip. We will pay our obeisances at Rudradwip, sit there for some time, listen to Hari-katha and then again get on the buses and return to the temple here. There will be an evening class every evening. Everybody must take part in the evening arati, class and kirtans. I will also be here with you all.

I know you want to come here and eat well, have a nice room and stay comfortably. I have been coming here twice a week lately, and I have been here for some time already, making sure you get everything for your stay. You can see that there is a new building now: it is not completed yet, so we had to get the rooms cleaned, painted and prepared.

Come here to the nat-mandir every day, join the kirtans and the classes.

The day after tomorrow, we will again take buses up to Gauranga Setu Bridge. You will not have to walk to the bridge because it is rather far from here. We will go up until the bridge by buses and will start walking from there. We will do the parikrama of the other side of Nabadwip starting from our old temple and return again by buses after taking prasad. The second day is very short because there are not many places, so you will not have to walk much. Koladwip parikrama is not so big. There is a temple of Prauddha Maya (Paramatala), a temple of Vriddha Siva and the Deity of Mahaprabhu that was served by Sri Vishnupriya Devi (at her father’s house). Vishnupriya Devi worshipped Mahaprabhu even before their marriage; after Mahaprabhu left Nabadwip, she personally had that Deity made and installed it in her father’s house. Mahaprabhu left her when she was only thirteen years old, and from that age she always thought about Mahaprabhu. Mahaprabhu’s Deity and His wooden shoes bearing the footprints of His soles are there in that house. After that, we will go to Srila Jagannath Das Babaji’s samadhi-mandir and bhajan-kutir. He was the one who gave recognition to the appearance place of Mahaprabhu (Yogapith). We will go there and pay our obeisances. The place is small, but we will sit there for some time and speak Hari-katha. After that, we will take prasad and return to the temple here again by buses. The second day is short.

The next day will be ekadasi. I thought about it and decided not to make you struggle on this day. I thought we would do the parikrama for five days this time, but we will go to Rudradwip on the first day, so you can stay at the temple on ekadasi, take some rest and hear some Hari-katha.

This is our programme for the nearest days. Remember it. If you go to other places besides this programme, this is anyabhilasita – your other, material desires. There are so many things to hear and to see, you can go to so many places, see so many sights, I know that. I heard somebody has been to Mayapur today. I can understand who went there. I told everyone yesterday that we would go there, but they still went there on their own. They come to enjoy…

We come here to practise Krishna consciousness, to serve the Lord. Today is adhivas. What does it mean? ‘Adhivas’ means ‘Bhagavaner nikate vas’ (staying with the Lord). Both upavas (fasting) and adhivas (festival eve) have this meaning. You must spend your days in the service of the Lord. Do you think ‘staying with the Lord’ means you have to live in the same room with the Lord? Many want to stay close to their gurudev, but I can easily understand when somebody pretends. It is easy to understand that. If you read Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, you can see that in Mahaprabhu’s time also there were many people who pretended. It is easy to understand this, and such people eventually get caught because you cannot pretend for long. Gurudev always said that people think sadhu-sanga means staying near the sadhu, but even worms in stool and mosquitos stay close to the sadhu – do you think they do sadhu-sanga? They do not; they disturb the sadhu… If you make a show of doing kirtan, if you make a show of practising Krishna consciousness, it will not bring you any result. It is not necessary to be like that… You do not need to show anyone what service you do. Gurudev can understand what service you do or do not do. You do not need to say what you are doing. You must never praise yourself in front of gurudev. It is an offence. If you are doing some service, do it from far. You must understand within you, internally, what service is necessary to do. It is not necessary to show anything.

(3/10) Relief of Surrender

We have come here to practise Krishna consciousness. We have not come to this line to pretend. To become a sadhu and to dress as a sadhu are not the same thing. There are many people in this world who only dress as sadhus. I have told you about it. Gurudev also said, ‘Be a sadhu, do not just dress yourself as a sadhu.’ It is very difficult to become a sadhu, but it is very easy to pretend or dress as one. You do not need to tell anyone about service, you must do service.

We have come here for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. I have heard many times from many devotees that if we do this parikrama, there will be an outbreak of coronavirus, but we believe in ‘Marabi rakhabi, yo ichchha tohara: whether the Lord kills me or keeps me, it is up to Him. If He wants to kill, He will kill, and if He wants to save, He will save’ (Saranagati, 1.11). Despite the coronavirus I did not stop preaching. I have been going house to house to many places, collecting rice, dal and other bhoga, preaching and speaking Hari-katha. Sometimes a police car stopped us, but then I spoke to them, explained it to them, and we continued our way. I will speak Hari-katha, I will speak about the Lord despite coronavirus. This is always my mood. This is how, through continuous speaking about this Hari-katha to you all, I have brought you here for this Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. So, please try to do this parikrama well. Do not fight with each other about the rooms, food and other small things (‘I have not got a place!’, ‘I have not got a room!’, ‘I have not got this!’, ‘I have not got that!’). How long will you continue sleeping on the lap of the witch Maya?

You know, many think, ‘This is my husband’, ‘This is my son’, ‘This is my child’, and so on. People always think, ‘This is mine’ and obstruct their husband’s or son’s coming to this path. They think, ‘My husband is my thing. I will enjoy with him.’ You may enjoy with a body, but you cannot enjoy with the person – the person can leave you and come here (the Lord can take him away from you). I always tell you that our parents have given us these bodies, but they have not given us that who we are. Those who know, or have studied, some science can understand this. Even in science, they call parents ‘a biological father’ and ‘a biological mother’. These biological parents give us these bodies, they put some genes in our blood (if you check your blood group, you will see that you have your father’s and mother’s blood mixed in you). But, although they have given us these bodies, they have not given us that who we are. We have come here to serve the Lord, but we have fallen into illusory bondage and forgotten about it. We have been oblivious to it since time immemorial, but sadhus, gurus, and Vaishnavs come to us out of a great mercy:

tava nija-jana, kona mahajane,
pathaiya dile tumi

daya kari’ more, patita dekhiya,
kahila amare giya

‘You have sent a great soul, Your associate, to me. Seeing me so fallen, he took pity on me and came to me, saying…’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

So, I am praying to you all: please do not obstruct those who want to practise Krishna consciousness. I have tested so many people. I have brought so many people to the temple so that they can take shelter of gurudev, but then I see that many wives take their husbands as objects of enjoyment and in the end their husbands leave them (they leave the world). The Lord says, ‘Do you think you are going to enjoy My property?’ He takes the soul away and throws the body at them. What will you do with the body? A few hours after death it starts to stink! You think so much about this body (its skin, nose, ears, and so on), but this is only a body. The inner substance, the life force, is given by the Lord. The Lord gives it of His own accord, and He can take it away of His own accord, too. So, you must not obstruct those who want to serve the Lord. When somebody has got back this fortune to serve the Lord, you must never obstruct such people. The Lord cannot tolerate this. If you do this, the Lord will teach you a good lesson. This is Krishna consciousness – you must understand that you and your body are not the same thing.

(4/10) Our Eternal Campaign

You must understand that ‘I’ and ‘my body’ are not the same thing. People always say ‘my head’, ‘my eyes’, ‘my ears’, ‘my mouth’, but this is all my body – if you dissect it, what will you get? You will get only some meat. I have seen many times dogs hit by cars. When a car hits a dog, the body of the dog keeps lying there, and it is merely some meat. The body is made of five material elements (earth, water, fire, air, ether). When someone dies, their body decays in the soil and gets mixed with earth again, or the body is cremated and the ashes are then thrown on the ground.

So, as I have told you earlier, adhivas means ‘Bhagavaner nikate vas’ (staying with the Lord). I knew that foreign devotees would not be able to come this year, and you know that I do not want a single rupee from anyone of you who have come for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. Gurudev never told me to charge anyone money for the parikrama. But I see that many ladies, together with their sons, did so much collection.

There are so many disciples in our Mission, but not many have been able to become devotees. There is one devotee in Tarakeshwar. Some problem came, and he left. He left actually not due to any problem but due to his lack of sukriti. Anyhow, he too has started collecting now and collected much potato. The main thing that you must understand is that we do not come to you to ask you for potato. You know, I had an operation in 2005, and some foreign devotee told Gurudev, ‘Acharya Maharaj has just had an operation, he should not be sent for collection.’ Gurudev replied, ‘Is it possible to stop him? His health is bad and he had just had an operation, but he came from Chennai the very next day by train! He did not even stay in Chennai for two days. Do you think it is possible to stop him from going on collection? And who are you to obstruct him? You cannot obstruct the Lord’s service. Even if you have thousands of rupees, you cannot destroy the Math with that money.’

When we bring a handful of rice or potato from somebody’s house, do you know how much sukriti these people who give donation get? One handful of rice, one potato, ten potatoes or a sack of potatoes – there are so many living beings involved (these plants’ souls, water, air, soil, many kinds of demigods); they all get an opportunity to serve the Lord. Everybody wants to serve the Lord. There are 330,000,000 demigods, and all of them want to serve Lord Sri Krishna.

Every single thing in this world belongs to the Lord, and sadhus think, ‘How can I use everything for the service of the Lord?’ Uninitiated people do not offer bhoga, do not get prasad – they just cook something and eat it (they cook and enjoy). They cook something today, pass stool in the morning, and then again fill up their stomaches. But sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs do not take anything that has not been offered to the Lord (they do not accept what has not first been enjoyed by the Lord). Sadhus take potato, rice and other things and use them for the service of Govinda, and only after that they take prasad of the Lord, and then all the devotees also take that prasad. This is the difference between sadhus and non-sadhus.

You think, ‘Oh, Maharaj came to my house for a sack of potato,’ but this is not so. By the mercy of the Lord, it will not take me even two minutes to buy two hundred sacks of potato, but I want you all to come here. If I had not come to your house, if you had not given some potato to the temple, you would not have come here today. There would not have been any connection. We went to the rice mills with an old devotee. He has had so many operations, but he forcefully took me to rice mills in Bankura area, saying, ‘No, no, you must stay for four days!’ He is very busy, he cannot stay with me for a long time, but we have gone on collection three times! Here is Ashok Prabhu from Begumpur also. He wanted to make a seven-day programme, but we had to cut it down to four days because I did not have time. During these programmes, we distributed invitations to everyone, we called everyone to come. Many ladies also went on collection and earned sukriti with so much labour. There is Nisikanta Prabhu also. He went house to house, collecting one–two rupees from each place. Somebody gave him one rupee; somebody, twenty; somebody, fifty. He came with a big bag full of coins and gave it to me. Also, there are devotees who came and are serving in the kitchen – what sort of happiness and peace they are getting from this service to the Lord! Krishna Himself came in this Kali-yuga as Gauranga Mahaprabhu, a combined form of Radha-Krishna, to taste what sort of happiness and peace Radharani gets serving Him. We sing in one of the kirtans:

yadi gaura na ha’ta, tabe ki haita,
kemane dharitam de
radhara mahima, prema-rasa-sima,
jagate janata ke?

‘If Gaura had not come, what would have happened? How would we have lived? Who would have revealed to the world Radha’s glory and the extremes of Her ecstatic divine love?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu comes in this Kali-yuga to tell the world about the glories of Srimati Radharani. He went door to door begging, ‘Krsna bala, sange chala, ei matra bhiksa chai. I am begging you only for one thing: come with us and chant “Krishna”!’ This is what we do, too. We go door to door and tell you the same thing. We write it in the invitation letters also. And somebody gives us for the service of the Lord twenty-five kilograms of potato; somebody, fifty kilograms of potato; somebody, one or two sacks of potato; somebody, some rice.

bhakter jinish prabhu lutiputi khay
abhakter jinish prabhu ulti nahi chay

‘The Lord eats anything and everything when a devotee offers it, but the Lord does not want to take anything from a non-devotee.’

(Based on Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.185)

Somebody says, ‘I will not give you anything! Go away from here!’ I still go there again and again. Somebody closed the gate of the rice mill when we came, disrespected us, but we still go there again and again. Why? Not because we need their rice, not because we are needy. We come to them to use their hard-earned wealth in the service of the Lord, so that they can get some sukriti, so that they do not have to be born as dogs, goats and cows next life.

They are many lady devotees in Hooghly district (Begumpur). I see many of them have come here, too. Many devotees are coming from all over Bengal. They called me, saying, ‘I have collected something for the temple, can I send it to you?’ Many devotees came also from Bardhaman, Tarakeshwar. Some devotees also came from Kalna…

(5/10) ‘May You Always Remain in This Line’

Gurudev told me, ‘You are doing everything, but you did not take care of me. You do not understand how you must take care of me.’ What does it mean? So many come for festivals – some come just to see the festival, and some come to do some service. Everybody is not the same. That is why it is said, ‘Sraddha anusare haya bhakti adhikari. Your devotional qualification depends upon your faith.’ You cannot buy devotion at the market with money. Which ‘market’ can you get devotion at? You can only get devotion at the market of devotees. Devotion is where devotees are. Wherever Bhakti Devi (the Goddess of Devotion) stays, she wants a clean place. What is the dust and sand? Kanak, kamini, pratistha (desire for money, women and fame); kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy); rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (desire for enjoyment through eyes, tongue, nose, ears and skin).

So many devotees have come from many places. Sripad Niriha Maharaj went collecting house to house and came back in the car with all the rice, dal and other collected bhoga. This time we collected not only rice and dal. I told everyone that foreign devotees were not coming, so I asked devotees to give some dal, plates, sugar and other things for the festival. For example, devotees from Amadpur and Golpur sent all the sugar. Somebody sent oil, somebody sent dal. Many different devotees sent everything for the festival. It is a great joy that all the devotees are making this festival of Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama together. It is my great joy that you went door to door, leaving all your shyness and shame. What is there to be ashamed of anyway? Many devotees came bringing many ingredients. I do not want to tell everyone’s names now. On my part, I am also trying to do everything so that you do not have to struggle. We now have a very nice new building, so the accommodation is now much better than last year.

One day in January (two months ago), when I was doing a programme in Bankura, the owner of the land (where the new Prasadam Hall is being built now) called me and said, ‘If you want that thirty-acre land, you have to register it now. It is already late, so you have to pay now.’ I thought, ‘Where will I get so much money?’ I had ten–twelve lakhs, but they were asking for another ten–twelve lakhs. I called Srila Janardan Maharaj, and he said, ‘Do not worry, I will send it.’ Then, the land was registered and purchased, but now it is necessary to make the Prasadam Hall, and I want to make another three–four floors above it because I know that many of you do not like to walk so far to the new guesthouse. Many think, ‘I will bath outside, it is OK, I do not need a room. I can stay on the veranda as long as I can always be there at the class and kirtans.’ I understand it. So, I will start building some rooms above the Prasadam Hall after the festival. When the construction of the Prasadam Hall was to start, I also worried where I would get money to build it, but mainly Purujit Prabhu (Venezuela) and Ravindra Krishna Prabhu (Singapore), along with a few other devotees, took care of it. You can also see an old lady, a devotee from Australia, sitting here. She gets pension every month and gives most of it to me, and on top of that, she also does some collection from other devotees. One devotee from London has also sent a donation.

Devotees love me very much, I cannot even say it… Seeing your devotion and love, I do not want to leave you and go anywhere. I want to stay together with you. I always think about your eternal benefit, I always pray that you can cut this illusory bondage and stay forever in the eternal abode of the Lord. I pray that we will meet with you all again there.

So many devotees have come from so many places, I cannot tell all names now, but please do not think, ‘Oh, Maharaj forgot about me, he did not mention my name.’ I remember everyone’s names. Madhumangal Prabhu came from Bokaro, Sanjiv Prabhu came from Delhi, Ramasundar Prabhu called me yesterday. I told Madhumangal Prabhu to bring some medicine because devotees will walk a lot and may need help (he is a doctor, working at a hospital). During the Ekachakra festival, Krishna Kanta Prabhu came, he is also a doctor. Madhumangal Prabhu works as a doctor and makes programmes on Sunday, and there are so many devotees in Bokaro now. Many young boys have come to this path in this way. ‘Prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara. As long as you have life in this body, you must preach.’

It is so hard for people to give their child to the temple, but you can see that here we have four lady devotees, two elder ladies and two young girls. They said that they did not want to get married and live a family life (they want to stay as brahmacharini). It is good. I have no objection. If anyone wants to stay at the temple and live as a brahmachari, they must be given a chance. They have faith that the Lord will take care of them. ‘Avasya raksibe Krsna visvasa palana: I must believe that Krishna will certainly protect me. Krishna protects me, Krishna looks after me.’

There is also Kamalendu Prabhu, Sudevi Didi. They are staying with me and doing so much, working day and night. They have decorated the temple so nicely. They always take care of my food, health and other things. I never worry about these things myself, but they always worry and watch how I sleep, what I eat, etc. They always look after me. If I get thirsty, they always give me water, etc.

The Lord has given us this chance to serve, and we must take advantage of this chance and use it wisely.

There is also Shanti Prabhu, Kishor Prabhu, Keshto Prabhu, Tarok Prabhu. They are always enthusiastic to cook. They are taking care of your prasad department. I have taken all Gurudev’s burden in 1991, and I have never asked Gurudev for anything. There are senior devotees present here (Ashok Prabhu, Rama Prabhu and others) who have known me since my brahmachari days. Can you say that anyone has ever come straight to Gurudev and asked him for a room to stay? Never. Everyone who came would always come and ask me. I always managed accommodation and all other managerial duties. During Gaura Purnima, I did not even go to my room – I stayed in the office all the time and slept sitting there. That was my situation.

This time, many devotees from Siliguri could not come because of the problems with trains… Anyhow, so many other devotees have come. Many devotees have helped also. I am paying my full obeisance to them and expressing my gratitude to them. I do not want to belittle anyone. May the Lord bless them. I pray for them to the Lord that He may give them intelligence and devotion so that they may always remain attached to the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krishna. I cannot give you blessings so that you may increase your material wealth, it is an offence, and it is not necessary to do that, but what is necessary, and all I can pray for, is that you may remain attached to the lotus feet of Lord Krishna, so that you may get devotion to the lotus feet of Lord Krishna. Always remain in this line, always stay together, then you will get supreme benefit. Birth after birth, we have been enjoying wealth and property, eating and sleeping. Even animals eat, sleep and enjoy. Birds and beasts get to eat, too, but we have not got this life to eat and sleep. We have got this body to practise Krishna consciousness, to serve the Lord. If we do not use this body for the service of the Lord, then there is no use having this body. Always remember this.

Now, we shall chant some kirtans…

(6/10) Know the Relationship

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Gurudev bara krpa kara’, ‘Krpa kara vaisnava thakura’.]

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya, bhajite bhajite,
abhimana hau dura

‘Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to understand relationship (sambandha). I was telling you yesterday that none of us should want to be a master (prabhu), but the problem is that we are all becoming masters (prabhu), and none of us wants to be a servant (das). Everybody has become a great Vaishnav now. It mens that we do not understand the relationship! If we keep practising Krishna consciousness with the knowledge of relationship, then our ego will go away. Ego is the greatest fault. Somebody is proud of their wealth; somebody is proud of their family and friends; somebody is proud of their beauty; somebody is proud of their qualities; somebody can sing kirtans very well, and they are proud of it. When will all this ego go away? When we can understand the relationship; when we understand, ‘I am an eternal servant of Lord Krishna.’

‘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)

One day, a great pandit who was extremely learned in the Vedas, Vedanta and all the scriptures, said to Mahaprabhu, ‘What is this? You are a sadhu, but You are dancing and chanting here. Have You read any Vedas or Vedanta?’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘My guru thought that I was a fool, so he prohibited Me to read the Vedas and Vedanta. He never told me to read all this. Considering Me a fool, he never gave Me this right.’ You can see how humble Mahaprabhu is about Himself. He said, ‘My guru only told me to chant the Holy Name.’

‘kiba mantra dila, gosani, kiba tara bala
japite japite mantra karila pagala’

‘My lord, what kind of mantra have you given Me? What kind of power does it possess? Chanting this maha-mantra has driven Me mad!’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.7.81)

When the guru and Vaishnavs bestow their mercy on us, we can attain everything. The problem is that we are not able to give honour to others…

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I think that I have become a Vaishnav, I will not be able to give honour to others and then I will have no other way except to go to hell. I will feel a strong desire for honour, and it will contaminate my heart. I myself will clear my road to hell. There is no other way. We must be very careful!

tomara kinkara, apane janiba,
‘guru’-abhimana tyaji’
tomara uchchhista, pada-jala-renu,
sada niskapate bhaji

‘I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru. I will always earnestly worship the remnants of Your food, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘I will know myself as your servant, your menial worker.’ Many come and say, ‘Gurudev, give me your prasad.’ Sometimes, you have not even started taking prasad yet, but somebody comes and says, ‘Please give me your prasad.’ This is show-off devotion. If you want to get some prasad, you must wait: when gurudev takes prasad, his glass and plate will be taken away to be cleaned, then you can take something from there. Otherwise, some people have no service mood, but their mood is such that they want to impress others. This is called, ‘Loka dekhana gora bhaja. Worshipping Gora just to impress others.’ We must learn from Kalidas.

What did Kalidas do? Kalidas never sat together with Vaishnavs to take prasad. Many think, ‘I will go first and sit at the front of the line!’ But Kalidas would hide and wait from afar. When Vaishnavs finished taking prasad, they threw their plates away in some place, and Kalidas would go there and take that prasad from their discarded plates like a dog. This is what is called ‘tomara uchchhista pada-jala-renu sada niskapate bhaji – I will always earnestly take Your food remnants, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.’

Why does it say here ‘earnestly’ (niskapate, ‘without any deceit or other desires’)? Because we are all deceitful. We show false renunciation (phalgu-vairagya). Our renunciation must be yukta (proper), not phalgu (false). We do not need to show anything to impress others. You say to others, ‘I do not need anything! I will leave and go to stay in a forest or a cave!’ but you forget that when you go to live in a cave, your stomach will come with you; you will end up following what your stomach wants… You know the story of Gita’s samsar.

People worry so much about their rooms, their food, but when your body falls dead on the street, it may rain on it – how will a room help you then? We do not understand this.

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We do not know when we will fall silent and go away. Our bodies will fall dead on the ground, and dogs and jackals will feast on them. We all have to go away from here. Gurudev often said that when you go to primary school, you have many classmates, when you go to high school, only five people will be left, and when you enter college or university, there will be only one–two people from those who you started studying with. But even if you come last, you must pass.

We do not practise false renunciation. There are things that are necessary. If we were to walk the whole day tomorrow, we would not be able to go anywhere the next day. That is why a bus is necessary. To have a bus, it is necessary to have some money. Even to cross the Ganges, you need those one–two rupees because you cannot cross it without a ticket. It is necessary to have some money to serve the Lord. You cannot say that you do not need anything. Even to buy one nice flower garland you need fifty rupees. Those who say, ‘I do not need anything,’ say it to impress others, but they have desires inside them. I do not like this at all. If you say you do not need anything, how will you live? If we did not run the fans here, if there was no electric current here, if there was no generator and no oil for the generator, then everybody would suffer. There are so many things that are necessary for service. We must always think about this.

I began telling you about Kalidas. Mahaprabhu gave him the right to touch His feet. Everybody tried to touch Mahaprabhu’s feet, but not everybody could get this right. Mahaprabhu gave this right only to Kalidas. At the entrance of Jagannath Temple, there is a place where you wash your feet before entering the temple. When anyone tried to come near Mahaprabhu, devotees would stop them, but when Kalidas came and tried to drink the water which Mahaprabhu’s feet had been washed with (such was his mood – he was always a beggar), everybody tried to stop him thinking he was a nobody, but Mahaprabhu stopped them, saying, ‘No. Do not stop him.’ Everybody laughed at Kalidas because his clothes were torn and he ate others’ remnants; nobody liked him, and many people shooed him away. But Mahaprabhu told them not to stop Kalidas. Why? Because Kalidas had eaten the holy remnants of Gaudiya Vaishnavs’ prasad and become a great, expert Vaishnav (Mahaprabhu called him a ‘jhanu vaishnav’, or ‘a seasoned, expert Vaishnav’)! This is how he got the right to touch Mahaprabhu’s feet.

You know how Srila Narottam Das Thakur came from Bangladesh. Srila Lokanath Das Goswami promised that he would not take a single disciple in this life, but Srila Narottam Das Thakur promised that he would take only one guru, Lokanath Das Goswami. He felt, ‘I will not take initiation from anyone except him. He is a genuine Vaishnav, so I will take initiation from him.’ He came to Vrindavan from Bangladesh taking thirty rupees from his mother. Before that, he had pled with his mother, ‘Mother, please do not stop me. Please let me go to Vrindavan!’ You know that even if the father gets angry and kicks his son out of the house, saying, ‘I do not want to see his face again!’, the mother still secretly sends food for her son. Mothers are always more affectionate. So, Narottam Das Thakur’s mother sent him to Vrindavan. She is a real mother. A real mother is she who gives her son for the service of the Lord. A real husband, or a real wife, is the one who disregards their own enjoyment for the sake of the service of the Lord. Those who obstruct their relatives and family members and do not let them serve the Lord are very unfortunate.

Some devotees had recently heard that their son would take sannyas. They called me shedding crocodile tears, ‘Who will look after us?’ I told them, ‘What do you mean who will look after you? If you give everything up to the Lord, then the Lord will take care of you. But you have no faith in that.’ They have no faith that ‘Krishna will certainly protect you (avasya raksibe krsna).’ Who is looking after me? The Lord. My parents are not looking after me! You can also see Sripad Niriha Maharaj. His father told me, ‘You have taken my son away! I will sue you!’ After a while, he understood that his son was not his, that he belonged to the Lord (he understood that he was under the spell of illusion), and he has come to this path, too. His father has now left everything and is serving the Lord.

So,

tomara uchchhista, pada-jala-renu,
sada niskapate bhaji

‘I will always earnestly worship Your remnants, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must not do this to impress others. When you come to somebody’s house, they want to wash your feet just to take that water. People go crazy just to wash your feet. If I tell them, ‘Do this service,’ they refuse, saying, ‘No, we must wash your feet now!’ Even if you tell them you have no time, they do not listen… Gurudev says that even if Brahma comes in front of you and says, ‘Come with me. There is no need for you to stay here, come with me,’ even if Indra, the king of heaven, comes to you and says, ‘Come, I will take you to heaven,’ you must say, ‘No! Go away! I have my service to my guru to do!’

nahi magi deha-sukha vidya dhana jana
nahi magi svarga ara moksa nahi magi
na kari prarthana kona vibhutira lagi

‘I do not wish for any bodily happiness, knowledge, wealth, friends or followers. I do not wish to attain heaven or liberation, neither do I pray for any supernatural powers.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We do not want heaven, we do not want liberation. Sadhus know that heaven is temporary and that if you go there, you will have to come back. Do you think that you can stay there forever? Whether you go to hell or heaven, you will have to come back from there. Only if you go back to your home, will you not have to come back from there. If you stay in a rented house, today or tomorrow you will have to leave it because today you will have this problem, tomorrow another problem, and so on. In the end, you will think, ‘It would be better I could buy some small land and make a thatched house. Even a thatched house is better than always moving from place to place.’ But if you understand that you have lost your home (that you have come to this world leaving your own home), then you will not feel any peace until and unless you reach your home. We must return to our own home! This is a rented place. We cannot stay here for a long time, and we will have to leave one day. But when you reach your own home, nobody will chase you from there. This is what this Krishna consciousness is for. But we live in this world surrounded by buildings, houses, rooms and all kinds of worries. Where will all that go? There is no end of this cycle of births and deaths.

These are very beautiful words. If you do not read about this all the time, it will not stay in your mind. That is why you should chant kirtans. Chant all the time, out loud. We have printed many books – please read them, chant the kirtans, practise out loud.

What for do we worry so much?

e deha patana ha’le ki rabe amara
keha sukha nahi dibe putra paribara

‘When this body drops dead, what will I have left? After my death, neither my sons nor my family will give me any happiness.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Nobody and nothing will make us happy here. That is why it is said that we must leave all deceit and worship the holy remnants of the guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord.

nije srestha jani’, uchchhistadi dane,
habe abhimana-bhara
tai sisya tava, thakiya sarvada,
na laiba puja ka’ra

‘If I believe, “I am the greatest,” I will start giving others my food remnants and other things and become burdened with ego. Therefore, I pray to always remain Your disciple and not take worship from anyone.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Why do genuine Vaishnavs never give their prasad to others? Because if they do, they will become proud: they will feel that they are the greatest because everyone is taking their remnants. We must always consider ourselves disciples. ‘I do not need to become a guru. I will always stay a disciple.’ Before you become a guru, you must first become a disciple, and you do not become a disciple just by taking a mantra. If you are to become a disciple, you must be able to digest your guru’s chastisement and you must be able to change yourself accordingly. I have written about this in Guidance, Volume 4, you can see it there.

amani manada, haile kirtane,
adhikara dibe tumi
tomara charane, niskapate ami,
kandiya lutiba bhumi

‘When I become free from the desire for honour and learn to give honour to others, you will give me the right to chant Your kirtan. Rolling on the ground, I will earnestly cry at Your holy feet.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When will Vaishnav Thakur give me the right to chant kirtan? When I become free from any desire for honour, when I learn to give honour to others, when I learn to tolerate everything, and when I become lower than a blade of grass.

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Nitai-guna-mani amara’, ‘Yadi Gaura na haite’, ‘Jaya Radha Madhava’ and the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.]

(7/10) Devotional Attachment

One more thing I did not say is that there are caps for everyone. A devotee is sitting on a bench near the entrance – if you have not taken one yet, you can come to him before or after taking prasad, he will give you a cap. My phone number is written on the cap, so if you stray or get lost on the way, you can show the cap to someone, ask them to call me, and we will pick you up. This year it is not going to be so crowded because there are not so many parikrama parties. But in case you still get lost, wear the cap; it will also protect you from the sun (you will not feel so hot). The way is actually straight tomorrow. We will go by buses to the ghat, cross the Ganges, and then it is a straight road to Jagannathdev’s temple. You will get prasad in the morning, at our first stop where we sit and speak Hari-katha (Nandan Acharya Bhavan); and at noon, the prasad will be near Jagannathdev’s temple, as each year.

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha

patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my godbrothers and godsisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees and to all devotees. I am praying you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Today is the holy adhivas day. It is a holy day of the Lord. [Clamour in the audience.] Please keep quiet. Not a word. I have told you many times not to speak gramya-katha.

dinera madhye abala-tabala
kata pachala padite para
tara madhye tumi ki ekbara
govinda balite nara

‘How much nonsense you can talk every day! How many idle talks you have! Can you not say the Name of Govinda even once?’

‘Dinera madhye abala-tabala kata pachala parite para, tara madhye ki eka-bara govinda bolate nara! How much nonsense you can talk every day! We talk all kinds of nonsense and cannot even one time take the Name of Govinda!’ Many ask me, ‘Maharaj, how do you get so much energy?’ Do you want to know? Shall I teach you how? If you use your energy on doing other things, if you talk about this and that, then you will not get taste to chant the Holy Name and you will get the strength from the Holy Name. You will be walking tomorrow – if you walk without chanting the Holy Name, you will not get energy; but if you walk chanting Krishna-kirtan, you will see that you will not even think that you have walked so many miles. So, go with the parikrama and chant kirtan. There will be two parties and two microphones – there will be a cart at the front of the parikrama and at the back. The cart at the back is to take to the parikrama those who cannot walk so fast.

You must have some attachment to Krishna consciousness and your service, but I see that not many have it. Gurudev said the same thing, and I am also saying the same thing. What does attachment mean? You will see tomorrow that many devotees will go for the parikrama taking mridangas, karatals, flags and other things, but when they return, they will lose it on the way and return without them. I see everything. People have no attachment. They go playing the mridanga, but when they stop playing it, they keep it somewhere and forget about it. After that, they run around looking for it. Mridangas and karatals are my strength. If I go to fight against Maya but lose mridangas and karatals on the way, then how will I fight? With my bare hands? Walk and beats the drums! Kirtan is chanted with mridangas and karatals. You must play karatals and mridangas at the end of the parikrama, too, not only around me.

Do the parikrama in this way.

We sing, ‘Dhaitava pachhe pachhe. I will run after You.’ Do not run ahead, do not go shopping. I go at the front, and I can see what is going on. When you go with the parikrama, you must chant kirtan, do not go anywhere; otherwise, you will get lost. Remember why you have come and stick to it firmly.

(8/10) Seva Bhumi

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my godbrothers and godsisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

As I have told you, today is adhivas. Devotees can serve on this day in many ways. Many think, ‘I have no money. What service can I do?’ But there are so many opportunities. Our gurus and Vaishnavs arrange so many ways in which one can serve, but you are not taking advantage of these arrangements. Gurudev opened so many temples, you can stay at the temple and serve the Lord, but no…

Some had come here to help, but then they left ten days ago. Now they are fighting for rooms. Why leave then? You could have stayed here, taken prasadam, done some service and helped me. Those who are staying at the temples are helping so much. I saw that even small girls carried thirty–fifty kg sacks on their heads (they were helping to unload the car). I feel pain to see this. Last night, a car came with bhoga and many boys and girls were unloading the sacks with rice, potato and dal. This is service. Nobody says that everyone must serve with money. Those who have money can serve with money, but those who do not have money can collect or serve with their hands. Those who wash the dishes also do service. Those who cook also do service. Those who prepare rooms also do service. Those who distribute prasad also do service. Those who cut vegetables also do service. We cannot hire outside people to do everything. You can hire people to do kirtans (to sing or to play the mridanga and karatals) or do puja, but what will that give you? If you hire people to do it, it gives no benefit. Hired people cannot chant kirtans. So, try to participate in service. Would you like it if some hired outside people distributed prasad to you? We must do everything ourselves. We must help and contribute different services. We are going for the parikrama tomorrow, but you can help the day after tomorrow (for example, to cut the vegetables). Try to help, otherwise if you do not help there will not be such a big festival. The Lord is giving you service…

So, ‘adhivas’ means ‘Bhagavaner nikate vas’ (staying near the Lord): it means participating in the service of the Lord. It can be any service. Just as your devotion depends on your faith, the service you get also depends on your faith. You can see the devotees who came from Nepal: they are very poor people, but they have come to do some service. They are poor, but they live practising Krishna consciousness and taking prasad. I have seen how poorly they live and how much they struggle to raise their children in the family, but they cook, offer bhoga to the Lord and take prasad. They learn how to cook Bengali way, they learn the Bengali language. It is good. I have heard that about twenty more devotees are coming from Nepal tomorrow…

Devotees are also calling from different countries, they are asking how they can serve. Everybody can take part in service. This is seva-bhumi (land of service). Wherever you go, wherever you stay, you must always, every day, every moment serve the Lord.

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)

Where is Goloka? Do you understand it?…

(9/10) Follow Vaishnavs’ Example

If you have any questions, you can ask them a little later. If there is anything you do not understand, you can ask me, I do not mind it. But your questions must be honest enquiry (pariprasna), nothing else.

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant enquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

There must be surrender (tad viddhi pranipata). Once you surrender, you can ask questions. Next comes service mood, or temper (sevaya). You must keep yourself engaged in service. You must live your life following what your guru and Vaishnavs tell. Follow their example.

Many of you have seen an old lady, affectionately known as Asha Ma, staying here. When I was preaching in Bardhaman, Sripad Vishnu Maharaj called me and said that she had left her body. I was sitting at a rice mill at that time, collecting rice. (At that time, I was going to different rice mills, sugar shops, gur shops and other places for collection.) Actually, we do not feel very sad. There is some separation, but we understand that everything happens by the will of the Lord. Many old ladies left their bodies in Nabadwip, but I never got a chance to be there at that time because I was always busy preaching outside. When Gurudev’s mother passed away, when Shankari Didi passed away, when Rama Didi passed away, I was not there on any of these days. I was always preaching somewhere outside at that time and could not come. And I have hardly ever been to the cremation ghat. I never usually go there. But Asha Didi’s fortune was such that I did go. She always treated me as her son although I never liked to hear such ‘motherly’ talks because I am a sannyasi and I get annoyed by such things. Anyhow, I told Sripad Niriha Maharaj to arrange an A/C car at the municipality to take the dead body, and I told him, ‘Give me seven hours, I will come too.’ I finished collection that day, took prasad at our temple in Bardhaman and started out from there at three or four o’clock. Ashok Prabhu from Bankura came with me. I told him, ‘You do not have to come with me. You have been walking and working so much the whole day, I will just take the dead body to the ghat.’ But he still came. Asha Didi is very fortunate. Such was the will of the Lord. When we arrived at the cremation ghat, we were able to burn her body immediately. When you come there, you often have to wait (sometimes as long as ten hours!), and the whole night can pass before a furnace becomes available and you can burn the body, but by the will of the Lord, when we came, I saw there was nobody there. Just as I put the dead body into the furnace, I saw some other body had come, so we were lucky. By the will of the Lord, I did not have to stay there for a long time. Her nieces and daughters sent me some money, and I told them that I would make some vaishnav-seva and a hom-yajna for Asha Didi.

Such is the fortune of those staying at the temple. They pass away, and sadhus take their bodies – they carry it on their shoulders, put it into a car, sprinkle or bath it with the Ganges water and take care of all other things. There is a tradition that prescribes putting fire into the mouth of the dead body, but when the mouth has been used for chanting the Holy Name, you never put fire into it.

gangara parasa haile paschate pavana
darsane pavitra kara ei tomara guna

‘After touching the Ganges, one attains salvation later; but one can become pure just by seeing you. Such is your quality.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

When sadhus carry the body on their own shoulders and when Ganges water touches the body, there is nothing else left to be done. This is all that is required. Until the dead body is placed into the furnace, we always chant kirtan, and we never say ‘Bolo Hari.’ [It is a common tradition in India to carry the boy and chant, ’Bolo Hari.’] Somebody said, ‘Bolo Hari’, and I told him, ‘Hey, stop it! Only the Hare Krishna maha-mantra must be chanted!’ People do not understand it. When the person is alive, you never tell them to chant the Holy Name, and when they are dead, when you are carrying the dead body of the person and tell the body to take the Name of the Lord (‘bolo’ means ‘say’, and ‘Hari’ is the Name of the Lord). Whom are you telling to chant? No matter how much you tell it to the body, the dead body will never say it. But such is the idea of people. We always do everything different from what outside people do; our tradition is just the opposite.

(10/10) Live a Sheltered Service Life

It is necessary to practise Krishna consciousness.

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

‘Know that the main thing is that life is temporary and filled with all sorts of danger. Continue your life trying your best to take shelter of the Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This life is not eternal, and it is full of dangers. You must live this life taking shelter of the Holy Name. Krishna told Sri Uddhav Maharaj, ‘Acharya mam vijaniyam: you must know that an acharya is I Myself.’ We wake up early in the morning and sing in a kirtan:

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 so 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, and on the other hand, gurudev is also said to be the dearest, closest person to the Lord.

When we go for the last day of the parikrama, where do I take you? To Champahati in Ritudwip. This is the place where all seasons (ritu) exist simultaneously in one place. That area is now part of Bardhaman district. Nabadwip consists of nine islands, and some islands are now located within Bardhaman district because the Ganges used to flow through that area before, but at some point, the current had changed, and the area became part of Bardhaman. When Jayadev Goswami lived in Champahati with his wife Padmavati, he was going to write the line ‘Dehi pada pallavam udaram – I place Your tender feet on My head,’ but he suddenly forgot what he was going to write. He stopped writing and told his wife, ‘Have you finished cooking? Make the offering. I am going to take a bath in the Ganges and will come to take prasad after that.’ When he left for the Ganges, the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna personally came in disguise of Jayadev Goswami (nobody could understand who He was) and told Padmavati, ‘Have you finished cooking and making the offering? Give me prasad now!’ Padmavati fed the Lord thinking He was her husband. After that, the Lord went to the room where Jayadev Goswami had been writing, wrote that line ‘Dehi pada pallavam udaram’ and went away.

After a while, real Jayadev Goswami came home and said to Padmavati, ‘Where is my prasad? Have you not finished cooking? What has happened?’

‘You have just eaten!’ Padmavati replied.

‘What do you mean I have just eaten?! Where did I eat?’

‘Just now you came and took prasad!’

‘What do you mean I took prasad?!’

‘Yes, you ate and went to your room.’

Jayadev Goswami was very puzzled. When he came to his room, he saw the line that he had hesitated to write was completed: ‘Dehi pada pallavam udaram. I place Your tender feet on My head.’

The Lord Himself shows what sort of service Srimati Radharani does for Sri Krishna in Seva-kunja… This is the pastime that took place in Ritudwip, which is non-different from Varshana. The Lord Himself took prasad from Padmavati’s hand, but even she could not understand who had come in disguise of her husband.

So, Krishna consciousness is such that once you get that taste you can never forget it. If you ever get the real taste for the Holy Name, you will never be able to leave Krishna consciousness. But we are very unfortunate because although we are all children of the Lord, we are sitting here at ease having forgotten the Lord. Great souls come to us and tell us again and again about it.

mahanta-svabhava ei tarite pamara
nija karya nahi tabu yana tara ghara

‘It is the innate nature of great souls to deliver vile fallen souls. Great souls never come to their homes for any personal purpose.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.8.39)

Why do they come to people’s houses? Not for their own business. They come for your benefit, they come to help you so that you could come to this path and start practising Krishna consciousness (start serving the Lord). That is why Lord Krishna told Sri Uddhav Maharaj, ‘Uddhav, you must know that the acharya is I Myself.’ Therefore, gurudev is the Lord Himself. The Lord comes to this world in the form of the guru and teaches us everything. This is how our Gurudev has bestowed so much mercy on this fallen soul, even though I may not have spent so much time with him personally.

Many say, ‘Oh, Acharya Maharaj never stayed with Gurudev.’ It is true. I never wanted to stay with Gurudev like a mosquito that annoys everyone with its buzzing and biting. I have always taken Gurudev’s burden off his shoulders and put it on my head. You can understand it yourself, too. Even now when the cooks come to the temple to cook, they come and ask me how many kilograms of rice they must cook. Even now when a fan breaks, they come to me and ask me to fix everything (‘Gurudev, a fan has broken’). There is nobody who would help, nobody who could get a mechanic and get it fixed. They do not think that they can get it fixed themselves; instead, they come and disturb their gurudev. This is not guru-seva. Giving a headache to your guru is not guru-seva. When will they understand this?

There are many devotees who have been my disciples for ten years already, but how many of them think about the devotees? They do not understand what service to devotees is. When I was in Nabadwip, I always worried when it rained, ‘Who is staying in the pandal? How are they? Is there any water falling through the pandal? Where are the devotees sleeping? Is there any trouble? Is everyone OK? Is anyone struggling? Is everybody fed well?’

Here, it is not so bad because in Nabadwip, neighbours always came and created much problem, but here we do not have such problems. It is a little crowded at the prasadam time, but do not worry, everybody will get prasadam: one lot can sit, take prasad, and then next lot can come. If there is any problem, you can tell me. Try to understand that ‘no pain, no gain’ (Kosta na korle Kesta pawa yaya na. Lit. ‘You cannot get Kesta [Krishna] without suffering some difficulty’). I see that many are sleeping on the veranda, and I am requesting you all: if you sleep on the veranda, please stay quiet because everybody has to wake up early in the morning. The microphone will start waking you all up at half past three every day…

And I also want to say this to all those who are staying in the nat-mandir. Please remember this. There are not only two–three bathrooms that you see at the front, near the entrance. Some of you may not have seen it, but there are also several bathrooms at the back of the temple, near the kitchen. You do not have to wait for others and crowd at the entrance. Use the bathrooms at the back of the temple. They are for those who are staying in the nat-mandir. Other than that, every room has a bathroom, as Gurudev wanted. In Nabadwip, we also made a bathroom in every room, and we made it like that here, too. Village houses often have no bathrooms at all, is not so? But here the arrangement is good. All the rooms have a bathroom, there is no problem. The only problem is management. It is necessary to make sure that the water runs well, and it is necessary to check that all the taps are closed in the morning when we leave for the parikrama. Sometimes you go for the parikrama and forget to close the taps. If you waste water, you yourself will have to suffer later. We also have tanks with drinking water for everyone.

Try to do this parikrama well, and do not quarrel on the buses. I am saying it to you with folded palms. Do not worry about anything, everything will be all right. You know, seventy devotees have come today in a bus from Tarakeshwar. A bus has, perhaps, fifty seats, and the way is five or six hours, so twenty devotees sat on the bus on the floor or stood. They travelled like this for five–six hours, but here it is only ten minutes, so what is the problem? Our buses will come in the morning; they are all numbered. Get on a bus and do not fight for a seat. I have also seen one (very bad) habit among you. Somebody gets on the bus, takes a seat and keeps a seat next to them for their husband, wife, mother, daughter, etc. When you get on the bus and start fighting, it gives me only pain, nothing else. It is not good to be like this.

We come to serve our guru, so as far as possible, you must not give any headache or disturbance to your guru. You can understand what my situation is. You think that I sit quietly in my room, but this is not so. I have four mobile phones, and everyone calls me saying, ‘Oh, I have not got a room!’, ‘Oh, which room should I give them?’, ‘Oh, the water is not running!’, ‘Oh, a fan has broken!’ I sit until after midnight dealing with all this and wake up at three–four o’clock in the morning. I sleep for two–three hours only. I am used to it, so it is not a problem for me…

Tomorrow we are starting our parikrama. I must walk and chant kirtan together with you all. Try to chant all the kirtans. Do not think, ‘Oh, they will sing, and I will listen.’ No. You must sing, too. You can see Sripad Rama Prabhu going behind the parikrama [on the second cart, with the second loudspeaker] and chanting kirtan. You can learn from him. Chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, sometimes chant ‘Nitai Gauranga’, nothing else. Everybody knows how to chant this, and everybody can chant it. The Lord does not want to hear your tune, so chant as you can. Chant the Lord’s Name, and He will respond to your call. I have seen that many women do hulahuli at their homes when chanting the Lord’s Name. Why then do you not call your sons by hulahuli? You call your sons by their names. If you call them by hulahuli, will they respond to that? Answer me. Do you know what Srila Sridhar Maharaj said? ‘If you think that you will make much noise and that is chanting the Holy Name, then why do you think everyone is swearing bats for their annoying noise (chanchamechir yadi eta harinama, tahale chhunchor chavachika kena re durnama)?’ You think that your loud chanting is Harinam, but bats also make much noise – is that Harinam too? If it is, then why do you call them bad names when they make noise?

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

If you chant the ‘Holy Name’ in unholy association, it can never be the Holy Name. If you want to chant the Holy Name, then you must remember:

‘sadhu-sanga’ ‘sadhu-sanga’—sarva sastre kaya

lava-matra sadhu-sange sarva-siddhi haya

‘All scriptures keep saying: ‘Good association’, ‘Good association.’ You can attain all perfection even just by a drop of good, saintly association.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.54)

sadhu-sange krsna-nama—ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

One more thing I want to say to you is this. Please do not take prasad in your rooms, do not make the rooms dirty. We have come to serve the dham, not to make it dirty. People eat and leave the plates everywhere. It is not good. You will be taking prasad in a field tomorrow, so please keep all the plates in one place. We are going to other temples, and if you behave well, then others will also say, ‘Their guru has taught them well.’ And if you climb the temples and leave dirty plates after taking prasad, then people will say, ‘This Maharaj has not taught his disciples anything!’ Please remember this. Wherever you go, follow the rules and regulations. We will be taking prasad in a mango grove tomorrow beside the temple of Sri Jagannathdev. Keep all the plates in one place after you take prasad; otherwise, the temple will have a problem (they will have to clean the place). Here too, I have bought and kept a special drum near the prasad place – throw all plates into that drum. Do not throw plates on the street or anywhere you like. After prasad, you will go to your rooms, please do not make the rooms dirty. This is all part of practising Krishna consciousness. Cleanness is part of Krishna consciousness.

How many days will you be alive in this world? As long as you are alive in this world, chant the Holy Name, live your life serving the Lord. Gurudev used me to make so many temples, and if any of you wants to stay at the temple permanently, if you want to do service, then come to me or get in touch with the temple. If you want to spend your life at the temple, you are extremely fortunate. Not everybody has this kind of fortune. When I first came to the temple, Gurudev told me, ‘You have come to get great things, but to get them, you have to give up small things.’ I understood at that time that I had to give up small things, and this is how I have been able to do so many great things.

sadhu-sange krsna-nama—ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Please practise Krishna consciousness. ‘Grhe thako, vane thako, sada “Hari” bole dako. Whether you stay in a house or in a forest, always call out the Holy Name.’ ‘Ye dina grhe bhajana dekhi grhete goloka bhaya. Any day there is devotional service at home, I see Goloka manifest itself in it.’ When there is eternal (daily, non-stop) service going on in a house, that house becomes Goloka Vrindavan. We must engage ourselves in eternal service (nitya-seva)…

* * *

￼Line Line23 March 2021, Parikrama

Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama: Antardwip

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/15) At Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan (1)

[Arriving at Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan, His Divine Grace takes a seat in the nat-mandir and chants ‘Parama karuna’ and ‘Kabe Sri Chaitanya more karibena daya.’]

As we proceed with our parikrama, we do not stop and sit at all places, so why have we come and are sitting here? Is it because we are going to eat here? Not because of that. We are sitting here because this is the place where Gaura and Nityananda’s first meeting took place.

You all know that Sri Sachinandan Gaura Hari appeared in this world in Yogapith (we will go there later during our parikrama), but when Nityananda Prabhu came to Nabadwip Dham, He first stayed here.

This temple here was established by Pujyapad Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj, a fellow godbrother of our Param Gurudev (gurudev of our gurudev, or you can say, our ‘grandfather’ guru) Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj’s brahmachari name was Aprakrita Prabhu, and he appeared in this world in Patrasayer, Bankura (we have a temple there). He used to stay and serve together with our Param Guru Maharaj at Chaitanya Math at first, and when Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur left, he went back to his home feeling dejected by the situation. Our Param Gurudev then forcefully brought him back, saying, ‘If such a great preacher as yourself stays at home, then who will preach Mahaprabhu’s teachings, Prabhupad’s teachings in this world?’ Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj replied, ‘If you give me sannyas, then I can leave home again.’ After that, Srila Sridhar Maharaj gave him sannyas and the name Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj. His samadhi-mandir is also here, at this temple. After him, the acharya of this temple was a disciple of Pujyapad Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj, Sripad Bhakti Suhrid Akinchan Maharaj (his samadhi is also here; you can see it). He was very affectionate to me. After him, Sripad Sadhu Maharaj, my very good friend, has been managing this temple to this day. He must have left now for the parikrama (he also takes devotees for the parikrama, just as we do). There is also another historical significance related to this temple. Sripad Bhakti Kiran Giri Maharaj, whom our Gurudev Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj gave charge of our Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, was a disciple from this temple, but he took sannyas from Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj and often stayed at our temple. He spent his last years here, and his samadhi-mandir is also here.

You can find the full history of these great personalities in the book Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala that we published last year. It is necessary to learn these things. You cannot learn something just by buying a book from the market. If you want to learn something properly, you need to go to school and learn it from a teacher. So, listen to these things and you will understand it, or at least you will understand it later.

Pujyapad Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj would come to our Math every year and invite Srila Sridhar Maharaj to his birthday celebration.

[Clamour among the devotees.] What has happened? [Somebody has fallen down.] Of course they will fall down – I told you to listen attentively. You must concentrate your mind here, otherwise you become scatter-minded and start going here and there during the parikrama. Did I tell you to go anywhere? Only go where I go. Do not go to any other places. [Clamour continues.] Who has fallen down? Give them a chair. [Devotees say that the person has fainted.] Fainted? Pour some water on their head. Actually, if somebody leaves their body here, it is a great fortune – they immediately go to their own holy abode… [The person came round after a while.] I myself want to leave my body like this, chanting kirtan. I pray that not a day, not a moment passes in my life without kirtan…

So, Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj would invite Srila Sridhar Maharaj to his birthday every year, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj came here every time. And every time he came, Srila Goswami Maharaj gave him whatever donation his disciples had given him this day because Srila Sridhar Maharaj was his sannyas- and siksa-guru. One time, however, Srila Sridhar Maharaj could not come, and Srila Goswami Maharaj said, ‘My sannyas-guru could not come this time, so I think I will not be alive next year…’ And he did in fact leave his body that year.

(2/15) At Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan (2)

This place is a very famous and very auspicious place because Gaura and Nityananda Prabhu met here for the first time when Nityananda Prabhu had come to Mayapur from Sri Ekachakra Dham.

One day, Mahaprabhu told all the devotees, ‘Srivas, Chandrasekhara! Look, one great personality has come to the dham! You must find Him and bring Him here!’ They went to look for that great personality. Although there were not so many houses in Mayapur at that time, nobody could find Him. (It is said in Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata that Nityananda Prabhu is a very great and hidden personality, it is not so easy to find Him!) Coming back to Mahaprabhu, they said, ‘Prabhu, whom did You mean? We have not found anyone.’ Then, Mahaprabhu said, ‘Oh, you cannot find Him? All right, I will go Myself then!’ Mahaprabhu came straight to this house of Nandan Acharya (Nandan Acharya’s ‘bhavan’) and saw somebody sitting in front of it.

They are such old and intimate friends! They are Gaura and Nitai, Krishna and Balaram. They are one, but They come in two forms. They are non-different from each other, but to perform Their pastimes, They come in two forms (as Gaura and Nitai). There is no difference between the guru and Krishna. Krishna comes in the form of a guru to perform His pastimes and preach the glory of the Lord. Nityananda Prabhu is like that too. He is ashraya-vigraha (He gives shelter), and Gauranga Mahaprabhu is visaya-vigraha (the object of worship).

So, when Mahaprabhu saw Nityananda Prabhu sitting in front of the house here, They embraced each other and began to roll on the ground. Then everyone understood, ‘Oh, this is that great personality!’ After that, Mahaprabhu performed His pastimes together with Nityananda Prabhu.

We have come here by a great fortune – this is that very place where Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu met for the first time. Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj purchased this land and made a temple. At first, he thought, ‘I will make a small temple,’ but Srila Sridhar Maharaj said, ‘Why a small temple? So many devotees will come here, it is necessary to make a big temple.’ This is how this temple was made.

Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj was a disciple of Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. When Srila Prabhupad left his body, Srila Goswami Maharaj went back to his home in Patrasayer, and even got married. A few days later, Srila Sridhar Maharaj came to him and requested him to come back, saying, ‘You have to preach Mahaprabhu’s conception, Prabhupad’s conception. Who will preach it if you sit here with your family?’ He replied, ‘Yes, I can come back, but you must give sannyas to me. Unless you give me sannyas, I will not come.’ Srila Sridhar Maharaj agreed, so Srila Goswami Maharaj left everything and came back with Srila Sridhar Maharaj. After that, Srila Sridhar Maharaj gave him sannyas and the name Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj.

Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj was a great guru, but he would invite his sannyas-guru (Srila Sridhar Maharaj) to his birthday every year and give all presentations that his disciples gave him that day to his sannyas-guru. I have also heard from Gurudev that Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj offered full arati and puja to Srila Sridhar Maharaj in Govardhan, in front of all his disciples. One year, when Srila Sridhar Maharaj could not come on his birthday, Srila Goswami Maharaj said, ‘Srila Sridhar Maharaj, my sannyas-guru, comes every year and gives me one more year of life. But this year he could not come, so I may not be alive next year.’ Srila Goswami Maharaj left his body that same year.

You can see the samadhi-mandir of Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj here. Also, Pujyapad Srila Bhakti Kiran Giri Maharaj was a disciple of this temple – he used to lead our Nabadwip Dham parikrama. We have printed his photograph in Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala; it is very nice. He was a very old and very great Vaishnav. I remember he would eat one kilogram of rice at a time (this is how strong he was)…

(3/15) At Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan (3)

I also remember Pujyapad Srila Goswami Maharaj’s greatest disciple, Srila Bhakti Suhrid Akinchan Maharaj. Gurudev sent me to this temple in 1995 (that year was the centenary anniversary of Srila Sridhar Maharaj) to bring Srila Akinchan Maharaj from here and Srila Bhakti Kumud Shanta Maharaj from Srila Bhakti Pramode Puri Goswami Maharaj’s Math (Srila Bhakti Kumud Shanta Maharaj was a disciple of Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, and at that time he did not have his own temple, it appeared only later). I still remember Srila Bhakti Kumud Shanta Maharaj’s Hari-katha. He spoke very happily. He lived as a brahmachari from eleven years old, and later, when he was twenty-one years old, he took sannyas.

Also, Srila Bhakti Kiran Giri Maharaj was a disciple of Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj, but later he took sannyas from our Param Guru Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. He often lived at our temple and Gurudev gave him the charge of Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. I learned how to do this parikrama from him. It is impossible to do this parikrama unless you go together with devotees. When I went for the parikrama my first year, I was in charge of bringing prasad. When I came, I would learn how to do this parikrama and what Hari-katha was spoken. You cannot learn these things unless you hear attentively; it is necessary to listen attentively to what your guru says. Gurudev sent me to go on this parikrama together with Srila Giri Maharaj, saying, ’Go, do the parikrama with them. Learn how everything is arranged.’ At that time, Haricharan Prabhu used to manage the parikrama, and I learned from him. In those days, the temple did not have a big car, so I would bring prasad in a bullock cart. The temple would send some devotees to the temple of Jagannathdev with a bullock cart one day ahead (Haricharan Prabhu came with them), and they started cooking the day before the parikrama party came there. They did not cook much, just khichuri. When they went to Rudradwip (this is our last stop for today, you will see this place), they would also come there one day ahead, taking everything first by boat and then by a bullock cart. At that time, there were not so many people at the parikrama, maybe 100–150 devotees, and they fed them all khichuri during the parikrama. Now, by the mercy and wish of Gurudev, we have a car and we bring prasad from the temple…

Anyhow, I have seen how devotees did the parikrama, how they walked all the way from our Nabadwip temple, and many of you were there too at that time. I had the fortune to see all these great personalities, but they have left this world now, leaving this fallen soul here with you all. I am trying to arrange everything as much as I can…

(4/15) At Sri Nandan Acharya Bhavan (4)

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Avatara sara Gaura avatara.’]

Mahaprabhu and His mercy are unheard of in this world. By this inconceivable mercy of Mahaprabhu we are doing this parikrama in the association of all the devotees:

gaura amara, ye-saba sthane,
karala bhramana range
se-saba sthana, heriba ami,
pranayi-bhakata-sange

‘In the company of loving devotees, I will behold all the places my Gaura roamed during His ecstatic pastimes.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

sri-krsna-chaitanya-daya karaha vichara
vichara karile chitte pabe chamatkara

‘Just consider Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mercy! If you do, you will feel astonished in your heart.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.15)

We have come here as the result of great fortune. Nabadwip Dham is non-different from Vrindavan Dham. This Antardwip, Mayapur, is a place of atma-nivedan (self-submission).

What kinds of devotion are there? Sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). These nine limbs of devotion reside on the nine islands of Nabadwip.

This island of Antardwip is the place of atma-nivedana, or saranagati (self submission, surrender). We must submit ourselves at the lotus feet of the Lord. We will also go to Simantadwip today; it is the island of sravanam (hearing about the Lord). It is necessary to listen. The place where we have come from in Nrisingha Palli is Godrumdwip, the abode of kirtan. Rudradwip, where we are also going today, is an abode of sakhya (friendly love, one of the five spiritual relationships with the Lord).

There is one more thing I have not told you about because when we were crossing the Ganges, everybody had not come yet. I have written it here in Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala. The place where we came crossing the Ganges is called Ganganagar.

[His Divine Grace reads from Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala.]

Who brought Ganga to this world? Bhagirath Maharaj. One time, Bhagirath Maharaj performed severe austerities during many years in order to please Sri Ganga Devi. In the end, Sri Ganga Devi appeared before him saying, ‘Maharaj, I am pleased with the austerities you have performed. Tell me, what boon do you want from me?’ Bhagirath Maharaj replied, ‘O Devi, if you could come down to earth together with me, my relatives and all the residents of earth would get liberation. If you do not come, I will have no other way to fulfil this.’ Despite Bhagirath Maharaj’s plea, Sri Ganga Devi did not agree. She said, ‘I will not go! If I come to this earth, all sinners will bath in my water and I will become polluted and go to hell! What benefit is that to me?’ Then, Bhagirath Maharaj assured her, ‘But why are you saying this, O Mother? The Lord Himself rests in the hearts of pure sadhus who are devoid of any material desires or attachments – when these sadhus bath in your waters, the Lord will remove all the sins from you. You will always remain pure.’

Many people bath in the Ganges hoping that Ganges will remove all their sins, but sadhus do not touch the Ganges with their feet – they offer their obeisances to her from far and take Ganges water on their heads.

So, in the end merciful Sri Ganga Devi agreed to go with Bhagirath Maharaj. Bhagirath Maharaj went first blowing a conch, and merciful Sri Ganga Devi followed behind him. When they were passing this Sri Nabadwip Dham, Ganga Devi suddenly stopped. After a while, Bhagirath Maharaj noticed that Ganga Devi was not following him anymore – getting scared, he turned back to look for her. Then, he saw that Ganga Devi did not want to move any further. ‘Oh no! What will happen now?’ There was no way out – Bhagirath Maharaj sat down here in this Ganganagar (Mayapur) and started performing austerities again. Satisfied with his austerities, Ganga Devi came to him and started speaking. Bhagirath Maharaj prayed to her, ‘O Mother, if you do not continue the way, my ancestors will never get any relief. Please come with me.’ Ganga Devi replied, ‘Listen, child! O great hero Bhagirath! Stay here for a few days. We have come to this Sri Nabadwip Dham in the month of magh (January/February)! When the month of phalgun (February/March) finishes, I will again go with you. Try to understand – I have come to the holy abode of the One whose feet I wash, therefore I want to stay here to fulfil my deep longing. My Lord’s appearance day is on the full moon day in the month of phalgun, I want to observe this day, and after that I will come with you. Do not worry.’

In this way, Bhagirath Maharaj stayed here, in Ganganagar, for one month. It is said in the scriptures that if you stay in Ganganagar, bath in the Ganga, fast and worship Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu on the full moon day in the month of phalgun, you will cross this material world and reach Sri Goloka, and thousands of generations of your ancestors will also go to Sri Goloka Dham with you. Such is the glory of this Sri Ganganagar.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay. Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama ki jay.

So, at first Ganga Devi did not want to leave this place, but after staying here for one month, she went to Ganga Sagar.

Jay Sri Gaura Hari ki jay. Sachinandan Gaura Hari ki jay.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Gaurangera duti pada’ and then reads from Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya]

jaya jaya navadvipa-chandra sachi-suta
jaya jaya nityananda-raya avadhuta [1]

‘All glory to the son of Sachi, the moon of Nabadwip! All glory to the avadhut Nityananda Ray!’

jaya jaya sri-advaita prabhu mahasaya
gadadhara srivasa pandita jaya jaya [2]

‘All glory to the worshippable Sri Advaita Prabhu! All glory to Gadadhar Pandit and Srivas Pandit!’

jaya navadvipa-dhama sarva-dhama-sara
jaya navadvipa-vasi gaura-parivara [3]

‘All glory to Nabadwip Dham, the best of all abodes! All glory to the residents of Nabadwip, the associates of Sri Gaura!’

sakala bhakata-pade kariya pranama
samksepe varniba ami navadvipa-dhama [4]

‘Bowing at the feet of all the devotees, I will briefly describe Nabadwip Dham.’

navadvipa-mandalera mahima apara
brahma adi nahi jane varne sadhya kara [5]

‘The glories of Nabadwip Mandal are unlimited. Brahma and the other gods do not know them. So, who can describe them?’

sahasra vadane sesa varnite aksama
ksudra-jiva ami kise ha-iba saksama [6]

‘Ananta Sesa is unable to describe them with thousands of mouths. So, how will I, a tiny soul, be able to?’

satya vate navadvipa mahima ananta
deva-deva mahadeva nahi paya anta [7]

‘It is true that the glories of Nabadwip are unlimited. The god of gods, Lord Siva, cannot reach their end.’

tathapi chaitanya-chandra-ichchha balavan
sei ichchha-vase bhakta ajnara vidhana [8]

‘Still, the will of the moon-like Sri Chaitanya is all-powerful, and under its control, the devotees give orders.’

bhakta-gane ajna dila chaitanya ichhaya
nadiya-mahatmya varni bhaktera krpaya [9]

‘By the will of Sri Chaitanya, the devotees have ordered me, and so I describe the glories of Nadia by their mercy.’

ara eka katha achhe gudha atisaya
kahite na ichchha haya na kahile naya [10]

‘There is another very confidential subject, which I do not want to mention, yet cannot but mention.’

ye avadhi sri-chaitanya aprakata haila
dhama-lila prakasite bhakte ajna dila [11]

‘When Sri Chaitanya disappeared, He ordered the devotees to reveal His abode and Pastimes.’

sarva-avatara haite gudha avatara
sri-chaitanya-chandra mora vidita samsara [12]

‘Of all Avatars, our moon-like Sri Chaitanya is the most confidential known in this world.’

gudha-lila sastre gudha-rupe ukta haya
abhakta janera chitte na haya udaya [13]

‘His confidential Pastimes are mentioned confidentially in the scriptures. They are not revealed in the hearts of non-devotees.’

se lila sambandhe yata gudha sastra chhila
maya-devi bahu-kala achchhadi’ rakhila [14]

‘For a long time, Maya Devi hid the confidential scriptures that existed about His Pastimes.’

aprakata sastra bahu rahe yatha tatha
prakata sastreo yata chaitanyera katha [15]

se sakala maya-devi pandita nayana
avariya rakhe gupta-bhave anuksana [16]

‘Maya Devi covered the eyes of the scholars and at all times kept secret all the descriptions of Sri Chaitanya throughout both the manifest and unmanifest scriptures.’

gaurera gambhira lila haile aprakata
prabhu-ichchha jani’ maya haya akapata [17]

‘When the deep Pastimes of Sri Gaura became unmanifest, Maya understood the will of the Lord and withdrew her deception.’

uthaiya laila jala jiva-chaksu haite
prakasila gaura-tattva e jada jagate [18]

‘Maya lifted her veil from the eyes of the souls and revealed the truth about Sri Gaura to the material world.’

gupta-sastra anayase haila prakata
ghuchila jivera yata yuktira sankata [19]

‘The hidden scriptures then appeared clearly and dispelled the doubts of all souls.’

bada-i dayalu prabhu nityananda-raya
gaura-tattva prakasila jivera hiyaya [20]

‘The extremely merciful Nityananda Prabhu revealed the truth about Sri Gaura in the hearts of the souls.’

tanra ajna peye maya chhade avarana
subhakta pandita-gana paya sastra-dhana [21]

‘Receiving His order, Maya removed her veil, and the wise devotees discovered the wealth of the scriptures.’

ihate sandeha yara na haya khandana
se abhaga vrtha kena dharaya jivana [22]

‘Those whose doubts are not dispelled by this are unfortunate. Why do such persons meaninglessly continue their lives?’

ye kale isvara yei krpa vitaraya
bhagyavanta jana tahe bada sukhi haya [23]

‘Whenever and howsoever the Lord bestows His mercy, the fortunate souls become extremely happy.’

durbhaga laksana ei jana sarva-jana
nija buddhi bada bali’ kariya ganana [24]

isvarera krpa nahi karaya svikara
kutarke mayara garte pade bara-bara [25]

‘Everyone should know the symptoms of misfortune: to consider your own intelligence to be great and not accept the mercy of the Lord. Through false arguments, souls fall into Maya’s traps again and again.’

‘esa he kalira jiva chhada kutinati
nirmala gauranga-prema laha paripati’ [26]

‘O souls of Kali-yuga, come! Give up duplicity, and accept pure divine love for Sri Gauranga in full!’

ei bali’ nityananda dake bara-bara
tabu ta durbhaga jana na kare svikara [27]

‘Saying this, Nityananda calls out again and again. Still, unfortunate souls do not accept.’

kena ye emana preme kare anadara
vichara kariya dekha ha-iya tatpara [28]

‘Let us consider carefully why souls disregard divine love.’

sukha-lagi sarva-jiva nana yukti kare
tarka kare yoga kare samsara bhitare [29]

‘In various ways, all souls pursue happiness. In this world, some souls study logic, and others practise yoga.’

sukha-lagi samsara chhadiya vane yaya
sukha-lagi yuddha kare rajaya rajaya [30]

‘For the sake of happiness, some leave home and go to the forest, and others wage wars between nations.’

sukha-lagi kamini-kanaka pachhe dhaya
sukha-lagi silpa ara vijnana chalaya [31]

‘For the sake of happiness, some run after women and wealth, and others pursue the arts and sciences.’

sukha-lagi sukha chhade klesa siksa kare
sukha-lagi arnava madhyete dubi mare [32]

‘For the sake of happiness, some give up on happiness and learn to be miserable, and others drown themselves in the ocean.’

nityananda bale daki’ duhata tuliya
‘esa jiva karma-jnana-sankata chhadiya [33]

‘Raising His arms, Nityananda calls, ‘O souls! Give up the misery of exploitation and renunciation, and come with Me!’

sukha-lagi chesta tava ami taha diba
tara vinimaye ami kichhu na la-iba [34]

‘You are searching for happiness. I will give that to you, and I will not take anything from you in return.’

kasta nai vyaya nai na pabe yatana
‘sri-gauranga’ bali’ nacha nahika bhavana [35]

‘You will not undergo any trouble, loss, or pain. Simply chant, ‘Sri Gauranga’ and dance without a care.’

ye sukha ami ta diba tara nai sama
sarvada vimalananda nahi tara bhrama’ [36]

‘The happiness I will give you is unparalleled. It is pure, eternal joy, free from all illusion.’

ei rupe prema yache nityananda-raya
abhaga karama-dose taha nahi chaya [37]

‘In this way, Nityananda Prabhu begs everyone to accept divine love, but the unfortunate, as a result of their sins, do not want it.’

‘gauranga nitai’ yei bale eka-bara
ananta karama-dosa anta haya tara [38]

‘The unlimited sins of anyone who once chants, ‘Gauranga! Nitai!’are destroyed.’

ara eka gudha katha suna sarva-jana
kali-jive yogya-vastu gaura-lila-dhana [39]

‘Everyone, please listen to another confidential subject. The wealth of Gaura’s Pastimes is appropriate for the souls of Kali-yuga.’

gaurahari radha-krsna-rupe vrndavane
nitya-kala vilasa karaye sakhi-sane [40]

‘Gaurahari, as Radha and Krishna, plays with the sakhis eternally in Vrindavan.’

sastrete janila jiva vraja-lila-tattva
radha-krsna-nitya-lila vrajera mahattva [41]

‘Through the scriptures, the souls understood the nature of Pastimes in Vraja, and the greatness of Vraja and Radha-Krishna’s eternal Pastimes there.’

krsna-nama krsna-dhama mahatmya apara
sastrera dvaraya jane sakala samsara [42]

‘Through the scriptures, the whole world understood the unlimited glories of Krishna’s Name and Krishna’s abode.’

tabu krsna-prema sadharane nahi paya
ihara karana kiba chintaha hiyaya [43]

‘Still, in general, souls did not attain divine love for Krishna. What is the reason for this? Consider it within your heart.’

ihate achhe ta eka gudha-tattva-sara
maya-mugdha jiva taha na kare vichara [44]

‘In this regard, there is a highly confidential subject that souls bewildered by Maya do not consider.’

bahu janma krsna bhaji’ prema nahi haya
aparadha-punja tara achhaya nischaya [45]

‘When souls serve Krishna for many births but do not develop divine love, then certainly they have made offences.’

aparadha-sunya haye laya krsna-nama
tabe jiva krsna-prema labhe avirama [46]

‘When souls, free from offences, chant the Name of Krishna, they quickly attain divine love for Krishna.’

sri-chaitanya-avatare bada vilaksana
aparadha-sattve jiva labhe prema-dhana [47]

‘The special characteristic of Sri Chaitanya’s Pastimes is that souls attain the wealth of divine love even while they commit offences.’

‘nitai chaitanya’ bali’ yei jiva dake
suvimala krsna-prema anvesaye take [48]

‘Pure divine love for Krishna searches for souls who call out ‘Nitai-Chaitanya!’

aparadha badha tara kichhu nahi kare
niramala krsna-preme tara ankhi jhare [49]

‘Offences do not obstruct such souls, and their eyes cry with pure love for Krishna.’

svalpa-kale aparadha apani palaya
hrdaya sodhita haya prema bade taya [50]

‘Within a short time, offences leave on their own. The souls’ hearts become purified, and divine love develops within them.’

kali-jivera aparadha asankhya durvara
gaura-nama vina tara nahika uddhara [51]

‘The offences of the souls in Kali-yuga are unlimited and unavoidable. There is no deliverance for them without the Name of Gaura.’

ataeva gaura vina kalite upaya
na dekhi kothao ara sastra phukaraya [52]

‘Thus, in Kali-yuga, I do not see any way without Gaura, and the scriptures proclaim this.’

navadvipe gaurachandra haila udaya
navadvipa sarva-tirtha avatamsa haya [53]

‘Gaurachandra appeared in Nabadwip, the crown atop all the holy places.’

anya tirthe aparadhi dandera bhajana
navadvipe aparadha sadai marjana [54]

‘In other holy places, offenders are punished, but in Nabadwip offences are always forgiven.’

tara saksi jagai-madhai dui bhai
aparadha kari’ paila chaitanya-nitai [55]

‘The brothers Jagai and Madhai are evidence of this. They committed offences but attained Nitai and Chaitanya.’

anyanya tirthera katha rakha bhai dure
aparadhi daitya danda paya vraja-pure [56]

‘Brother! Let alone other holy places, offenders and demons are punished even in Vraja.’

navadvipe sata sata aparadha kari’
anayase nitai krpaya yaya tari’ [57]

‘In Nabadwip, souls who commit hundreds and hundreds of offences are easily delivered by the mercy of Nitai.’

hena navadvipa-dhama ye gauda-mandale
dhanya dhanya sei desa rsi-gana bale [58]

‘The sages say that the land of Sri Nabadwip Dham in Sri Gauda Mandal is most glorious.’

hena navadvipe bhai yanhara vasati
bada bhagyavana sei labhe krsna-rati [59]

‘Brother, souls who reside in Nabadwip are very fortunate. They attain devotion to Krishna.’

navadvipe yeba kabhu karaya gamana
sarva-aparadha mukta haya sei jana [60]

‘Souls who once visit Nabadwip are freed from all offences.’

sarva-tirtha bhramiya tairthika yaha paya
navadvipa-smarane sei labha sastre gaya [61]

‘The scriptures say that by remembering Nabadwip you attain that which pilgrims attain by visiting all the other holy places.’

navadvipa darasana kare yei jana
janme janme labhe sei krsna-prema-dhana [62]

‘Souls who see Nabadwip attain the wealth of divine love for Krishna birth after birth.’

karma-buddhi-yogeo ye navadvipe yaya
nara janma ara sei jana nahi paya [63]

‘Even souls who go to Nabadwip with a materialistic motivation do not take a human birth again.’

navadvipa bhramite se pade pade paya
koti asvamedha phala sarva-sastre gaya [64]

‘All the scriptures say that while walking through Nabadwip, such souls attain the result of ten million horse sacrifices with each step.’

navadvipe vasi’ yei mantra japa kare
sri-mantra chaitanya haya, anayase tare [65]

‘Those who reside in Nabadwip and chant their mantra – that holy mantra comes alive and easily delivers them.’

anya tirthe yogi dasa-varse labhe yaha
navadvipe tina ratre sadhi’ paya taha [66]

‘That which yogis attain after ten years in other holy places is attained in three nights in Nabadwip.’

anya tirthe brahma-jnane yei mukti haya
navadvipe bhagirathi snane ta ghataya [67]

‘The liberation attained through knowledge of Brahma in other holy places is attained in Nabadwip simply by bathing in the Ganga.’

salokya-sarupya-sarsti-samipya-nirvana
navadvipe mumuksu labhaya vina jnana [68]

‘In Nabadwip, even without knowledge of Brahma, seekers of liberation can attain residence in the Lord’s abode, a form like the Lord’s, opulence like the Lord’s, association with the Lord, and absorption into the Lord.’

navadvipe suddha-bhakta charane padiya
bhukti mukti sada rahe dasi rupa haiya [69]

‘Enjoyment and liberation personified bow at the feet of the pure devotees in Nabadwip and always wait upon them as maidservants.’

bhakta-gana lathi mari’ se duye tadaya
bhakta-pada chhadi’ dasi tabu na palaya [70]

‘Although devotees kick them and drive them away, these maidservants do not leave the feet of the devotees or run away.’

sata-varsa sapta-tirthe mile yaha bhai
navadvipe eka-ratra vase taha pai [71]

‘Brother, by spending one night in Nabadwip, souls attain that which is gained by residing in the seven principal holy places for one hundred years.’

hena navadvipa-dhama sarva-dhama-sara
kalite asraya kari’ jiva haya para [72]

‘Thus, Nabadwip Dham is the best of all abodes. Souls who take shelter here in Kali-yuga are delivered.’

taraka paraka vidya-dvaya avirata
navadvipa-vasi-gane seve riti-mata [73]

‘The two forms of knowledge – that which liberates and that which nourishes – constantly and perfectly serve the residents of Nabadwip.’

nitai-jahnava-pada-chhaya yara asa
se bhakti-vinoda gaya paiya ullasa [74]

‘Bhaktivinod, whose aspiration is the shade of Nitai and Jahnava’s feet, sings the glories of Nadia and rejoices.’

(5/15) At Sri Yogapith (1)

[His Divine Grace arrives with the devotees at the holy temple in Sri Yogapith and chants ‘Yadi Gaura na haite’.]

By the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma, we are continuing our parikrama of Sri Antardwip in Sri Nabadwip Dham. We have now come to this temple at the birthplace of Sri Sachinandan Mahaprabhu. This is the place where Mahaprabhu appeared. Do you know when He appeared?

chaudda-sata sata-sake masa ye phalguna

paurnamasira sandhya-kale haile subha-ksana

‘Thus in the year 1407 of the Saka Era (A.D. 1486), in the month of Phalgun (March–April), on the evening of the full moon, the desired auspicious moment appeared.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.13.89)

This appearance festival is coming soon.

Appearing in this place, Mahaprabhu performed so many pastimes. When Nimai was only three years old, a brahman came to His house and asked Jagannath Misra and Sachi Mata, ‘Can you give me any alms?’ Because the brahman came at an odd time, he was asked to cook something, offer bhoga to the Deities and take prasad. When the brahman cooked and was making the offering, Nimai suddenly came there and started eating it. The brahman became annoyed and chased Him away. (He whom the brahman was inviting to take the offering came there, but he did not recognise Him.) The brahman had to cook again. This time, Nimai’s father guarded the door as the brahman offered bhoga again. As he placed the offering before the Deities, he suddenly saw that Nimai had come and eaten the offering again! The brahman went to cook for the third time. This time, everybody had already gone to bed. Being confident that no disturbance would come this time, the brahman came to the Deities and made the offering for the third time. He closed his eyes and prayed tearfully, ‘O Lord! Please forgive my offence, I could not offer you bhoga timely today!’ But when he opened his eyes, he saw that Nimai had cleared the plate again! The brahman was angry, ‘You again?!’

‘Brahman, you call Me time and again, and I come! I was actually sleeping, but you called Me!’ said Nimai.

‘Why would I call You?!’ the brahman could not understand what Nimai was saying.

‘Oh, so you did not call Me?’ saying this, Nimai showed him His four-armed form.

So many other pastimes took place here. On the way to Yogapith, we usually come to Jagai and Madhai Ghat, but this year I had got the news that the road was broken and the cart would not pass there, so we could not go there this time. That ghat is the place where Jagai and Madhai were rescued. A little ahead from the where we are now, just down the road, is Srivas Pandit’s house where Chad Kazi broke the mridanga.

When devotees were singing kirtan, a Muslim kazi (ruler) came and broke one of the mridangas. The devotees became very sad and were sitting quietly. When Mahaprabhu learnt what had happened, He told everyone to gather that evening and come out with a great, loud sankirtan on the streets, blowing conches and playing the karatals and drums. In this way, everyone came to Chad Kazi’s house that evening. Seeing the crowd gathering at his house, Chad Kazi became scared and hid inside his house. Mahaprabhu called out to him, ‘What is the matter, Kazi? Is this part of your Muslim religion that when a guest comes to you, you must hide inside the house and lock the door?’

‘No, Prabhu,’ replied Chad Kazi. ‘I thought you all had come angry, that is why I locked the door… Prabhu, can I speak to You privately?’

‘Why privately? They are all My people; you can speak in front of them,’ Mahaprabhu replied.

Then, Chad Kazi told Him, ’The night after I broke Your mridanga, I went to sleep. Suddenly, some half-man, half-lion jumped on my chest, pressing it hard! He showed His huge claws and said, “I will tear your chest apart! You broke the mridanga today, so I will break your chest for that!” Petrified, I closed my eyes, but then I heard, “Oh, you are afraid? All right, because you closed your eyes in fear today, I will spare you, but if you try to stop My kirtan again, I will destroy all your family.” Out of fear, I now do not say anything. When I tried to send some men to stop Your kirtan, they told me that on the way their beards were caught on fire and burnt down! I saw their faces were full of blisters. That is why I do not try to stop Your kirtan anymore.’

It is said in the scriptures that Chad Kazi was Uncle Kamsa in Dvapar-yuga. In Dvapar-yuga, Krishna killed Kamsa, but in Kali-yuga, the Lord does not destroy demons (He rescues them), this is how Kamsa became rescued.

While Chad Kazi was talking to Mahaprabhu, he sometimes exclaimed, ‘Haram!’ (‘abominable’), and everyone was happy, ‘Oh, he is saying “Ha Ram!” [O Lord Rama!]’ Then, Chad Kazi said accidentally, ‘I will not chant this Hari Nam!’ and everyone was even happier, ‘He has taken the Name of Lord Hari!’ The effect of the Holy Name is such that if one pronounces it even once, even negligently, they become rescued. In the end, Chad Kazi declared, ‘If anyone in my family ever tries to obstruct Your kirtan, I will disown them!’ From that day, Chad Kazi not only never tried to stop kirtan, but he also became Mahaprabhu’s devotee. A similar pastime happened to Jagai and Madhai; they were rescued by the Lord, too.

(6/15) At Sri Yogapith (2)

People used to think that the Ganges had taken Mahaprabhu’s birthplace away. It is true that the Ganges can take some place away, but the Ganges can also return it. I can tell you how this happened.

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur gradually came to see that many misconception teachings – aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, ativadi, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari – had come into prominence. When he served as the deputy magistrate in Puri, he prayed to Bimala Devi (the Deity of Laksmi Devi in Sri Jagannathdev’s temple), ‘Mahaprabhu’s religion has become distorted and is going now in the wrong direction. Please send somebody who would be able to teach Mahaprabhu’s pure conception and preach genuinely.’

There are many sahajiya and other movements that preach about chanting all kinds of Names, but Mahaprabhu taught:

harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam

kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha

‘Chanting the Holy Name, chanting the Holy Name, chanting the Holy Name – there is no other way, no other way, no other way.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.7.76)

Why did you all come to this world? To eat, sleep, wear clothes and enjoy? You can actually become rescued and come to your own home. That is why Mahaprabhu brought the Holy Name to this abode.

Mahaprabhu taught His teachings to Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Sanatan Goswami, and after them, His line continued through Srila Jiva Goswami, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, Narottam Das Thakur, Acharya Srinivas. But after them, the teachings became concealed. So, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur prayed to Bimala Devi to send him a person who would be able to revive Mahaprabhu’s teachings. Hearing Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur prayer, Bimala Devi became pleased and sent him a son, Bimala Prasad, who later became known as Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. Srila Saraswati Thakur is Gurudev of our Param Guru Maharaj. He served Mayapur Dham a lot, and he stayed in Godrumdwip, where we have come from today. We will go to the parikrama of Godrumdwip in two days.

The day after tomorrow is the Trisprisa Mahadvadasi. We will be observing ekadasi (fasting) on this day. Other places observe it on a different date, but we follow the pure conception (suddha-siddhanta), following the rules established by Srila Saraswati Thakur. We do not follow outside calendars. We follow ekadasis as stated in our temple’s calendar.

Anyhow, Srila Prabhupad appeared in Sri Puri Dham (when we go for the parikrama, we always visit his birthplace), and that year, when the Ratha-yatra festival was going on, the chariots stopped in front of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s house: the Lord wanted to see His devotee. The Lord cannot stay without His devotees. It is said in the scriptures also that the Lord always takes rest in the heart of His devotees (bhaktera hrdaye sada Govinda visrama). So, when the chariots stopped and would not move, Bimala Prasad’s mother, Sri Bhagavati Devi, brought out his newly born son to the chariot, and Jagannathdev’s garland broke and fell on Bimala Prasad. At that time everyone understood that he was not an ordinary child – that he is a very great soul. This is Srila Prabhupad, Nayana Manjari, a dear friend of Srimati Radharani.

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’

svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari

‘To bestow His mercy to jiva souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Srila Prabhupad is a close associate of the Lord, of that very Sri Gauranga without whom nobody would have ever known about the glory of Srimati Radharani, as we were singing earlier when we had just come here.

When Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur grew up, he stayed with his father, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, in Godrumdwip. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur would go to bed very early, at about 7 p.m., and wake up very early at night, at midnight or 2 a.m. He would chant the Holy Name the whole night. This was his habit. One night, he was chanting the Holy Name on the roof of his house in Godrumdwip when he saw some strange light far off in Mayapur.

In those days, there was nothing opulent in Mayapur – there were no big houses, nothing like what you see now. When Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came there the next day with his people, the local people were surprised to see them. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur asked them, ‘Why do you not cultivate anything on this land?’ Some local people replied, ‘We tried hard, but nothing grows here. We tried planting wheat, rice, jute, but only Tulasi trees grow here. So, we have given up.’

After that, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came to see Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj in Koladwip (we will go to his bhajan-kutir during the parikrama). Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur asked Srila Babaji Maharaj to come to Mayapur with him to see that place, and when Bihari Das, Srila Babaji Maharaj’s servant, brought him there in a basket (Srila Babaji Maharaj was very old at that time, over 130 years old) and put the basket down, Srila Babaji Maharaj jumped out and started dancing, chanting ‘Gaura Hari bol! Gaura Hari bol! This is my Prabhu’s place!’

Many people objected against recognising Mayapur as the actual birthplace of Mahaprabhu. Some people in Nabadwip town believed that Mayapur was on the other bank of the Ganges. There is a temple called ‘Prachin Mayapur’ – this is a man-made, concocted idea. Even in Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s time, babajis were jealous of him and tried to object. That is why it is said:

kuliyate pasandira, atyachara kaila ya’ra,
ta sabara dosa ksama kari’
jagate kaile ghosana, ‘taroriva sahisnuna’,
hana ‘kirtaniyah sada harih’

‘You [Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad] forgave the atheists of Kuliya village despite their atrocities. You proclaimed to the whole world: one who is as tolerant as a tree can always chant the glory of the Lord.’

(Acharya Vandana)

Nabadwip gosai and gunda people beat Srila Prabhupad! But Srila Prabhupad did not do anything in return: he forgave everyone and said that we must be as tolerant as trees. This is Srila Prabhupad’s glory.

Srila Prabhupad and Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur preached and established the marketplace of the Holy Name on the island of kirtan, Sri Godrumdwip. Sri Mayapur, where we are now, is situated in Antardwip, which is the island of self-surrender, or self-submission (atma-nivedana). This is the place where Mahaprabhu appeared…

(7/15) At Sri Yogapith (3)

Every year, when we come here, we read from Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya about Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu and the glory of Nabadwip. Please listen to it carefully.

[His Divine Grace is reading from Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya, Chapter 5, ‘Sri Mayapur and Antardwip’.]

jaya jaya sri-chaitanya sachira nandana

jaya jaya nityananda jahnavi-jivana [1]

‘All glory to the son of Sachi, Sri Chaitanya! All glory to the life of Jahnava, Sri Nityananda!

jaya jaya navadvipa-dhama sarva-dhama-sara

yatha kali-yuge haila gaura avatara [2]

‘All glory to Nabadwip Dham, the best of all abodes, where Gaura descended during the Age of Kali!

nityananda prabhu bale, “sunaha vachana

sola-krosa navadvipa yatha vrndavana [3]

Nityananda Prabhu said, ‘Listen to My words! The thirty-two miles of Nabadwip are non-different from Vrindavan.

ei sola-krosa madhye dvipa haya naya

asta-dala padma yena jalete bhasaya [4]

‘Within these thirty-two miles, there are nine islands, which form an eight-petalled lotus that floats on water.

asta-dala asta-dvipa madhye antardvipa

tara majhe mayapura madhya-bindu-tipa [5]

‘In the middle of the eight petals – the eight islands – is Antardwip. At its centre is Mayapur.

mayapura yoga-pitha sada golakara

tatha nitya chaitanyera vividha bihara [6]

‘The circular Yogapith in Mayapur is eternal. There, Sri Chaitanya performs various eternal Pastimes.

trisahasra-dhanu tara paridhi pramana

sahasreka-dhanu tara vyasera vidhana [7]

‘Its circumference is six miles, and its diameter two miles.

ei yoga-pitha-majhe vaise pancha-tattva

anya-sthana haite yoga-pithera mahattva [8]

‘The Pancha-tattva reside at the Yogapith, whose greatness exceeds that of all other places.

ati sighra gupta habe prabhura ichchhaya

bhagirathi-jale habe sangopita praya [9]

‘Very soon it will be hidden by the will of the Lord. The waters of the Ganga will almost entirely conceal it.

kabhu punah prabhu-ichchha habe balavan

prakasa ha-ibe dhama habe diptiman [10]

‘Someday, when the desire of the Lord becomes strong, the Yogapith will be revealed and the Dham will shine again.

nitya-dhama kabhu kale lopa nahi haya

gupta haye punar-bara haya ta udaya [11]

‘The eternal Dham is never lost at any time – it only becomes hidden and then emerges again.

bhagirathi purva-tire haya mayapura

mayapure nitya achhena amara thakura [12]

‘My Lord is eternally present in Mayapur on the eastern bank of the Ganga.

loka-drstye sannyasi ha-iya visvambhara

chhadi’ navadvipa phire desa-desantara [13]

‘In the vision of common people, Vishvambhar became a sannyasi, left Nabadwip, and toured other places.

vastutah gauranga mora navadvipa-dhama

chhadiya na yaya kabhu mayapura-grama [14]

‘In truth, however, My Gauranga never leaves Nabadwip Dham or the village of Mayapur.’

The pastimes of Gaura are continuing to this day: He is living in the hearts of devotees. Those who have eyes can see that. The problem is that our eyes are blind, and we cannot see this:

adyapiha sei lila kare gora raya
kona kona bhagyavane dekhibare paya

‘Gora Ray continues performing His Pastimes. Some fortunate sounds can see it.’

andhibhuta chaksu yara visaya dhulite
ki-rupe se paibe para-tattva dekhite

‘My eyes are blind with the dust of visaya, the material world – how can I see the transcendental world?’

dainandina lila tanra dekhe bhakta-gana

tumio dekhaha jiva gauranga-nartana [15]

‘“The devotees see His Pastimes here daily, and you too, Jiva, will see His dancing.

mayapura ante antardvipa sobha paya

gauranga darsana brahma paila yathaya [16]

‘“Mayapur shines within Antardwip, where Brahma saw Gauranga.

ohe jiva chaha yadi dekhite sakala

parikrama kara tumi ha-ibe saphala” [17]

‘“O Jiva, if you want to see everything, then circumambulate the Dham, and you will be successful.”

prabhu-vakya suni’ jiva sajala-nayane

dandavat haye pade prabhura charane [18]

‘Hearing the words of Nityananda Prabhu, with tears in his eyes Jiva bowed at His feet.

“krpa yadi kara prabhu ei akinchane

sange laye parikrama karao apane” [19]

‘“O Lord, if You are merciful to this poor soul, then please personally take me with You on a circumambulation of the Dham.”

jivera prarthana suni’ nityananda-raya

“tathastu” baliya nija manasa janaya [20]

‘Hearing Jiva’s prayer, Nityananda Ray answered, “So be it.”’

Nityananda Prabhu first made this parikrama of Sri Nabadwip Dham together with Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu.

prabhu bale, “ohe jiva adya mayapura

karaha darsana kalya bhramiba prachura” [21]

‘He said, “O Jiva, today see Mayapur. Tomorrow we will tour extensively.”’

eta bali’ nityananda uthila takhana

pachhe pachhe uthe jiva praphullita mana [22]

‘Having said this, Nityananda arose, and with a joyous heart Jiva rose after Him.

chale nityananda-raya manda manda gati

gauranga-premete deha suvihvala ati [23]

‘Nityananda Ray moved slowly, His body completely overwhelmed by divine love for Gauranga.

mohana murati prabhu bhave dhala-dhala

alankara sarva-dehe kare jhalamala [24]

‘Nityananda Prabhu’s enchanting form swayed to and fro in ecstasy, and the ornaments all over His body shone.

ye charana brahma siva dhyane nahi paya

sri-jive kariya krpa se pada badaya [25]

‘The feet that Brahma and Siva cannot attain by meditation mercifully walked in front of Sri Jiva.’

Lord Brahma and Siva, at whose feet everyone is sitting, went together with Nityananda Prabhu, Srila Jiva Goswami and all the other devotees. Nityananda Prabhu took everyone on this parikrama.

pachhe thaki’ jiva laya padankera dhuli

sarva-ange makhe chale bada kutuhali [26]

‘Remaining behind, Jiva collected dust from their footprints, smeared it all over his body, and proceeded with great delight.

jagannatha-misra-grhe karila pravesa

sachi-mata sri-charane janaya visesa [27]

‘They entered the home of Jagannath Misra and spoke carefully at the holy feet of Mother Sachi.

“sunago janani ei jiva mahamati

sri-gauranga-priya-dasa bhagyavan ati” [28]

“‘O Mother, listen! This is Jiva, a dear servant of Sri Gauranga. He is very intelligent and very fortunate.”

balite balite jiva achhadiya pade

chhinna-mula taru yena bada bada jhade [29]

‘As Nityananda Prabhu spoke, Jiva threw himself down like a tree uprooted by an intense storm.

sachira charane padi’ yaya gadagadi

sattvika vikara dehe kare hudahudi [30]

‘He bowed at the feet of Sachi and rolled on the ground. Divine ecstasy surged through his body.

krpa kari’ sachi-devi kaila asirvada

sei dina sei grhe paila prasada [31]

‘Sachi Devi mercifully blessed him, and that day he received prasad in her home.

visnu-priya sachi-devi-ajna yabe paila

nana anna vyanjanadi randhana karila [32]

‘Receiving the order of Sachi Devi, Vishnupriya cooked rice, various vegetables, and other things.

sri-vamsi-vadanananda prabhu kata-ksane

sri-gaurange bhoga nivedila sayatane [33]

‘Sri Vamsi Vadanananda Prabhu then carefully offered the preparations to Sri Gauranga.

isana thakura sthana kari’ atahpara

nityanande bhunjaila harisa antara [34]

‘Isan Thakur then prepared a place and fed Nityananda, with joy in his heart.

putra-snehe sachi-devi nityanande bale

“khao vachha nityananda jananira sthale [35]

‘With motherly affection, Sachi Devi said to Nityananda, “Eat, my child. Nityananda, You are in the home of Your mother.

ei ami gaurachandre bhunjanu gopane

tumi khaile bada sukhi ha-i ami mane” [36]

‘“Privately, I fed this to Gaurachandra. If You eat it, I will be very happy at heart.”

jananira vakye prabhu nityananda-raya

bhunjila anande, jiva avasista paya [37]

‘At the request of Mother Sachi, Nityananda Ray joyfully ate, and Jiva received His remnants.

jiva bale, “dhanya ami mahaprabhu-ghare

painu prasada anna ei mayapure” [38]

‘Jiva said, “I am so fortunate to have received prasad at the home of Mahaprabhu in Mayapur.”

bhojana kariya tabe nityananda-raya

sachi-devi sri-charane haila vidaya [39]

‘After eating, Nityananda Ray took leave of Sachi Devi’s holy feet.

yaibara kale sange vamsike la-ila

sri-jiva vamsira pade pranati karila [40]

‘As He was leaving, He took Vamsi Vadanananda with Him. Sri Jiva bowed at the feet of Vamsi.

jiva prati bale prabhu, “e vamsi-vadana

sri-krsnera priya-vamsi jane bhakta-jana [41]

‘Nityananda said to Jiva, “This is Vamsi Vadanananda. The devotees know him to be Sri Krishna’s dear flute.

ihara krpaya jiva haya krsnakrsta

maharasa labhe sabe ha-iya satrsna [42]

‘“By his mercy, souls become attracted to Krishna and desire to join the Rasa Dance.

dekha jiva ei grhe chaitanya-thakura

ama saba laye lila karila prachura [43]

‘“Jiva, look! Lord Chaitanya performed many Pastimes with us in this house.

ei dekha jagannatha misrera mandira

visnu-puja nitya yatha karitena dhira [44]

‘“See here. This is the Temple of Jagannath Misra, where Gaura would earnestly worship Visnu each day.

ei grhe karitena atithi-sevana

tulasi-mandapa ei karaha darsana [45]

‘“In this house, the Lord would serve guests. See here His tulasi courtyard.

sri-gauranga-chandra grhe chhila yata kala

pitara achara palitena bhakta-pala [46]

‘“When Sri Gaurachandra, the maintainer of the devotees, was present at home, He would perform His father’s duties.

ebe saba vamsi-thakurera tattvadhine

isana nirvaha kare prati dine dine [47]

‘“Isan Thakur now performs these duties each day under the direction of Vamsi Thakur.

ei sthane chhila eka nimba vrksa-vara

prabhura parase vrksa haila agochara” [48]

‘“In this place, there was a great neem tree that disappeared upon being touched by the Lord.”

yata kande nityananda kariya varnana

jiva vamsi dunhe tata karaye krandana [49]

‘Nityananda wept as He described all of this, as did Jiva and Vamsi.

dekhite dekhite tatha aila srivasa

chari-jane chale chhadi’ jagannatha-vasa [50]

‘Just then, Srivas arrived, and the four of them then left Jagannath Misra’s home.

sata-dhanu uttarete srivasa-angana

jive dekhaila prabhu anandita mana [51]

‘Three hundred and twenty metres to the north, Nityananda Prabhu joyfully showed Srivas Angan to Jiva.

srivasa-angane jiva yaya gadagadi

smariya prabhura lila preme hudahudi [52]

‘Jiva rolled on the ground in Srivas Angan. Remembering the Pastimes of the Lord there, he was overwhelmed with divine love.

sri-jiva uthibamatra dekhe eka ranga

nachichhe gauranga laye bhakta antaranga [53]

‘Jiva immediately had a vision: he saw Gauranga dancing with His intimate devotees.

mahasankirtana dekhe vallabha-nandana

sarva-bhakta majhe prabhura apurva nartana [54]

‘Jiva saw the Lord’s maha-sankirtan and wonderful dancing amidst all the devotees.

nachichhe advaita prabhu nityananda-raya

gadadhara haridasa nache ara gaya [55]

‘Advaita Prabhu, Nityananda Ray, Gadadhar, and Haridas were dancing and singing.

suklambara nache ara sata sata jana

dekhiya premete jiva haila achetana [56]

‘Seeing Suklambar and hundreds of other devotees dancing, Jiva fainted in divine love.

chetana paile ara se ranga na bhaya

kandi’ jiva gosvami karena haya haya [57]

“kena mora kichhu purve janama nahila

emana kirtanananda bhagye na ghatila [58]

‘When he regained consciousness and this vision disappeared, Jiva Goswami wept and lamented, “Why was I not born a little earlier? I was not fortunate enough to be part of such ecstatic kirtan.’

[His Divine Grace starts kirtan and continues the parikrama of Sri Antardwip.]

(8/15) At Srivas Angan (1)

If you worship the Lord, you will be remembering the Lord; otherwise, you will be thinking about your children and husband. If you worship the Lord, the Lord will bring your children or husband back from school or the office, so you must think about the Lord, cook for the Lord, do everything for the Lord. When Sri Sachi Mata cooked, she cooked for Gaura Hari, that is why the Lord always stays in her kitchen. Where else does the Lord stay? In Srivas Angan. The Lord said, ‘I stay in Srivas Pandit’s house every day: whenever devotees sing kirtan there, I will be present there.’ The third place where the Lord stays is in the dance of Nityananda Prabhu: wherever Nityananda Prabhu dances, the Lord is present there. And the fourth place is Raghav Bhavan, the house of Sri Raghav Pandit. Raghav Pandit would make so many preparations for Mahaprabhu throughout the year: he would make different kinds of pickles and dried preparations (mango fruit leather [aam shotto], kasandi, achar from kul and other fruits, and so on) and send them all to Puri for Mahaprabhu.

When Mahaprabhu was here at the house of Srivas Pandit, He told Srivas Pandit, ‘You must have kirtan every day at your home.’ Srivas Pandit was a poor man (he did not have a job, did not trade anything, did not have any land), but Mahaprabhu told him to host kirtan at his house, so he could not disobey the order, and the Lord accepted his service.

bhakter jinish prabhu lutiputi khay
abhakter jinish prabhu ulti nahi chay

‘The Lord eats anything and everything when a devotee offers it, but the Lord does not want to take anything from a non-devotee.’

(Based on Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.185)

So, on Mahaprabhu’s order, Srivas Pandit would host kirtans at his home every evening. Mahaprabhu would come there, too. There was one girl, a maid, called Duhkhi who lived at the house of Srivas Pandit. She washed the dishes and did various other works around the house, and she also took prasad at the house. One of her duties was to bring water from the pond. One time, Srivas Pandit told her, ‘We are going to observe Mahaprabhu’s birthday this purnima…’

[Too much clamour]

dinera madhye abala-tabala
kata pachala padite para
tara madhye tumi ki ekbara
govinda balite nara

‘How much nonsense you can talk every day! How many idle talks you have! Can you not say the Name of Govinda even once?’

When we do the parikrama, I always look who is chanting the Holy Name and who is not…

…So, Srivas Pandit told Duhkhi, ‘We are going to celebrate Mahaprabhu’s birthday this purnima. Mahaprabhu will come, and we will do His abhisek (festive bathing).’ Abhisek means festive or ceremonial bathing; it is not done only by reciting mantras. Many think it is sufficient to just recite some mantras and not actually bath the Deities. There are pujaris (brahmacharis) who worship Deities every day, but when you come to clean the altar, you will see cockroaches and rats’ stool everywhere. And they do not mind it. So, abhisek is not done just by reciting mantras – it means cleaning and washing to please the Lord. You always dust and sweep your room, you always shake your bedding and make sure it is clean. In the same way, you must do abhisek of the Deities every day and must always make sure Their place is clean. It is necessary to keep everything clean. Anyhow, when Srivas Pandit told Duhkhi the news, he asked her, ‘Please bring more water today because we are going to bath Mahaprabhu.’ Hearing this, Duhkhi began to cry for joy, ‘The Lord will have a bath today, and I get to bring this water!’

Then, the time came for Mahaprabhu to have a bath. Duhkhi kept bringing more and more water, keeping it in the house. When Mahaprabhu noticed her and asked her what her name was, He said, ‘What is your sadness [duhkha]? No! From today, your name is Sukhi [happy]!’ She received Mahaprabhu’s mercy that day. So, it is not necessary to do much to get mercy – Duhkhi served just by bringing some water, but she received Mahaprabhu’s mercy.

(9/15) At Srivas Angan (2)

One time, some angry villagers and students came to Srivas Pandit’s house and threatened Srivas Pandit to break his house and beat Mahaprabhu if they did not stop kirtan. Fearful of their threats, devotees stopped kirtan at Srivas Pandit’s house and were sitting silently. Nobody even wondered what had happened or whether anyone had died (because there was always kirtan at the house, and suddenly everyone was sitting silent). When Mahaprabhu heard that there was no kirtan, He was very angry. He as if assumed the form of Agni (fiery wrath). He came shouting, ‘Why cannot I hear the sound of kirtan?!’ Internally, Mahaprabhu understood everything, but externally He showed anger and came to ask Srivas what had happened.

‘Prabhu, please calm down, take a seat,’ Srivas Pandit said.

‘What calm down? First tell Me why you have stopped kirtan!’

‘Please, take a seat… Some school students criticise You for changing the Hindu religion…’

Some say that even Muslims practise better because they offer namaz four times a day, but our devotees cannot even wake up at four in the morning. It is necessary to keep regular hours and do everything timely, including waking up. That is why we sing in one of the kirtans:

saisava-yauvane, jada-sukha-sange,
abhyasa haila manda
nija-karma-dose, e deha haila,
bhajanera pratibandha

‘I enjoyed in my childhood and youth, and as the result, I have developed bad habits. Because of my previous actions, this body has now become an obstacle to practising spiritual life.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We develop bad habits from childhood, and as a result, this body becomes an obstacle to practising spiritual life: we cannot wake up early in the morning, we cannot do so many things.

So, when Srivas Pandit explained to Mahaprabhu what had happened, he said, ‘Those school boys say that they will break my house and throw it into the Ganges.’

‘Oh,’ said Mahaprabhu. ‘What else do they say?’

‘They also said something very bad…’

‘What did they say?’

‘I do not worry if they break the house, but they also said that they would beat You! If they raise their hands on You, how can we tolerate it? That is why we have stopped kirtan.’

Mahaprabhu laughed when He heard this. He said, ‘They are common people who cannot understand anything. They take Me as one of them.’

At that time, Srivas Pandit’s niece, a very small girl called Narayani Devi, was in the house (her parents had died, and she lived with Srivas Pandit). Mahaprabhu put His hand on Narayani Devi’s head and said, ‘May you have devotion for Krishna. May the Lord bless you.’ Before that, Narayani would sometimes come to Mahaprabhu when He was taking prasad and, stretching out her hand, ask for some prasad. Devotees tried to stop her and tell her not to do it, but Mahaprabhu told them to let her be, and He gave her His prasad with His own hand. He did not usually give His prasad to anyone, but He gave His prasad to that little girl. As the result of that mercy, Narayani, although married to a non-devotee, got a very exalted son, Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur, who composed Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata (we will go to the house where he was born on the last day of the parikrama). So, when Mahaprabhu put His hand on Narayani Devi’s head and said, ‘May you have devotion to Lord Krishna,’ Narayani suddenly became overwhelmed and started crying, ‘O Krishna! O Gaura!’ This three- or four-year-old girl received Krishna-prema! She began to roll on the ground, crying, ‘O Krishna! O Gaura!’ Everybody was astonished to see Mahaprabhu’s power: He had merely put His hand on her head, and she got Krishna-prema!

Mahaprabhu laughed, ‘So, do you have faith now? Do you think anyone can break your house? Do you think anyone can beat Me? You must never stop kirtan.’

(10/15) At Srivas Angan (3)

Some bad people used to criticise Srivas Pandit and gossip that Srivas Pandit went begging and using the alms to run his family. They said, ‘He has no job, he does not trade, so he collects money from others to eat and live comfortably.’ This is actually not true. Srivas Pandit begged, collected some bhoga, and after cooking and offering bhoga to the Lord, he fed all the devotees in the evening when they came for kirtan.

One day, Mahaprabhu spoke to Srivas Pandit.

‘Srivas, I hear people saying all sorts of things about you… Can you promise Me something?’ Mahaprabhu asked.

‘What is it, Prabhu?’ Srivas Pandit asked.

‘From tomorrow, you must not go begging again.’

‘How is it possible, Prabhu?’ Srivas Pandit replied. ‘You told me to have kirtan at home every evening, so when devotees comes, how can I let them leave without having anything? I must give prasad to everyone.’

‘I do not know how you will do it, but you must not go begging from tomorrow,’ said Mahaprabhu.

‘All right. One—clap, two—clap, three—clap,’ Srivas Pandit answered.

‘What kind of language is this?’ Mahaprabhu asked, puzzled.

‘Do You not understand? It means I will stay one day without eating, two days, and on the third day, I will jump into the Ganges!’

‘Yes, very good. You can jump into the Ganges and die, but you will not go begging again,’ Mahaprabhu replied.

‘As You wish,’ Srivas Pandit agreed.

The next day, by the wish of Mahaprabhu, some devotees brought rice, dal, oil, salt, vegetables and other things. They brought so much bhoga that the house became filled with all kinds of ingredients. When Mahaprabhu came later that day, He asked, smiling, ‘So, what do you say, Srivas? Do you need to go begging now?’ Srivas Pandit replied, ‘No, no! It is not necessary to ever go begging again! Everything is taken care of by the wish of the Lord.’

So, it is our great fortune that we have come to the house of this Srivas Pandit. We come to pay our obeisances to Srivas Pandit. His name is included in the Pancha-tattva mantra:

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda

sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrnda

Next, we will go to the places of Sri Advaita Acharya Prabhu and Srila Gadadhar Pandit, and then to Chaitanya Math. Advaita Prabhu first stayed in Shantipur but later came here. Sri Gadadhar Pandit is the potency of Srimati Radharani (during his later life, Gadadhar Pandit stayed in Puri and served Radha-Gopinath). We will come to offer our obeisances at their places. Now, let us offer our obeisance here, and we shall continue our way. We will sit again and speak more at Sri Chaitanya Math and after the noon prasad also.

(11/15) At Sri Chaitanya Math

We have come to Sri Chaitanya Math, the first temple that was established by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. When he was staying here in a small bhajan-kutir, he vowed to chant the Holy Name continuously during six years, six months and sixteen days (it is called ‘sata-koti Nama yajna’). At that time, Srimati Radharani appeared in front of him, saying, ‘You are staying in the holy dham, but you must preach the Holy Name in this world.’ Srila Prabhupad replied, ‘But I am alone, how will I preach?’ Srimati Radharani assured him, ‘You are not alone. Do not worry, I will send My associates to this world.’ After that, we can see that so many great personalities came to this world: Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, Kunja Babu (Srila Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj, who became the acharya of this Chaitanya Math later), Srila Bhakti Pramode Puri Goswami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Kamal Madhusudan Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Aloka Paramahamsa Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Hriday Bon Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Gaurava Vaikhanas Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Prakash Aranya Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Vivek Bharati Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Kumud Shanta Maharaj and others. Many of them also took sannyas from our Param Guru Maharaj, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj: first, it was Srila Bhakti Aloka Paramahamsa Maharaj, then Srila Bhakti Dayita Madhav Goswami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Kamal Madhusudan Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Vichar Jajavar Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Prajnan Keshav Maharaj. Although they were Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s godbrothers, they took sannyas from him. There is a reason why.

In December 1936, Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur was showing a pastime of illness. He had not declared any successor acharya, but he instructed devotees to continue preaching about the Lord together, jointly, and they did that. They continued to preach Krishna consciousness in this world. When Srimati Radharani appeared to Srila Prabhupad and told him to preach the Holy Name in this world and Srila Prabhupad asked, ‘How will I do that? I am alone!’, Srimati Radharani told him that She would send Her associates to preach in this world and help Srila Prabhupad, and it happened. Many great scholars came to this world and preached Krishna consciousness widely. Srila Prabhupad himself did not stay in this world for a long time. He preached Krishna consciousness in this world for only sixty-four years, but during this time, he established sixty-four temples of Sri Gaudiya Math all over India. There are several temples in Nabadwip, including Sri Suvarna Bihar Gaudiya Math and a temple near Nrisingha Palli. There are many temples of Gaudiya Math all over India. Srimati Radharani sent Her associates who performed their pastimes with Her in Vrindavan, and they came as great acharyas to help Srila Prabhupad.

sri-gauranga-parisada, thakura bhaktivinoda,
dina-hina patitera bandhu
kali-tamah vinasite, anilena avanite,
toma’ akalanka purna indu

‘To dispel the darkness of this Age of Kali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, an associate of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu and a friend of fallen souls, brought to this earth you [Srila Saraswati Thakur], a spotless, unblemished full moon.’

(Acharya Vandana)

When Srila Prabhupad was going to leave his body, he displayed a pastime of illness. All disciples gathered around him at that time. To make sure that they always stayed with Srila Prabhupad, they divided this service among themselves. They decided that each of them would stay with Srila Prabhupad for two hours, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj choose to stay on duty during the hardest time of the day, from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. (it was the hardest time because everybody sleeps at that time and it is necessary to wake up for the mangal-arati). On 1 January 1937, early in the morning, after Srila Sridhar Maharaj finished his duty and went to take a bath and get ready for the arati, Srila Prabhupad suddenly said, ‘I want to hear a kirtan from Sridhar Maharaj.’ Devotees asked, ‘Which kirtan, Prabhupad?’ Srila Prabhupad said, ‘Sri Rupa-manjari-pada, sei mora sampada.’ Then, Pranavananda Prabhu (later he became Srila Bhakti Pramode Puri Goswami Maharaj), who could sing well, was asked to start singing. Suddenly, Srila Prabhupad exclaimed, ‘Stop it! Quiet! I do not want to hear a tune. I want to hear the song. I told you who will sing it. I want to hear it from Sridhar Maharaj.’ At that time Srila Sridhar Maharaj was in the bathroom, preparing for the mangal-arati. A devotee came to him and said, ‘Maharaj, Prabhupad is calling you!’ Srila Sridhar Maharaj became alert, ‘What has happened?’ and quickly went to Srila Prabhupad. Srila Sridhar Maharaj was not a good singer, but Srila Prabhupad wanted to hear that song from him. If you think about the meaning of that kirtan (‘Sri Rupa-manjari-pada’, composed by Srila Narottam Das Thakur), you will understand why. After Srila Prabhupad heard this kirtan, he left his body…

Srila Prabhupad instructed everyone that gurudev’s wealth is not some temples, houses, great buildings or other things; gurudev’s wealth is prema, love and affection. Srila Prabhupad explained that it is not necessary to be attached to buildings. He showed by his own example that he left everything like stool and urine and departed from this world to return to the Lord. After Srila Prabhupad, devotees tried to make Srila Sridhar Maharaj the acharya, but he refused, ‘I am junior to everyone, and there are many more senior devotees than me. Who will listen to me?’ In the end, Srila Sridhar Maharaj went away to Vrindavan. He stayed at Pavan Sarovar in Nandagram (Visakha’s father, Pavan, built that pond; this is why it became known as Pavan Sarovar). When Srila Sridhar Maharaj was staying there, he heard an order from Srila Prabhupad, ‘Why are you staying alone here in Vrindavan? Who will save other jiva souls? Go back to Nabadwip!’ Srila Sridhar Maharaj came back to Koladwip and made a small hut on the bank of the Ganges, in aparadha-bhanjan-pat. Later, many foreign and Indian devotees came to him, and all the great buildings appeared. Gurudev told me, ‘You are making big buildings, but there will be problems later…’

Anyhow, we have spoken about Srila Prabhupad. This is his temple, Sri Chaitanya Math, and it is necessary to speak about him when we come here. I have also written everything nicely in the book Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala.

(12/15) At Sri Jagannath Mandir

We have come to the temple of Sri Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra Mayi. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur wrote about this place in Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya. When we go to Sri Puri Dham and we speak about the glory of Sri Jagannathdev and how Jagannathdev came, I tell you that many years ago, the Lord lived with sabaras, an ancient caste of hunters. Do you remember where they lived? At the temple of Nil-Madhav in Odisha. When an atheist king called Rakhabahu harassed them too much, sabaras moved and settled with the Lord here. This place is non-different from Sri Purushottam Ksetra. 

[His Divine Grace reads an excerpt from Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala.]

Here in Bengal, we always welcome Phalguni Purnima, but it is up to the learned to discern how much of this welcome is selfish and how much unselfish (causeless). May the youthful spring, the king of seasons, increase our passions; may the calls of cuckoos, the messengers of spring, shower our ears with the heavenly ambrosia; may Laksmi, the spring’s intrinsic nature, create new gifts for our mundane literature or bring abundance and great crops to Mother Earth, letting us enjoy even more – cherishing these dreams and hopes, we welcome Phalguni Purnima; or noticing the banner of the tidings of the coming Phalguni festival celebrated in the society by young boys and girls and sweethearts, we congratulate each other and invite everyone to celebrate Phalguni Purnima; otherwise, instead of worshipping (commemorating) the birth day of a powerful hero or a leader who provided us with some sort of illusory gift of social or practical opportunism that is common for the world of mundane realism, we consider this day very special as we are inspired to worship our own opportunism. However, the peculiarity of Sri Phalguni Paurnamasi is that she does not pamper one with the universal illusion of mundane realism or philanthropic envy-driven opportunism. Phalguni Paurnamasi has devised a golden opportunity to expel universal unconsciousness. Phalguni Purnima reveals the beauty coming from the toenails of the holy lotus feet of the full moon Sri Chaitanya. A great Bengali poet sang:

“chaitanyera janma-yatra—phalguni purnima

brahma adi e-tithira kare aradhana

parama pavitra tithi bhakti-svarupini

yanhi avatirna hailena dvija-mani”

‘Beginning from Brahma, everyone is worshipping Phalguni Purnima, the holy appearance day of Sri Chaitanya. This supremely pure holy day, the personification of Devotion, is the day when the jewel of the twice-born descended to this world.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.3.43–44)

It is in honour of this auspicious Phalguni Purnima that we are doing this Nabadwip Dham parikrama. Today, we have come to this temple of Lord Jagannath, which is non-different from Lord Jagannath’s temple in Puri Dham.

There is also one more narrative describing the glory of this place. There was one devotee called Jagadish Chakravarti. He was a very good Vaishnav. One time, he decided to walk to Puri Dham, but before he could set off, he was stricken with leprosy: his legs and hands were covered with sores. Moreover, he became blind and completely lost his sight. Finding himself in this state, he thought, ‘What will I go to Puri for? What will I do there? I will not be able to have the darshan of Jagannath, Baladev, Subhadra and Chaitanyadev! My eyes have become blind. How will I go to Puri for the parikrama now?’ Feeling miserable, Jagadish stayed in Nabadwip. He always cried and lamented. One day, he thought, ‘What will I do with this life? I had better commit suicide!’ Then, one night, Lord Jagannath appeared to Jagadish in a dream and said, ‘You are here in Nabadwip, so you must wake up every morning and come to have a bath in the Ganges. When you dip yourself into the Ganges, a piece of wood floating nearby will touch your head. By the touch of that wood, your eyesight will return.’ Jagadish did what the Lord had told him, and his eyesight came back. Seeing that piece of wood, he thought, ‘This is no ordinary wood. I will take it with me and carve a Deity out of it.’ Then, the Lord again appeared to Jagadish, saying, ‘You will not be able to do it yourself.’ There was a carpenter living nearby, so the Lord said, ‘Why do you reject him just because he was born in the family of sudras? You are a leper yourself, and your hands are deformed, so you cannot make the Deities yourself. You must ask that carpenter to make the Deities.’ Finally, Jagannath assured him, ‘When you do this, you will be relieved from leprosy.’ In the morning, when Jagadish woke up, he marvelled at the wondrous dream he had had and went to have a bath in the Ganges. After that, taking the log with him, he went to the carpenter to ask him to make the Deities. Jagadish showed the carpenter his hands and told him that his hands were affected by leprosy and he did not know how to carve wood, ‘Is it possible for me to make a Deity with these hands?’ Then, he explained to the carpenter that only he could make a Deity, and the carpenter finally agreed. Jagadish’s leprosy was gone, and he saw how the carpenter was making the Deity: he saw that this poor, low-born man was suffering very much because of his deformed hands. Suddenly, the carpenter’s fingers fell off – the flesh was oozing pus, and blood started to fall from the wound. Seeing this, Jagadish tried to encourage him, ‘Try to forget your pain until the Deity is finished.’ When the Deity was completed, the carpenter’s leprosy was completely cured! In this way, Jagadish started worshipping the Deities of Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra in a nearby village.

Many years later, the Deities were kept in a very unhappy way. They were not worshipped anymore at the temple, so the Deities concealed Themselves (They were discovered in some snake-filled jungle). Later, Gaudiya devotees came and rescued the Deities, resuming Their worship.

Jay Baladev, Subhadra, Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

(13/15) At Sridhar Angan (1)

[Coming to Sri Sridhar Prabhu’s house, His Divine Grace takes a seat in front of the small temple and reads from Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala.]

Continuing our parikrama, we have crossed Sri Antardwip and have entered Sri Simantadwip. Sri Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Jiva Goswami Prabhu came to this village called Simuliya. Coming here, Sri Nityananda Prabhu told:

This is definitely Simantadwip. Later, Ganga will capture this island, and only this place here will remain visible.

One day in Satya-yuga, Sivji Maharaj started dancing, chanting the Holy Name of Gauranga. Seeing his state, Parvati Devi (Sivji Maharaj’s spouse) came to him and asked, ‘Why are you always calling out “O Gauranga! O Gauranga!”? Who is this Gauranga? Seeing you dance and hearing the Name of Gauranga is melting my heart. I am thinking that whatever mantras, tantras, etc. I have heard before, it is all garbage for the soul! Tell me about Gauranga. I can feel that if I serve Him, I will gain life.’

Hearing Parvati’s words, Mahadev said, ‘As you are the primeval energy, part of Sri Radha, I will tell you everything openly. In Kali-yuga, Krishna will take Radha’s heart and halo and appear in a village called Mayapur. Intoxicated with the joy of kirtan, He will distribute the jewel of transcendental love to everyone without any discrimination. Remembering the promise of the Lord makes me feel overwhelmed with transcendental love. Unable to steady my mind, I left Kasi and came to Mayapur, where I then decided to worship Gauranga in a small hut on the bank of the Ganges.’

Hearing Sivji Maharaj’s words, Parvati Devi came to Simantadwip and started meditating on Sri Gauranga’s form. As she chanted and chanted the Holy Name of Gauranga, transcendental love sprang up in her heart. She could no longer control her mind. In the end, Gaura appeared in front of her together with His devotees. He asked her, ‘Parvati, what do you want? Why have you come here?’

Feeling anxious, Parvati Devi offered her obeisance at the Lord’s holy lotus feet and spoke in reply, ‘Prabhu, You are the life and soul of the world, you my Prananath, the Master of my very being. You are bestowing Your mercy, love and affection all over the world, but You are so cruel to me! You have given me such a cruel service: I bind the souls who are averse to you.’ 

[His Divine Grace remarks] What is Maya’s job? She makes the souls who are averse to the Lord forget the Lord and keeps them in this illusory material world. That is why Parvati Devi asked, ‘Why did you give me this bad job?’ The Lord has given this job to Maya Devi to take us away from the service of the Lord. She makes us forget the Lord, and we come to this world, engrossed into our wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, friends, family members and all the other things. So, Parvati Devi says: 

‘You have given me such a cruel service: I bind the souls who are averse to You. I am doing what You told me to do, but I myself am cheated out of Your mercy! People say that wherever there is Krishna, there is no place for Maya (Maya cannot stay there): I have become completely separated from You. When and how will I be able to see Your pastimes? If You do not tell me how to reach You, I will lose all hope.’ Saying this, Parvati took some dust from the holy feet of Gauranga and rubbed it on the parting of her hair (simanta). From that time, this place became known as Simantadwip, although ignorant people still call it Simuliya-gram.

In reply to Parvati’s words, Mahaprabhu said, ‘Parvati, you are My non-different energy. You are the Mistress of the whole world, you are always staying with Me. You have two forms: by your intrinsic nature, you are My Radhika, and externally, you are an expansion of Radha. My pastimes are not possible without you. You are always present in My pastimes as Yogamaya. In Vraja, you perform your eternal pastimes as Paurnamasi, and in Nabadwip, you live with Ksetrapal (the guardian of the dham) Sivji Maharaj as Prauddha Maya.’ Saying this, Mahaprabhu disappeared.

Ever since then, always keeping these words in her heart, Parvati Devi has been staying as Simantini Devi in Simantadwip and as Prauddha Maya in Mayapur. Such is the glory of Sri Simantadwip.

Jay Sri Simantadwip ki jay!

(14/15) At Sridhar Angan (2)

The place we have come to is situated within Simantadwip. This is the house of Sridhar Prabhu. You have heard about him before, the story is quite long, but we do not have much time because we still need to get to Rudradwip, so I will speak briefly now. We have struggled to come here, walking through the jungle, but Mahaprabhu would often come here and take rest.

Sridhar was a very poor man. He would collect banana stems, banana flowers, bananas, etc. from the garden and take it all to the market in Bamanpukur. Mahaprabhu would also go there to buy vegetables, fruits, etc. Mahaprabhu did not accept things from anyone and everyone, but He would take banana stems, flowers, etc. from Sridhar – and He would take it from him forcefully! He would come to Sridhar and fight with him, ‘You are telling Me a very high price!’ Sridhar would try to reason with Mahaprabhu, ‘You are a brahman, and I am a poor man, I do not have anything. Why do You always come to me? Are there no other shops at the market? So many people have shops at the market, why do You not go to them but always come to me?’ In reply, Mahaprabhu could take a long banana stem and start playing a tug of war with Sridhar! Sridhar said, ‘I will not give it to You! You must pay!’ But Mahaprabhu would pull so hard suddenly that Sridhar would fall down! Mahaprabhu laughed, but Sridhar said, ‘I am an old man, what are You doing? Why are You teasing me?’ This is how Mahaprabhu played with Sridhar.

One time, when Mahaprabhu came here, He asked Sridhar, ‘Can I have some water?’ Sridhar replied humbly, ‘Prabhu, why did You come to ask me for some water? Do You think I have no food to give You? You can come any time You want.’ Mahaprabhu said, ‘Yes, I like coming to you and spending time with you. Can I have some water now?’ Sridhar gave Mahaprabhu a glass of water, but the glass had a hole. So, Mahaprabhu put His finger on the hole and drank from that glass.

bhakter jinish prabhu lutiputi khay
abhakter jinish prabhu ulti nahi chay

‘The Lord eats anything and everything when a devotee offers it, but the Lord does not want to take anything from a non-devotee.’

(Based on Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.185)

I have written more in the book, you can read everything in the chapter about Sridhar Angan. I will read something from there now. [His Divine Grace reads from Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala.]

Sriman Nityananda Prabhu came here with Srila Jiva Goswami, and when Sridhar Prabhu heard that Sri Nityananda Prabhu had come together with the devotees, he came out to welcome them, offering his obeisances and various worship to the Lord and the devotees. He said humbly, ‘Prabhu, please be merciful to this lowly servant. Please take rest at my house.’

‘Sridhar,’ Sri Nityananda Prabhu said, ‘you are so fortunate! The Lord has bestowed so much mercy on you. Yes, I will rest at your house today!’

Sridhar Prabhu was very happy to hear it. With much care he served Sri Nityananda Prabhu and all the devotees. He asked a brahman to cook something and then served prasad to everyone. After that, Sri Nityananda Prabhu lay down in the room of Sridhar Prabhu, and Sridhar Prabhu massaged the Lord’s feet. Having taken some rest, everyone then continued Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama in the association of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu.

Why did Sriman Nityananda Prabhu say that Sridhar Pandit was a great recipient of Mahaprabhu’s mercy? You must know who Sridhar Pandit was, and you must always remember and keep his mood in your heart.

Sridhar Pandit, or ‘Kholavecha’ Sridhar, was a very poor devotee. He lived on the northern outskirts of Sri Antardwip and used to make a living by selling spinach, bananas, plantain, thor (banana stems), roots, etc. He would spend half of the money he earned to buy some fruit, sweets, etc. for the worship of Sri Ganga Devi and the other half on his household expenses. He lived his life in this way. Sriman Mahaprabhu Vishvambhar would every day take prasad on the banana leaves from Sridhar Prabhu’s house.

When Sachi Mata sent Nimai from time to time to the market to get some bananas, roots, spinach, etc., Mahaprabhu would always come to Sridhar Prabhu’s shop, and every time He would come and bargain with him: Sridhar Prabhu would tell one price, and Nimai would take some thor, bananas or roots in His hand and name another price. Sridhar Prabhu did not agree to bring the price down (he would say, ‘Please forgive me, Thakur. I am Your dog, but I cannot give you a discount’) and would try to take the vegetables out of Mahaprabhu’s hand, but Mahaprabhu did not give it back. Both of them would start a sort of a tug of war. Sometimes, Nimai would pull so hard that, being unable to hold the slippery banana stem, Sridhar Prabhu would fall down on the ground! In this way, Mahaprabhu enjoyed playing and joking in the company of Sridhar Prabhu every day.

One day, Mahaprabhu came to Sridhar Prabhu’s house and said, ‘Sridhar, you are very clever. Your name, Kholavecha, has a very deep meaning.’

‘Prabhu, stop mocking me,’ answered Sridhar Prabhu. ‘Are there no other shops at the market besides mine? Why do You always behave like this with me?’

‘There are other shops,’ replied Nimai, ‘but you are My supplier, so why should I leave you?’ (Just see this! The Lord does not catch anyone so easily, but if He does catch someone, He will not leave them!) ‘Besides, you buy so many things for Ganga-puja every day, then why would you not give anything to Me? You are worshipping Ganga, but trust Me, I am the father of this Ganga!’

Sridhar Prabhu was a very truthful and strict Vaishnav, so when he heard this ‘nonsense’ talk, he could not tolerate it. Hearing Mahaprabhu’s words, Sridhar Prabhu put his fingers into his ears and said, ‘Vishnu! Vishnu!’ He understood that it was useless to argue with Nimai, so finally he would give up and give Him so many roots, vegetables and other things. Then, Nimai would joke, ‘Oh, why are you giving Me so much spinach, so many bananas and roots? Are they all rotten or what?’

Sridhar Prabhu said, ‘No, no, no! Why will I give You rotten things? Take whatever You need from my shop!’

Mahaprabhu would always come to Sridhar Prabhu’s house on various pretexts. One day, when He came to Sridhar Prabhu’s house, Sridhar Prabhu offered obeisance to the Lord and gave Him a seat. That day, a wondrous conversation took place between them. Mahaprabhu said, ‘Listen, Sridhar, you always say “Hari”, “Hari” and worship Laksmi-Narayan, but you do not have good clothes, you do not eat well, you are so poor! What is the use of your worship?’

‘Prabhu, I may be poor,’ replied Sridhar Prabhu, ‘but I do not starve. Whether big or small, good or bad, but I do have things to wear.’

‘Sure,’ continued Nimai, ‘you say you have clothes, but I see your clothes are stitched and mended in a hundred places! Yes, you do have a house, but your house does not even have straw on the roof. In Nabadwip, those who worship Durga are all well-off. So, you would be better off if you worshipped Durga!’

‘Yes, what You are saying is correct, but everyone’s life goes the same way: whether one lives in a big house, eats opulent food, wears good clothes, everyone will finish in the same way. Everyone will die. Everything happens by the will of the Lord, so whatever the Lord allots, that is sufficient. I am happy with that.’

Hearing Sridhar Prabhu’s words, Nimai was extremely pleased. He said, ‘Sridhar, you have such an immense wealth, but you are hiding it and enjoying with it yourself. You do not share it with anyone. You are cheating others!’

Sridhar Prabhu did not like to hear his own praise, so he said, ‘Listen, go home now. You are talking like a madman, it is not necessary to tell all this nonsense to me! I do not want to fight with You.’

‘You will not get rid of Me so easily! Tell Me, what are you going to give Me today?’

‘Take whatever You want. You know what I sell, and You know the prices too.’

‘Yes, but you have some hidden treasure. Let it be for now, but in the future, you will give Me banana stems, bananas and banana flowers for free! If you agree, then I give you My word that I will not pester you again.’

Sridhar Prabhu got a little scared, thinking, ‘If I say no to this brahman boy, He can beat me – what will I do then? I can neither refuse to give Him what He is asking for nor can I give Him everything for free. What do I do now?’ In the end, he decided, ‘If a brahman comes and asks me for something, what loss is it for me? I have to give what He is asking for, it is my fortune.’ Then, Sridhar Prabhu said that Nimai could take anything He wanted, for free.

Another day, Nimai came to the house of Sridhar Prabhu and asked him for a glass of water. Getting shy, Sridhar Prabhu said that he did not have a proper glass (there was a hole in the only glass that he had). Bhavagrahi Bhagavan Sri Nimaisundar did not mind it – He drank water from the glass with a hole.

bhaktera padartha prabhu hena-mate khaya

koti haileo abhaktera ulati’ na chaya

‘The Lord eats anything and everything that His devotees offer to Him, but on the other hand, He does not want anything from non-devotees, even if they are millionaires.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.185)

Lord Krishna Himself says, ‘I do not take anything from a non-devotee’s hand. I take from those who serve Me – if someone gives Me something with devotion, that is sufficient for Me.’ Krishna Himself ate banana skin from the hand of Vidura’s wife, He ate flat rice from Sudama Vipra, but Krishna never took raj-bhoga (very opulent preparations) from Duryodhan. The main thing is that whatever you give, you must give it whole-heartedly, with heart and soul. If you can serve with all your heart, mind, soul, that is sufficient. People can do so many external things, but it may or may not be service. When you do service, you must do it with your heart, mind and soul. This is the main thing. We see the proof of these words in Sridhar Prabhu’s example: he had nothing, he did not have any wealth, any riches, he had no money, no knowledge, he was not a scholar, he did not even have a proper house, but he had love in his heart, and this is what Mahaprabhu accepted from him so happily. He was a great servitor of Mahaprabhu.

ki karibe vidya, dhana, rupa, yasa, kule

ahankara badi’ saba padaye nirmule

kala mula vechiya sridhara paila yaha

koti-kalpe kotisvara na dekhiba taha

dekhi’ murkha daridra sujanere hase

kumbhipake yaya sei nija-karma-dose

vaisnava chinite pare kahara sakati

achhaye sakala siddhi, dekhaye durgati

‘What is the use of knowledge, wealth, beauty, fame and high birth? It only increases one’s ego. Everything will finish and fall off fruitlessly. In millions of lifetimes, millionaires have never seen that which Sridhar, who was a mere seller of bananas and roots, had. If anyone sees this great soul as foolish and poor and laughs at him, they will go to a foul hell of burning oil as the result of their own actions. Who has the power to recognise a Vaishnav? Even if you have all kinds of perfections, you can still be unfortunate.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.234–235, 239–238)

One day, Nimai wanted to give a boon to Sridhar. He asked Sridhar Prabhu, ‘Sridhar, what boon do you want to get? Tell Me.’

Sridhar Prabhu said with folded palms, ‘Prabhu, I do not want any boon. If You must give me some boon, then this what I want:

ye brahmana kadi’ nila mora khola-pata

ye brahmana hauka mora janma janma natha

ye brahmana mora sange karila kandala

mora prabhu hauka tanra charana-yugala

‘May this brahman who has been taking away my banana leaves be my master life after life. May the lotus feet of this brahman with whom I have been quarrelling be my lords.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.225–226)

Saying this, Sridhar Prabhu raised his arms and began to cry and loudly chant kirtan.

The day before Mahaprabhu took sannyas, all devotees assembled at the house of Sri Sachi Mata and Nimai Vishvambhar. Everybody came there, and Sridhar Prabhu was also there; he brought a lau (calabash/bottle gourd) and gave it to Nimai. When Nimai took that lau, His heart melted. He said, ‘Sridhar, I have been taking and stealing bananas, banana stems and flowers from you My whole life, and today, on this last night, you have brought a lau for Me! I cannot but accept it. You are My eternal servant, Sridhar. I have tested you in so many ways, but you have no ego. I am indebted to you for your service, devotion and pure love.’ When somebody else brought some milk after a while, Mahaprabhu asked Sri Sachi Mata, ‘Mother, please take this lau and make some sweet lau (lau boiled in milk with sugar).’ Nimai took that sweet lau on that night…

Sridhar Prabhu is very fortunate. If you want to become a devotee, no money, no wealth is necessary – you must give your mind, heart and soul. You cannot buy devotion at the market; you can ‘buy’ devotion only with faith. Why is Radharani known by Her Name? Because She has worshipped (aradhana) Krishna more than anyone else in the world.

Hari bol!
Jay Nimai Pandit ki jay.
Sri Kolavecha Sridhar Prabhu ki jay.

(15/15) At Sri Rudradwip

[His Divine Grace reads from Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala.]

Between Sri Antardwip and Sri Simantadwip (to the north-west), there lies one more enchanting island called Sri Rudradwip. We used to come here every year before, but we have not visited this place for many past years, we did not have that kind of sukriti. This year, we have got the fortune to come here again by the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma.

This island Sri Rudradwip is divided by the current of the Ganges into two parts: one part of the island is on the western bank, where Nabadwip town is, and the second part, where we are sitting now, is on the eastern bank. Although, by the desire of the Lord, nobody lives in this area, the kirtan of the glories of this place is chanted eternally.

There is a famous village called Sri Sankarpur in the middle of this island (in the western part).

In ancient times, Sri Sankar Acharya was a great preacher in this world. He is a Vaishnav and an expansion of Sivji Maharaj (Rudra), but following a special order of the Lord, when he performed his pastimes, he showed that he was a servant of Maya and preached advaitavad (disguised Buddhism, or mayavad, impersonalism). When Sri Sankar Acharya came to Nabadwip to conquer local scholars and establish his universal authority, Gauranga Mahaprabhu appeared before him and spoke to him sweetly in this way:

‘Sankar, you are My servant – placing My order on your head, you are very ardently preaching mayavad, but this Nabadwip Dham is My favourite place, and mayavad will never get any place here. Vriddha Siva and Prauddha Maya reside here and preach an artificial (imaginary) conception, but they only cheat those who are jealous of devotees. Apart from that, only My devotees live here. There is no need to preach any misconception here. Please go somewhere else. Do not worry the residents of Nabadwip.’

Understanding the nature of Nabadwip and feeling overwhelmed with devotion, Sankar Acharya left.

This Rudradwip is also the residence of many Rudras, where they dance and chant the glories of Gauranga Mahaprabhu. Seeing their dance and feeling overjoyed, all the demigods shower flowers from the sky.

One time, Sri Vishnu Swami came here with his disciples, desiring to conquer local scholars and establish his worldwide authority. Hearing Vishnu Swami reciting praises and prayers and his disciples chanting ‘Hari! Hari!’, seeing them all dance, Sivji Maharaj became very pleased and appeared before them. They were greatly surprised to see Sivji Maharaj and immediately fell flat on the ground, offering him their obeisances. Then, Sivji Maharaj said to them mercifully, ‘You are all Vaishnavs and very dear to me. When I see you, my heart rejoices. What boon would you like to receive from me? When Vaishnavs ask for something or need something, I can give them anything.’ Then, Vishnu Swami said, ‘If you desire to give us a boon, then we would like to ask you to bless us so that we may one day become established within the devotional school.’ Greatly jubilant, Rudra (Sivji Maharaj) bestowed this boon on them, and by the wish of Sri Vishnu Swami, he called that school ‘Rudra Sampradaya’.

By the mercy of Sivji Maharaj, Vishnu Swami stayed here for some time and always worshipped Gauranga Mahaprabhu. One day, Mahaprabhu came to him in a dream and said, ‘Listen, Vishnu. My devotee, Rudra, bestowed his mercy on you – you are very fortunate that you have got the gift of devotion in Nabadwip. But you must preach suddhadvaita here. When I appear, you will come as Sri Vallabha Bhatta and meet with Me in Puri Dham; after that, you will go to Mahavan and your sampradaya will gain renown.’ Following the order of Mahaprabhu, Vishnu Swami started to preach suddhadvaita.

In this area, Lord Sri Gaurasundar in the same way granted His darshan to Sri Ramanuja Acharya, Madhva Muni and Nimbarka Acharya and gave them comprehensive instructions on how they must preach. This is how the four Vaishnav sampradayas (schools) – Sri Sampradaya (Sri Ramanuja Acharya), Brahma Sampradaya (Sri Madhva Acharya), Rudra Sampradaya (Sri Vishnu Swami) and Kumar Sampradaya (Sri Nimbarka Acharya) – manifested in this world in this Sri Nabadwip Dham and have existed since ancient times.

When Mahaprabhu appeared in this world, He Himself accepted Sri Brahma Sampradaya. Before coming to Sri Rudradwip, Sriman Nityananda Prabhu told Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu about Sri Madhva Acharya:

When Sri Madhva Muni lived with his disciples in Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Gaurasundar once came to him in a dream and said with a smile, ‘Madhva, everyone knows that you are My eternal servant. When I manifest Myself in Nabadwip, I will accept Your sampradaya. As for now, please do Me a favour – eradicate all mayavad and misconception from the entire country and reveal the glory of Deity worship. Later, when I come, I will display your pure conception.’ Saying this, Gauranga Mahaprabhu disappeared, and Madhva Muni woke up and fell unconscious. When he came round, he began to cry, ‘Will I ever see this beautiful golden form of the Lord?’ After that, he heard a divine message in the sky, ‘If you serve Me, you will come to Me.’ Composing himself, Madhva Acharya then followed Mahaprabhu’s order and conquered all 1 (great scholars of impersonalism who were accepted as absolute authority).

Strolling about Sri Rudradwip, Sriman Nityananda Prabhu showed Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu various other places, such as Sri Pulina, where Sri Rasa Mandal and Dhira Samira are manifest. Sri Nabadwip Dham is non-different from Sri Vrindavan Dham, so all the holy places are manifest here and all the pastimes are happening here too: every day, Krishna enjoys His ecstatic pastimes with the gopas and gopis here. Those who are fortunate can sometimes see this.

adyapiha sei lila kare gora raya
kona kona bhagyavane dekhibare paya

‘Gora Ray continues performing His Pastimes. Some fortunate sounds can see it.’

Sri Rudradwip ki jay.

Sivji Maharaj ki jay.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Gurudev krpa bindu diya’, recites Sri Jaya Dhvani, and, leaving the temple of Sri Rudradwip Gaudiya Math, completes the parikrama for the day.]

* * *

￼Line Line23 March 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Evening Class: Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama (Day One)

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/8) Lost and Wasted

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my godbrothers and godsisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Yesterday was adhivas (the holy eve of Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama), and today was the first holy day of Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. You have done this parikrama very well. Has everyone been to the parikrama today? [Devotees say ‘yes’.] Have you done this parikrama on your heads? You must do this parikrama with your heart, with your very being. One person has got lost today. When I was already in Nrisingha Palli, somebody called me and said they had got lost. I sent a devotee to bring them back. One–two people must get lost. We are all lost children of the Lord. The Lord has lost us, his children, and we have also lost our Father. He is looking for us, ‘My children have left Me. When will they come back to Me?’ We are also searching for Him. Actually, not everybody really searches. Gurudev has a very small but nice book called In Search of the Original Source. Tell me, who truly searches for the real happiness, for their real self? Everybody in this world only thinks about temporary happiness. Everyone only worries, ‘Where will I live? Where will I eat? Where will I sleep?’

‘Saisava-yauvane, jada-sukha-sange, abhyasa haila manda. In my childhood and youth, I always indulged in material happiness, and I have become habituated to bad things.’ ‘Nija sukha lagi’ pape nahi dari, daya-hina svartha-para. For my own happiness I am not afraid of engaging in sinful work. I am unkind and selfish’ (Saranagati).

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara
sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

‘May I have the same love and attraction to Your holy feet that I now have for material things.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

durlabha manava, janama sat-sange,
taraha e bhava-sindhu re

‘You can cross this ocean of material existence in this rare human birth by holy association.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

We were singing this in a kirtan written by Sri Govinda Das. You know, Sri Govinda Das used to worship Kali before, but his brother worshipped the Supreme Lord. Sometimes, the two brothers would fight over the flowers growing in their garden. Govinda Das had many flowers growing in his garden, and his brother wanted to offer them to the Lord, but it was impossible to convince Govinda Das that everything was meant for the service of the Lord. So, his brother would offer those flowers to the Lord in his mind. One time, when Govinda Das offered some flowers to his Ma Kali, she moved her hand away and did not accept them. After that, she came to him in a dream saying, ‘You have so many flowers in your garden, but you are not giving these flowers to my Lord.’ After that, Govinda Das gave up his worship of Ma Kali and composed this famous kirtan, ‘Bhajahu re mana sri-nanda-nandana! O mind, serve the son of Sri Nanda’s lotus feet which are an abode of fearlessness!’

(2/8) Spiritual Transformation

durlabha manava, janama sat-sange,
taraha e bhava-sindhu re

‘You can cross this ocean of material existence in this rare human birth by holy association.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

This human life is very rare. I always tell you that we have crossed 8,400,000 species.

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 Visnu Purana)

We have been born 900,000 times in water. There are so many living entities living in water: fish, sharks, whales, crocodiles, and so on. We have seen all these species 900,000 times. We have been born 2,000,000 times as trees and hills. You have seen that there are so many kinds of trees in forests and jungles that we do not even know their names. There are 2,000,000 kinds of species living there. We were born 1,100,000 times as various insects and bugs. So many birds fly in the sky – we have been born as them 1,000,000 times. We have been born 3,000,000 times as all kinds of animals (cows, goats, pigs, sheep, cats, and so on) and 400,000 times as humans. This time we have got this birth in Bharata-bhumi (India), but we do not practise Krishna consciousness – we do not worship the Lord. I have observed today who chants kirtan, who does not chant. You do not get energy to chant the Holy Name because you waste your energy in other places. By talking gramya-katha and gossiping you are wasting your time.

We prohibit you to drink tea, to smoke or eat meat, fish – if somebody takes all these unacceptable, inauspicious things with their mouth, the Holy Name of Lord Krishna will not come to such a mouth. It is said in the scriptures also,

‘krsna-nama’ kare aparadhera vichara
krsna balile aparadhira na haya vikara

‘The Holy Name of Krishna considers offences: when one who commits ten offences of the Holy Name takes the Name of Krishna, it produces no transformation in them.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.24)

The Holy Name judges whether you are an offender or not, and the Holy Name does not come to the mouths of offenders. When Mahaprabhu went to Kashi, there was a sanodiya brahman who came to Mahaprabhu and asked Him, ‘Prabhu, these people know all Vedas and Vedanta, they know so much, but why does the Holy Name not come to their mouths? What is the reason? They know so many scriptures, they have so much knowledge, but why does the Holy Name not come to their mouths?’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘The Holy Name does not come to the mouths of offenders. They are offenders of the Holy Name, that is why the Holy Name will never come to their mouths.’ ‘Krsna balile aparadhira na haya vikara’ means that even if they pronounce the Holy Name, it produces no effect in them.

It is necessary to always chant kirtan. When I stopped chanting kirtan and got into the car, I could still hear it ringing in my ears, ‘Sachinandan Gaura Hari! Sachinandan Gaura Hari! Nitai Gauranga! Nitai Gauranga!’ I felt that I was still singing. Even though I was sitting in the car, I felt I was chanting kirtan.

(3/8) Dacoit Dharma

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya
kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

‘If a devotee aspires for enjoyment or liberation, Krishna hides the knowledge about pure devotion and dismisses them, giving them enjoyment or liberation.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.18)

Remember this. Gurudev always told this to me. He told me one–two times also, ‘You always run behind big buildings, but watch out that Bhakti does not go away.’ Gurudev gave his mercy and by his mercy bhakti has never gone away from me. It is said in this sloka that if you ask the Lord for something in lieu of devotion (if you want money, wealth and other material things), then the Lord will hide devotion from you. I told you earlier today – what boon did Sridhar Pandit want from Mahaprabhu? ‘May He who has been stealing my thor, bananas and banana flowers and who has been fighting with me, be my master birth after birth.’ When will we become like that too? We sing in one of the kirtans,

kabe habe bala se dina amara
aparadha ghuchi’ suddha name ruchi
krpa-bale habe hrdaye sanchara

‘Tell me, when will that day be mine? When, by the mercy, will my heart become cleansed of offences and the taste for the pure Holy Name arise in it?’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We cannot forget our own happiness, we cannot sacrifice our own life. The Lord has given us this life, has given us this life force, we have got a human form to practise Krishna consciousness (to serve the Lord), then why are you using this body for other things? Why are you using this body for your own food, money, clothes, sleep?! Relaxed, you are spending your days on all this.

sita atapa vata varisana
e dina yamini jagi re
viphale sevinu krpana durajana
chapala sukha-lava lagi’ re

‘Day and night I remain awake, suffering from the heat and the cold, the wind and the rain. For a moment of flickering happiness I have uselessly served wicked and miserly men.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

How much cold we tolerate, how much rain comes, and days are going. People sleep here in the nat-mandir and spend five–seven days like this. What is the problem? They will go for the parikrama, come back, listen to the kirtan and then sleep again. They have it better than even those who are staying in the rooms because those who are staying in the rooms sleep and do not come for the arati, but when you are staying right here in the nat-mandir, you always come for the arati. Many also refused to go to the new guesthouse saying it is too far, they said they would rather stay in the nat-mandir or on the veranda. Many say, ‘I do not need a room.’ I offered them to go to the new building, but they said they would stay here. There are bathrooms and everything else here. There is no problem.

kamala-dala-jala, jivana talamala,
(ei achhe ei nai jivana talamala)
bhajahu hari-pada niti re

‘Life is tottering like water on a lotus petal. (It is here now, and the next moment it is gone – life is about to break off at any moment!). O mind, eternally serve the feet of the Lord.’

sita atapa, vata varisana,
e dina yamini jagi re
viphale sevinu, krpana durajana,
chapala sukha-lava lagi’ re

‘Day and night I remain awake, suffering from the heat and the cold, the wind and the rain. For a moment of flickering happiness I have uselessly served wicked and miserly men.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

Fickle-minded, we always serve for the sake of our own happiness, but all this service is in vain. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that we call somebody our ‘relatives’, ‘family’ members, ‘friends’, etc. and follow the religion of serving our father (pita-dharma), the religion of serving our friends (bandhu-dharma), the religion of serving our mother (mata-dharma), but this is not how Krishna consciousness is practised. Father say, ‘You are my son, you must serve me. Why will you go to stay at the temple?’ Mothers also say the same thing, ‘I have given you birth, you must look after me! Why will you worry about the Lord?’ This is the eternal misery. They are all svajanakhya-dasyu (dacoits disguised as well-wishing family). You think that they are your well-wishers, but they actually take away your benefit from you. When sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs take something from you, they do not take it to enjoy – genuine sadhus use everything for the service of the Lord. Those who are enjoyers always want to enjoy everything themselves – they always want to eat well, dress well, sleep well, and so on. But time is going!

kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, abhimana saha,
apana apana sthane tane
aichhana amara mana, phire yena andha-jana,
supatha vipatha nahi jane

‘Lust, anger, greed, madness, illusion and ego each pull me in their own direction. Thus, my mind wanders about like a blind man, not knowing what is the right way and what is the wrong way.’

(Srila Narittam Das Thakur)

We always want more, want more, want more!

sita atapa, vata varisana,
e dina yamini jagi re
viphale sevinu, krpana durajana,
chapala sukha-lava lagi’ re

‘Day and night I remain awake, suffering from the heat and the cold, the wind and the rain. For a moment of flickering happiness I have uselessly served wicked and miserly men.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

This is all useless service. Service to your wife, service to your father, mother, friends – all this is useless. That is why it is said that you get a father and a mother in every birth, but it is not in every birth that you will get a bona fide guru. Taking initiation from a guru means service to the guru.

e dhana yauvana, putra parijana,
ithe ki achhe paratiti re
kamala-dala-jala, jivana talamala,
(ei achhe ei nai jivana talamala)
bhajahu hari-pada niti re

‘What is there in having wealth, youth, sons and family? Life is tottering like water on a lotus petal. (It is here now, and the next moment it is gone – life is about to break off at any moment!). O mind, eternally serve the feet of the Lord.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

Sri Govinda Das is writing this. All this wealth, youth, sons and family will have to leave me one day, or I will have to leave them all. One day it must happen. We can leave this world at any moment – we can be speaking and die while speaking! ‘Bhajahu hari-pada niti re!’ We must worship the Lord, we must practise Krishna consciousness.

sravana, kirtana, smarana, vandana,
pada-sevana, dasya re
pujana, sakhi-jana, atma-nivedana,
govinda-dasa-abhila sare

‘Govinda Das desires to engage in the nine practices of devotion: hearing about the Lord, chanting the Lord’s Names, remembering the Lord, praying to the Lord, serving the Lord’s feet, serving the Lord as a servant, worshipping the Lord, serving the Lord as a friend and submitting yourself to the Lord.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

(4/8) Esoteric Pastimes on the Banks of the Ganges

There are nine kinds of devotional practices – sravan, kirtan, smaran, vandan, etc. We have been to three islands today, and I have told you about the three kinds of devotion that reside on each of these three islands. We have been to Antardwip, Simantadwip and, lastly, Rudradwip today. The temple that we visited in Rudradwip was built later; the original temple, which was the last temple built by Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur in 1936, broke and was taken by the Ganges. But these days the Ganges does not break anything so much…

sravana, kirtana, smarana, vandana,
pada-sevana, dasya re
pujana, sakhi-jana, atma-nivedana,
govinda-dasa-abhila sare

‘Govinda Das desires to engage in the nine practices of devotion: hearing about the Lord, chanting the Lord’s Names, remembering the Lord, praying to the Lord, serving the Lord’s feet, serving the Lord as a servant, worshipping the Lord, serving the Lord as a friend and submitting yourself to the Lord.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

We must practise these nine kinds of devotion.

First comes faith (adau sraddha). The more faith you have, the more devotion you have; and the less faith you have, the less devotion you have. After faith, there must be good, saintly association (sadhu-sanga); from sadhu-sanga comes devotional practice (bhajana-kriya), and then all unwanted elements (anarathas) become removed (you will consider money, food, sleep, fear, enjoyment, etc. trifle). Srila Sanatan Goswami, Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami were all great landowners, they had a very big job, but they considered it all trifle and rejected it all like filthy stool.

We have been to Chaitanya Math today and saw the samadhi-mandir of Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj. When Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj came to Nabadwip from Vrindavan, everybody in Nabadwip considered him crazy, but Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur could recognise that Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj was not an ordinary crazy man – he was crazy with the transcendental love for Krishna.

When Mahaprabhu madly chanted kirtan, always crying, ‘O Krishna! O Krishna!’ Sri Sachi Mata said, ‘My son has become crazy! He does not do anything, only keeps saying “Hare Krishna”!’ She would bring cooling oil and dunk Nimai into it. Srila Srivas Pandit came then and said, ‘Didi, can I say something?’ ‘Yes, what is it?’ ‘This madness will not go away by your cooling oil. I too want to become crazy like him!’

kabe navadvipe, suradhuni-tate,
‘gaura-nityananda’ bali’ niskapate
nachiya gaiya, bedaiba chhute,
batulera praya chhadiya vichara

‘When will I wander along the banks of the Ganges in Nabadwip, sincerely calling out, “Gaura-Nityananda!”, dancing, singing and running about without any thinking, as though mad?’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘When will I become crazy? When will I run along the bank of the Ganges chanting and always thinking, “O Krishna! O Gaura!”?’

Do you know where Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj used to sleep? He is Srila Prabhupad’s gurudev, so remember what I am saying. He never stayed at any temple. For some time, he even stayed at a public toilet on the street! Everybody told him, ‘Babaji Maharaj, does it not stink there?’ But Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj replied, ‘This stench of the toilet can be tolerated, but I cannot take the stench of visayi (materialists) and bhogi (enjoyers) – I would rather stay far away from them!’ Materialists always live engrossed into the material world, so it is better to keep away from them. Also, now we chant the Holy Name on beads, but do you know how Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj would chant the Holy Name? In those days, people did not have furnaces and electric current to burn dead bodies, so they burnt bodies on open pyres. So, Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj would pick some cloth left from a dead body, tear it into strips, tie some knots and chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra on that rope: ‘Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare’ on one knot, and then: ‘Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare’ on the next knot, and so on.

He also stayed near the cremation ghat in Nabadwip – you know that there are many workers and other people who loaf near the ghat, and Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj would stay like one of them – he would drink alcohol, country liquor (chullu), smoke tobacco, eat pan, etc.

At some point, he made a hut with banana leaves and would go there to sleep at night. One time, some boys heard a female voice coming from that hut, and they thought, ‘Who does this sadhu speak to at night? He must be spending his nights with a girl!’ They decided to stay near the hut and guard it to see the girl when she comes out. They had guarded it for one day, two days, three days, but they never saw anyone enter the hut but could still hear Babaji Maharaj speak to somebody (they could hear some girl’s voice). After that, they decided to break into the hut and anyhow get to the bottom of it. When they broke in, they saw Babaji Maharaj sitting and chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Babaji Maharaj did not care his hut had been broken into – he was not conscious of it (who broke it, what broke – he did not think of anything). The boys saw there was nobody inside, and they were very puzzled.

Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj is Srimati Radharani’s own, Her dear associate, so he would talk to Her.

This Nabadwip Dham is non-different from Vrindavan Dham, the amorous pastimes of Krishna and Radharani take place here eternally. Fallen and lowly souls like us cannot see it, but some fortunate souls can see that.

(5/8) Departure of Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj

We have visited today the samadhi-mandir of Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj. When Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj left his holy body, all the babajis of Nabadwip started to fight for his body because he was a great sadhu. At first, Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj was not so much known, but when Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur took initiation from him, then everybody could understand that he was not crazy. People used to throw pieces of stone at him, but what did he say? He would say, ‘Gopal, I will complain to Mother Yasoda! Do not mess with me!’ He saw that it was Krishna Himself doing this. Later, when Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj left his body, he showed a very beautiful pastime.

When all the babajis began to fight over his dead body, one babaji said, ‘He is my gurudev!’, another said, ‘He is my gurudev!’, somebody else said, ‘He is my gurudev!’, and so on. When he was alive, nobody thought he was anyone’s gurudev, nobody served him as their gurudev. Then, Srila Prabhupad got to hear the news from Kunja Babu (at that time he was the secretary of Chaitanya Math; he later took sannyas and his name became Srila Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj). Kunja Babu asked Srila Prabhupad to come quickly to the place where Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj’s body was kept. Srila Prabhupad is so powerful! Do you know what he said to all those babajis?

‘Go away from here, all of you! You are all lying! “My gurudev”, “My gurudev” – he is not gurudev of any of you! He is only my gurudev.’

The police came there and asked Srila Prabhupad, ‘How will we know that you are his disciple and they are not?’

‘How will you understand it? Wait, I will show you.’ Then, Srila Prabhupad turned to all the babajis and said, ‘So many babajis have come, but can you tell me who of you have not had any female association for the past six months? Raise your hand.’

Nobody raised their hand.

‘Who of you has not had any female association during the past three months? Is there anyone here?’

Nobody said anything, and gradually the crowd began to disperse.

The police asked, ‘What if they lie and say they have not had any female association?’

Srila Prabhupad replied, ‘I am a life-long strict brahmachari, nobody can lie front of me.’

In this way, Srila Prabhupad kept asking them and came down to, ‘Who has not had any female association for the past day?’ Everybody left. Then, Srila Prabhupad took Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj’s body and made his samadhi. We have visited his samadhi-mandir today.

Such is the pure nature of Vaishnavs. Tomorrow we will go to the bhajan-kutir and samadhi-mandir of Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj, we will take his darshan at the last place tomorrow. It is by his mercy and by the mercy of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur that we have Yogapith, Mahaprabhu’s birthplace, today…

(6/8) Be Serious

I always keep telling you the same thing. How many times have you come? How many times have you done this parikrama? We do not practise Krishna consciousness seriously. Think seriously.

Every time when Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur finished this parikrama, everybody would come to see him before going back to their homes (everybody does it; you do it, too). Everybody worries about their homes because they have been away for five–six days. Do you know what Srila Prabhupad would say? ‘Is your house on fire? Even if it is, you do not have to go there. Let it burn.’ But we always think how much we have lost; we always worry about our rented house, and our life passes and finishes in this way. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says, ‘Jivana haila sesa, na bhajile hrsikesa. Your life is finished, but you did not serve Hrishikesh!’ This life has finished, and it is doubtful whether you will get a human birth again or not.

If you have any faith, you must keep good association – take shelter at the lotus feet of sadhus and practise Krishna consciousness. This is the only path in this life. The problem is that we cannot sacrifice trifle things, cannot sacrifice our tongue’s hankering – if I was to tell you today that you can eat fish, meat, etc., everybody would become my disciples. For example, there is a matua community, mainly in Bangladesh, who eat everything and say, ‘Hari bol’! There are such people in India also. How many people really want to serve and worship the Lord?

Practise strictly, regularly, offer bhoga to the Lord, take prasad. ‘Ye dina grhe bhajana dekhi grhete goloka bhaya. Any day there is devotional service at home, I see Goloka manifest itself in it.’ How many people think, ‘I will wake up in the morning every day and do mangal-arati, serve the Lord, practise Krishna consciousness’?

‘Ye dina grhe bhajana dekhi grhete goloka bhaya. Any day there is devotional service at home, I see Goloka manifest itself in it.’ Practise every day. You can turn your house into a temple! You do not have to make domes for that – you do not have to put stone or marble in the house for that. You can do Tulasi parikrama at home. If you do Tulasi parikrama, you get the result of doing Vrindavan parikrama. Many people keep Tulasi at home, they offer incense, water, blow the conch, but they do not make space for Tulasi parikrama. You must do parikrama of Tulasi Devi – circumambulate Tulasi four times in the morning and four times in the evening. When you go outside, you must offer obeisance to Tulasi, and when you return, offer obeisance to Tulasi again. If you serve Tulasi, you will get devotion.

(7/8) Surrender Your Mind

You must think how you will get devotion. There are sixty-four limbs of devotion – devotion comes by practising them. We go for the dham-parikrama, fast on ekadasi, offer arati at the temple, circumambulate the temple, chant kirtans, etc. – these are all limbs of devotion. Get the calendars, and you will see all this written there; you can also see where and which festivals are held at the temple. When I wake up in the morning, I always look in the calendar to see whose appearance or disappearance it is today. If you cannot make a festival on some day, at least give ‘jay’ to the Vaishnav and remember them. There is an appearance day of Srila Jiva Goswami, there is a disappearance day of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami. Every day I check the calendar and see if there is any special day today…

We must practise Krishna consciousness in this way.

We will go by buses tomorrow in the same way as we did today. We will get off the buses at the bridge and start the parikrama of Koladwip. First, we will go to the temple of Vriddha (or Buro) Siva. It is a very old Deity of Lord Siva. Mahaprabhu came there. All the places where we go were visited by Mahaprabhu Himself.

gaura amara, ye-saba sthane,
karala bhramana range
se-saba sthana, heriba ami,
pranayi-bhakata-sange

‘In the company of loving devotees, I will behold all the places my Gaura roamed during His ecstatic pastimes.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Doing this parikrama together with the devotees, we will visit all the places where Gaura served and worshipped the Lord.

After Vriddha Siva’s temple we will go to Prauddha Maya, and from there we will go to offer our obeisances at the house of Vishnupriya Devi where she stayed and worshipped Mahaprabhu’s Deity. After that, we will go to the samadhi-mandir of Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj. There is a field nearby, and we will arrange prasadam there. After taking prasadam, the buses will be waiting for us there, and we will come back here, to the temple, by buses again.

Everybody must try to go for the parikrama. First surrender, then go. If you think, ‘Oh, I cannot walk’, ‘Oh, I cannot go’, ‘I cannot do this’, ‘I cannot do that’, then you will not be able to do anything. This is in your mind. The cure is in the mind. When Mahaprabhu asked Srila Haridas Thakur, ‘What is your disease?’ Srila Haridas Thakur replied, ‘My body is not sick; it is my mind that is sick.’ If you are lying and thinking, ‘Oh, I am so tired, I will not go tomorrow’, then that will happen. You must think, ‘No, I must go! Whatever danger, whatever obstacle comes, I will go for the parikrama of the holy dham.’ We must always remember this.

When we were on the parikrama today, we did not have time to sit at some places and say everything we could. For example, we have been today to the house of Srila Srivas Pandit, but we did not have time to say everything there. Do you know what happened there one time? Because some naughty people harassed Srivas Pandit, he would close his door and do kirtan inside with the doors closed so that people did not disturb him. What did outside people do? When Srivas Pandit closed his door and was chanting kirtan, naughty people would eat meat, fish, drink liquor and throw the bones and bottles in front of Srivas Pandit’s house so that people would see them in the morning and say, ‘Look at this sadhu! He is chanting the Holy Name and eats meat, fish and drinks liquor!’ Srivas Pandit tolerated everything, he did not say anything to anyone. Rather, he would tell others, ‘Look at me, look how bad I am! How vile I am! I chant kirtan and drink liquor at night! I am so bad, I do such bad things.’ Others were upset, thinking, ‘Who could have done this?’ Who did that? Actually, he who did it got the result for it within three days. His name is Chapal Gopal. He got leprosy in three days after doing this to Srivas Pandit – insects (bugs and worms) started living in his body. One day, when Mahaprabhu was going to have a bath in the Ganges, Chapal Gopal saw Him and said, ‘Prabhu, You rescue everyone, but will You not rescue me? Will You keep me suffering?’ Mahaprabhu was very angry, He said, ‘You have made an offence at the lotus feet of Srivas! You will suffer hellish misery for millions of births. You will be an offender for ten million births!’ Saying this, Mahaprabhu left. When Mahaprabhu took sannyas and came back to Kuliya, Chapal Gopal again came to Mahaprabhu’s lotus feet. Mahaprabhu said, ‘I cannot forgive your offence. You have made an offence at the lotus feet of Srivas, so you must go to him and ask him forgiveness.’

When we make an offence to any Vaishnav, if we do not ask that Vaishnav forgiveness, our offence will never be forgiven. So, if you make an offence to any Vaishnav, you must go to that Vaishnav and ask them forgiveness. We sing in one of the kirtans also,

hari-sthane aparadhe tare harinama
toma-sthane aparadhe nahika edana

‘If somebody offends the Lord, the Lord’s Name delivers them; but if somebody offends you, it is impossible to get away with it.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

(8/8) Faith, Devotion and Love

When you used to have a thatched house or a mud house, you practised Krishna consciousness, and now that you have got a good house, all your devotion is hidden and gone. [Devotees object, ‘We have made it so that you could come.’] What is the use bringing me there?

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya
kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

‘If a devotee aspires for enjoyment or liberation, Krishna hides the knowledge about pure devotion and dismisses them, giving them enjoyment or liberation.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.18)

You say that you will take me to your house, but when I come, say, to a mud house, do I come to see the house? Must you make a five-storey building to bring me there? You can ask everyone what places I go to. Somebody has a five-story house, somebody has marble floors, somebody has A/C in the rooms – do I go to all these places? I do not. You tell me – I have had programmes in so many houses, what houses do I go to? You can see this devotee sitting in front of me. When their father made a festival programme, he went collecting door to door. He collected all the ingredients and called me (he had called me so many times that I could not but come). He made the programme, fed everyone and on top of that put all the remainder of the bhoga into my car as donation. He told me, ‘I have collected all this, what will I do with it? It is not for my enjoyment. You please take it.’ So, you are saying that you are making a posh house for me, but tell me: did I not come to your house when it was just a mud house?

My position is just like that of Sudama Vipra. When Sudama Vipra came to Dvaraka to see Krishna, he was astonished to see all the grand buildings. ‘Where have I come?’ he thought. ‘Krishna has called me to see Him, but where have I come? I do not understand all these great buildings. When my friend rolled in the dust as an ordinary cowherd, He was my bosom friend at that time. I do not like to see this atmosphere here.’ Sudama Vipra left Dvaraka as soon as he could – he did not want to stay there a second longer. He had struggled so much to come there, but seeing all the opulence he left quickly.

bhakter jinish prabhu lutiputi khay
abhakter jinish prabhu ulti nahi chay

‘The Lord eats anything and everything when a devotee offers it, but the Lord does not want to take anything from a non-devotee.’

(Based on Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.185)

There are five-, ten-, fifteen- or more storey buildings in Kolkata. Do I go to the homes of those people? Will you see me in any of such places? Even if they call me, I will not go there. You know that Mahaprabhu never met with King Prataparudra. So, all this external opulence is a problem. You must call out to the Lord with your heart and soul. You must love the Lord with your whole being – what kind of love is it when you show your money, wealth, etc.? You must love with your whole being, with your heart and soul.

I went to some extremely poor houses, but they give me a twenty-five-kilogram sack of potato! They are all sun-burnt people (they work in the field and get burnt in the sun), but when they give this hard-earned yield for the service of the Lord, they get real sukriti for that. No money, no wealth can give you such sukriti. You can see also that Krishna did not accept Durdhyona’s raj-bhoga (opulent food), but He went to Vidura’s house and ate banana skin. We went to Sridhar’s house today, what did he have? Mahaprabhu told him, ‘You do not even have a proper house! There are holes in your roof! You have no fence around the house, you have no proper roof!’ Moreover, when Mahaprabhu wanted some water, Sridhar became shy because the only glass he had at home had a hole in it and all the water fell through it. But Mahaprabhu came to him all the time, and Nityananda Prabhu spent a night there.

I do not like all these big grand buildings, multi-storey houses, etc. I am a simple man (‘matir manush’, lit. ‘down-to-earth man’), and I like to live simply (near the ground, or land, mati). Faith (sraddha), devotion (bhakti), and love (bhalobhasa) – that is sufficient…

Mahaprabhu performed so many pastimes. One time, Mahaprabhu was sitting at the house of Srivas Pandit, giving His blessings to everyone, ‘May you get auspiciousness’, ‘May you be successful’, and so on. Among the devotees, there was a devotee called Mukunda, who was a very good singer, but Mahaprabhu did not call out his name. Mukunda felt hurt, ‘Prabhu has called out everyone’s names, but He has not mentioned my name…’ When asked, Mahaprabhu said about Mukunda, ‘He will get mercy after ten million births.’ Mukunda began to dance, ‘Yes! I will get Prabhu’s mercy!’ Such was the strength of his faith.

There were so many other pastimes in Nabadwip. When Mahaprabhu was young, He would play with young girls on the banks of the Ganges. There were a little older girls and some small girls; they would come to the Ganges with atop chal (special rice), bananas, flowers and other ingredient and offer worship the Ganges. When they sat to arrange the worship of the Ganges, Mahaprabhu would disturb their offering and sit in front of them saying, ‘Worship Me!’ All the girls told Him, ‘Hey, what are You doing? What You are doing is not good!’ Mahaprabhu would not listen, so all the girls would pick up their fruit and flowers and go away, saying, ‘We will complain to Your mother!’ Mahaprabhu then said, ‘It will not do you any good! I will curse you then!’ ‘What curse will that be?’ the girls asked. Mahaprabhu said, ‘If you do not give all your offerings to Me, then you will get a very old husband with seven other wives!’ He taught the world through this: ‘If you worship Me, then all worship is automatically accomplished!’

‘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)

If you worship the Lord, you do not need to worship any other gods or goddesses. Anyway, is it even possible to worship all 330,000,000 demigods? If you worship Lord Siva today, Parvati will be unsatisfied; if you worship Kali, Durga will be unsatisfied; if you worship Laksmi Devi, Ganesh will be unsatisfied; if you worship Ganesh, Kartik will be unsatisfied. But if you worship Lord Krishna, all the worship of all the demigods is automatically accomplished. Moreover, all your debts – debts to your father, mother, sages, demigods, and so on – become cleared; no debt will remain. Always remember this.

There was one more wonderful pastime at the house of Srivas Pandit. Although Srivas Pandit was a grihastha (his wife’s name is Malini), he was actually more than a sannyasi. Just see what happened there! One time, Nimai’s elder brother Vishvarup, who was about thirteen–fourteen years old at that time, came to Srivas Pandit and asked him, ‘Prabhu, I need one scripture. I was hoping that I could get it from you.’ At that time, Muslim people were burning all Hindu scriptures, so Srivas Pandit replied to Vishvarup, ‘I have sent the book you need to Tripura; otherwise, if I had kept it, the Muslims would have burnt it.’ Then, Malini Devi came into the room and Srivas Pandit told him, ‘Oh, Vishvarup has come over, he needed some help, but I could not help him.’ Malini Devi then said suddenly, ‘How will you help him? You are always busy with kirtan, and you only know to go to Advaita Acharya’s lectures. What to speak of helping others, you cannot even take care of your own house! You are not even a householder!’ Because Srivas Pandit and Malini Devi quarrelled in front of Vishvarup, Srivas Pandit became shy and said to Vishvarup, ‘Have you seen it, Vishvarup? What have I done that she is saying such things about me? Do you see now what family life is like? Do you understand now what a problem it is when you get married? Can you see how my own wife chastises me? Never get married!’ At about that time, there was some news about Vishvarup’s marriage: his parents had already selected a girl for him and were about to have him married. But after hearing all this, Vishvarup ran away. He left home.

There are so many things that can be said, I have written everything in this book, Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala. Buy this book and read it carefully. Read holy books, it will do you good.

All right, I will not keep you any longer for today. I will let you go now because you must all wake up early in the morning tomorrow. Before you go to sleep, please make sure that all water taps are closed; otherwise, you will not be able to bath in the morning, it will be a problem.

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and recites Jaya Dhvani, concluding thus the evening class at the end of the first day of Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama.]

* * *

￼Line Line24 March 2021, Parikrama

Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama: Koladwip

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/5) At Sri Buroraj Siva’s Temple

[Arriving at Sri Buroraj Siva’s temple, His Divine Grace takes a seat at the temple and speaks Hari-katha to the assembled devotees.]

Please listen carefully to the glories of this holy place.

This island is famous as Kuliya Hill because it is situated on a mountain-like elevation on the bank of the Ganges. Scriptures describe this Kuliya Town as Koladwip.

If you walk a little further, there is Paramatala. We will go there to take the darshan of the house where Vishnupriya Devi served Mahaprabhu. Mahaprabhu took sannyas and left Nabadwip for Puri, but Vishnupriya Devi personally arranged for that Deity and serve the Deity after Mahaprabhu left. I will tell you later how she made that Deity.

In Satya-yuga, there lived a boy called Vasudev who every day worshipped Lord Varahadev. (At our temple in Koladwip, we also have a Deity of Varahadev. When Varahadev is not worshipped properly, much disturbance comes to the temple. I have also realised this. Srila Sridhar Maharaj told Gurudev that every day special sweet rice must be made for Varahadev, and if the worship of Varahadev is not done properly, then problems come to the temple.) As Vasudev worshipped the Lord, he always prayed, ‘O Lord! Please allow me to have Your darshan – please make my life successful! Without having seen You, my life will pass in vain!’

You know that we are staying at Nrisingha Palli. When we sing the Dasavatar kirtan, we glorify ten incarnations of the Lord: Matsya (fish), Kurma (tortoise), Varaha (boar), Nrisimha (half-lion, half-man), Vamana (dwarf brahman), Parasurama, Rama, Krishna, Buddha and Kalki. Nine of Them have already come, and Kalki will come in the future in this Kali-yuga.

[Much clamour]

If you talk in front of the Deities, it is a sin. Please close your mouths; otherwise, you can come here, and I will listen to you. I do not mind it.

One day, Lord Varahadev mercifully appeared before Vasudev in an enchanting miraculous form of a boar (kola). Adorned with various jewels, Varahadev was as tall as a mountain. As soon as Vasudev saw the Lord, he fell on the ground in a prostrate obeisance, overwhelmed with divine love. Pleased to see his devotion, the Lord then spoke: ‘Vasudev, you are My devotee, and I am very pleased with your worship. There is no other holy place in the entire three worlds that could compare with this Nabadwip Dham. You are so fortunate to live here. Because you are worshipping Me here in Nabadwip, when I appear in Kali-yuga as Gaura, you too will be born, and you will be able to see My sankirtan pastimes.’ Saying this, Lord Varahadev disappeared.

Vasudev was overjoyed. After that incident, he engaged himself in sankirtan, always chanting the Holy Name of Gaura. Having got the darshan of Lord Varahadev, Vasudev called this place Koladwip. When Sriman Nityananda Prabhu came here with Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu, He said that this Koladwip is non-different from Giri-Govardhan. That is why this place is also known as Gupta Govardhan, or ‘hidden’ Govardhan.

Jay Sri Giri-Govardhan ki jay!

If you do the parikrama of this Sri Nabadwip Dham, you automatically get the result of doing the parikrama of Govardhan. Many things took place on this island, we do not have time to tell about everything now, but there is one thing has to be said. You passed Devananda Gaudiya Math on the way, but does anyone know why this temple is called Devananda? This is Kuliya Hill, and this is the place where Devananda Pandit’s offence to Srivas Pandit was forgiven.

Devananda Pandit was very good at reading Srimad Bhagavatam. One time, Srivas Pandit came to hear his lecture and, becoming overwhelmed with ecstasy, began to dance and chant. Tears flowed from his eyes, and he began to roll on the ground. Devananda Pandit’s disciples got annoyed: they grabbed Srivas Pandit and threw him out from the class. Devananda Pandit did not object. He did not say that what his disciples did was wrong. This is how Devananda Pandit committed an offence. After that, when Mahaprabhu came to Kuliya, Devananda Pandit asked Him forgiveness of his offence, but Mahaprabhu told him, ‘You have made an offence to Srivas Pandit, so you must ask forgiveness at Srivas Pandit’s holy feet, then your offence will be removed.’ This place was named in his honour. This is Koladwip, aparadha-bhanjan-pat (the place where all offences are removed).

The place where we are sitting now is Lord Siva’s temple. One time, Parvati Devi asked Sivji Maharaj, ‘Prabhu, whose worship is the highest? Whom must I worship?’ Sivji Maharaj replied, ‘The worship of Vishnu is the highest worship.’ Hearing this, Parvati became upset. She said, ‘I am worshipping you, but you are saying that Vishnu’s worship is the highest, then what must I do?’ Sivji Maharaj explained, ‘Do not be sad:

aradhananam sarvesam visnor aradhanam param
tasmat parataram devi tadiyanam samarchanam

‘Of all types of worship, the worship of Lord Vishnu is the highest, but the worship of His devotee is higher still.’

‘Krishna’s worship is great, but greater than His worship is the worship of His devotee.’ Krishna Himself says, ‘Those who say they worship Me are not My devotees, but those who say they worship My devotee are My devotees. I always stay in the hearts of My devotees. I do not know anything except My devotees, and My devotees also do not know anything except Me.’

When Sivji Maharaj told this, Parvati became very satisfied. When we went to Vrindavan, I also told you about Gopeshwar Mahadev, how he appeared, how Chakleshwar Mahadev came to Govardhan and other pastimes of Lord Siva.

Anyhow, much has been said. We will now go to Paramatala, offer our obeisances to Prauddha Maya and then go to Mahaprabhu’s house. After we offer our obeisances, chant some kirtan and speak Hari-katha there, we will go to the samadhi-mandir of Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj. Finally, we will go to a field to take prasad and take the buses to return to the temple before noon.

Jay Sri Sada Siva Gangadharji ki jay.
Sri Vriddha Siva ki jay.
Jay Buro Siva ji jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

(2/5) At Sri Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj’s Samadhi (1)

Nabadwip Dham parikrama ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj ki jay.
Sachchidananda Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur ki jay.
Sarvabhauma Sri Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev Subhadra Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Sri Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math Nrisingha Palli ki jay.
Sri Mather sevak vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nabadwip Dham parikrama ki jay.
Parikrama-kari bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

[His Divine Grace is chanting ‘Thakura vaisnava pada avanira susampada’.]

thakura vaisnava pada, avanira susampada,
suna bhai hana eka mane
asraya laiya bhaje, tare krsna nahi tyaje,
ara saba mare akarane [1]

‘Brother, listen one-pointedly about the holy feet of Vaishnav Thakur, the greatest wealth there can ever be on earth. Krishna never leaves those who have taken shelter in His devotees and worship them; everyone else simply dies in vain.’

vaisnava charana-jala prema-bhakti dite bala
ara kena nahe balavanta
vaisnava charana-renu mastake bhusana binu
ara nahi bhusanera anta [2]

‘The water that washes the holy lotus feet of Vaishnavs can grant transcendental love; nobody else possesses such power. If your head is not decorated with the dust from the holy lotus feet of Vaishnavs, there is no value in any other ornaments.’

tirtha-jala pavitra gune likhiyachhe purane
se saba bhaktira pravanchana

‘The purifying qualities of the water from holy places is mentioned in Puranas, but all this is just a way of cheating yourself out of devotion.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

It is written here that holy places are pure. When you all go to the Ganges, you bath or put some water on your heads, thinking that all your sins will go away. It is written in Puranas that holy places can purify you, but it will cheat you out of devotion. You will not get devotion by putting water on your heads. Devotion comes from the dust from the holy feet of Vaishnavs. You must serve the feet of Vaishnavs, and serving does not mean you must wash or massage their feet (literally serve their feet) – it means that you must live following the guidance of Vaishnavs. All the purifying qualities of holy places that are described in the scriptures are actually obstacles to attaining devotion…

vaisnavera padodaka sama nahe ei saba
yate haya vanchhita purana [3]

‘All this can never compare to the water that has washed the holy feet of Vaishnavs, which fulfils all wishes.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

People always want to wash my feet… When I become a Vaishnav, then I will give you my feet. I have not been able to become a Vaishnav yet, so how can I let you wash my feet? I do not even allow anyone to touch my feet, what to speak of washing them… If you do such things (allow others wash your feet, touch your feet, and so on), it will make you proud. A Vaishnav will never say, ‘You must wash my feet’, ‘You must worship me.’ All the water from holy places cannot compare to the water that has washed the holy feet of Vaishnavs.

vaisnava sangete mana anandita anuksana

sada haya krsna para-sanga

‘In the association of Vaishnavs, my heart constantly rejoices and I always feel the transcendental association of Lord Krishna.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

When you associate with Vaishnavs, you feel joy. Even though we are struggling so much doing this parikrama, it gives us joy because we are doing it together with you all. When this parikrama finishes and you all leave, I always feel sad and think, ‘When will this day come again?’

vaisnava sangete mana anandita anuksana

sada haya krsna para-sanga

dina narottama kande hiya dhairya nahi bandhe

mora dasa kena haila bhanga [4]

‘In the association of Vaishnavs, my heart constantly rejoices and I always feel the transcendental association of Lord Krishna. Poor Narottam is crying; his heart can no long endure it. Why has my situation (my life) become broken?’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

Doyal Vaisnava Thakur

Doyal Vaisnava Thakur

Vaisnava Thakur

Doyal Vaisnava Thakur

(3/5) At Sri Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj’s Samadhi (2)

We must chant the glories of Vaishnav Thakur. Please listen carefully.

This is Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj’s place. I told you yesterday that when Srila Babaji Maharaj came to Mayapur, he was very happy, ‘This is my Lord’s place!’ He lived for 137 years…

[Clamour] Why is there so much noise? This is Srila Babaji Maharaj’s samadhi. It is necessary to be quiet, to keep silence here. I do not have any choice, I have to speak because I have not come alone and I need to tell something to you. If I had come here alone, I would have just come, offered my obeisance and left so that I do not make any offence to the Vaishnav. Srila Babaji Maharaj is residing here eternally, but we do not understand this.

The Lord has given you a mouth to speak about Him; the Lord has given you ears to hear about Him. When you grow old, you will not be able to hear anything (sometimes, people can lose hearing even earlier, before they get old). You can lose the power of speech also: you can be born as a cow and will only know how to make noise. You have got this mouth now not only to speak and eat. If you misuse your mouth in this lifetime, then the Lord will not give it to you again – you will be born as a cow and will only be able to moo. This is what can happen as a result of offences. It is necessary to speak less. If you speak too much, you will not be able to chant the Holy Name. We are told to chant the Holy Name, not to speak about anything and everything. When you chant the Holy Name, you do not chant loudly, but when you gossip, you are eager to talk about whose wife or son has left home and other nonsense. Do you chant Hare Krishna or do you chant, ‘Nati, puti, nati, puti [grandson, granddaughter, grandson, granddaughter]’? If you chant the Holy Name, you will get everything. It is necessary to believe this. When the scriptures and saints say something, it is necessary to believe it without any hesitation. Chant kirtan with faith.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Ki rupe paiba seva’.]

ki-rupe paiba seva muni durachara
sri-guru-vaisnave rati na haila amara [1]

‘I am so wicked, how will I ever get service? I have not got any attachment to Sri Guru and Vaishnavs!’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

What is my position? I am so bad! I could not serve Vaishnavs! We are always involved with maya… We went today to the temple of Prauddha Maya. Why do we come to offer our obeisances there? Because we pray, ‘O Maya Devi! Please give me your mercy so that I can get myself out of your net.’ We are covered by the net of illusion, but some manage to cut through this net and escape from it.

‘samsara’ ‘samsara’ kari’ michhe gela kala
labha na haila kichhu, ghatila janjala

‘Time has passed as I have been busy with my material life, and the result is nothing – only garbage.’

kisera samsara ei chhayabaji praya
ihate mamata kari vrtha dina yaya

‘What sort of world is this? It is only a trick, a show. While I affectionately take it as my own, days pass by in vain.’

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

e deha patana ha’le ki rabe amara
keha sukha nahi dibe putra paribara

‘When this body drops dead, what will I have left? After my death, neither my sons nor my family will give me any happiness.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Your sons and family will not give you any comfort. You fuss over your grandchildren, but these grandchildren (nati) then take a stick (lathi) and kick you out of your home! You stop kirtan because your grandchildren are crying, and these grandchildren later kick you out. Children do not like listening to kirtans – they only like listening to songs, and when they do not like their parents, they send them to old age homes. What does the father say then? ‘You have sent me to this old age home. It is all right, I will keep a room for you next door. You too will get a place here one day! When your son one day becomes like you, he will also kick you out of your home.’ Why do they send their parents to all age homes? Because their wives nag them. They threaten their husbands, ‘If you do not get rid of your parents, I will not look after your house! I will go back to my father’s house!’

As the saying goes, ‘Shall I keep my family or shall I keep the Lord (kula rakhi na Syama rakhi)?’ Which do you choose? Think about it. You must choose the Lord. Whom did Srimati Radharani choose, Her family or Shyama (the Lord)? She chose the Lord. You must think whom you will choose, your family or the Lord. You must choose Krishna and give up everything else.

We live amidst all this in illusion.

kaya bara eli kaya bara geli
tabu tattva na sikhili
nijer matha nije khaili
e dosa dibe kare bhai?

‘Coming and going, coming and going, you never learnt anything! You have been eating your own brain – who will you blame for this, brother?’

It is our fault. Having fallen into this illusory world, we are now living in this prison.

asesa mayate mana magana haila
vaisnavete lesa-matra rati na janmila [2]

‘My mind is engrossed in endless illusion; there is not even a trace of attachment to Vaishnavs born within me.’

visaye bhuliya andha hainu divanisi
gele phamsa dite phere maya se pisachi [3]

‘Day and night I live in darkness, forgetting myself in material life – this Witch Maya has put a noose round my neck.’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

We live engrossed in this material world and become blind, we forget everything. Suppose a boy becomes blind for two minutes – he will begin to cry and forget about the Lord and everything else. People are becoming blind, but they do not even understand it. What happens next? Then, a witch grasps them. What happens when a ghost possesses somebody? Have you ever seen such people? I had one sister who was possessed by a ghost. An exorcist came and recited some mantras. I do not believe these mantras, but then he struck her shadow and a mark appeared on my sister’s back (he hit the shadow once, and one mark appeared on her back). Then, some ghost appear, and the exorcist asked it, ‘What is your name?’

The ghost said, ‘Mujra[?] Singho.’

‘Where do you come from?’

‘I was on the bridge over there when a car hit me. Since that time, I have been living under or in a tree in the garden nearby.’

So, one can be possessed by a ghost.

pisachi paile yena matichchhanna haya
maya-grasta jivera haya se bhava udaya

‘Those who are possessed by a ghost become delirious, and the same condition arises in those who are seized by Maya, illusion.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.3, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

Just like that, we are all possessed by a ghost, so we speak gibberish, ‘This my house’, ‘This is my room’, ‘This is my son’, ‘This is my relative.’ We have the noose of material life around our necks.

visaye bhuliya andha hainu divanisi
gele phamsa dite phere maya se pisachi [3]

‘Day and night I live in darkness, forgetting myself in material life – this Witch Maya has put a noose round my neck.’

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya,
sadhu-guru-krpa bina na dekhi upaya [4]

(upaya ta dekhi na)

(mayare kariya jaya upaya ta dekhi na)

(sadhu-krpa bina upaya ta dekhi na)

‘It is impossible to conquer illusory environment and become released from it. I see no other way to get relief except by the mercy of saints and Sri Guru. (I see no way! I see no way to conquer illusory environment! I see no other way except for the mercy of sadhus!)’

adosa-darasi-prabhu, patita-uddhara

ei-bara narottame karaha nistara [5]

‘Prabhu, you see no fault in others, you are the saviour of the fallen. Please deliver Narottam this time!’

(Prarthana, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

(4/5) At Sri Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj’s Samadhi (3)

If you look at our guru-parampara photographs, you will see that the last photograph is that of Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj (we give ‘jay’ to him every day). Please listen to the description of his life.

vaisnavera guna-gana, karile jivera trana,

suniyachhi sadhu-guru-mukhe

‘Singing the glories of Vaishnavs rescues and protects the jiva soul – I heard this from the mouths of sadhus and my guru.’

(Acharya Vandana)

We must glorify Vaishnavs. The more we glorify them, the purer our hearts will be. You can see that when we chant, some people’s minds start wandering (they cannot concentrate on the kirtan) – it means that they cannot give place to the Lord. You invite somebody to your house, but in the place where you want your guest to sit, you have sacks of rice, dal and potato – where will your guest sit then? It is the same here: you say that you will keep the Lord in your heart, but if you have other things in your heart – kanak, kamini, pratistha (desire for money, women and fame), kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy), rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (desire for enjoyment through eyes, tongue, nose, ears and skin) – where will the Lord sit? If you have a fever, you do not feel like eating anything (you do not feel any taste). In the same way, many do not feel any taste for the Holy Name. Why? Because they have diseases inside them. What diseases are they? It is not some common bodily fever; these diseases are the fevers of kanak, kamini, pratistha, kama, krodha, lobha, and so on.

Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj was a very strict Vaishnav. One time, a man who had a pomelo tree picked a pomelo and thought, ‘If I give it to this sadhu, then my tree will have more fruit.’ But Srila Babaji Maharaj could understand why the man did that, so when the man came to him, he chased him away, saying, ‘Instead of chanting the Holy Name with offences, it is better if you come and water the eggplant tree of a sadhu.’

Many people chant the Holy Name on beads. Do you know how they chant it? One time, a lady came to the temple (just like you all come for the parikrama and Gaura Purnima) and took initiation from her gurudev. Gurudev gave her the Holy Name (the Hare Krishna maha-mantra) and told her to chant it loudly. After that, when she came home, she realised that her husband was Hare Krishna Kunwar and it was impossible for her to pronounce her husband’s name [such is the culture in India]. In those days, there were no mobile phones, so she did not know how to get in touch with her guru. She asked her husband, ‘What should I do now? Gurudev told me to chant sixteen rounds of Ha——, but this is your name! I cannot chant your name!’ The husband suggested, ‘Oh, then you can chant “Pore Peshto Pore Peshto Peshto Peshto Pore Pore”!’ This how we are too. We are walking around with our mala, but if somebody comes to us and says, ‘Please do this service,’ we say that we are busy chanting on our beads. It is necessary to chant on the beads, but is there any need to show your chanting to others? Chant, but do not do it in front of others. When we chant on our beads, we do it under some cloth; we do not walk around displaying our beads. ‘Apana bhajana-katha na kahibe yatha tatha: Do not tell anyone and everyone about your own bhajan, service and practice.’ Is it necessary to show others how I practise? If I practise, I will get the result, and it is not necessary to tell others about it.

This was also Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj’s mood. He was very strict. Sometimes, somebody gave him some pranami (donation). He would buy some sweets with that money and feed those sweets to the cows and dogs living in the dham. He would not take prasad without first feeding dogs.

There are many pastimes in his life…

(5/5) At Sri Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj’s Samadhi (4)

One day, Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj was walking from here, chanting the Holy Name. On the way, he passed some rich man’s house. In those days, there were no good houses, and only very rich people built proper good houses. The man was sitting on the roof of his house and saw Srila Babaji Maharaj passing by, chanting the Holy Name. He noticed that Srila Babaji Maharaj was wearing old torn clothes (his clothes were clean but old), so he came down from the roof and gave one rupee to him. Srila Babaji Maharaj did not think anything of it: he took the coin and continued his way. After he had walked for quite a while (maybe three kilometres), he suddenly told his servant, Bihari Das, ‘Bihari, let us go back.’

‘But why?’ Bihari Das was surprised.

‘Let us go back to that rich man’s house,’ Srila Babaji Maharaj answered.

‘But why? What has happened?’ Bihari Das asked again.

‘You will not understand it. Come, let us go back.’

‘We have walked so far from that house, and you now want to go back?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Srila Babaji Maharaj. ‘Come.’

So, they went back to the house. When they came, Bihari Das called the man, ‘Prabhu, please come down for a minute. Srila Babaji Maharaj wants to speak to you.’ The rich man thought, ‘He has taken my money, and now he must have come to ask me for more!’ But when he came out, Srila Babaji Maharaj put that one rupee back into his hand and said, ‘Sir, I cannot tolerate the burden of this money. Please relieve me from it. I cannot chant the Holy Name, I cannot practise spiritual life because I keep thinking how I will spend this money. My head cannot take it anymore. I cannot tolerate this burden.’ The man was astonished.

After that, Srila Babaji Maharaj and Bihari Das continued their way to Dhatrigram, a village near Kalna, where they had been invited for prasad. The old lady who invited them had some desire, ‘I will invite Babaji Maharaj and get his prasad.’ Just like many of you invite me to your house, that lady also invited Srila Babaji Maharaj. Because of this story with the money, Srila Babaji Maharaj was late, so when he finally came, the lady said, ‘I have already finished cooking, please offer bhoga, and I will serve you prasad.’ Bihari Das offered bhoga, and then the lady said, ‘You two can sit down, and I will serve you prasad.’ She put rice, dal, subji and other things on Srila Babaji Maharaj’s plate, and Srila Babaji Maharaj took everything. Seeing that there was nothing left on the plate, the lady thought, ‘He has taken all prasad! I was hoping to get his prasad, but he has not left anything for me!’ She only thought of this, she did not say anything to Srila Babaji Maharaj, but Srila Babaji Maharaj could understand everything. Then, the lady forcefully put more prasad on his plate – she put rice, dal, vegetables and all the other things. Srila Babaji Maharaj became grave, thinking, ‘Oh, I see. So, you want to take my prasad… I will show you.’ Then, Srila Babaji Maharaj not only took all prasad again but also ate the banana-leaf plate! Bihari Das was taken aback, ‘I have made an offence by bringing Srila Babaji Maharaj here! Srila Babaji Maharaj has got so much pain! Because of me, he had to eat a banana-leaf plate!’

Vaishnavs never give their prasad to others.

Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj is a very famous personality. I told you yesterday about him. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur first took him to Mayapur, and when he saw the place where Yogapith now stands, Srila Babaji Maharaj jumped out of his basket, exclaiming, ‘I have found it! This is Prabhu’s place!’ A holy place never disappears. The Ganges had at first taken Mahaprabhu’s birthplace away, but then she gave it back. And Srila Babaji Maharaj confirmed that Mayapur was the actual birthplace of Mahaprabhu.

Srila Babaji Maharaj came to Nabadwip from Vrindavan, and he lived his spiritual life in a very strict way. He practised Krishna consciousness properly.

Jay Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj ki jay.

We are now leaving. We will turn right and go a little down the street. There is a field nearby, we will take prasad there. The trucks are already there.

Jay Sachinandan Gaura Hari ki jay!

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
All the assembled, all the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj ki jay.
Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama ki jay.
Parikrama-kari bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Jay Koladwip parikrama ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line24 March 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Evening Class: Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama (Day Two)

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/9) Keep Your Lamp Alight

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar, Giriraj Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math Nrisingha Palli ki jay.
Samagata sannyasi-vrinda, brahmachari-vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Devotee: Jay Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Parivrajakacharya-varya Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj ki jay. Harinam sankirtan ki jay. Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

vande ‘ham sri-guroh sri-yuta-pada-kamalam sri-gurun vaisnavams cha
sri-rupam sagrajatam saha-gana-raghunath-anvitam tam sa-jivam
sadvaitam savadhutam parijana-sahitam krsna-chaitanya-devam
sri-radha-krsna-padan saha-gana-lalita-sri-visakhanvitams cha

‘I worship the holy lotus feet of my initiating and instructing guru as well as all predecessor gurus, all Vaishnavs, Rupa Goswami, Sanatan Goswami, their dear associates Raghunath and Jiva, Advaita Prabhu, Nityananda Prabhu and Sri Krishna Chaitanyadev along with all His near and dear ones, and Sri Radha-Krishna, along with Their associates headed by Lalita and Visakha.’

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

‘I offer my obeisance to Sri Guru, who has opened my eyes, rescuing me from the illusory darkness of ignorance, by applying the salve of knowledge upon my eyes.’

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam
chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam
govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram
vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

‘I offer my obeisance to him who perfectly fulfils his gurudev’s most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all conceivable and inconceivable aspects of Vedic knowledge; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s line; who is known as “Govinda” (Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj); whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.’

devam divya-tanum suchanda-vadanam balarka-chelanchitam
sandrananda-puram sad-eka-varanam vairagya-vidyambudhim
sri-siddhanta-nidhim subhakti-lasitam sarasvatanam varam
vande tam subhadam mad-eka-saranam nyasisvaram sridharam

‘I worship Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, the bestower of all auspiciousness, my only shelter and the master of all renunciates. He is my Lord who possesses a transcendental form, whose face expression is very grave, who is clad in the holy clothes the colour of the newly risen sun. He is an abode of intense joy; the only genuine master whom one can accept and surrender to; and an ocean of divine knowledge of renunciation. He is a repository of holy scriptural teachings and pastimes of the highest devotion and a great follower of Srila Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad.’

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha
patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to the Supreme Lord’s devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy and wish-fulfilling trees.’

vrndayai tulasi-devyai priyayai kesavasya cha
krsna-bhakti-prade devi satyavatyai namo namah

‘Again and again I offer obeisances to Vrinda Devi (Tulasi Devi), who is very dear to Lord Kesava, who bestows devotion to Krishna and is known as Satyavati.’

atha natva mantra-gurun gurun bhagavatarthadan
vyasan jagad-gurun natva tato jayam udirayet

‘Before reciting scriptures that can conquer material world, let us offer obeisances to our initiating guru, to the guru who teaches us the meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam, to Sri Vyasadev and all gurus in the universe.’

jayah sa-parikara sri-sri-guru-gauranga-gandharva-

govindasundar-padapadmanam jayastu

‘All glory to the lotus feet of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva-Govindasundar and all Their associates.’

vande rupa-sanatanau raghu-yugau sri-jiva-gopalakau

‘I worship Sri Rupa Goswami, Sri Sanatan Goswami, Sri Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, Sri Raghunath Das Goswami, Sri Jiva Goswami, and Sri Gopal Bhatta Goswami.’

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrnda

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

By the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma, by the mercy of Vaishnavs, we have completed the second day of Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama without any difficulties. Tomorrow we will stay at the temple, it is going to be ekadasi. The programme will start here from 10 a.m. Tomorrow is a grand festival in honour of Sri Madhavendra Puripad’s disappearance. It is a mahadvadasi day, but we will be fasting on this day as on ekadasi because the tithis are touching (overlapping). On this day, from 10 a.m. until the bhoga-arati of the Lordships, we will be listening to Hari-katha, listening about the glories of Sri Madhavendra Puripad.

Every year, Gurudev would speak about Sri Madhavendra Puri on this day, and when he could not come downstairs, he would tell me to speak about Sri Madhavendra Puri. I remember that I would go on the parikrama on this day, and when we returned, I would speak about Srila Madhavendra Puri in the evening. So, we have got an opportunity to observe this day tomorrow. I know you are all tired, so you can take some rest tomorrow, but do not sit in your room talking gramya-katha (gossiping or having idle talks). I know that not everybody is used to waking up early in the morning, so not many come for the mangal-arati, but those who cannot come for the mangal-arati should at least come for the class at 10 a.m.

‘Saisava-yauvane, jada-sukha-sange, abhyasa haila manda. In my childhood and youth, I always indulged in material happiness, so I have developed bad habits.’ That is why people cannot wake up early in the morning. From our childhood and youth we developed bad habits, and many of those who stay at the temple also become lazy. Householders have to go to work every morning, so they wake up for the mangal-arati, but those who stay at the temple do not worry about it, and they sleep till eight o’clock. This is not good. We teach others, but first we must practise it ourselves, then we can teach others.

nije achari dharma jivake sikhaya
achara prachara namera lainu karya

‘Practise yourself and then teach religion to other souls. Your chanting and preaching about the Holy Name will be effective when you practise yourself and preach.’

If you do not practise yourself but teach others, nobody will listen to you. It is necessary to first follow these things yourself.

I will tell you today about Prahlad Maharaj. If we can accept in our lives the practice of Prahlad Maharaj, then we will have devotion. I wish this kind of devotion for you. I do not know about others, but as far as I am concerned, I do not have the kind of devotion that Prahlad Maharaj has. He has shown what devotion is in his own life. He has so much tolerance! We must follow and practise the devotion that Prahlad Maharaj showed in his life. That is why we must always first give ‘jay’ to Prahlad Maharaj, then only to Sri Nrisinghadev. You can never worship the Lord without His devotees. Remember this. I heard today somebody was giving ‘jay’ – they gave ‘jay’ to Nrisinghadev, but not to Prahlad Maharaj. Never make this mistake. First you must give ‘jay’ to Prahlad Maharaj, after that to Nrisinghadev. Always remember this. You can never get the Lord without His devotees.

I have been studying Bhagavatam today the whole afternoon (after returning from the parikrama). I was reading about different kinds of liberation (sayujya, merging with Brahman; sarupya, having the same body as the Lord; salokya, residing at the same planet as the Lord; samipya, being an associate of the Lord; sarsti, having the same opulences as the Lord) and what is the position of those who attain it. I am used to reading and studying from my childhood, when I would study for eighteen–twenty hours a day, and I cannot leave this habit to this day – I still study and read books. By the way, a new book has come today, Sri Chaitanya Bhagavata (we have reprinted it).

Gurudev has placed so much responsibility on my shoulders… When Gurudev told me about it, I could not understand it. Gurudev would tell me, ‘I was seated on this throne with a garland on my neck, but I do not like to wear this garland – ants always bite me.’ At that time, I did not understand what Gurudev meant. I thought maybe there were some ants in the garland he had been given, but this is not what Gurudev meant. It is such an agony to be an acharya…

Every morning when we wake up, we sing,

udita tapana haile asta,
dina gela bali’ haibe vyasta,
tabe kena ebe alasa hai’

na bhaja hrdaya-raje

‘When the risen sun sets, you will worry because the day has gone, but why be lazy and not worship the King of your heart now?

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Why must we become lazy? We must always remember this. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur also expresses his own feeling like this:

nidralasya hata, sukarye virata,
akarye udyogi ami
pratistha lagiya, sathya-acharana,
lobha-hata sada kami

‘Ruined by laziness and sleep, I am averse to doing anything good and eager to do nothing. I behave crooked desiring prestige. I am ruined by greed and always want something.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Somebody came to me and said, ‘I want to speak about the glories of Sri Guru!’ I told him, ‘You have no right, no qualification to speak about the glories of Sri Guru. When the guru gives you this right, when the guru gives you this service, to speak about the glories of Sri Guru, then you can do it. But you have no such right.’ You can speak about the glories of Sri Guru only when the guru gives you his mercy; you can glorify Vaishnavs only when they give you their mercy to do so. When somebody has no mercy of their guru, glorification of Sri Guru can never come to their mouth. We must always remember and think about this.

nidralasya hata, sukarye virata,
akarye udyogi ami
pratistha lagiya, sathya-acharana,
lobha-hata sada kami

‘Ruined by laziness and sleep, I am averse to doing anything good and eager to do nothing. I behave crooked desiring prestige. I am ruined by greed and always want something.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You know, Gurudev went abroad so many times, but I never ever said to him that I wanted to go abroad. Never. One day, Gurudev’s secretary came to me and said that I had to give him some documents to make my passport. I asked him, ‘A passport? What for?’ He said, ‘This is an order from the “Head Office”.’ When I joined the temple and came to Gurudev, I did not even know it was my initiation day (I was given the second initiation and saffron clothes on the same day). That day, I came from the field with my feet covered in mud, and they told me, ‘Come quickly, Gurudev is waiting for you! He is calling you.’ Gurudev asked me, ‘Have you brought a notepad?’ I asked, ‘My legs are full of mud… What should I do?’ and Gurudev said, ‘It is your initiation day today!’ Gurudev told me to wash the mud off and come sit in front of him. When I did so, Gurudev put his hand on my shoulder and gave the mantras. When Gurudev touched my shoulder, I felt a surge of feeling. Gurudev said, ‘If you recite this gayatri-mantra twice a day (if you do not have time to recite it in the afternoon, you can do it in the morning and in the evening), then you will get connection (relationship) with Radharani.’ Then, Gurudev gave me saffron clothes and took my hand telling me to change and go sit at the yajna. He did not tell me anything – when I took sannyas, it was like that too.

One time, I ran away for twenty-four hours. When I came back, I saw Gurudev sitting at his veranda; I came and sat there, too. I did not say anything – just sat there quietly. Gurudev started reading a newspaper. Somebody else was sitting there too, reading some scripture. I saw Gurudev was not saying anything, and I sat there like a chatak bird, waiting, ‘What service will Gurudev give me?’ I already had service, but I would sit at his lotus feet like a chatak bird waiting for more service. Such was my habit.

It is necessary to have good habits. To this day I have to look after everything – it is ekadasi tomorrow, and I still have to give them the list of what should be purchased. I have to tell everyone what to do. There is nobody to do this, and I do not like it. I still have to go to the storage room to see what is there, how many vegetables are there, how much oil is there, how much wood is there, and so on. In the evening I will again have to call the cooks, ask what they need and arrange everything. There is a lack of people who would learn by looking.

For example, before you offer the big lamp to the Deities, you must light a small one and keep it there so that the room does not become dark. I remember this. Because Gurudev has lit this lamp and kept it there, the room does not become dark, and I want to see that you keep the lamp alight so that when I leave, the room does not become dark.

You must understand what I have told you. So many devotees have come: you cannot recognise them, but I know everyone, I know everyone’s face and where each of them comes from, I can tell it about every single person here. I can tell where they live, who they are, and so on because there is love, there is a heart-to-heart connection. This is not a one-day relationship – this is a birth-after-birth relationship…

In Gurudev’s time, I would go to Midnapore and Bardhaman, take so many people by hand to the temple and throw them at the lotus feet of Gurudev. I would go village to village and bring so many people here for Gaura Purnima. They came, listened to some Hari-katha, and if they had some sukriti, they took shelter at the lotus feet of Gurudev. When I had just come to the temple, I would go for the parikrama with a hundred people, but later you saw how many thousands of people went for the parikrama from our old temple in Nabadwip. The place here is small, but still there are so many people here that there is no place in the nat-mandir. Anyhow, now we have expanded the territory, so everything is coming gradually, do not worry.

We must practise Krishna consciousness. I will not chant many kirtans today, I would rather speak today because you have been chanting much kirtan today during the parikrama. We are here now, and we must speak about Prahlad Maharaj. We will be going to many places the day after tomorrow, and when we come here, there will be no time to speak about Prahlad Maharaj, so I will speak about him today and tomorrow. I will tell you what is written in Bhagavatam, this is bhajan-siddhanta (the conclusions of devotional life). Prahlad Maharaj taught how to practise Krishna consciousness in Satya-yuga. This is not something invented in this age. When we went to Ahobilam (South India), we saw the place where Lord Nrisinghadev’s pastime took place. After defeating Hiranyakasipu in order to protect Prahlad Maharaj, Lord Nrisinghadev came here, to Nrisingha Palli, to take rest. All the great munis, rishis and all the demigods reside here; they are here even now. This is such a pure land. We can only see great buildings, wood, stone, etc. with our material illusory eyes, but this is not what this place really is. Why did the Lord come here after killing Hiranyakasipu in Ahobilam? Because He knew that Gauranga Mahaprabhu would come here in Kali-yuga. This was a hint. Satya-yuga was so many million years ago! Every yuga lasts so many thousands of years – there is Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dvapar-yuga, and then only Kali-yuga. Kali-yuga’s duration is 432,000 years, and only a little over five thousand years have passed; so much is still left.

Anyhow, I will not take more time now. We will chant gurudev’s kirtan and then Dasavatara Stotram. [His Divine Grace chants kirtans.]

(2/9) Lord’s Impartiality

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my godbrothers and godsisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

So, we have been to the parikrama of Koladwip today. There are nine islands in Nabadwip, and the island where we are now is called Godrumdwip; this is an abode of kirtan. I will tell you about all the other places as we go there, but today I would like to speak about the place where we are staying, namely Deva Palli, or Nrisingha Palli. When Lord Nrisinghadev came to this world to protect Prahlad Maharaj and defeated Hiranyakasipu in Ahobilam (South India), He came here to take some rest. Why did He sit in this place? Because He knew that Gauranga Mahaprabhu would appear in this Nabadwip Dham later. So, today we will speak and hear about Prahlad Maharaj, Hiranyakasipu and Lord Nrisinghadev.

Offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Bhakta-Raj Prahlad Maharaj and praying for the mercy of Lord Nrisinghadev, Nitai-Gaura and Sri Gurupadpadma, I will try to say something. You can find this narrative in Srimad Bhagavatam, I will tell it to you now in a little shorter way based on what I have heard from the holy lotus mouth of my Gurudev and holy Vaishnavs.

In Vaikuntha, there were two gatekeepers of the Lord, Jay and Vijay. One day, the four sons of Lord Brahma came to the gate stark naked. Because Jay and Vijay could not recognise them, they made a mistake, although, ultimately, everything happens by the will of the Lord – no pastime can be possible without the wish of the Lord.

I have heard once a question that was raised at a class on Srimad Bhagavatam and was thinking about this. Somebody asked, ‘It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita that the Lord protects only His devotees and keeps the non-devotees far away from Himself, which means that the Lord is partial. Then how is it that the Lord is considered impartial? Where is His impartiality?’ The Lord is equal to everyone, but when the Lord’s devotees try to worship and serve the Lord, He cannot ignore or dismiss them, whereas demons simply become destroyed. The main thing is that devotees worship the Lord. So, yes, the Lord is impartial in the sense that He makes everyone suffer or enjoy according to their karma. But as we can see the example of Prahlad Maharaj (how many obstacles, how many dangerous situations he encountered!),when you come to practise Krishna consciousness, you will face so many dangerous situations, so many obstacles and difficulties, but if you tolerate all these difficulties and austerities and can continue practising Krishna consciousness properly, then you will be successful, you will get the supreme benefit. This is the main thing.

(3/9) Jay and Vijay Cursed

So, Jay and Vijay were two gatekeepers in Vaikuntha. One time, Brahma’s four sons, four young boys, came to the gate stark naked. It is said in the Bhagavatam that although they looked like five-year-old small boys, this is not who they actually are – they are actually great sages, the first-born sons of Adi-Brahma, therefore they are the oldest of all living creatures. By the will of the Lord, these great sages lived disguised as four small boys. Their names are Sanak, Sanatan, Sanandan, Sanat-kumar. They had been roaming the three worlds and came to Vishnu Loka where Lord Narayan lives. When Jay and Vijay saw the four small naked boy trying to enter the gate of Vaikuntha, they prohibited them to go inside.

There is a sloka composed by Madhvacharya that says that the associates of the Lord residing in Vaikuntha are eternally liberated souls, and whenever they receive any blessing or curse, they always remain liberated. Those who enter Vaikuntha do not have a material body, and if someone becomes cursed and has to take a material body in this world, they still remain liberated.

When the four kumars were denied entrance to Vaikuntha, they cursed Jay and Vijay. As a result of that curse, Jay and Vijay had to get material bodies. Somebody can ask: they are liberated souls residing in Vaikuntha, how can they be cursed? They may have been cursed, but when they were cursed, they accepted the form of demons and when they were defeated by the Lord, they again came to Vaikuntha. That curse did not last long – as soon as their material bodies finished, they again came to the liberated position. Although they had to fall down to the material world, the extremely merciful Supreme Lord told them, ‘O gatekeepers! You will again return to Vaikuntha after three births. Your sin will be removed.’ So, in other words, they had to stay in the material world for three days, and after that they would come back to Vaikuntha.

This is how Jay and Vijay were born in this world as two brothers, Hiranyakasipu an Hiranyaksa…

(4/9) Loving Relationship with the Lord

We were talking today about Varahadev, the master of Koladwip, and, as we were chanting the Dasa Avatara Stotram kirtan, it is mentioned there Sukara-rupa of the Lord, ‘sukara’ means a boar. There is also the incarnation of the Lord in the form of a dwarf (Vamanadev) and a half-man, half-lion form (Nrisinghadev).

So, when Jay and Vijay appeared in this world, they came as Hiranyakasipu (the elder brother) and Hiranyaksa (the younger brother). The two brothers were so powerful and fearsome that all demons worshipped them. How much austerity they have given to others, and how much Prahlad Maharaj had to go through! It should teach us what a devotee must be like – when Lord Nrisinghadev killed Hiranyakasipu in His fury, all the demigods were shivering with fear, and nobody wanted to come close to Lord Nrisinghadev, but Prahlad Maharaj came to Him: as soon as Lord Nrisinghadev saw him, He immediately cooled down. When a cow sees its calf or a lion sees its cub, it immediately becomes loving towards its baby. The Lord in the form of a lion was also so angry and ferocious, but when His own son came to Him, He immediately became calm and loving. Lord Nrisinghadev took Prahlad Maharaj on His lap and began to lick him!

After that, there followed a long conversation at the end of which Lord Nrisinghadev asked Prahlad Maharaj, ‘What boon do you want? What can I give you?’ In reply, Prahlad Maharaj told earnestly what was in his heart, ‘Prabhu, Lord Brahma is Your close associate, Your very own, Lord Siva is Your own close associate, Lord Indra is Your own – Indra has taken the responsibility for heaven, Brahma is responsible for creating this world. Have You even taken Lord Brahma on Your lap and asked him that? Have You ever shown this kind of affection to Your sakti (energy, or power) Laksmi Devi? You take her on your lap, but do You ever show her this kind of affection? Lord Indra is the king of heaven, but have You ever taken him on your lap and petted him? Never. Then what kind of boon will I want from You when You have already given so much love and affection to me?’ The Lord’s devotees are so near and dear to the Lord! How beautiful these words are!

Then, Prahlad Maharaj said, ‘If You must give me some boon, then I can ask for one thing. My father has done so many things. He killed brahmans, he burnt Vaishnavs, he killed cows and calves and ate their meat. He even dared raise his hand to You. Prabhu, I am praying to You – please rescue my father.’ Do you see? How merciful the Lord’s devotees are! Prahlad Maharaj had been beaten and tortured in so many ways by his father, but he prayed to the Lord for him.

(5/9) Demons’ Plight

I have read to you today [during the parikrama] about Bali Maharaj, how Vamanadev came, and how Hiranyaksa was defeated by Varahadev. The Lord was so angry! The Lord can never tolerate when His devotee is abused or given austerity. He becomes so furious and hard – it will freeze your blood to hear it!

There are many people, even among devotees, who do not understand this and think, ‘How come the Lord becomes so angry and kills so cruelly when He is said to be extremely merciful?’ People think like that and leave the path of devotion going in a wrong direction. Hiranyakasipu himself tried to win everyone’s support by saying, ‘Look, look! He has killed my younger brother! If God was so merciful, then what was the need to kill my brother?’ This is a wrong conception.

When Jay and Vijay were cursed, they first became Hiranyakasipu and Hiranyaksa; then, in Treta-yuga, they became Ravan and Kumbhakarna; and in Dvapar-yuga, they were born as Dandavakra and Sisupal (I was reading today about how they were slain). These are the three births that Jay and Vijay got as demons.

So, when Hiranyaksa was slain by Varahadev, Hiranyakasipu lost his mind. He became so hot-headed that he left for the forest to practise austerities with a view to get a boon from Brahma. He practised austerities for many thousands of years praying to Lord Brahma. What kind of austerities did he practise? His austerities were so severe that there was no flesh left on his body – only bones. He ate only air. Eventually, Brahma came to him and asked him, ‘What boon do you want?’ Hiranyakasipu said, ‘Make so that nobody in this world can kill me. I want to match Vishnu because He has killed my brother!’ What a fool! He wanted to kill the Lord! He thought, ‘The Lord came as Varahadev (as a boar) and killed my brother! I will revenge!’ Brahma listened to him and said, ‘You cannot get this from me. It is beyond my power to give this kind of boon to you. Yes, I create everything in this world by the will of the Lord, but Lord Vishnu maintains everything, so I cannot make anyone immortal. Only the Supreme Lord is immortal in this world – He created this world, He exists and will exist after the destruction of this world, when everything within this world is destroyed. Even I myself will not stay in this world forever. I have a very long lifespan, but even I have to die one day – somebody else will come and replace me in this post after me. And I too hope to practise Krishna consciousness – then, when I leave this body, I can go to the domain of the Lord. So, I cannot give you what you want.’ Then, Hiranyakasipu said, ‘All right, then I want this boon. Make so that I will not die indoors.’ Brahma said, ‘So be it.’ Hiranyakasipu continued, ‘I will not die outdoors.’ ‘So be it.’ ‘I will not die during the day, I will not die during the night.’ ‘All right, so be it.’ ‘I will not be killed by any weapon created by the Lord.’ Brahma agreed and gave the boon Hiranyakasipu asked for.

We see that demons always keep trying to defeat the Lord, and they always think about the Lord – they always think, ‘How will I kill Him? How will I kill Him?’ Thinking and thinking in this way, they get liberation! This is sayujya-mukti – although they are antagonistic towards the Lord, they get liberation and later become destroyed (they do not get devotion, they get liberation instead, i.e. merge with the impersonal form of the Lord). Maybe they think bad about the Lord (they want to kill the Lord!), but they think about the Lord, and as a result of that they get liberation. For example, Dantavakra always thought how to kill Krishna and fought against Krishna, but even he got liberation!

Anyhow, Hiranyakasipu got this kind of boon from Lord Brahma. This happens by the will of the Lord, too. The boon that Brahma gave to Hiranyakasipu was given to him by the will of the Lord. Even demons get boons. You can see that so many things in this world are destroyed by the influence of demoniac energy. So, when Hiranyakasipu got that boon from Brahma, he started to cause so many atrocities in the world. He tried to become even more powerful…

(6/9) Appearance of Prahlad Maharaj

As Hiranyakasipu was getting his boon, there was another event that took place in the meantime. When Hiranyakasipu left his house to meditate on Lord Brahma, his wife Kayadhu stayed at home, at Hiranyakasipu’s palace, but at that time all the demigods, encouraged by their guru Brihaspati, came to the palace and destroyed the whole place breaking everything into pieces. They were angry, ‘This demon has tortured us so much! It is very good that he has left!’ They crushed the palace and took Hiranyakasipu’s wife, Kayadhu, with them to kill her later. They knew that Kayadhu was pregnant at that time, so, fearing that her child would be a demon too and would disturb them even more, they decided to kill her. Even the demigods can have such crazy ideas.

You have seen the image of ‘Mother’ Kali – she wears a garland of heads and stands naked with her husband lying under her foot (he is lying down, and she is keeping her leg on him). Many people worship this kind of ‘raksasi’ deities. It is said in the scriptures also that demons worship such demigods. If you meet such worshippers on the street, they can kill you. All this Kali-puja, Durga-puja is the worship of demons.

So, as the demigods were taking Kayadhu away while Hiranyakasipu was meditating in the forest, by the will of the Lord, Narad Goswami suddenly appeared in front of the demigods and said, ‘What is going on? Where are you taking her?’

‘Do you not recognise who she is?’ the demigods replied.

‘Yes, she is Hiranyakasipu’s wife, Kayadhu. Where are you taking her?’

‘Prabhu, she has a child in her womb. We will kill her, then the child will die, too.’

‘You are thinking wrong. Leave this nonsense. This son of Hiranyakasipu will protect you in the future – he will give you all relief. So, do not harm her, better you let Kayadhu go with me. I will take care of her.’

This is how Kayadhu came to the ashram of Narad Muni. She would wash the dishes and make garlands there. She would also listen to Hari-katha, and Prahlad Maharaj would hear it too from her womb (everything that he learnt from his mother’s womb can now be found in Srimad Bhagavatam). Narad was very pleased with her, so one day he asked her, ‘Kayadhu, I am very happy with your service, you are doing so much although you have a child in your womb. Tell me, what boon would you like to get from me?’ Kayadhu said, ‘Prabhu, my husband is a demon (although he is a demon, he is still my husband), he has left, but I want him to come back, so please give me a boon that my son would not be born until he returns.’ Narad Muni agreed and gave her this boon.

Then, Hiranyakasipu returned full of power and vanity, thinking, ‘Nobody can kill me! I am the most powerful in the world! There is nobody as powerful as I am in this world! I can destroy anyone!’ He did so many atrocious things!

By and by, his son was born, and as he grew up a little, he was sent to the school of Hiranyakasipu’s teacher, Sukracharya. Sukracharya had two sons called Sanda and Amarka, so Hiranyakasipu sent Prahlad Maharaj to study together with them. What was he taught there? All the demoniac subjects – sama, dana, danda, bheda (how to pacify, give money in charity, punishand divide). Prahlad Maharaj was taught about all the demoniac qualities there – how to fight, how to win, and so on…

(7/9) Unperturbed Purity of Prahlad Maharaj

Hiranyakasipu sent Prahlad Maharaj to study at school, but what would they teach him there? He had already learnt everything about the Lord from the womb of his mother. Anyhow, a year passed in this way, and one day Hiranyakasipu told Sanda and Amarka to bring Prahlad Maharaj to him.

When Prahlad Maharaj came home, his mother gave him new clothes, fed him, etc. and took him to his father. Hiranyakasipu asked, ‘Boy, what good things have you learnt from your teacher? Tell me something.’ And just see what a five-year-old boy answered!

It is written in Bhagavatam that Narad Goswami said, ‘Those who have good intelligence worship the Lord (practise Krishna consciousness), and those who have little intelligence are busy with demigod worship. Such demigod worshippers must realise that when the demigods they worship get into trouble and are kicked out of heaven, when they are tortured, they run to take shelter of the Lord to get some relief. Even demigods get into trouble when they turn away from the Lord. So, what do you hope to get from demigods? Foolish people worship demigods desiring to attain liberation; however, those who are liberated from any desire for material enjoyment, or who want to become liberated from such desires, strive to become free from the bondage of the material world; gradually, they begin to worship the Lord – leaving the desire for material prosperity, knowledge, mystic powers, wisdom, and even if they still have some material desires, when they surrender and pray to the Lord, it is not necessary for them to surrender to any demigods to fulfil their aspirations. It is not necessary for anyone to go to a demigod to fulfil their desires.’ This is the gist of Srimad Bhagavatam. It says here that Prahlad Maharaj was always absorbed in thoughts about Krishna, so he was always very happy – he could not even take into his head what he was being taught (all the politics, economics, etc.). He never thought about his food, clothes or anything else. When a small child is sitting on his mother’s lap, he does not worry how he will be fed, how he will rest, how he must pass stool or urine – he is simply satisfied to be on the lap of his mother. Just like a baby, Prahlad Maharaj was protected by Govinda because just as parents always look after their baby, Govinda always protected and took care of Prahlad Maharaj. He was full of God consciousness.

So, when Hiranyakasipu asked Prahlad Maharaj what he had learnt at school, Prahlad Maharaj replied:

tat sadhu manye ‘sura-varya dehinam
sada samudvigna-dhiyam asad-grahat
hitvatma-patam grham andha-kupam
vanam gato yad dharim achrayeta

‘Prahlad Maharaj replied: O best of the asuras, King of demons, as far as I have learned from my spiritual master, any person who has accepted a temporary body and temporary household life is certainly embarrassed by anxiety because they have fallen into a dark well where there is no water but only suffering. One should give up this position and go to the forest. In particular, one should go to Vrindavan, where only Krishna consciousness is prevalent, and take shelter of the Supreme Lord.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 7.5.5)

Prahlad Maharaj did not call Hiranyakasipu ‘father’ – he said, ‘O best of the asuras, O King of demons!’ He gave him respect in this way. Then, he spoke this verse and advised his father about the science of God consciousness. When Prahlad Maharaj spoke about devotion to the Lord, Hiranyakasipu began to laugh at him, ‘You are a small boy, what do you know with your small intelligence? It seems that some enemy must have got into the school and put all this into your brain.’ He thought some enemy had come and taught him all those ‘bad’ things, but Hiranyakasipu himself was the Lord’s enemy because he knew originally that he could have chosen to worship the Lord, but then it would take him seven births to go back to Vaikuntha; alternatively, he could become the Lord’s enemy for three births and then get rescued and come back to the Lord quickly. So, Hiranyakasipu knew very well who the Lord was. So, what was he to do with his son now?

[His Divine Grace is distracted by someone.] Can you not stay quiet for one hour? Your mind, your heart is unsettled. There are many people who cannot sit still in one place for one hour, but when if there is a TV serial on, people sit quiet and watch it, and if they cannot watch it for some reason the next day, they became crazy. When they watch a serial, they learn it by heart and can retell everything the next day in detail, but when I tell you something time and time again, you cannot remember it. You do what should not be done, and you do not do what should be done – ‘we always avoid good activities and always go to do bad activities’ (sukarye virata akarya udyogi ami). People sit and watch TV, but instead they could chant the Holy Name, they could read Bhagavatam and other holy scriptures. When you watch TV, you sit quiet, and if somebody starts speaking or a child comes and says, ‘Mom, I’m hungry’, you get annoyed, ‘Hey, keep quiet! Let me watch!’ Is it not so?

…So, hearing Prahlad Maharaj’s words, Hiranyakasipu called Sanda and Amarka and chastised them heavily, ‘I am paying you money, and what are you teaching him?! How are you bringing him up?!’ Sanda and Amarka mumbled, ‘Sir, we have not done anything, we do not know where he has learnt it from – none of us has taught this to him!’ Hiranyakasipu was very angry, ‘You do not know?! You two must have fallen asleep, and some Vaishnav came and brain-washed him! Which Vaishnav, which sadhu has taught this to him?!’

Prahlad Maharaj said, ‘Everyone is equal in front of the Lord, but when humans draw distinction, they start to differentiate and call one person a “friend” and another person an “enemy” – when somebody says such things, then it can be understood that they are situated within illusory bondage.’ On the other hand, mayavadis say that everything is the Lord, that jiva souls and the Lord are one. This is also a wrong conception. Mayavadis say that we must serve ‘poor’ Narayan [there is a popular belief in India according to which poor people are seen as manifestation of the Lord, so helping the poor is the same as serving the Lord]. This is wrong – Narayan never can be poor, neither can a poor man ever be Narayan!

Then, Hiranyakasipu sent Prahlad Maharaj back to school and ordered Sanda and Amarka to teach him well. We have been to that school, it is in a cave in South India. After a while, Hiranyakasipu again called Prahlad Maharaj and asked him what he had learnt at school. This time, Prahlad Maharaj said:

sravanam kirtanam visnoh smaranam pada-sevanam
archchanam vandanam dasyam sakhyam-atma-nivedanam

‘Hearing about the Lord, chanting the Lord’s Name, remembering the Lord, serving the Lord’s feet, worshipping the Deity of the Lord, offering prayers and obeisances to the Lord, serving the Lord as a servant, serving the Lord as a friend, and surrendering yourself to the Lord.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 7.5.23)

Hiranyakasipu again got angry, ‘He is my enemy!’ and threw his son off his lap. After that, he ordered his people to kill him. He ordered them to kill his own son!

(8/9) Placid and Undaunted Devotion

Under the influence of his demoniac nature, Hiranyakasipu did not even see his own son as his son – he decided to kill him. But ‘Marabi rakhabi, yo ichchha tohara: if He wants to kill you, He will kill you, and if He wants to keep you alive, He will keep you alive.’ When the Lord protects somebody, who can kill them? Hiranyakasipu tried so many ways – he tied Prahlad Maharaj to an elephant’s leg, he tied him to a stone and threw him into water, he threw him from a mountain. Hiranyakasipu tried in every possible way to kill Prahlad Maharaj because he was a devotee of Lord Vishnu, Hiranyakasipu’s sworn enemy. Hiranyakasipu was furious, ‘An enemy took birth in my house!’ Prahlad Maharaj had to suffer so much because of that. You must all learn from this. How much Prahlad Maharaj had to suffer – he was even thrown into fire!

When Hiranyakasipu saw that every attempt of his men to kill Prahlad Maharaj proved futile, he decided to kill Prahlad Maharaj himself. He ordered his men, ‘Bring him to me! I will finish him today!’ Prahlad Maharaj came, and Hiranyakasipu asked him, ‘Listen, boy! Where did you get so much power?!’

Prahlad Maharaj replied, ‘O the best of the demons! I am powerful through the same power that has made you powerful. You think that you are very great, but you have got your strength through Brahma by the will of Krishna, Lord Hari – the Lord has given you some temporary power, but you do not understand who the Lord is.’

‘Come on, I do not want to listen to your talks. Shut up!’

Offenders of guru, Vaishnavs, the Lord and of the Lord’s devotees cannot stand hearing others talk sweetly to them. You know the story of Devananda Pandit – he made a small offence to Srivas Pandit (a great devotee of the Lord), but he had to suffer because of that offence. Nothing related to the Lord can enter the ears of such offenders, such things do not get any place in their hearts. Magnet generally attracts iron, but when a piece of iron becomes rusty, it cannot be attracted by a magnet – and it can never be drawn to a magnet until and unless the rust is removed. So, as long as there remains some offence in our hearts (nama-aparadha, seva-aparadha, dham-aparadha, vaishnav-aparadha), Krishna will not attract us, just as a magnet does not attract a piece of rusty iron.

So, Prahlad Maharaj tried to speak to his father and reason him. In the end, he said, ‘Hari is present everywhere.’

isvarah paramah krsnah sach-chid-ananda-vigrahah
anadir adir govindah sarva-karana-karanam

‘Krishna, who is known as Govinda, is the supreme controller. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no origin, for He is the prime cause of all causes.’

(Sri Brahma-samhita, 5.1)

He is the cause of the whole creation. He is the root cause of all creation and destruction, everything happens by His will. By His will fire has the power to burn. Hiranyakasipu said, ‘I had you thrown into fire, but you started playing in the flames! What is this? Why did nothing happen to you?’

‘Hari is the cause of everything that happens in this world,’ Prahlad Maharaj explained. ‘Everything and everyone in this world eternally serves Hari. Be it sun, wind, fire or moon – they are all Hari’s servants. Do you not understand it? If the Lord orders fire, “I am taking your power away from you!” fire will have no power. Hari gives power to everyone, be it Brahma, Siva, Durga, Kali, Laksmi, Ganesh, humans or anyone else, and when He takes it back, everything becomes lifeless and powerless. All power comes from the Lord, and The Lord can take all power away.’

So, what did the Lord do next? How did the Lord appear to protect Prahlad Maharaj? Prahlad Maharaj had argued with his father for a long time. He tried to explain that Hiranyakasipu was his father and he was his son only for a short time, but Hiranyakasipu did not want to listen to anything. You know, there is a saying ‘Good counsel to a rogue bears no fruit (chore na sune dharmer kahini).’ We are also like that – we are fallen conditioned souls living within illusory environment, and we live listening to all sorts of bad talks, we do not like to hear good things. We have so many things kept in our hearts that we cannot keep good things there. We say with our mouths, ‘I will keep You in my heart,’ but we only say it.

So, in the end, Hiranyakasipu said, ‘Where is your Hari?’

Prahlad Maharaj replied, ‘O best of demons, tell me where is He not? He is everywhere!’

‘Everywhere?! Is He here in my palace?!’

‘Yes, He is here too.’

‘Is He in this pillar as well?’

‘Yes, He is.’

‘What?! Hari is here, in this pillar?! My enemy is here in this pillar?! Let us see!’ Hiranyakasipu did not believe it, so he hit the pillar so hard that the pillar broke. The pillar fell down, and it was so big – like, from Nabadwip to Krishnanagar! Then, a great roar of millions of lions could be heard – all three worlds (heaven, earth and hell) began to shake. Prahlad Maharaj, a small boy, who said that Hari was in the pillar, was not afraid because only those who do wrong become afraid. You know, thieves are always afraid because they can be caught by the police or the owner, but those who have done no wrong have nothing to be afraid of. So, hearing that great roar, everybody backed off and waited…

(9/9) Prahlad Maharaj’s Prayer

…When Nrisinghadev appeared, He sat on the throne of Hiranyakasipu and roared so fiercely that all the demigods trembled out of fear! Even Laksmi Devi shivered to hear the Lord’s cry. Demigods came to Laksmi Devi and asked her to go to the Lord and pacify Him, but Laksmi Devi said, ‘Do you think I am mad? I always serve Narayan when He is peaceful. I have never seen Him in this state!’

Then, there was a great fight between Nrisinghadev and Hiranyakasipu. At some point, Lord Nrisinghadev let Hiranyakasipu go, and, seeing this, all the demigods gasped, ‘What if the Lord loses? What if Hiranyakasipu wins?!’ Even the demigods shivered with fear seeing their battle. Then, the Lord decided not to waste any more time. When Hiranyakasipu hit Lord Nrisinghadev, the Lord picked Hiranyakasipu up (the Lord carries the whole universe – all the fourteen worlds – so to lift this demon was nothing for Him!). Placing him on His lap, Nrisinghadev tore the demon’s chest and stomach with His nails and put his intestines on His neck! Seeing this pastime, everyone shivered with fear and did not want to come close, so finally Prahlad Maharaj stepped forward to the Lord. Seeing His devotee, the Lord became peaceful.

Prahlad Maharaj offered a prostrate obeisance to the Lord, and the Lord picked Prahlad Maharaj up and seated him on His lap. After that, there was the conversation I have told you about earlier (when the Lord offered Prahlad Maharaj a boon).

[Clamour in the audience.] It is said in the scriptures that if jiva souls cannot control their senses (five karmendriya – feet, hands, rectum, genitals, mouth; five jnanendriya – eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin), they may be striving very hard, but all their effort will merely take them to hell. But those who are wise and prudent (who have some intelligence) can attain the mercy of the Lord without any effort. It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita also:

patram puspam phalam toyam, yo me bhaktya prayachchhati
tad aham bhakty-upahrtam, asnami prayatatmanah

‘If one offers Me with devotion a leaf, flower, fruit or water, I affectionately accept that offering of the clean-hearted devotee.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 9.26)

‘If a devotee worships Me with a leaf, a flower, some water or fruit with selfless devotion, I lovingly accept all these items offered to Me with devotion.’

So, when the Lord defeated Hiranyakasipu and threw his body away, He took Prahlad Maharaj on His lap and petted him affectionately. Then, the Lord asked His devotee, ‘Prahlad, what boon would you like to receive?’ Prahlad Maharaj replied, ‘What can I want, Prabhu? You have treated me in a way that You have never treated even Lord Brahma, Lord Siva or Lord Indra, what more can I possible want? If You must give me something, then please liberate my father who has done so much wrong in his life.’ The Lord said, ‘This already happened long ago! I automatically grant liberation to those who chant My glories (kirtan), who take the darshan of My Deity, and so on, and your father has actually touched Me when he hit Me, so he left this body and his soul has attained the supreme benefit.’ I have told you before that if some inimical person always thinks about the Lord – even if these thoughts are about how to kill the Lord, how to harm the Lord – even they get liberation (sayujya-mukti, merging into the impersonal aspect of the Lord, Brahman).

There is a sloka in Srimad Bhagavatam that says that we always worry about the happiness of this body and everything that is related to it (wife, house, wealth, children, relatives, friends, and so on), but this body will be reduced to stool one day – still, we always worry about nice food, nice place to sleep in, nice clothes to wear. As long as we are situated in this body, we will think that our wife, friends, family, etc. are very dear to us, but as soon as this body is destroyed, there will no longer be any relation to all this paraphernalia of the body (friends, family and other attachments). Once you die, everything comes to an end. Prahlad Maharaj spoke about all these things. Srimad Bhagavad-gita says:

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant enquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

Do you know what Prahlad Maharaj taught his schoolmates? He told them, ‘Dear friends, sons of demons, just as you love yourself, just as you always take care of yourself, you must serve and try to please Him who is present within all jiva souls.’ But the more Prahlad Maharaj spoke about the glories of the Lord, the angrier the demons became. Hiranyakasipu became so angry that he even decided to kill his own son.

So, when Prahlad Maharaj’s request to grant liberation to his father was not accepted, he finally took one boon from Lord Nrisinghadev. He asked the Lord, ‘Prabhu, if You must give me some boon, then please give me this boon: make so that I may never want anything from You. I do not wish to have any asking mentality.’ In this world, we always want something – we even come to our guru because we want something in return. Somebody comes and says, ‘Gurudev, give me a temple. I will become the king (president) of the temple.’ Somebody writes letters saying, ‘Gurudev, if you leave, what will become of us? You have not made a temple in our area!’ Disciples come up with all these desires – somebody wants money, somebody wants a house, somebody wants a car. But what did Prahlad Maharaj ask the Lord for? ‘Make so that I may not ask You for anything – so that I may have no asking mentality. Please remove this mentality from me.’ We must learn from this. Therefore, I am begging you all for your blessing that I may never want anything from the gurus and Vaishnavs…

This is what Prahlad Maharaj asked the Lord for. And how did he pacify the Lord? Not only just by coming in front of Him. He said (Srimad Bhagavatam, 7.9.27), ‘My Lord, unlike an ordinary living entity, You do not discriminate between friends and enemies, the favourable and the unfavourable, because for You there is no conception of higher and lower. Nonetheless, You offer Your benedictions according to the level of one’s service, exactly as a desire tree delivers fruits according to one’s desires and makes no distinction between the lower and the higher.’ One gets a blessing according to their service. Always remember this. Prahlad Maharaj said, ‘You never give more or less to anyone, but You always reward one with Your blessing according to their service. Everyone does not get the same kind of blessing or benediction from the Lord. I know that.’ He also says (Srimad Bhagavatam, 7.9.26), ‘O my Lord, O Supreme, I am a resident of hell because I was born in a family full of the hellish material qualities of passion and ignorance. What is my position? Who am I? And what is to be said of Your causeless mercy, which was never offered even to Lord Brahma, Lord Siva or the goddess of fortune, Laksmi? You never put Your lotus hand upon their heads, but You have put it upon mine!’

Therefore, it is necessary to become a devotee. How does one become a devotee? ‘Bhaktis tu bhagavad-bhakta-sangena parijayate (Brihan-naradiya Purana) – you can get devotion through the association of devotees.’ If you serve devotees, if you associate with devotees, their qualities will come to you. So, always associate with devotees, then you will develop devotional qualities. That is why we always want devotees’ association – we always hanker for the footdust of devotees. There is no other way except for the footdust of the Lord’s devotees. ‘I am your dog!’ – we must think in this way.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Sarvasva tomara’ followed by ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and concludes the evening class.]

sarvasva tomara, charane sampiya,
padechhi tomara ghare
tumi ta’ thakura, tomara kukura,
baliya janaha more [1]

‘I have offered everything at Your feet and taken shelter in Your home. You are my Master; please consider me Your dog.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We chant in the kirtan, ‘I am placing everything at your feet,’ but meanwhile we keep the key with ourselves. We must think what we chant, and follow it…

sarvasva tomara, charane sampiya,
padechhi tomara ghare
tumi ta’ thakura, tomara kukura,
baliya janaha more [1]

‘I have offered everything at Your feet and taken shelter in Your home. You are my Master; please consider me Your dog.’

bandhiya nikate, amare palibe,
rahiba tomara dvare
pratipa-janere, asite na diba,
rakhiba gadera pare [2]

‘Tie me up nearby, keep me. I will remain at Your doorstep and will not allow anyone who is against you to enter – I will keep them on the other side of Your moat.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I have just remembered something. One time, I was doing collection for Gaura Purnima (Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama) with a few devotees. That day some devotee let us stay in his house. Suddenly, he took up a piece of chopped wood and wanted to strike me saying, ‘I am not “Prabhu”! I am a dog! You must call me “dog”!’ I did not say anything (I thought it was no use saying anything), and he did not hit me. I tolerated it. When you tolerate things in this way, the Lord arranges everything…

We chant in the kirtan, ‘You are my Lord, and I am your dog.’ If somebody calls you a dog, what is the problem? If you walk on the street and somebody swears you, what is the problem? It does no harm to you. When somebody does this to you, it means they have some problem, that is why they do this. For example, when Hiranyakasipu’s brother was killed, he decided to kill the Lord and even tried to kill his own son.

Anyhow, some days later, that man came to devotees and fell at their feet with tears in his eyes. I phoned the devotees later and asked them what had happened. They said that the man had come to them to ask forgiveness, but they told him that they had no power to give forgiveness to anyone, they said Gurudev would forgive him. I told them that they did good…

tava nija-jana, prasada seviya,
uchchhista rakhibe yaha
amara bhojana, parama-anande,
prati-dina habe taha [3]

‘Every day I will with great joy have whatever remnants Your devotees leave behind after honouring Your prasad.’

basiya suiya, tomara charana,
chintiba satata ami
nachite nachite, nikate yaiba,
yakhana dakibe tumi [4]

‘Sitting or lying down, I will always think of Your feet. As soon as You call me, I will come dancing to You.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I will come when you call me – when the call comes, then no material bondage can hold you back. Those who have demoniac nature become slaves of illusory environment, and if you try to pull them out of this illusion, they only become angry, antagonistic and full of ego.

nijera posana, kabhu na bhaviba,
rahiba bhavera bhare
bhakativinoda, tomara palaka,
baliya varana kare [5]

‘I will never think about my own maintenance, and I will always remain in the shelter of loving attachment to You. Bhaktivinod accepts You as his maintainer.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

* * *

￼Line Line25 March 2021, noon

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Noon Class

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/9) Sri Madhavendra Puripad: One of a Kind

Today is a very auspicious day for us – it is a holy day dedicated to the worship of a Vaishnav. It is also maha-dvadasi today, we are observing ekadasi-tithi on this day, and today is the disappearance day of Srila Madhavendra Puripad. You know about it. Gurudev always told me to make date-juice (from date molasses; ‘khejurer ras’) and shukto (a bitter vegetable curry) on this day.

Today is the festival in honour of Srila Madhavendra Puri’s disappearance. Yesterday we spoke about the glories of Bhakta-raj Prahlad Maharaj, how Lord Nrisinghadev defeated Hiranyakasipu and protected Prahlad Maharaj. Hiranyakasipu got the boon that he would not be killed by any creature of this world. There is a lion in this world, there is a human in this world, but there is no form that combines both, so the Lord assumed the form of half-lion, half-man.

Today I will speak about Srila Madhavendra Puri. He is the root of the divine wish-fulfilling tree of our line. Today is his disappearance festival. I will speak about it today.

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my godbrothers and godsisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

We have got this opportunity today to hear about the disappearance of Sri Madhavendra Puri.

jaya sri madhava-puri krsna-prema-pura
bhakti-kalpatarura tenho prathama ankura

‘Glory to Sri Madhav Puri, an abode of love for Krishna, from whom the divine tree of devotion originally sprouts.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.9.10)

Bhagavan Sri Gaura Hari spoke about Sri Madhavendra Puri, and we can read hat He said in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita.

prabhu kahe,—nityananda, karaha vichara
puri-sama bhagyavan jagate nahi ara

‘Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said: Nityananda, consider it Yourself – there is no one in this world as fortunate as Madhavendra Puri.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.4.171)

There is no one in this world who is as fortunate as Madhavendra Puri.

dugdha-dana-chhale krsna yanre dekha dila
tina-bare svapne asi’ yanre ajna kaila

‘Madhavendra Puri was so fortunate that Krishna personally appeared before him on the pretence of bringing milk. Three times the Lord gave orders to Madhavendra Puri in dreams.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.4.172)

The Lord came to Madhavendra Puri three times when he was asleep and gave him service.

yanra preme vasa hana prakata haila
seva angikara kari’ jagata tarila

‘Subdued by Madhavendra Puri’s love, Lord Krishna personally appeared as Gopal to accept his service, liberating thus the whole world.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.4.174)

Govardhan-dhari Gopal became manifest in this world through the hand of Madhavendra Puri.

yanra lagi’ gopinatha ksira kaila churi
ataeva nama haila ‘ksira-chora’ kari’

‘For Madhavendra Puri, Lord Gopinath stole a pot of sweet rice, after which He became famous as Ksir-chora (the sweet-rice thief).’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.4.174)

(2/9) Internal and External Struggles

bahu-dina tomara patha kari niriksana
kabe asi’ madhava ama karibe sevana
tomara prema-vase kari’ seva angikara
darsana diya nistariba sakala samsara

‘For many days I have been watching you, wondering, “When will Madhav come to serve Me?” Subdued by your love, I have accepted your service and will deliver the entire material world, letting everyone see Me.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.4.39–40)

The Lord says, ‘Madhavendra, I have been waiting for you for so long!’ You know, Srila Guru Maharaj has a book called ‘Loving Search for the Lost Servant’ – just as we are looking for the Lord, the Lord is also looking everywhere for us, His lost servants. We were just singing in the kirtan, ‘Vaisnavi pratistha tate kara nistha. Firmly establish yourself as a servant of the Lord.’ If you do not do that, you will have to fall into a terrible hell…

I have just remembered something. When we went to Mayapur on the first day of Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, you were all in the bus, and I was behind, in the car. The window in the car was open because I was looking and making sure everyone had got on the bus. At that time, I heard a woman say, ‘Sadhus are supposed to go on foot! Why do they go in cars?’ People are jealous and cannot tolerate it that sadhus go in cars. Such people are heading to hell. We have to return by car; otherwise, we will not come back until very late at night. It would take us the whole day to return here, to Godrumdwip. We go by car for service. It is not necessary for anyone to say anything about that, it is an offence to do that.

It is said that Srila Madhavendra Puri did not give any respect to pratistha, but pratistha ran behind him. He never wanted any name or fame, he actually ran away from Puri for fear of pratistha. Somebody wants to practise Krishna consciousness in seclusion thinking, ‘If I stay at the temple, I have to listen to others and do what they say, but I have some money – I can rent a room and chant the Holy Name on my own.’ This is called self-deception, or sheer cheating. This is also mentioned in the kirtan ‘Vaishnav ke’. Many do not understand its meaning, and if we were to explain the entire poem, it would take a long time. I will only explain some of it briefly.

rada-dasye rahi, chhada bhoga-ahi,
pratisthasa nahe kirtana-gaurava
radha-nitya-jana, taha chhadi mana,
kena va nirjana-bhajana-kaitava

‘If you stay with Radharani’s servants, giving up the snake of enjoyment, for your own name and fame, it is not the real glorious kirtan. O mind, when you leave eternal associates of Radha, what is the use cheating yourself and others with your solitary practice?’

hari-pada chhadi’, nirjanata bari,
labhiya ki phala, phalgu se vaibhava

‘You leave the lotus feet of the Lord and stay alone at home, but what will you get by that? The result will be false.’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

People leave service to the Lord and decide to live alone, practising service through remembrance. When you live in a temple, you offer bhoga to the Deities, and the Deities take it, and if you do not do it properly or timely, the Deities will have to fast and others will be telling you, ‘Hey, you are not serving the Deities properly! Hey, you have not offered the bhoga! Hey, you have not woken up for the mangal-arati!’ That is why many people want to stay alone. If you stay at the temple, you must wake up early to do the mangal-arati, you must cook and offer bhoga, you must do this service, that service; and if you live alone, nobody will tell you what to do, so you think it is a better life, but this is not Krishna consciousness – this is ‘Maya consciousness’.

vaisnavera dasa, tava bhakti asa,
kena va dakichha nirjana ahava

‘O mind, if you are a servant of Vaishnavs and aspire for devotion, why are you then crying and fighting for solitude?’

ye phalgu-vairagi, kahe nije tyagi,
se na pare kabhu haite vaisnava

‘Those who engage in false renunciation and call themselves taygi, can never become Vaishnavs.’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

If you give up everything – your parents, home, etc. – and live alone practising Krishna(?) consciousness, this is called false renunciation. Such false renunciates can never become Vaishnavs.

madhavendra-puri, bhava-ghare churi,
na karila kabhu sadai janaba

‘Always remember that Madhavendra Puri never put on a show (lit. never stole from the house of transcendental feelings).’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

Sahajiyas do that – they put on a show to impress others, ‘I have much renunciation!’, ‘I have love and affection!’, ‘I have Vaishnav qualities!’ It is not necessary to give up pratistha to become a guru – if you can become a disciple, that is sufficient. If you think you must become a guru to practise Krishna consciousness, you are mistaken. What is your capacity? When you make a disciple, you take all their sins and carry this burden on your shoulders – are you capable of doing that? If you can hold this burden, then you can become a guru.

kirtana chhadiba, pratistha magiba,
ki kaja dhundiya tadrsa gaurava

‘You give up kirtan and seek prestige and position, but what is the use of seeking such glory?’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

Many chant kirtan to get name and fame. It is written here very beautifully,

matsarata-vase, tumi jada-rase,
ma’jechha chhadiya kirtana-sausthava

‘You sink to endless jealousy and enjoyment of the material world, giving up the greatness of kirtan.’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

You are controlled by envy, enamoured by the opposite sex, and you are sitting showing you are mesmerised by kirtan…

kirtane yahara, pratistha-sambhara,
tahara sampati kevala kaitava

‘If somebody does kirtan (chants the Holy Name, preaches, etc.) for their own name and fame, then the result is nothing but cheating.’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

When you chant kirtan, you get much name and fame, but such chanting has no value, there is no wealth in it because it is only self-deception. I told you the other day that people read Bhagavatam and charge money for it – they call it ‘bhagavat saptah’ (professional seven-day-long reading of Bhagavatam as a way to earn money). Guru Maharaj and my Gurudev were absolutely against it. Such readers’ wealth is only pratistha – they can never become Vaishnavs. Their ‘wealth’ is nothing but self-deception. It is necessary to practise proper renunciation. This is what we do. We left our houses, but we did not go to the jungle – if I had gone to the jungle and stayed alone, if Srila Sridhar Maharaj had gone to the jungle and stayed alone, then where would all these devotees be? Where would they come? To rescue all them, Srila Sridhar Maharaj made a small house and gradually established a temple there.

kanaka-kamini, pratistha-baghini,
chhadiyachhe yare, sei ta vaisnava
sei anasakta, sei suddha bhakta,
samsara tatha paya parabhava

‘Those who give up money, women and fame the tigress are the true Vaishnavs – they are detached, they are pure devotees, and they can defeat the whole material world.’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’ Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur)

We must have no attachment.

asakti-rahita, sambandha-sahita,
visaya-samuha sakali madhava

‘When you are free from material attachment and establish the relationship with the Lord, then you will see that everything around you is Lord Madhav Himself.’

(‘Vaishnav ke?’ Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur)

There must be no attachment; but there must be knowledge of the relationship that everything in this world belongs to Madhava – everything is His property, His wealth.

Those who are possessed by envy and jealousy practise this kind of false life, but we pray to the Lord that we can tolerate all unhappiness, all austerities, all suffering.

tomara sevaya, duhkha haya yata,
seo ta’ parama sukha

‘Even whatever unhappiness I feel when serving You is a source of great happiness for me.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must not just say this with your mouth only. When you want to do some service, there will be a lot of obstacles – it is necessary to tolerate all difficulties. This is the highest happiness. If gurudev gives you service, you must do that service, and when you do this service, you must work very hard, you must struggle, you must tolerate so much suffering. You cannot run away leaving this service. One day, Gurudev caught my hand and asked me, ‘So many difficulties will come, will you not run away?’ I gave my word to Gurudev that I would not run away. I did not formally, or specifically, promise it, but I told Gurudev, ‘I will not run away, I will stay here,’ and I have kept my word.

I have come here now, but they still gave me such a hard time – before Gaura Purnima, they tried so hard to make so that I would not be able to make this festival and parikrama. But I did not accept it. They fight so much for money – they think I have much money, but I do not have even fifty rupees! I spend everything on devotees. They see the new buildings and think that I must have much money, but if you check my room, you will not find even ten rupees there – maybe only a mobile phone, and there is some petrol money for the car… There is nothing besides that, but so much austerity, so much danger and so many problems come to me…

At such times I remember the Lord and Prahlad Maharaj, ‘Prahlad Maharaj, when you tolerated so much austerity, why cannot I tolerate this little austerity? They threw you into fire, they threw you off a hill, they threw you into water. What worse austerity can there be? O Lord, if You give me more austerity, it is even better. The more austerity you give me, the more I will remember You. The more I suffer, the more I can think about You.’

(3/9) Defining Disciples’ Destiny

You can see the example of Sri Madhavendra Puri – he wanted to stay alone and practise Krishna consciousness on his own without so many people around him, but we know that Madhavendra Puri has a few disciples, and among them were Sri Ishwar Puri and Sri Ramachandra Puri. Both were his disciples, both took the mantra from him, but what has become of Ramachandra Puri and what has become of Ishwar Puri? You can judge it just now.

Both Ramachandra Puri and Ishwar Puri took the mantra from Sri Madhavendra Puri, but Ramachandra Puri became very proud on account of that. Therefore, it is said that there are three kinds of devotees – guru-tyagi (those who renounce their guru), guru-bhogi (those who use and enjoy with their guru) and guru-sevi (those who serve their guru). When you make offences, this is what can happen to you. Ramachandra Puri made an offence to the holy lotus feet of his guru, Sri Madhavendra Puri, after that his offence spread to Vaishnavs and, finally, to the Lord. He ended up being ousted from Sri Jagannath Puri Dham, and nobody ever heard about him after that – he lost his existence.

When Sri Madhavendra Puri was perturbed by the separation from Sri Krishna and Srimati Radharani, Ramachandra Puri started teaching his guru. There is a popular mantra that says, ‘Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Maheshwar: guru is the creator, guru is the maintainer, guru is the destroyer.’ So, Ramachandra Puri was saying, ‘You are Brahma himself, why are you crying?!’ He started teaching all this mayavad and nirvises-brahma conception to his guru. Sri Madhavendra Puri was enraged. He cried, ‘Get out of here, you sinner! I am suffering as it is, and he comes to add more suffering!’ Because Ramachandra Puri dared teach his guru, he became a guru-tyagi – he left his guru and ended up in hell. He went to Mahaprabhu and started finding faults with Him. When Mahaprabhu was taking prasad, Ramachandra Puri criticised Him. Because of him, Mahaprabhu gave up eating. He said, ‘Yes, he is right, I am satisfying My senses.’ Hearing this, all the devotees prayed to Lord Jagannath, ‘O Jagannathdev, please remove this person from Jagannath Puri.’ And Lord Jagannath did that.

On the other hand, Sri Ishwar Puri, another disciple of Sri Madhavendra Puri, became a great devotee. You all know the pastime related to his birthplace called Chaitanya-doba (it is situated near Halisahar). Mahaprabhu went there with all the devotees and took dust from that place, thinking, ‘I am taking dust from the holy birthplace of my Lord.’ After Mahaprabhu and all the devotees took some dust from that place, there appeared a pond. This pond is still there: it is called Chaitanya-doba.

Today is the disappearance of this Madhavendra Puri. There is no difference between the appearance and disappearance of a Vaishnav. In this external world, we have birth and death, but Vaishnavs are neither born nor die. On account of their devotion and devotional practices, they can exceed the lifetime allotted to them by the Lord. They worship the Lord so much that through their devotion, by the blessing and mercy of the Lord, they can exceed their allotted lifetime. I was reading today in Bhagavatam that every jiva soul’s life duration is allotted by the Lord, but when a jiva soul truly worships the Lord, the Lord extends their lifetime – if their service is still needed, the Lord keeps them alive for longer…

(4/9) Kali-Yuga’s Austerities

I was also reading today about the conversation between the Lord and Prahlad Maharaj. The Lord said, ‘Prahlad, you are a greatest sadhu, a greatest Vaishnav. On account of your devotional position, you do not have to make any sraddha ceremony for your dead father.’ Devotees of the Lord are situated beyond all common material rules and regulations. Many ask me, ‘My father has died, what must I do?’ It is written in Srimad Bhagavatam that the Lord Himself said, ‘Devotees are situated beyond all common rules and regulations, however I am telling to you in particular that you should make a vaishnav-hom (sraddha) for your father because you will be the next king, and to teach your subjects, you must follow the rules and regulations properly.’ This is why Prahlad Maharaj did his father’s vaishnav-hom (sraddha ceremony) – he called big brahmans and had them do a fire sacrifice for his father. And I was reading today what happened with the body of Hiranyakasipu after his death. I was very interested to know it. Hiranyakasipu had touched – had hit – the holy body of the Lord, and when they were burning Hiranyakasipu’s body, no bad smell came from it; rather, when it was being burnt, everybody could feel the fragrance of aguru (auspicious herbal fragrance). He was a demon, but because he had got the mercy of the Lord (he had got to touch the Lord’s body), he attained the abode of the Lord.

So, coming back to Sri Madhavendra Puri, you probably know that at some point in his life, Sri Madhavendra Puri went to Vrindavan and stayed there alone. When we do the parikrama of Sri Vrindavan Dham, we go to a place called Sri Govinda Kunda. Sri Madhavendra Puri sat on the bank of Sri Govinda Kunda and chanted the Holy Name in solitude, thinking about the Lord.

I told you yesterday what kind of austerity and severe yoga Hiranyakasipu practised – he stood on his toes for thousands of years to get a boon from Lord Brahma! He had to suffer so much to make himself more powerful. And so much fire and heat came from his dreadlocks that even demigods could not stay near him (they all went to the Lord and prayed to the Lord to help them). Even demigods had to leave heaven due to Hiranyakasipu’s austerity. So, it is very difficult to practise yoga – in Satya-yuga they practised such austerities to get the Lord, they practised meditation, and you can understand from this example how hard it was to do that. However, now in this Kali-yuga, we are given such a simple method – we can come to the Lord simply by chanting His Holy Name. The only difficulty is that nobody wants to chant this Holy Name without offences. It is not like nobody can do it – nobody wants to do it.

The other day one lady who had recently taken initiation from me called me early in the morning and said, ‘You have told me to chant four rounds, but I cannot do that. I cannot manage to chant more than two rounds.’ I asked her, ‘Anything else?’ She said, ‘Yes, there is one more thing. We are very poor people, and you told us to eat vegetarian food, but where will we get milk and curd?’ I asked her, ‘Is there no other vegetarian food besides milk and curd? There is so much potato, there are so many vegetables – is that all not vegetarian?’ Then she said, ‘I have just gone for an operation, my health is not good…’ I told her, ‘Oh, you are worrying about your health? So, you are thinking about the Lord so that He can keep you healthy? If you do that, He will keep you healthy, but then you will incur even more sins and suffering, and He will arrange for you to be sent to hell under the weight of all these sins. There is always free place in hell; they always need more people. You need money to buy fish, but you can use that money to buy vegetables.’ She said, ‘No, we have fish here in the pond.’ [Devotees laugh.] What am I to say? Who sent her to take initiation? When I told her that she had to follow the rules and regulations, I saw that she kept on looking at her husband at that time, and I did not understand why at that time. When I told her strictly that she had to follow the rules and regulations, apply tilaks, etc. she was all dressed up and ready to take initiation, and I could not tell her to go away, but when I was telling her that, I saw she kept looking at her husband. If she had known about it all before, she would have run away. Such initiations are not good. Gurudev said, ‘You can eat luchi, no problem, but do not take luchi fried in kerosine, you will have a problem with your stomach.’ I brought somebody to the temple, but Gurudev could understand whether the person would stay or not, so one day Gurudev told me, ‘I see you like luchi fried in kerosine?’ I learnt all these things from Gurudev. Whatever I am telling you, I have learnt it from Gurudev…

(5/9) Wrong Idea

Srila Madhavendra Puri went to Vrindavan and lived there alone, chanting the Holy Name. One day, the Lord came to him…

Just think about it – how merciful the Lord is. He is also trying to find you. You see the Deities here, and you may think that the Deities are made of stone, wood or clay, so you can do whatever you want. It cannot be like that. Gurudev always told that nobody should keep Deities at home emotionally. When we went to Nabadwip for the parikrama, I saw devotees buying a Deity of Gopal, but when you buy this Deity, you have to offer bhoga – whatever you all eat at home, you must offer it first to the Deity. You cannot keep Deities and feed Them air or a glass of water – will that fill anyone’s stomach? Gopal eats fifty-six items, He eats a thousand times a day, His mother cooks and feeds Him so much, and you give Him once a day some air and a glass of water. You will be eating a plate full of rice, and Gopal will have a glass of water! Is this how you serve Gopal?

You all like to burn candles at the temple in the morning, but you are spoiling the temple by doing it. This is not some candle-burning society here. Everyone likes to make the temple dirty, but nobody likes to clean it. Nobody thinks, ‘Let me clean the Lord’s temple; let me clean the Lord’s altar.’ Everyone burns candles and thinks the Lord is going to give them something. People come to see this temple with so many material desires – they burn candles, tie knots and stones to the trees, praying, ‘I want a son’, ‘I want a grandson’, ‘I have a granddaughter, but it would be nice to have a grandson, otherwise who will take care of the family?’ ‘I cannot find a good girl, please help me get my son married!’, and girls pray, ‘I cannot find a husband, please send me a good husband’, and so on. People make all these wishes and tie stones. What was Prahlad Maharaj’s example? He prayed, ‘Please take all my material desires away, make so that I do not want, do not wish for anything,’ and we are doing just the opposite, are we not? Mahaprabhu taught,

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

We sing,

nahi magi deha-sukha vidya dhana jana
nahi magi svarga ara moksa nahi magi
na kari prarthana kona vibhutira lagi

‘I do not wish for any bodily happiness, knowledge, wealth, friends or followers. I do not wish to attain heaven or liberation, neither do I pray for any supernatural powers.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We pray, ‘I do not want fame, I do not want position, I do not want to become a king or a prime minister.’ Some politician called me yesterday and invited me to come to them – I told them I was unwell and could not come. I have to lie otherwise there is no way out, they would force me to come, and when I come there, they will suck my blood and torture me there. I am with the devotees here, I am speaking Hari-katha, and if I go there, I have to mix with all these mayavadis – my heart does not go there, and I do not have time to go there. That is why I do not go to all places. Gurudev also said, ‘There is a hand from which I eat, and I do not eat from anyone else’s hand.’ Sahajiyas think that Krishna eats only from Radharani’s hand and not from anyone else’s hand because Radharani is very beautiful, but this is not so.

bhakter jinish prabhu lutiputi khay
abhakter jinish prabhu ulti nahi chay

‘The Lord eats anything and everything when a devotee offers it, but the Lord does not want to take anything from a non-devotee.’

(Based on Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.9.185)

Because devotees serve the Lord very well, the Lord takes food from their hands. The Lord does not eat from everyone’s hands…

(6/9) Check Who Is Calling Before Taking the Call

Many people do not practise Krishna consciousness properly – they try to practise so much, but it is all Maya consciousness, not Krishna consciousness. If you try to practise Krishna consciousness without strictly following your guru’s order and instruction, your worship is just worship of Maya.

Even if you have only ten years left to live – if you can do double service during this time (if you come to the temple, chant the Holy Name, do service, worship the Deities, etc., follow what gurudev tells you) , then at the end sadhus will take your body to the Ganges and you will get supreme benefit. What is your relationship with your previous family? You come here leaving everything, but after one–two months they start calling you (yes, Maya Devi will phone you all the time!). When I came to stay at the temple, I did not want to be disturbed, so I did not keep any connection with my family for thirteen years. They did not even know that I was at a temple, they actually thought I was dead and had performed my sraddha ceremony (a ceremony performed when somebody dies). I had to be very hard. My mother kept crying and came to the temple all the way from a very far away place, but when I saw her coming from the roof (I was doing the construction at that time), I came to the guard and said that a lady (I did not say ‘my mother’, I said ‘a lady’) was coming and she would ask about this person (I told him the name I had in my previous ashram), and I asked him to tell her that there was nobody by that name living at the temple.

I did it for her happiness. I was doing service to the Lord, and when she died, she was very happy. She may not have come to this path, but she attained happiness after death. It is written in the scriptures also, I was reading about it just today – the Lord said to Prahlad Maharaj (Srimad Bhagavatam, 7.10.18), ‘My dear Prahlad, O most pure, O great saintly person, your father has been purified, along with twenty-one forefathers in your family. Because you were born in this family, the entire dynasty has been purified.’ One must become a devotee for that to happen. If a true Vaishnav appears in any family, then twenty-one generations become purified. We must all try to become devotees like Prahlad Maharaj. You cannot just say that you are a devotee. There are degrees of devotion – there is vaishnav, vaishnata-tara, vaishnav-tama (kanistha-adhikari, madhyam-adhikari and uttam-adhikari). The greatest Vaishnavs (uttam-adhikari) do not even see anything in this world; Sukadev Goswami was such a Vaishnav. He was a young boy of about seventeen, but he did not see anyone – he came to speak Bhagavatam stark naked. He was not even aware whether he had any clothes on or not. What Sri Sukadev Goswami spoke had not been written anywhere on paper. Vyasadev composed Srimad Bhagavatam based on what emanated from the holy lotus mouth of Sri Sukadev Goswami (the Lord spoke Srimad Bhagavatam through him). Gurudev wrote about the history of Srimad Bhagavatam in his book, you can read about it there.

So, if you leave your family, what is your fault? Are you still thinking of your father and mother at this age? How old are you now? Seventy! How long are you going to live? People say, ‘Oh, I am dying without you!’ So, you are still ‘dying’ because of your wife?! What am I to say to you then, tell me? You think that it is better to practise alone, but what is the problem? Live here, follow what the Lord and your Gurudev say – there is no lack of food, no lack of clothes, there is no lack of anything. We tolerate certain things and live at the temple happily. ‘Tomara sevaya yata haya duhkha, seo ta’ parama sukha – even whatever distress I feel when serving You is a source of greatest happiness for me’ (Saranagati). We do service and whatever comes, it is our happiness. But you leave your service and go away… This is material, illusory bondage! Maya Devi cast her net, and you think you will go to your home and practise Krishna consciousness there…

(7/9) Pitfalls of Deity Worship

When Srila Madhavendra Puri was staying in Vrindavan, one day Lord Krishna Himself, disguised as a small cowherd boy, came to him and said, ‘Puri, you are sitting here without eating anything. I have brought you some milk, drink it.’ Although Srila Madhavendra Puri was a very great devotee, when Krishna Himself brought him milk, even he could not recognise that the Lord had come in front of him. Srila Madhavendra Puri asked the boy, ‘Where are You from? Where is Your house? What do You do?’ Krishna said, ‘You have many questions. I will answer them one by one. I am from this village. My home is here. I graze cows. Please drink this milk, I cannot talk now. I will come later to take the pot, and I will answer all your questions then.’ Srila Madhavendra Puri sat there waiting for the boy to return and chanting the Holy Name. In the end, Srila Madhavendra Puri fell asleep and the Lord came to him in a dream.

It is said that the Deity can speak, the Deity can give witness, the Deity can steal. We sing in one of the kirtans,

jaya dvija-patni, jaya naga-kanya-gana
bhaktite yanhara paila govinda-charana

‘Glory to the brahman’s wives, glory to Kaliya’s wives! By their devotion, they attained Govinda’s feet.’

(Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When the wives of the brahmans fed and pleased Krishna, Krishna told them, ‘You do not have to stay near Me to serve Me. Make My Deity in your home and serve My Deity.

So, when the Lord came to Srila Madhavendra Puri in a dream, He took him by the hand to the place where He was and said, ‘Look what an austere place I live in. I am scorched by the sun, and rain falls right on Me. Vajranabha, Krishna’s great-grandson, established My Deity in a temple, but when the Muslims broke the temple, My pujari took Me to the jungle and hid Me here.’ You know that if the pujari is a real pujari, he will always worry about the Deity, so when somebody comes to break the temple, he will always want to save the Deity.

We had some fake pujari in the temple once. When there was a big flood in 2000, I saw him taking rice and dal and thought he was taking it for the bhoga of the Deities. When the flood subsided, I went to the temple and saw that the Deities had been standing under water all these days! It turned out that the pujari climbed on the roof and cooked dal and rice for himself during that time. When I saw this, I told him, ‘Go away! We do not need this kind of service from you. The Deities are probably made of wood and you could not take them up to the roof?! How could you keep them under water all this time?’ He made Gaura-Nitai suffer so much…

Seeing that the Muslims would destroy the Deity, Gopal’s pujari took the Deity on his shoulder and carried Him to the jungle – he left the Deity there and went away. Having told all this to Madhavendra Puri, Gopal said, ‘Since that time, I have been living here, in the rain and in the scorching sun…’ Then, Madhavendra Puri suddenly woke up. He thought, ‘O God! My Lord has come to me, but I could not recognise Him! I am so unfortunate!’ He beat his head against the floor! Composing himself, he started thinking, ‘Where will I find the Lord? Wait, but He has shown me the way through the jungle! I must find Him!’ In the morning, he got up, gathered some villagers and told them, ‘Your Deity is here! Come with me!’ All together, they went to the jungle and, cutting their way through the thick forest with axes, found the place where Gopal was hidden. Then, Madhavendra Puri had Gopal placed on a big stone and told all the ladies to bring water in pots to give Gopal a nice bath. After bathing the Lord, Madhavendra Puri arranged for very nice bhoga and puja, and at night he again saw the Lord in a dream – the Lord said, ‘My body is still burning with heat. You must bring some camphor and sandalwood from Odisha.’

So, Madhavendra Puri went to Odisha and got a piece of sandal wood that weighed almost 40 kg(!), but when he was going to carry it back to Govardhan, the Lord again appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘You do not need to carry this wood all the way to Govardhan. You can apply this sandalwood onto the body of Gopinath here – His body is non-different from Mine.’

Many people worry that if they have Gopal at home, how can they come here and leave Gopal? That is why Gurudev said that you should keep a photo of Deities at home (not Deities), then even if you come here for five–ten days for a festival, the Deities’ worship is done here, so if you do not offer any worship at home during this time, it is not a problem. There are many Deities installed at our temples, you can take a photo of any of these Deities and worship Their photograph. Gurudev often said, ‘Do not keep a Deity and make Them a burden. Neither must you keep Deities and harass Them [by not serving Them properly.] Vigraha rekhe galagraha korben na, vigraha rekhe nigraha-o korben na.’ When you keep Deities, you serve Them nicely at first, but what happens after that? I have seen so many families (if I tell their names, it will give them pain, so I do not want to mention their names) where devotees take Deities, but then their children grow up and do not come to this path, so what happens to their Deities after them? Who will serve their Deities? There is nobody. So, before you make a temple, you must first find servitors. Gurudev said, ‘Before you make a temple, first make a room for the servitor.’ Here too, I first made the living quarters for servitors, and later, after Gaura Purnima, the Deities were installed on the Nrisingha-chaturdasi day…

Anyway, Gopal gave this service responsibility to Madhavendra Puri, and Madhavendra Puri arranged annakut mahostav of Gopal. In this way Gopal personally interacted with Madhavendra Puri. He told him, ‘Madhav, I have been waiting for you for so long! I kept thinking when you would come and take Me from this jungle and take the charge of My service and worship.’ The Lord accepted his service.

It is necessary to earn the qualification to do service. Gurudev said that these days ‘devals’ do the puja of the Lord (‘devals’ are professional, hired brahmans). Like, I heard they worship Seetla in Uluberia. I do not even know who Seetla is. [Devotees explain who she is and that she rides a donkey.] So, when you worship her, do you end up becoming a donkey? [His Divine Grace laughs.]

sadhu-sange krsna-seva, na pujiba devi-deva,
ei bhakti parama karana

‘Serve Lord Krishna in the association of sadhus and do not worship any gods or goddesses. Such devotion is the highest process.’

(Sri Sri Prema-bhakti-chandrika, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

(8/9) Srila Madhavendra Puri’s Purity

When Srila Madhavendra Puri offered the sandalwood to Gopinath, Gopal again came to him in a dream and said:

gopala asiya kahe,—suna he madhava
karpura-chandana ami pailama saba
karpura-sahita ghasi’ e-saba chandana
gopinathera ange nitya karaha lepana

‘Madhavendra Puri dreamed that Gopal came before him and said: O Madhavendra Puri, I have already received all the sandalwood and camphor. Now just grind all the sandalwood together with the camphor and smear the pulp on the body of Gopinath daily until it is finished.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.4.158–159)

When it comes to Chandan-yatra, we always apply sandalwood on the body of the Deities. This is the rule – it gets very hot by noon, so you must grind some sandalwood in the morning, take the Deities’ clothes out, apply the hand-ground sandalwood paste on the body of the Deities and put Their clothes back on; in the evening, you must again take Their clothes off and give Them a nice bath. It is a lot of work. Many do not even like to change the Deities’ clothes, but it is necessary to do it.

Sriman Nityananda Prabhu travelled through many holy places together with Srila Madhavendra Puri.

jaya jaya sri madhava puri
gopinatha yanra lagi ksira kaila churi

‘Glory, glory to Sri Madhav Puri for whom Gopinath stole sweet rice.’

madhava-purire dekhilena nityananda
tata-ksane preme murchha haila nispanda
nityanande dekhi’ matra sri-madhava-puri
padila murchhita hai’ apana’ pasari’

‘When Nityananda saw Madhavendra Puri, He was immediately stunned in ecstatic love and fell to the ground unconscious. Seeing Nityananda, Madhavendra Puri forgot himself and fell unconscious too.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.9.159)

madhavendra-prati nityananda mahasaya
guru-buddhi vyatirikta ara na karaya

‘Nityananda considers Madhavendra His guru, nothing less.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.9.188)

janilu krsnera krpa achhe mora prati
nityananda-hena bandhu painu samhati
ye-se sthane yadi nityananda-sanga haya
sei sthana sarva-tirtha-vaikunthadi-maya

‘Srila Madhavendra Puripad said, “I know Krishna has bestowed His mercy on me because He has given me the association of Nityananda. Wherever Nityananda’s association is found, that place is most sacred and completely transcendental.”’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.9.183–184)

Later, when Madhavendra Puri expressed his lamentation, he recited a sloka that we find recorded in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita,

ayi dina-dayardra natha he
mathura-natha kadavalokyase
hrdayam tvad-aloka-kataram
dayita bhramyati kim karomy aham

‘O gentle-hearted Lord, ever-gracious upon the destitute, O Lord of Mathura! When shall I see You again? In Your absence, my broken heart trembles. Beloved! what shall I do now?’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.4.197)

When he cried in this way, Ramachandra Puri came to him and said, ‘Why are you crying? You are above it, you are Brahma (guru-brahma)!’ Madhavendra Puri was very upset. He said, ‘Get out of here, sinner!’

The sloka that Srila Madhavendra Puri recited (‘ayi dina-dayadra natha he’) was composed in his last days, just before his disappearance… Gaudiya Vaishnavs consider this sloka the gist of vipralambha-rasa (the transcendental mellow of divine separation from the Lord).

Today is the disappearance day of Srila Madhavendra Puri. We have been listening to his glorification for a long time now. Yesterday, there was still something left to tell about Sri Nrisinghadev and His great devotee Prahlad Maharaj, so I will speak about it now…

(9/9) Prahlad Maharaj’s Ideal

The Lord appeared in this world owing to Sri Prahlad Maharaj’s deep meditation and exceptional strength of intelligence. When we read in the scriptures about Sri Prahlad Maharaj, we read about sakam-bhakta and niskam-bhakta. There are devotees who want something from the Lord: such devotion is called karma-misra-bhakti (devotion mixed with material pursuits), and such devotees are called sakam-bhaktas (devotees who have material desires). And the niskam-bhaktas (devotees who have no material desires) are devotees who pray:

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

So, Prahlad Maharaj prayed, ‘Prabhu, I am Your niskam-sevak, and You are my eternal Master. I do not want anything except to be Your servant.’ Our Master is one, and we do not want anything except to be His servants – if we can become His menial servants, that is sufficient for us; there is nothing else we need in our life. So, Prahlad Maharaj said, ‘I do not aspire for anything besides that. The servants who wish to get something in return for their service to the Lord – who want some worldly gain – are neither proper servants nor pure devotees.’

asasano na vai bhrtyah
svaminy asisa atmanah
na svami bhrtyatah svamyam
ichchhan yo rati chasisah

‘A servant who desires material profits from his master is certainly neither a qualified servant nor a pure devotee. Similarly, a master who bestows benedictions upon his servant because of a desire to maintain a prestigious position as master is also not a pure master.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 7.10.5)

Prahlad Maharaj, who is a pure devotee, describes here the difference between a pure Master and a bogus master.

ma mam pralobhayotpattya
saktamkamesu tair varaih
tat-sanga-bhito nirvitto
mumuksus tvam upasritah

‘My dear Lord, because I was born in an atheistic family, I am naturally attached to material enjoyment. Therefore, kindly do not tempt me with these illusions. I am very much afraid of material conditions, and I desire to be liberated from materialistic life. It is for this reason that I have taken shelter at Your lotus feet.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 7.10.2)

Prahlad Maharaj spoke with much humility, saying, ‘I am already very greedy, so please do not entice me with anything. I want to be released from this conditioned state I am in, that is why I have taken shelter at your holy lotus feet.’ These are very beautiful words.

Narad Muni also said, ‘Prahlad Maharaj is the highest person among demons. Demons always have many material desires, they always want to enjoy. By the mercy of the Lord, material desires for enjoyment and other unwanted elements can be removed. As the result of becoming a pure devotee, Prahlad Maharaj refused to accept anything for the enjoyment of his senses, he said, ‘Prabhu, You have taken me on Your lap, You have shown so much love and affection to me – You did not show this kind of affection to even Brahma, Siva or even Your dear potency, Laksmi Devi; and You are telling me now to take some boon. My greatest fortune is that You have shown me so much affection; there is no boon greater than that.’ Mahaprabhu said, ‘O Jagadisvara (Lord of the Universe), I do not want wealth, I do not want knowledge, I do not want beauty, I do not want to be a poet. My only desire is to have causeless devotion to You birth after birth.’

Lord Nrisinghadev told Prahlad Maharaj, ‘Nobody can know Me without pleasing Me. Unless one can please Me, unless one can make Me happy, one can never attain any happiness or peace in this world. Those who have pleased Me and satisfied Me with their service can never be affected by happiness or grief in this world.’ But we are unfortunate – we have not been able to do that because we only think about our own happiness. If we think about the happiness of the Lord, then the Lord will take care of us. I tell you this time and time again.

Narad Muni said also that Prahlad Maharaj saw the boon that Lord Nrisinghadev was offering as something unfavourable, or disruptive, to devotion. There are things that are favourable and there are things that are unfavourable to devotion: if you do what is favourable and also what is unfavourable, then all the good result of your favourable actions will go through the holes. We keep saying, ‘I want devotion’; when we see or call our guru, we keep asking him, ‘Gurudev, please bestow your mercy’, but if gurudev gives us some service, we do not do it. ‘Gurudev, please bestow your mercy’ means ‘Gurudev, please engage me in some service’, but we do not want to do anything. I have told you about the nine kinds of devotion (sravanam, kirtanam, smaranam, pada-sevanam, archanam, vandanam, dasyam, sakhyam, atma-nivedanam: hearing about the Lord, chanting the Lord’s Name and glories, remembering the Lord, serving the Lord’s lotus feet, worshipping the Deity of the Lord, offering obeisances to the Lord, serving the Lord as a servitor, serving the Lord as a friend and self-submission), but we do all these things and at the same time we also sometimes do what is unfavourable to devotion. If you pour milk into a pot with holes, all the milk will go out – no matter how much milk you pour, it will all go out if there are holes. We sing every morning:

bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

‘[Surrender means] engaging only in what is favourable to devotion and rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must give up what is unfavourable to devotion.

Prahlad Maharaj said (Srimad Bhagavatam, 7.10.9), ‘O my Lord, when a human being is able to give up all material desires in his mind, he becomes eligible to possess wealth and opulence like Yours.’ Have you ever heard the pranam-mantra that Prahlad Maharaj offered to Lord Nrisinghadev?

om namo bhagavate tubhyam
purusaya mahatmane
haraye ‘dbhuta-simhaya
brahmane paramatmane

‘O my Lord, full of six opulences, O Supreme Person! O Supreme Soul, killer of all miseries! O Supreme Person in the form of a wonderful lion and man, let me offer my respectful obeisances unto You.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 7.10.10)

In reply to that, the Lord said (Srimad Bhagavatam, 7.10.11–12), ‘My dear Prahlad, a devotee like you never desires any kind of material opulences, either in this life or in the next. Nonetheless, I order you to enjoy the opulences of the demons in this material world, acting as their king until the end of the duration of time occupied by Manu. It does not matter that you are in the material world. You should always, continuously, hear the instructions and messages given by Me and always be absorbed in thought of Me, for I am the Supersoul existing in the core of everyone’s heart. Therefore, give up fruitive activities and worship Me. If anyone always remembers your activities, and My activities also, and chants the prayers you have offered, they will become free in due course of time from the reactions of material activities.’

Prahlad Maharaj is very merciful – he does not see anyone’s faults (adosa-darasi). Although he had got so much austerity and suffering from his father, he did not even think it was suffering. When you call out to the Lord, you do not feel any pain. When we suffer, we must think that we are in illusion, that we have not been able yet to get free from illusion because otherwise when we suffer or experience some pain, we would not even think it is suffering or pain. When you go through some hardship but feel there is no suffering, then you can understand that you have got something. Devotees of the Lord never feel any suffering – even when they undergo some hardships, they do not feel any pain; for them, all unhappiness and hardships are a source of joy.

Prahlad Maharaj then said, ‘I know that my father, the worst of demons, has killed many brahmans, cows and has done many atrocities in this life, he has been harassing demigods and other living beings, he has even hit Your holy body! Please rescue him from this position.’ Hearing these words, the Lord replied, ‘Those who chant My glories automatically attain the divine abode, and your father has actually touched My body, so he has already gone to the spiritual world. So, he is no longer in that position.’ Then, Prahlad Maharaj told Lord Nrisinghadev, ‘If You want to give me some boon, then please may there never be any desires within me – so that I may never ever want anything from You.’

We too pray to Prahlad Maharaj that the teachings Prahlad Maharaj taught would come to our hearts, especially within my own heart. This is what I pray for to you all, to Prahlad Maharaj and to the Lord. We pray to learn and remember these teachings, so we are sitting and discussing them here at Sri Nrisingha Palli.

Jay bhakta-raj Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Jay Sri Madhavendra Puripad ki jay.
His disappearance day ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

[His Divine Grace then concludes the class with chanting ‘Manasa deho geho’ and the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.]

* * *

￼Line Line25 March 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Evening Class

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/6) Parikrama Schedule

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my godbrothers and godsisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Today is maha-dvadasi. Everyone has been observing ekadasi-vrata today. Many think that only the days of ekadasi are the fasting days, and it is not necessary to fast on maha-dvadasi. It is not true. It is written in Hari-bhakti-vilas that if an ekadasi is followed by a mah-advadasi, then the fasting must be observed on the mah-advadasi day (it is not necessary to fast on ekadasi). ‘Upavas’ (fasting) means ‘nikate vas’ (staying close) – it means staying closely engaged in the service to the Lord. I have seen that many of you have been doing various services today, and if somebody did not, then for them, chanting the Holy Name is also service, listening to Hari-katha is also service. Everybody does some service according to their capacity.

Tomorrow we are going out for the parikrama. Everybody must come for the mangal-arati, we will leave after the arati. We will go down the road leading to the new four-storey building. First, we will go to a place called Visramvat (also known as ‘Pancha-rati-van’), we will offer our obeisance there, at the tree where Mahaprabhu took rest. From there, we will go to Suvarna Vihar, the house of king Raja Suvarna Sen who later became Buddhimanta Khan in Kali-yuga and took part in Mahaprabhu’s pastimes. From there, we will go to Surabhi Kunja. We will distribute prasad there. Next, we will go to Svananda Sukhada Kunja, it is nearby; and from there we will walk to Hari Hara Ksetra, we will sit and listen to Hari-katha there, and after that the road is straight – we will return here. Tomorrow, the road is mostly brick road, so buses will not go there, that is why we will not be renting buses tomorrow. We will walk tomorrow. We have always done the parikrama of Godrumdwip on foot. We are fasting today, so tomorrow we will try to reach Surabhi Kunja quickly not to delay prasad, so do not worry about anything.

The day after tomorrow we will go again by buses – we will arrive at Champahati, the temple of Gaura Gadadhar; from there, we will go to the place of Samudra Sen. From Champahati we will go on foot. We will go to Ritudwip, Vidyanagar, then Jahnudwip and Mamgachi (Modadrumdwip), where we will take noon prasad. On that day, we will return here by buses, too; otherwise, it is a very long way to return from Mamgachi, and it will be very difficult for everyone to walk. So, we will go there by buses and return by buses, too.

This is the schedule of our parikrama; everybody must try to follow it and join the parikrama. If somebody cannot walk, there will be many ‘totos’ (electric/auto rickshaws) on the street that you can rent, it is not a problem. So, everybody must come tomorrow to the mangal-arati at 4:45 a.m., and we will start out by 5:30. Try not to be late.

You know, I am always afraid that there may be no water, so I always keep two buckets in my room. Other things do not matter so much, but I must keep water – one bucket for toilet, and one bucket for taking bath. I am used to this from the time I lived in Nabadwip – I have always kept two buckets of water in my room. Sometimes, we would go for the parikrama, and when we got back there was no water, then I would use the water from the buckets. It is my habit. There are many people here, and sometimes we also run out of electricity – we have a single-phase line now, but I see that we have to run three generators, so we need a three-phase line. When I lived in Nabadwip, I also made three-phase lines everywhere – one at Govinda Kunda, one at the four-storey guesthouse, and one for the temple and the brahmachari buildings. Here, too, we need to make two more lines. Otherwise, every year the number of people is growing, and it is becoming difficult…

Anyhow, this is our schedule for the next two days. Take care and do not forget to close the taps. Be careful when you leave your room – check that the tap is closed. If you leave the tap in your room running the whole day, it will be a problem for everyone. The cooks at the kitchen also need much water, and if there is no water, it is a big problem. So, always be careful.

Now we will chant some kirtans and after that I will speak about the glories of ekadasi and the glories of Godrumdwip.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

[His Divine Grace then chants kirtans: ‘Gurudev bada krpa kari’, ‘Kabe Sri Chaitanya Prabhu daya kare more’, ‘Parama Karuna’, ‘Radha bhajane yadi mati’, ‘Yasoda Nandana Krsna’, the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.]

(2/6) Away with Animal Ambitions

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy…

[Clamour in the audience.] Hare Krishna! Have you not heard just now? We were singing, ‘Visaya-katha parihari mukhe bolo ‘Gaura Hari.’ Give up material nonsense talks and only say, ‘Gaura Hari!’ Everyone is fighting and quarrelling, but is there any Holy Name amidst that? How long is this road? How long are we going to see each other? We fight with everyone, but we are born one day, and one day we will have to go away from here. ‘I am here for some days, and the main question is what I must do during this time.’ This is what we must know. We have got this human birth – are we going to spend it on fighting over food and clothes? When a dog or a cow dies on the street, birds, jackals and other animals come and start fighting over the body. When you see them fighting like that, it makes you think that people are just like that, too. You go to a clothes shop, there is a line; you go to the market, there is a line; you go to a bank, there is a line; you go to a post office, there is a line – people stand in lines and start fighting; somebody cuts the line and there begins a big fight. People in this world fight with one another for some apparent happiness…

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur wrote:

nija sukha lagi’, pape nahi dari’,
daya-hina svartha-para
para-sukhe duhkhi, sada mithya-bhasi,
para-duhkha sukha-kara

‘I am not afraid to commit sins for my own happiness. I am merciless and selfish. I always lie. I feel unhappy to see others happy, and I feel happy to see others sad.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘I feel pain when others are happy, and I get happy when I see others unhappy.’ Such is our character. This world is a place where everyone competes for their own interest, but nobody competes to get service to the Lord…

We took shelter at the temple a long time ago, and if we end up slacking in our Krishna consciousness life, then it is our fault, it is our disease. When we joined, we had so much enthusiasm to chant the Holy Name, to do the parikrama, to join the festivals at the Math, but we are losing this enthusiasm. This is our bad fortune. That longing for service that we had before is diminishing day by day. The longing to chant kirtans (kirtan-sprha), the qualification to do service (seva-adhikar) are going away day by day. Service is going away from us. When you lose your service, you must think that there is some deficiency from your side, ‘The Lord is not taking my service. I am such a great sinner that the Lord is not taking my service! And the Holy Name is not coming to my mouth…’ We must always think about service. We must always think how we can serve the Lord. We have not come to this world only to pursue our own interests.

We only think about money, food, clothes, friends and family – there are many religions in this world (the religion of serving one’s father, the religion of serving one’s mother, the religion of serving one’s friends), but the Lord has designated four ashrams (brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha, sannyasa) and instructed everyone to live accordingly. When you turn fifty, you are supposed to resolve your obstacles, give all charge to your sons and daughters, and go to live in the forest. But Srila Prabhupad did not tell us to do that. Instead, he made an arrangement for us – by the mercy of Srila Prabhupad, by the mercy of our Sri Gurupadpadma, by the mercy of Mahaprabhu, Vaishnavs open temples and arrange everything for men and women so that they could practise Krishna consciousness and serve the Lord. But I see that many do not want to come unless they are suffering at home or get jolted in some way. Nobody wants to come unless they are pushed to. It takes sukriti and, as the result of sukriti, sadhu-sanga.

We must understand this. ‘What is there in having wealth, youth, sons, and family (e dhana, yauvana, putra, parijana ithe ki achhe paratiti re)?’ People run after wealth and youth, but ladies know, ‘When I was young, many boys hit on me, and now I have become an old lady and nobody even looks at me.’

e dhana yauvana, putra parijana,
ithe ki achhe paratiti re
kamala-dala-jala, jivana talamala,
bhajahu hari-pada niti re

‘What is there in having wealth, youth, sons and family? Life is tottering like water on a lotus petal. O mind, eternally serve the feet of the Lord.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

So, age is not a question here. Mahaprabhu was present in this world for only forty-eight years, Prabhupad was here for sixty-four years. You cannot judge how long one will stay in this world by the age of the person (you cannot think that if somebody is young, they have a long life ahead of them), but for as many days you are here, you must use your time wisely. I keep telling you in the lectures – even if you live for ten years, it can be sufficient, it not necessary to live a hundred years. If you live for a hundred years and do not practise Krishna consciousness, then you have wasted your life; but if you live for only ten years and you practise Krishna consciousness during this time, then this is the greatest fulfilment in your life.

(3/6) Good Habits

The root of Krishna consciousness is taking shelter at the holy lotus feet of the guru (guru-pada-asraya). So, first it is necessary to take shelter of the guru, then the initiation can be arranged…

[His Divine Grace is distracted by a temple devotee sitting very far at the back.]

If you do not sit at the front, how will you learn? When we are going to chant kirtans at the end, I will see what kirtans you have learnt… Are you scared of me? [His Divine Grace laughs.] You know, those who study bad always sit at the back of the class. When I was a student at university, we were not like that. We used to actually fight over who would sit at the front of the class. Those of us who stayed at the hostel would wake up very early: we quickly brushed our teeth, took our books and copybooks and went to the classroom to keep the books on a desk at the front of the classroom to occupy the place; after that, we went away and waited until the class started. We actually fought over who would sit at the front. But the bad students always sat at the back.

From the seventh grade I studied at a cadet college (English Medium). Many people said that they could not manage living without their parents, but I came to study at the college leaving my parents at eleven years old. After that, I never stayed with them for more than one month. I never even stayed one month with them, and I left them when I was just eleven years old. When I started living at the hostel, I had to cook for myself, I had to wash the dishes and do everything. There were about one hundred students living at the hostel, and everybody would always put me in charge of everything. I would manage to take care of everything and even save some money, so everybody loved me because they knew, ‘This boy can manage everything.’ So, I got habituated to managing everything from the beginning…

Everybody has some habits. If I was not used to waking up early in the morning, I would also not be able to wake up. That is why when a brahmachari first comes to the temple, he must learn to do puja – when you do puja, you have to wake up early for the mangal-arati, you cannot sleep; and when you want to sleep in the afternoon, you will not be able to because you know you have to offer bhoga in the afternoon. In this way, they acquire certain sleeping habits – they will not be used to sleeping in the daytime…

saisava-yauvane, jada-sukha-sange,
abhyasa haila manda
nija-karma-dose, e deha haila,
bhajanera pratibandha

‘I enjoyed in my childhood and youth, and as the result, I have developed bad habits. Because of my previous actions, this body has now become an obstacle to practising spiritual life.’

vrddha-kala aola, saba sukha bhagala,
pida-vase hainu katara

‘Old age came, and all happiness finished. Subjugated by disease, I became distressed.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

People do not practise Krishna consciousness earlier thinking they will practise it when they are seventy. When you are seventy, you cannot even stand straight, you cannot do the parikrama. I have been doing this parikrama for twenty–thirty years now. During the parikrama I stand most of the time – sometimes I have to sit down now – but I still do it. So, if we do not get into habit of doing certain things, we will never learn to do it. It is necessary to have good habits.

When we go for the parikrama, I sometimes see boys and girls doing some exercise in a field. I think to myself, ‘Why are they doing it? If they just paid dandavat a hundred times (lie down on the ground and get up) when they saw Vaishnavs, then all the exercise would be done.’ Have you seen Muslim people doing namaz five times a day? Here is all your exercise. When you are habituated to this, you do not need any additional exercise. When you do exercise, your health will be good also. You must walk, then you will be used to it and you will be able to walk during the parikrama. We must practise and develop such habits.

It is necessary to practise Krishna consciousness, to train yourself in Krishna consciousness. You receive the Holy Name, you take shelter at your guru’s feet, but this is only getting admitted to a school. You cannot get a habit after one day. It is necessary to practise every day. It is necessary to practise chanting kirtans. I tell everyone – every morning and every evening chant at least five kirtans (ten in total). Chant Gurudev’s kirtan, Vaishnav’s kirtan, Nitai’s kirtan, Mahaprabhu’s kirtan, Krishna’s kirtan, Radharani’s kirtan – whatever you like. If you do that, you will remember all kirtans by heart.

There are many devotees who have taken both first and second initiations, but when I look at their faces, I see that they do not chant the Holy Name properly. I always look at everyone’s faces and see whether they chant the kirtan or their mouth is closed. Many do not know the kirtans by heart, they do not know the words, so they cannot chant after me because they are not used to it. And another point is that if you chant your mala properly every day (for example, you chant four rounds, that is 432 Holy Names), you will be used to chanting, but if, when we chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, your mouth is closed, it means you are not used to chanting the Holy Name.

I notice these things. I see that people do not chant even the Hare Krishna maha-mantra (not to mention chanting kirtans). They may chant today and a few more days, but four days later, when the parikrama and the festival are over, everybody runs home: when they get on their bus or train, they forget everything. They lose everything on the way. It is necessary to practise and become habituated to these things. If you always do bad things, you will have bad habits, and if you always do good things, you will have good habits.

I tell you all the time that you must always do what is favourable to devotion (bhakti-anukul). Always remember the nine kinds of devotion (nava-vidha bhakti – sravanam, kirtanam, smaranam, etc.). Take calendars with you, they are sold at our book store, and you will always know which day there is a festival. You can always call me (my phone number is there in the calendars), ask where the main festival will be and come, join us. You must always maintain your enthusiasm throughout the year – always look forward to the parikrama and festivals.

Practise makes perfect. How many days will we be alive?

durlabha manava janma labhiya samsare
krsna na bhajinu duhkha kahiba kahare?

‘I have got a very rare human life in this world, but I have not worshipped Lord Krishna. Whom will I tell about my misery?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must feel sad, ‘I have not been practising Krishna consciousness!’

‘samsara’ ‘samsara’ kari’ michhe gela kala
labha na haila kichhu, ghatila janjala

‘Time has passed as I have been busy with my material life, and the result is nothing – only garbage.’

kisera samsara ei chhayabaji praya
ihate mamata kari vrtha dina yaya

‘What sort of world is this? It is only a trick, a show. While I affectionately take it as my own, days pass by in vain.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Days are passing. I came to the Math in 1992, but I was just thinking recently, ‘I feel like I came to the Math just the other day. How have all these thirty years passed?’ How are days passing so quickly? We do not even notice how day by day, moment by moment, we are losing the time of this life. We must think about this. I always tell you that you must practise Krishna consciousness. You have come to do the parikrama of the holy dham – please do it, it will be very good, but many of you have still not been able to come to this path, have not been able to take shelter of a bona fide guru. Those who have not come to this path yet, must try to come. You think how you will eat good things, wear good clothes, earn well, etc., but you cannot get the Lord though all this.

(4/6) Beware Bogus Life

You can find in this world ‘gurus’ and ‘sadhus’ who will tell you that you can eat meat, you can eat fish, you can do whatever you want (‘I have given you initiation, give me a ten-rupee or fifty-rupee donation, and that is it’). There are many of such obeisance-taking and donation-taking gurus in this world. They open their shops, dress up as ‘sadhus’ and sit there waiting for ‘customers’. But you will not find many true, bona fide sadhus in this world who would be practising Krishna consciousness – who practise what they preach… I was telling you yesterday about Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s poem ‘Vaishnav Ke?’ – it is said there, ‘Prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara: as long as you have life in this body, you must preach.’

You can see the example of Srila Haridas Thakur. He may not have gone out for preaching himself (he only went with Sri Nityananda Prabhu a few times, and then Mahaprabhu left Nabadwip and Srila Haridas Thakur left for Puri), but when he came to Puri, he followed Mahaprabhu’s order and stayed at Siddha Bakul chanting the Holy Name loudly. Whenever anyone came to him, they saw him chanting. And this is not a matter of just four rounds – he chanted 300,000 Holy Names every day, which is ten million Holy Names a month.

Practise Krishna consciousness. This is your only duty – there is no other duty in this world. Some of you already have a family, and some do not have one thinking they still have time, but I wish I had left my family and come to practise Krishna consciousness earlier. It is necessary to practise Krishna consciousness from youth. Some say, ‘We will chant the Holy Name when we get old. Why will we do it now when we are still young?’ Look at the example of Prahlad Maharaj, look at the example of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Sanatan Goswami, Srila Jiva Goswami. How did they practise Krishna consciousness? Srila Raghunath Das Goswami lived amidst so much opulence like the king of heaven, but he left all his money, all his wealth like stool and urine and went away to practise Krishna consciousness. We also came like this. We came leaving behind all money, wealth, cars, houses, family inheritance, etc. People will never stop fighting because of all this. All such family are dacoits disguised as your well-wishers – no matter how much you give them, the more you give, the more they will want; their desires will never be satisfied. They will take everything from you and suck your blood to the last drop.

That is why I am telling to you all – take shelter of a bona fide guru, and those who have already taken his shelter must practise properly.

We all understand the relationship we have with our parents, brothers, sisters, relatives, friends, girlfriends, etc., we know them very well and understand them, but we do not know our gurudev so well. Many devotees stayed at home during lockdown, but how many of them called their guru to get some news? How many of them called their gurudev to see how he is? Maybe twenty–fifty people called, but there are so many disciples – they did not call to ask if their guru was even alive or dead. This is not what a relationship with the guru is. Gurudev is your own – he has shown you this path, he has bestowed knowledge and made your ignorant eyes see. What is there to be afraid of? That he will scold you? If you call and your guru tells you, ‘Quiet! I will talk to you later!’ What is the problem? If you get scolded, it is good – this is your fortune. Who is a disciple? A disciples is the one who can tolerate chastisement. Did you not hear yesterday how much honour a disciple has? Prahlad Maharaj told Lord Nrisinghadev, ‘You want to give me a boon, but You do not show as much affection to Brahma, Siva, Indra or even Laksmi Devi as You are showing to me! You have actually taken me on Your lap, but even Laksmi Devi does not get this kind of honour! You do not place Your lotus feet on Brahma, Siva, Indra, Laksmi Devi’s head, but You have placed Your lotus feet on my head.’ How many people have this kind of fortune? So, if you get chastised, it is your fortune. You must think, ‘If gurudev chastises me, it is his blessing.’ Chastising is a blessing, not a curse.

[Referring to one of the devotees who survived a car accident.] …Why did the Lord keep you alive? To sit in your family house and offer arati to your wife? He saved you to serve the Lord, not to worship your wife. You are wearing saffron clothes and sitting at home. What are you doing there? What keeps you there? What is there that you need so much? What nectar do you find there? What kind of nectar is pulling you to stay there? You think, ‘I know better. What does gurudev understand?’ ‘Marabi rakhabi, yo ichchha tohara: if the Lord wants to kill you, He will kill you, and if He wants to keep you alive, He will keep you alive.’ My Gurudev never let me go back to my home. When they were selling my father’s property, I could get two million rupees for it (now the worth of that money is similar to five million rupees). When I told Gurudev about it, he asked me how many days it would take me to settle it, I said seven days, and Gurudev said, ‘All right, I can give you this money right now. You do not need to go there.’ Then I understood that Gurudev did not agree that I would go to my previous home – what if they stopped me there and Maya did not let me go? Gurudev always wants to keep us engaged in the service of the Lord.

There is another person also – they say, ‘Oh, I have given you everything’, but in the meantime they keep the key with them. They asked forgiveness for their offence now. I said, ‘What offence? I told you one thing, and you did the opposite. You are not practising Krishna consciousness. You are practising Maya consciousness because you are not doing what your guru tells you.’ When I die, then you will remember what I told you. When I die, then you will understand it…

There was also another man – he convinced Gurudev that he wanted to stay at the temple, that he would take all responsibility, but then he became a vantasi (a ‘vomit-eater’) – he left his saffron clothes and went into family life. His daughter is now twenty-one already. He behaved bad at the temple, too, and Gurudev told him, ‘If you cannot stop your nonsense, better go back to your house and get married!’ This is what he did. Now he has left everything, he does not even chant the Holy Name now…

Time is going, days are passing… Gurudev told me, ‘Vinod, if you want to get great things, you must give up small things.’ I always remember this, and I always tell it to others. If you want to get great things, you must give up small things.

Your parents force you to get married, and you live a pig’s life with all your children. Is that a life, tell me? This is not life. There are very few people who live in family and practise Krishna consciousness. I am telling such devotees – practise properly. There is no difference between sannyasis and grihasthas.

I have no objection if you want to live in a family, but practise Krishna consciousness in purity.

prabhu kahena,—‘krsna-seva’, ‘vaisnava-sevana’
‘nirantara kara krsna-nama-sankirtana’

‘The Lord replied: serve Krishna, serve Vaishnavs and constantly chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.15.104)

grhastha vairagi duhe bale gora-raya
‘dekha bhai nama vina yena dina nahi yaya’

Gora Ray says to both householders and renunciants: Brother, see to it that not a single day passes without chanting the Name.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 7.15, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

Make sure that not a single day passes without vaishnav-seva and chanting the Holy Name. This is the advice Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu gave to all householders. Do not live in a family only serving Maya.

(5/6) Breaking Free from Maya’s Nest

Having listened to Hari-katha, King Suvarna Sen eventually gave up worshipping Maya and started worshipping Gauranga. You too must practise Krishna consciousness. Even if you live at home, you must maintain your practising life. Practising means following bhaktyanga.

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana
mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

‘Associate with sadhus, chant the Holy Name of the Lord, listen to Srimad Bhagavatam, reside in Mathura and worship Deities with faith.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.124)

Serve at home – associate with sadhus and engage in Nama-sankirtan. These five practises (above) are the main practices among all sixty-four types of devotion, and Nama-sankirtan (congregational chanting of the Holy Name) is the main among those five.

tara madhye sarva-srestha nama-sankirtana
niraparadhe nama laile paya prema-dhana

‘Of the practising processes, the best is Nama-sankirtan. If you chant the Holy Name without offence, you will get the wealth of divine love.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.71)

There was one devotee. He said, ‘My mother died, and now I am as if without legs and arms!’ He used to live at the temple and do service, but then his mother passed away, he was very sad, and I told him to go and settle everything (do all the last rites for his mother). He went home saying he would come back, but he cheated his guru and did not come back. He said that after the festival in Ekachakra, he would come to the temple in Mahadia and stay there, but he ran away from Ekachakra. Do you think I do not understand why he ran away? I have got power from Gurudev, do you think I will not understand it when somebody cheats and runs away? He thought that I would forget about it, but I remember that he said he had nothing to stay for at his home after doing the last rites for his mother – his children would take care of everything. But now he is living at home and serving his daughter-in-law. This is Maya. It is said in the scriptures also that if you make one step towards Maya, she will grasp and bind you even more – she will keep pulling you back and not let you go. You think that you will arrange your son’s marriage and come to stay at the temple, but then grandchildren come, and, just like witchy ghosts, they will hold you back – you will think that you must take your daughter-in-law to hospital, do this, do that, then the child is born, you start looking after the child, and so on. Then, the grandchildren will not let you go, and you will have to go everywhere with the small child. This is the state of family life. As you live amidst all that, your time will be gone – you will end up in ‘Gita’s samsar’ (one man went to Haridwar to read Gita but ended up having a very big family).

vrddha-kala aola, saba sukha bhagala,
pida-vase hainu katara

‘Old age came, and all happiness finished. Subjugated by disease, I became distressed.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We become miserable and sick as days pass. Many worry, ‘I cannot leave home, who will take care of my cows?’ Gurudev told me, ‘If you serve devotees, Krishna will personally serve you.’ And I see that despite so many difficulties, I have nothing to worry about. Where will I eat? What will I wear? I do not think about all these things. There are foreign devotees who always take care of it. One devotee phoned me from Spain today asking what service they could do. I told what service they could do. I know them, and I know that they have some capacity to help with money, that is why I can tell it to them. I cannot tell you to give much money, but I can give you other services.

You know, I am going for the parikrama tomorrow, so I have to take insulin, and if I go without eating anything, my blood sugar can fall very low, that is why they will wake up at two o’clock at night tomorrow and cook something for me. Will your wife cook for you at two at night? Some go to work without eating anything in the morning because there is nobody at home to cook. We have a security guard – he comes early in the morning; he says that nobody at his home wakes up so early to cook anything, so he comes without eating anything. What kind of wife is that? They cannot even cook at eight in the morning. They wake up when all the cooking is done by other family members – they come out of the room rubbing their eyes and go outside with a toothbrush. It is very rare to get a good wife. There is a man in Kolkata who was telling me how hard his life was, and he was asking me for help. I said, ‘What can I do? You did not listen to me. Your son was forty-eight years old, and you brought him a twenty-two-year-old girl to marry. Do you think a young girl will stay with a forty-eight-year-old man? She will find another husband and run away! You have made a mistake. Why did you have to get him married? I told you not to do it. You are getting pension, your son is working, I told you it was not necessary to get him married. Did you listen to me? Now your son is saying his wife has left him. Of course she will leave him. Do I have to teach you all these things?’

So, practise Krishna consciousness while you are still young, while you still can.

e deha patana ha’le ki rabe amara
keha sukha nahi dibe putra paribara

‘When this body drops dead, what will I have left? After my death, neither my sons nor my family will give me any happiness.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

They will take your body to the Ganges and leave it there…

There is another person also. He does service for the temple, but he cannot take initiation. He says, ‘There are so many obstacles!’ What obstacles? He says that he will have to become vegetarian and his wife will not cook for him separately twice a day. I know it. I know why he is not taking initiation – because his wife will not come to this line. She is worshipping Kali, Durga, they have all these Deities in their house. They make a museum of Gods in their house. I told somebody else, ‘Take the Holy Name’, and he said, ‘I have small children, they will want to eat meat, nobody will cook for me separately.’ What obstacle is that? How does it stop you from taking the Holy Name? Go to the market, buy vegetables and tell your wife, ‘Eat what you want, and I will eat vegetarian food.’ But then they say that the wife will say she cannot cook two types of meals. What is this? We have a devotee who stays upstairs in his house and his wife downstairs, and he cooks his own food. He does not talk to his wife, does not interfere with her life, does not even see her face. He treats her as a guest in the house. His sons came to this line too. They bring water from downstairs, cook something, offer bhoga and take prasad. I told him that he could come and stay at the temple not to struggle so much, but he says he cannot leave his business. Such is the strength of material desires.

So, when people try to come to this path, it is either a wife who does not let them, or a husband, or a parent. This is Maya’s samsar (family of illusion). That is why there is so much trouble and unhappiness in families. Many think, ‘But I live very happily in my family’, but then I say to them, ‘Ask yourself – how many of you really have a happy family life?’

(6/6) Remembering Ekadasi-Vrata

Today is a shukla-paksha (waxing moon) day, and it is a maha-dvadasi. When you fast on ekadasi, it makes the Lord happy, so it is very good to observe this day. Ekadasi days are very dear to the Lord. ‘Madhava-tithi bhakti-janani yatane palana kari. I carefully observe the holy days related to Madhava. They are the mother of devotion.’ Today’s maha-dvadasi is called ‘tri-sparsa’, or ‘tri-sprisa’, dvadasi – it means that according to the lunar calculations, three days are touching one day. In general, there are eight maha-dvadasis – Unmilani Dvadasi, Vanjuli Dvadasi, Trisprisha Dvadasi, Pakshavardhini Dvadasi, Jaya Dvadasi, Vijaya Dvadasi, Jayanti Dvadasi and Papanashini Dvadasi. It is said in Brahma-vivarta Purana that observing mahadvadasis (fasting on such days) destroys sins.

Also, during the month of Adi-mas (the extra month of Purushottam) there is a very special ekadasi called Padmini Ekadasi, and there is a pastime related to this day described in Gopal Champu that was composed by Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu. Srila Jiva Goswami was, on the one hand, a disciple of Srila Rupa Goswami and, on the other hand, his nephew; he served Srila Rupa Goswami at the temple of Sri Sri Radha Damodar. There is a story about writing the play Gopal Champu.

One day, Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu got angry and told Srila Jiva Goswami to leave the temple; he told him, ‘Go away, you are still not free from material desires, so you have not earned the right to stay in Vrindavan! You offend the holy lotus feet of Vaishnavs.’ Later, Srila Sanatan Goswami brought him back.

When Srila Jiva Goswami left the temple, he decided to fast (he lived without eating or drinking anything) and write the play Gopal Champu as he had been ordered earlier by his gurudev.

Why was Srila Jiva Goswami told to leave the temple? Because Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami misunderstood something that Srila Rupa Goswami had written and said that it was wrong. Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s sloka was correct, but Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu agreed with Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami that it was wrong. However, Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu, who was a very young boy of, perhaps, fourteen years old at that time, later went to fetch some water from the Yamuna, and when he saw Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami, he told him, ‘I did not see you that day, but since I have met you now, I want to say that you told that day that my gurudev was wrong, but you made a mistake. What my gurudev wrote is correct.’ He explained why he thought so, and Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami admitted his mistake. When Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu got to know about this, he was angry, ‘Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami is my guru, why did you have to go and tell him he was wrong?!’

That is why, you never know when you make an offence to a Vaishnav. Sometimes, you see somebody stealing and eating some prasad – those who do it are wrong, but if you go and tell anyone about it, you will be making an even bigger offence. You can speak to the person and try to explain to them that what they are doing is wrong, but if you do not tell the person and, instead, tell others about it, then this fault (stealing) will come to you. It is necessary to follow this at the temple.

So, there is a pastime describing the glory of Sri Govinda in Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu’s play Gopal Champu. In the play, Madhukanta and Snigdhakanta, two Vraja-basis, were speaking about the day when Sri Nanda Maharaj was observing ekadasi-vrata the whole day, with much determination. That day, Nanda Maharaj and Mother Yasoda offered many items to Lord Narayan – they performed a great worship, made a fire sacrifice and offered sweet rice, condensed milk, incense, rice, vegetables, herbs, fries, cakes, etc.

Sometimes, there are only two people staying at the temple, and they think, ‘Today is ekadasi, I will not offer rice bhoga to the Deities – if I offer grains, there is nobody to eat it, and it will be spoilt.’ No. You must offer rice to the Deities even on ekadasi. They think who will eat it if they offer it, but you can eat it the next day or feed it to cows or some small children. Mahaprabhu Himself once went to the house of Hiranya and Jagadish (in Chakdah, a little to the south of Nabadwip) on an ekadasi day and took there full prasad. So, you must follow ekadasi, but there is no ekadasi for the Lord.

Anyway, it is written here in Gopal Champu that all the Vraja-basis had been fasting on that ekadasi day and listening to Hari-katha, Hari-sankirtan, lila-katha, etc. – they were remembering the pastimes of the Lord. The next day, Nanda Maharaj went to bath in the Yamuna along with all the Vraja gopas (cowherds). Before entering the river, he started meditating. In the meantime, some spies of Varunadev came to the bank of the Yamuna, and when they saw Nanda Maharaj meditating, they quickly took him away.

Madhukanta asked, ‘Why did they take Father Nanda?!’

Snigdhakanta replied, ‘O brother! Nanda Maharaj thought that the time had come to bath, but Varunadev told his men that the time was wrong, so he ordered them to catch Nanda Maharaj.’

Madhukanta asked, ‘What happened after that?!’

Snigdhakanta said, ‘Listen carefully.’

Then, the news that Nanda Maharaj had drowned in the Yamuna spread immediately in all four directions. Having heard about it, everybody started crying, ‘What has happened to Nanda Maharaj?’ Nanda Maharaj’s four brothers, Upananda, Abhinanda, Sunanda and Nandan, also came there and started searching for Nanda Maharaj in the Yamuna, ‘Where is our brother? Where did he go?’ They searched and searched but could not find him. When Mother Yasoda heard about this, she became senseless. Regaining consciousness, she started praying to Krishna and the Lord, ‘He Ram!’ Hearing her shout and cry, Krishna and Balaram, who were sleeping at that time, immediately woke up. Mother Yasoda told them, ‘Have You heard that Your father has drowned in the Yamuna? He went to bath in the Yamuna and drowned!’ Then, the two brothers ran to the bank of the Yamuna. Krishna told Balaram, ‘Take care of mom and all the gopis, and I will search for dad.’ Krishna jumped into the Yamuna…

It is very difficult to understand the inconceivable energy and pastimes of the Lord.

When Krishna jumped into the Yamuna, He at once came to the gate of Varundev’s palace. When Varundev understood that it is Lord Sri Krishna Himself had come, he paid a full obeisance to Lord Krishna and said, ‘My men are ignorant. Not knowing anything, they brought Your father to me. I am begging You for forgiveness.’ After that, Sri Krishna beheld the numerous treasures in Varundev’s astonishing city. Suddenly, amidst all that, He saw Nanda Maharaj sitting and meditating. Sri Krishna pulled His father’s uttariya and said, ‘Father, father! Come with Me quickly!’ Nanda Maharaj opened his eyes and asked Krishna, ‘O son, where am I?’ Krishna replied quickly, ‘Wherever you are, it is not necessary to ask anything, come with Me quickly!’ (Krishna did not let Nanda Maharaj see Varundev’s opulence.)

When Nanda Maharaj came back and all the Vraja gopas and Vraja gopis saw him, they became very happy.

In this way, inconceivably powerful Sri Krishna manifested His pastime, immersing all His loving devotees in an ocean of joy.

Such is the glory of Padmini Ekadasi and Lord Govinda. This is what Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu described in his Gopal-champu.

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Suddha-bhakata’, ‘Jaya Radhe Jaya Krishna’ and ‘Hari Haraye’, concluding the evening class.]

* * *

￼Line Line26 March 2021, Parikrama

Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama: Godrumdwip, Madhyadwip

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/5) At Sri Suvarna Bihar

By the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma, we have started our third day of Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama and have first come to Sri Suvarna Bihar Gaudiya Math, which was established in Godrumdwip by Bhagavan Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad.

In Satya-yuga, there lived a king called Sri Suvarna Sen in this place. He had so much deep material attachment that he was always busy with the affairs of his kingdom, and he did not stop even when he became old. Ever engrossed in his material life, he always thought, ‘How can I increase my wealth and property?’

King Sri Suvarna Sen had some sukriti, or punya, from his previous lifetimes, and owing to that, he once got to meet with a Vaishnav: one day, by some fortune, Sri Narada Muni happened to come to the house of Sri Suvarna Sen. Although a materialistic king, Suvarna Sen had some good habit: when he saw that a saint or a guest had come, he would treat them with hospitality. So, because the king showed much respect to Narad Muni, Narad decided to bestow special mercy on him. He took the king to a secluded place and gave him the following spiritual advice:

‘O King! Your days are passing in vain! You are busy with your material life all the time, thinking only “money, money, money”, that is why you are always attacked by illusory environment – you always feel attachment to material things. You are wasting your life! Think just once deep in your heart: what is the meaning of material life (anartha; lit. “something that is wrong, inauspicious or unworthy of being offered in worship”)? Anartha means material desires, but spiritual life (paramartha; lit. “the highest aspiration, religion”) is another matter: paramartha means transcendental knowledge.

‘When you die, neither your wife nor your son nor your friends will help you. They are nobody to you! They may be your friends now, but they stay with you only out of their own interests. When you die, they will take your body to the crematorium, throw it into fire (or set it floating down the Ganges) and return home. Why cherish all these false hopes then? Why are you always running behind farce? You have nobody in this world. If you say, “This is not so. There is no sadness in my life. I only want happiness in my life, that is why I am naturally trying to earn some money”, this is a lie. Even if you have money, you still suffer from the threefold miseries (adhibhautik, adhidaivik, adhyatmik: the miseries caused by other souls, by the nature and by your mind). If you have money, does it mean that all suffering and hardships will go away? Does having money make one happy? What will become of you when time comes for you to leave everything and go away? All these material things will go away one day, all your wealth and property will be gone. This life is not eternal: you will be alive for some hundred years, and after that you will have to give up everything and leave.

‘Therefore, you must overcome all this illusion. When you cross the illusory world, you will understand that there is no unhappiness – real happiness is devoid of any fear or grief. Tell me, how is it possible to achieve such a miraculous result? Everyone knows that if you want to get something, you must give something up, but this result cannot be attained by any austerity or knowledge. Renunciation and knowledge will dissolve your material bondage, but all you will get through that is impersonal Brahman (the one-without-a-second Supreme Lord). There is no joy in impersonal Brahman – your entire being will be destroyed. As the result, you will lose everything without getting any highest benefit. Therefore, those who are intelligent give up all enjoyment and liberation and practise Krishna consciousness. You, king, are very intelligent, so judge yourself how you can attain benefit.

‘The knowledge of the relationship, the means and the goal is in detachment from the material world and attachment to the lotus feet of Lord Krishna. If you want to get Krishna, you can only get Him through devotion: not through any material actions (karma), not through any knowledge (jnana), not through any supernatural perfections (yoga). All desires for enjoyment and liberation are extremely trifle.

‘If you keep thinking about your material desires all the time, then, by the influence of Maya’s touch, you will always remain bound by illusory environment. Those jiva souls who live within illusory bondage are always busy with various activities – wandering in the illusory net, they keep coming and going in this world. They sometimes practise astanga-yoga, sometimes Brahma-jnana, they try to practise all sorts of religion, but everything is in vain: they do not even attain the knowledge of who they themselves are. Eventually, “having travelled throughout the universe and got the mercy of the guru and Krishna, fortunate souls receive the seed of the devotional creeper (brahmanda bhramite kona bhagyavan jiva / guru-krsna-prasade paya bhakti-lata-bija)”: after coming and going, coming and going, as the result of some fortune, conditioned souls reach the lotus feet of Sri Gurupadpadma and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and get pure devotion and faith. Having got this pure saintly association, all dirt, all unwanted elements go away from such fortunate jiva souls’ hearts, and they become firmly fixed in their spiritual life. From firmness gradually comes taste; from taste, attachment; from attachment, transcendental love and devotion. This is how the full result comes through listening (sravan) and chanting (kirtan).

‘Dear king, you are so fortunate – you live right here in Nabadwip! Make your faith firm in the association of saints and chant the glory of the Holy Name of Krishna! Then, the sun of transcendental love must no doubt arise in your heart.

‘When Gauranga Mahaprabhu comes in Kali-yuga, everyone will get the mercy of Lord Krishna. You too will again come here at that time, and you will chant the Holy Name of Gauranga. If you worship Krishna without chanting Gauranga’s Name, it will take you a very long time to reach Krishna’s abode, but if you chant Gauranga’s Name, all offences will go away from your heart, and you will get Krishna very quickly.’

As Narad Muni spoke all this, he became overwhelmed with transcendental love for Krishna and began to dance and chant, ‘Gaura! Gaura!’ His vina also started chanting, ‘Gaura Hari! Gaura Hari!’ In the end, Narad said, ‘When will this blessed Kali-yuga come? When will this Gauranga come? Chanting Gaura’s Name, I will become so fortunate!’ Saying this, Narad left.

Having got the association of Narad Goswami, King Sri Suvarna Sen started thinking about what he had heard. The seed of material attachment growing in his heart gradually began to perish, and after that, first detachment from the material world and then transcendental love arose in it: affected by Narad Goswami’s words, he started to dance, chanting, ‘O Gauranga! O Gauranga!’ Falling at all saints’ holy lotus feet, he started begging them for transcendental love: all his material desires and attachment were gone far away.

One day, Sri Gaura-Gadadhar, along with some devotees, came to the king in a dream. The king saw how everyone was dancing in his courtyard, embracing and greeting each other, with the sounds of ‘Hare Krishna’ chanted and heard all around. When the dream broke and the king awoke, he began to weep. Suddenly, he heard a divine message from the sky, ‘Dear king, when Gauranga Mahaprabhu comes, you too will come as His associate. Your name will be Buddhimanta Khan, and you will get an opportunity to serve Gauranga.’

In this way, he who was King Sri Suvarna Sen in Satya-yuga became Buddhimanta Khan in Kali-yuga.

In 1936, Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur established a temple of Sri Gaudiya Math here in Sri Suvarna Bihar, and we have been coming here every year by the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma, remembering these beautiful pastimes that took place here.

Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol!

Raja Sri Suvarna Sen ki jay.

Sri Suvarna Bihar ki jay.

Sri Buddhimanta Khan ki jay.

(2/5) At Sri Surabhi Kunja

[His Divine Grace chants ‘A Broker’s Song’ (‘Bara sukhera khabara gai’), which is sung by Srila Bhakti Vedanta Avadhut Maharaj, the head servitor at Sri Surabhi Kunja Temple, every year.]

[To Srila B.V. Avadhut Maharaj, who is approaching the platform on which His Divine Grace is seated together with some devotees.] Come, Maharaj, come. I have sung ‘your’ kirtan today! I tried. I have chanted it for the first time today. [His Divine Grace chuckles.]

Continuing our parikrama, we have now come to Sri Surabhi Kunja in Godrumdwip. Among the nine islands of Nabadwip, Godrumdwip is the abode of kirtan. Simantadwip is the abode of sravanam, Godrumdwip is kirtanam, Madhyadwip is smaranam, Koladwip is pada-sevanam, Ritudwip is archanam, Jahnudwip is vandanam, Modadrumdwip is dasyam, Rudradwip is sakhyam, and Antardwip is atma-nivedanam.

On the first day, you went to Antardwip, Simantadwip and Rudradwip. After that, we went to Koladwip, and today we have come to Godrumdwip and will also go to Madhyadwip (Sri Hari-Hara Ksetra).

At this place, having received, by the mercy of Surabhi Cow, an order to engage in the worship of Gaura, Markandeya Muni took shelter in pure devotion. In Krishna-lila, Markandeya Muni was Lord Indradev. Actually, ‘go’ means ‘a cow’ and ‘drum’ [pronounced as ‘droom’] means ‘a tree’. Because there used to be an asvattha (banyan) tree and the heavenly cow Surabhi lived under it, this place is called Godrum. Try to remember and keep all that is said here in your heart.

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur built this Surabhi Kunja house in 1888, and it was from here that he started Sri Nama-hatta. Originally, Nama-hatta (the market of the Holy Name) was established by Sriman Nityananda Prabhu, but gradually, this market had become lost as so much misconception sprang up (aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, sakhibekhi, jata gosai, and so on). Later, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came and again established Sri Nama-hatta in Surabhi Kunja, in 1888. You have come to this eternally pure place today. Establishing Sri Nama-hatta at this place, Nityananda Prabhu started preaching here on Mahaprabhu’s order. Later, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came here and revealed the glory of this place.

Those of you who went with me to Vrindavan know about the pastime of Govardhan-dhari Gopal (Krishna who lifts Govardhan Hill). In Dvapar-yuga, not being able to recognise the Lord, Indradev committed an offence at the holy feet of Lord Krishna. What offence was it? Every year, the residents of Vraja usually made an offering to Lord Indra to get regular rains (if it rains regularly, then grass grows well, cows eat well, the crops are good, etc.). One year, however, Lord Krishna said, ‘We must worship Giriraj Govardhan now! We will not worship Indra anymore! If we worship Giriraj Govardhan, we will get everything!’ Then, Nanda Maharaj, together with all the Vraja-basis, stopped their worship of Indradev and started worshipping Giriraj Govardhan.

Indradev became angry that the residents of Vraja had worshipped Govardhan, so he sent torrential rains onto Vrindavan. All the Vraja-basis became scared, ‘Indradev has become angry! O Lord, please protect us!’ but Krishna assured them, ‘There is nothing to be afraid of! Giriraj Govardhan will protect us.’ Then, Lord Krishna lifted Govardhan Hill and during seven days sheltered all Vraja-basis underneath it. Because Sri Krishna showed Himself as a cowherd boy, they all forgot that Krishna was the Supreme Lord. Then, seven days later, Indradev stopped the rain, thinking, ‘These Vraja-basis must be all scared – now they will again start worshipping me!’ But when the rain stopped and all the water dried up, Vraja-basis returned to their homes and were amazed to see that all their things at home where just like that – there was no damage or loss. They were very happy, ‘Now we will worship Giriraj Govardhan every year! We will not worship Indra anymore.’

Meanwhile, Indradev began to doubt, ‘These Vraja-basis did not become scared, and there was no damage to their houses – they behave like nothing has happened.’ Then, he came to meet with the heavenly cow Surabhi, the mother of all cows. He asked her, ‘Mother, tell me who is this Krishna? Is He an ordinary cowherd boy? He is saying that they must stop my worship and worship Govardhan instead, and after worshipping Govardhan, their happiness only increased!’ Surabhi said, ‘Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and He has protected everyone. You have made a mistake: not being able to recognise Him, You mistook Him for an ordinary boy. Go to Him and beg Him for forgiveness.’ Indradev agreed, but then he said, ‘I am scared to go alone. Please come with me.’

So”, Indradev came to Lord Sri Krishna together with Surabhi Cow. Arriving at Govardhan Hill, Indradev pleased the Lord with his offering of prayers, praise and abhisek (auspicious bathing). Feeling satisfied with Indra, Sri Krishna cleared his offences.

Then, Indradev returned to heaven, but some days later, he felt scared again. He came again to Surabhi and said, ‘Mother Surabhi, I again feel scared…’

‘King, listen to what I will tell you’, said Surabhi. ‘Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu will appear in Nabadwip Dham in Kali-yuga, and He will grant all offenders the Holy Name of Lord Krishna, liberating them thus from all offences: He will bless them with devotion and transcendental love to Krishna.’

‘Mother Surabhi,’ asked Indradev, ‘I could not recognise Krishna, so when Gauranga Mahaprabhu comes, what if I again cannot understand His pastimes or recognise Him, too? I will then again commit offences. Mother, please do me a favour. Take me now to this Nabadwip Dham. I will worship Gauranga and receive His darshan.’

So, Indradev came here, to the place where we are sitting now, in Dvapar-yuga, accompanied by Surabhi Cow. There used to be a banyan tree here before: Surabhi and Indradev sat under that tree and started worshipping Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Some time later, Mahaprabhu granted them His darshan: receiving the Lord’s darshan, Indradev felt extremely happy in his heart. After that, Indra left for heaven, but Surabhi Cow stayed here. This is how this place got its name, Sri Surabhi Kunja (the grove of Mother Surabhi).

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur said that this Godrumdwip is non-different from Nanda-gram in Vrindavan. The island of Godrumdwip stretches from here all the way to Nrisingha Palli, and the expanse of the banyan tree that grew here was eight kilometres(!).

One time, there was a great flood in the world. A sage called Markandeya Muni had received a boon of a seven-kalpa-long life [seven days of Lord Brahma, each day consisting of four yugas, finishing with the universal annihilation] from Lord Siva, which meant that he did not die when there was a universal flood at the end of each kalpa. One day, at the time of one of such floods, Markandeya Muni was floating in the water and somehow came to Nabadwip Dham (the glory of Nabadwip Dham is such that this holy abode is never flooded). When Markandeya Muni came here, he saw Surabhi Cow. He came to her and asked, ‘Mother, I have been starving for a very long time. Please let me drink some milk and regain my strength.’ Merciful Surabhi fed Markandeya Rishi with her milk and helped him recover.

Regaining his strength, Markandeya Rishi offered prayers to Surabhi Cow and asked her, ‘Mother Surabhi, why are you sitting here? Do you not stay in heaven?’

‘I am worshipping My Lord here, that is why I am here,’ Surabhi Cow replied.

‘You are so fortunate! Why have I only got this boon of seven kalpas? I do not understand anything. Getting this boon, I only feel unhappy. What should I do now?’

‘Stay here and worship Gaura!’ Surabhi said.

‘What will I get if I worship Gaura?’

‘If you worship Gaura, Mahaprabhu will grant His darshan to you: you can get transcendental power (devotion to Lord Krishna), and there will be no unhappiness in your life. There is no criteria for worshipping Gaura: whoever chants the Name of Gaura, all their material bondage, attachment and desire for liberation will be destroyed.’

Overcome with devotion, Markandeya Rishi then started chanting the Name of Gauranga Mahaprabhu: as he chanted the Holy Name, he felt that he had got his life back.

After that, Mahaprabhu appeared in this world, and when He left for Sri Puri Dham, He sent Nityananda Prabhu here for preaching. Coming to Nabadwip Dham, Nityananda Prabhu stayed here for three months and opened here a marketplace of the Holy Name (Nama-hatta). After Nityananda Prabhu left, three hundred years later, the preaching of Vaishnavism had eventually stopped. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came here for the first time in 1888 and again started to manifest that Nama-hatta. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur wrote this prayer glorifying Godrum:

sura-sarida upakanthe godrume gaura diyechhe

vasati surabhi-kunje bhakti-purvam vinoda

yugala-charane seva sakhya-labhiya aso

vraja-rasa-rasikaya padapadma asraya atra

‘As I have pleased Bhakti Devi, Gaura has given me a dwelling at Surabhi Kunja standing on the bank of the Ganges, on the outskirts of Godrum. Aspiring to enter the service of the Divine Couple as a friend, I have taken here the shelter of the holy lotus feet of expert devotees revelling in the ecstatic devotional mellows of Vraja Dham.’

Staying here, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur composed many scriptures: Jaiva Dharma, Saranagati, Chaitanya-chartamrta’s Amrita-Pravaha Bhasya and many other books. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur preached from Surabhi Kunja, and it is by his mercy that we are able to do this Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama today.

Jay Sri Nabadwip Dham ki jay!
Jay Srila Bhakti Vedanta Avadhut Maharaj ki jay.
Samagata Gaura-bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Bhakta-raj Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Bhagavan Sri Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

(3/5) At Sri Svananda Sukhada Kunja (1)

These Deities of Sri Sri Gaura Gadadhar were installed by Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur appeared in Sri Puri Dham, but later he came to live here alone with Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur. This place is called Svananda Sukhada Kunja. In Vrindavan, on the bank of Sri Radha Kunda, there is Srila Prabhupad’s bhajan-kutir, it is also called Svananda Sukhada Kunja. We have come here today by a great fortune. This is Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s samadhi-mandir and bhajan-kutir.

It was from this house that Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur saw Mahaprabhu’s birthplace for the first time. After Mahaprabhu’s birthplace was discovered, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur and Srila Prabhupad established Sri Chaitanya Math. At that time, there were no temples in Mayapur. Later, Srila Prabhupad established many temples all over Nabadwip, which are almost all the places that we now visit during the parikrama. Suvarna Bihar, Srivas Angan, Advaita Acharya Bhavan, Gadadhar Pandit Angan, Mamgachi, Vidyanagar, Champahati, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya’s house and other places were discovered and established by Srila Prabhupad. During his lifetime, Srila Prabhupad opened sixty-four temples in India.

guru-dam grantha-dam gaura-dhama-dam nama-dam muda

bhakti-dam bhuri-dam vande bhakti-vinodakam sada

“He is the giver of Sri Guru; he is the giver of scriptures; he is giver of the holy dham of Gaura; he is the giver of the Name; he is the giver of pure devotion; he is the greatest donor. I always offer my obeisance to this Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur.”

(Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur has given us our guru. If Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur had not come, then he would not have prayed and Srila Prabhupad would not have come; and if Srila Prabhupad had not come, we would not have got Srila Sridhar Maharaj; and if Srila Sridhar Maharaj had not come, we would not have found our gurudev. Therefore, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur is the giver of the guru.

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur has given us many scriptures, including Sri Jaiva Dharma, Mahaprabhu’s Siksa and many others. Most of the kirtans that we sing were also written by Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur. Everybody would pay obeisance to Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur. Even if he was a grihastha, what of it? In Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s time, everyone, including sannyasis, would come and pay full prostrate obeisance to him. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur had eleven children, and the sixth among them was Srila Prabhupad. Srila Sridhar Maharaj composed this sloka about Srila Prabhupad:

nikhila-bhuvana-maya-chhinnavichchhinna-kartri
vibudhabahula-mrgya-mukti-mohanta-datri
sithilita-vidhi-raga-radhya-radhesa-dhani
vilasatu hrdi nityam bhakti-siddhanta-vani

‘He slashed to shreds the illusion of the whole material universe, putting a stop to scholarly speculations and conceptions of liberation; he eased the strict rules and regulations, bestowing the conception of natural loving worship of the Divine Couple – may the devotional teachings of this Sri Bhaktisiddhanta play eternally in your heart.’

(Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Srila Prabhupad relaxed the strictness of rules and regulations. Before, people used to fast on ekadasi for three days (one day before, on the day of ekadasi itself and one day after it). Most Bengalis did not fast, and mostly only ladies fasted. Moreover, people could not fast without having anything (nirjala). For all these reasons, Srila Prabhupad instructed that we must do service on ekadasi, chant the Holy Name and skip only one meal (we can take anukalpa during the rest of the day). Srila Prabhupad made the rules less stricter. Moreover, Srila Prabhupad cut asunder the illusory environment by declaring a totalitarian war against Maya. How did he fight this war? He did not take any weapons in his hands: instead, he would send his brahmacharis and sannyasis for preaching and fight with drums and karatals.

krsna—surya-sama; maya haya andhakara

yanha krsna, tanha nahi mayara adhikara

‘Krishna is like the sun, Maya is like darkness. Maya has no right to be where Krishna is.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.31)

A Vaishnav poet wrote also:

sri-gauranga-parisada, thakura bhaktivinoda,

dina-hina patitera bandhu

kali-tamah vinasite, anilena avanite,

toma’ akalanka purna indu

‘Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur is an associate of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu and a friend of all lowly and fallen souls – to dispel all darkness of this dark age, he brought to this earth you [Srila Saraswati Thakur], a spotless full moon.’

(Acharya Vandana)

These are very beautiful words. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur is an associate of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu, and he brought Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur to start preaching. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur told him that he had to start fighting against Maya. So, when Srila Prabhupad was staying in Mayapur, he vowed to chant one billion Holy Names (sata-koti Harinam yajna). Upon the completion of his vow, he received some inspiration to start preaching, but he wondered, ‘How will I preach alone?’ and the Lord said, ‘I will send My associates to help you.’ After that, the Lord sent Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Goswami Maharaj and many others to this world.

If you go upstairs, you can see many items that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur used – you can see how much he studied. The books are still kept there. You can also see their fan. There was no electricity in those days, so you can see what kind of fans they used in those days. Srila Prabhupad saw many sadhus walk on foot, and their legs would pain, so he was first to start preaching in a motor car. Now is the age of the internet: by the mercy of Prabhupad, we can now use the internet and mobiles phones to preach all over the world. Even Sunday, I give a class for devotees from every corner of the world. Srila Prabhupad was the first to start such preaching. He did not do this for his own enjoyment.

tomara kanaka, bhogera janaka,

kanakera dvare sevaha madhava

“Your money is the father of enjoyment, but you must use money to serve Madhava.”

(Vaishnav Ke? Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur)

We chanted this kirtan the other day, do you remember it?

(4/5) At Sri Svananda Sukhada Kunja (2)

During his life, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur is known to have mixed with bauls [a class of pseudo-Vaishnavs]. They say that if you want to catch a thief, you should become a thief; in the same way, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur said, “If I want to capture bauls, I have to mix with them.” That is why, to bring them to this path, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur had to mix with such people. But Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, who was of a stricter nature, did not do that. Many people used to come to Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, and when Srila Prabhupad was thirteen–fourteen years old, and one man once asked Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, ‘Why is your son paying you obeisance from so far?’ Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur replied, ‘He does not come to any mayavadis or sahajiyas nearer than one hundred feet.’ There are thirteen apa-sampradayas (aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, ativadi, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari), and we are warned to never associate with them.

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s writing is very beautiful. If you read his Jaiva Dharma and various songs, you can understand it. [His Divine Grace chants ‘Kabe Habe Bala’ from Saranagati.]

kabe habe bala se dina amara

(amara) aparadha ghuchi, suddha name ruchi,

krpa-bale habe hrdaye sanchara [1]

‘Tell me, when will that day be mine? When, by mercy, will my offences go away and when will I have taste for the pure Holy Name?’

trnadhika-hina, kabe nije mani,

sahisnuta-guna hrdayete ani’

sakale manada, apani amani,

haye asvadiba nama-rasa-sara [2]

‘When will I feel I am lower than a blade of grass, when will I bring the quality of tolerance within my heart, become eager to honour everyone without any desire for honour from anyone and relish the essence of the Name’s nectar?’

We do we not always feel the taste? If you have some disease – if you have some offences inside – you will not get the taste. We make so many offences: vaishnav-aparadha (offences to devotees), nama-aparadha (offences to the Holy Name), dhama-aparadha (offences to the holy abodes), seva-aparadha (offences to service). No matter how much you chant, you will not get the taste until and unless these offences are removed from your heart. ‘When will my heart become cleansed from offences, and when will the taste for the Holy Name come to me? When will that day be mine? By the mercy, my heart can become pure…’

‘When will I become lower than a blade of grass? When will I be able to give honour to others? When will I learn to be more tolerant than a tree? When will I care to treat others with respect and not care when I do not get respect? When these qualities come to me, I will be able to relish the essence of the nectar of the Holy Name when I hear kirtan.’

dhana jana ara, kavita-sundari,
baliba na chahi deha-sukha-kari
janme janme dao, ohe gaurahari,
ahaituki bhakti charane tomara [1]

‘When will I say that I do not want any wealth, followers, poetic gift or any other bodily happiness? O Gaura Hari! Birth after birth, please give me unconditional devotion to Your holy feet!’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Mahaprabhu said:

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadisvara)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

Here too, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says: ‘I do not want wealth, I do not want followers, houses, cars, I do not want any beautiful women – all I want is to have unending devotion to You, birth after birth.’

dhana jana ara, kavita-sundari,
baliba na chahi deha-sukha-kari
janme janme dao, ohe gaurahari,
ahaituki bhakti charane tomara [3]

‘When will I say that I do not want any wealth, followers, poetic gift or any other bodily happiness? O Gaura Hari! Birth after birth, please give me unconditional devotion to Your holy feet!’

(kabe) karite sri-krsna-, nama uchcharana,

pulakita deha gadgada vachana

vaivarnya-vepathu, habe samghatana,

nirantara netre ba’be asrudhara [4]

‘When will my hair stand on end, my voice falter, my complexion turn pale, my body tremble, and tears pour incessantly from my eyes as I loudly chant Sri Krishna’s Name?’

Crying and crying, chanting and chanting the Holy Name of Lord Krishna, when will my eyes become flooded with tears? When will all the eight symptoms of ecstasy come to me? ‘When will my hair stand on end, my voice falter, my complexion turn pale, my body tremble, and tears pour incessantly from my eyes as I loudly chant Sri Krishna’s Name?’

kabe navadvipe, suradhuni-tate,
‘gaura-nityananda’ bali’ niskapate
nachiya gaiya, bedaiba chhute,
batulera praya chhadiya vichara [5]

‘When will I wander along the banks of the Ganges in Nabadwip, sincerely calling out, “Gaura-Nityananda!”, dancing, singing and running about without any thinking, as though mad?’

When will sincerely chant the Names of Gaura and Nityananda on the bank of the Suradhuni (Ganga)?…

kabe nityananda, more kari’ daya,

chhadaibe mora visayera maya

diya more nija-, charanera chhaya,

namera hatete dibe adhikara [6]

‘When will Nityananda be merciful to me and make me leave all attachment to material world? When will He give me the shade of His lotus feet and grant me a place at the marketplace of the Name?’

kiniba lutiba, hari-nama-rasa,

nama-rase mati’ haiba vivasa

rasera rasika-, charana-parasa,

kariya majiba rase anibara [7]

‘When will I buy and festively scatter the nectar of the Lord’s Name? When will I become intoxicated and overwhelmed with that nectar? When will I touch the lotus feet of a relisher of that nectar and become forever immersed in this nectar?’

kabe jive daya, haibe udaya,

nija sukha bhuli’ sudina-hrdaya

bhakativinoda, kariya vinaya,

sri-ajna-tahala karibe prachara [8]

‘When will compassion for all souls arise within me? When will Bhaktivinod forget his own happiness and wander about respectfully preaching the divine order with a most humble heart?’

We glorify the six goswamis in one of the kirtans:

jaya rupa, sanatana, bhatta-raghunatha

sri jiva, gopala-bhatta, dasa-raghunatha

‘All glory to Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Sanatan Goswami, Srila Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, Srila Jiva Goswami, Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami, and Srila Raghunath Das Goswami!’

There are famous six goswami, and Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur is the seventh goswami. Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj wrote many beautiful poems and articles about Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur. You can see many of his verses in glorification of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur in our Gaudiya Gitanjali. This is one of the main verses:

sri-gauranumatam svarupa-viditam rupagrajenadrtam

rupadyaih parivesitam raghu-ganair asvaditam sevitam

jivadyair abhiraksitam suka-siva-brahmadi-sammanitam

sri-radha-pada-sevanamrtam aho tad datum iso bhavan

(Sri Bhaktivinod Viraha Dasakam, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

‘O wonder of wonders! That which, on the order of Sri Gaurachandra, Sri Svarup Damodar knows the internal purpose of; which is adored by Sri Sanatan Goswami; which is distributed by the preceptors, headed by Sri Rupa Goswami, who teach transcendental mellows; which is tasted and enhanced by Sri Raghunath Das Goswami and his followers; which is carefully protected by the votaries headed by Sri Jiva Prabhu; and which (from a respectful distance) is venerated by great personalities, such as Sri Suka, Lord Siva, the chief of the demigods, and Lord Brahma, the grandfather of all beings – you are capable of giving us that treasure of the nectarine rapture of servitude to the holy feet of Sri Radha.’

Who is capable of giving such things? Srila Sridhar Maharaj says that after Mahaprabhu, nobody except Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur is capable of it. Srila Sridhar Maharaj wrote also at the end of this Sri Bhaktivinod Viraha Dasakam: ‘Where I am, a foolish and very fallen soul, and where you are, a great soul, the rescuer of the world! O Lord! You will no doubt mercifully forgive me (the author of this eulogy) for committing offences. O ocean of mercy! I am praying now at the soles of your lotus feet that you may make my life successful by counting me amongst the family of your heart’s all-in-all, Sri Varsabhanavi Dayita Dasa.’

In 1955, our Gurudev, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, wrote a beautiful article in honour of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s disappearance day. We do not have time to read all of it now, but I will tell you one–two things from it. You know, Srila Prabhupad never called Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur ‘father’ (baba). Moreover, he said: ‘Baba badha Radha. Seeing Bhaktivinod Thakur as a “father” is an obstacle to attaining Srimati Radharani.’ Even though Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was his father, Srila Prabhupad saw him as Srimati Radharani’s close associate, Sri Guna Manjari, who came to this world assuming the form of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur.

tahara karuna-katha, madhava-bhajana-pratha

tulana nahika tribhuvane

tara sama anya keha, dhariya e nara-deha,

nahi dila krsna-prema-dhane

‘There is no comparison within the three worlds to His merciful teachings of the practice of devotion to Krishna. No one has ever assumed a human form and distributed the wealth of Krishna-prema like him.’

sei prabhu-sakti pai’, ebe ‘anubhasya’ gai,

ihate amara kichhu nai

yavat jivana rabe, tavat smariba bhave,

nitya-kala sei pada chai

‘Receiving energy from his Master, this lowly soul sings this anubhasya; I have no merit in it. As long as there is a sign of life (in this body), I will always remember him, eternally aspiring for his lotus feet.’

sri-gaura-ichchhaya dui, mahima ki kabe mui,

aprakrta-parisada-katha

prakata haiya seve, krsna-gorabhinna-deve,

aprakasya katha yatha tatha

‘It is the wish of Sri Gaura, but what am I to tell about the glory of these two transcendental associates (Sri Gadadhar and Sri Svarup Damodar; Srila Bhaktivinod and Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj)? It becomes revealed when one serves Krishna and His non-different from of Gora, and it is something that should not be spoken publicly anywhere and everywhere.’

(Anubhasya commentary on Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita)

Srila Guru Maharaj (Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj) writes: When I hear these verses, my mouth or pen just stops; I am thinking, ‘What am I doing!’ I was going to create Siva but instead created a monkey! What power do I have to sing the glory of Thakur? Where is the pure character of that unprecedented for this world great personality, and where am I, a downright fallen soul! The only small hope that binds me is that even through just some small relationship with Srila Bhaktivinod Prabhu, it is possible for a jiva soul to attain the highest benefit. Actually, Thakur’s mercy, which flows through thousands of mouths and thousands of channels, purifies the entire universe!’

Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol!

 [His Divine Grace then speaks briefly in English.]

Sach-chid-ananda Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came to this world, and he was not just some deputy magistrate. Mahaprabhu, Sri Krishna, Srimati Radharani sent Their associate Sri Guna Manjari to this world. Param Guru Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj wrote:

sri-gauranumatam svarupa-viditam rupagrajenadrtam

rupadyaih parivesitam raghu-ganair asvaditam sevitam

jivadyair abhiraksitam suka-siva-brahmadi-sammanitam

sri-radha-pada-sevanamrtam aho tad datum iso bhavan

‘O wonder of wonders! That which, on the order of Sri Gaurachandra, Sri Svarup Damodar knows the internal purpose of; which is adored by Sri Sanatan Goswami; which is distributed by the preceptors, headed by Sri Rupa Goswami, who teach transcendental mellows; which is tasted and enhanced by Sri Raghunath Das Goswami and his followers; which is carefully protected by the votaries headed by Sri Jiva Prabhu; and which (from a respectful distance) is venerated by great personalities, such as Sri Suka, Lord Siva, the chief of the demigods, and Lord Brahma, the grandfather of all beings – you are capable of giving us that treasure of the nectarine rapture of servitude to the holy feet of Sri Radha.’

(Sri Bhaktivinod Viraha Dasakam, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Param Guru Maharaj writes: What sort of thing you have given to this world? What Brahma, Siva, Suka, Mahadev, Maheswar are giving respect to; what Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu protected; what Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu, Srila Sanatan Prabhu and their followers distributed and relished – Bhaktivinod Thakur is giving to us this sort of gift. Srila Sridhar Maharaj also composed the pranam-mantra of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur:

guru-dam grantha-dam gaura-dhama-dam nama-dam muda

bhakti-dam bhuri-dam vande bhakti-vinodakam sada

‘He is the giver of Sri Guru; he is the giver of scriptures; he is giver of the holy dham of Gaura; he is the giver of the Name; he is the giver of pure devotion; he is the greatest donor. I always offer my obeisance to this Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur.’

(Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur has given us our guru! If Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur had not come, we would not have got our Guru Maharaj or Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswat Thakur. There are many external descriptions of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s life and work, but he is not that. He composed so many scriptures. He gave us the pure devotion of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and distributed Srimati Radharani’s divine love for Lord Krishna. When Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur read the poem composed by Srila Sridhar Maharaj in glorification of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, he commented, ‘Happy style’. Moreover, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was the seventh goswami. There are six goswamis:

jaya rupa, sanatana, bhatta-raghunatha

sri jiva, gopala-bhatta, dasa-raghunatha

“All glory to Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Sanatan Goswami, Srila Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, Srila Jiva Goswami, Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami, and Srila Raghunath Das Goswami!”

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came later as the seventh goswami and said: ‘I am the sweeper at the market of the Holy Name. I am sweeping this market because so many aul, baul, etc. misconceptions is are, and I am throwing all this garbage out of this Nama-hatta (the market of the Holy Name).’ After him, on the order of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur started preaching all over the world through his associates, spreading the Holy Name of Lord Krishna all over the world.

Jay Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur ki jay!

(5/5) At Sri Hari-Hara Ksetra

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Ohe Vaisnava Thakura’.]

We have come here, at Sri Hari-Hara Ksetra, as the result of great fortune. I will chant one more kirtan just now. Hari-Hara means the Lord who is united with Lord Siva. You have seen the Deity here: one side is black, the other side is white. I will tell you why it is like this.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Tumi sarvesvaresvara vrajendra-kumara’.]

tumi sarvesvaresvara vrajendra-kumara

tomara ichchhaya visve srjana samhara [1]

‘You are the Lord of Lords, Vrajendra Kumar! By Your will, creation and annihilation take place within the universe.’

tava ichchha-mata brahma karena srjana

tava ichchha-mata visnu karena palana [2]

‘By Your will, Brahma creates the universe; by Your will, Vishnu maintains the universe.’

tava ichchha-mata siva karena samhara

tava ichchha-mate maya srje karagara [3]

‘By Your will, Siva annihilates the universe; by Your will, Maya creates her prison house.’

tava ichchha-mata jivera janama-marana

samrddhi-nipata-duhkha-sukha-samghatana [4]

‘By Your will, souls take birth and die; by Your will, they experience prosperity and ruin, happiness and distress.’

michhe maya-baddha jiva asapase phire

tava ichchha bina kichhu karite na pare [5]

‘Bound by Maya, souls uselessly wander about; unless it is Your will, they are not able to do anything.’

tumi ta’ raksaka ara palaka amara

tomara charana bina asa nahi ara [6]

‘You are my protector and maintainer; I aspire for nothing other than Your feet.’

nija-bala-chesta prati bharasa chhadiya

tomara ichchhaya achhi nirbhara kariya [7]

‘I give up relying on my own strength and effort; I depend upon Your will.’

bhakativinoda ati dina akinchana

tomara ichchhaya ta’ra jivana marana [8]

‘Bhaktivinod is very poor and detached; whether he lives or dies, it is up to You.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Everything happens by the wish of the Lord: death, birth, happiness, prosperity, unhappiness and sadness. If we think in this way, there will be no happiness, no pain in our lives. By the wish of the Lord, one is born, and by the wish of the Lord, one dies. By the wish of the Lord, one becomes rich, and by the wish of the Lord, all wealth becomes destroyed. Sometimes, happiness can come, and sometimes, unhappiness can also come. Everything happens by His wish.

By the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma, continuing our parikrama of Sri Godrumdwip, we have now come to this Sri Hari-Hara Ksetra. There is a very ancient story related to this place.

One time, a great sage and yogi Durvasa Muni was walking down the street when he suddenly met King Indradev. Durvasa Muni wanted to give his blessing to the king of demigods, so he took the garland from his neck and gave it to the king. However, Indradev, intoxicated with his ego and opulence, gave that garland to his elephant Airavat. Seeing the king’s insolence, Durvasa Muni cursed him, ‘May you lose all your opulence along with the three worlds!’

Having heard about that incident and feeling very happy about it, demons declared a war against demigods. Demigods lost the war and had to flee from heaven. They all went to Brahma and started praying and crying to him. Brahma then came with demigods to the shore of the ocean of milk and offered praise and prayers to the Lord. Pleased with the praise offered by all the demigods headed by Brahma, Ksirodasayi Vishnu appeared and advised them to negotiate a clever truce with demons and churn the ocean of milk (using Mandar Hill as the churning rod and Vasuki, the king of snakes, as the rope) to get nectar that would grant them immortality. The Lord also warned them against showing greed or fighting for anything else that would come out of that churning.

So, following the Lord’s advice, demigods declared a truce with demons. Then, they went to Mandar Hill and offered demons to churn the ocean of milk together to get the nectar that would make them immortal. Demons agreed. Demigods and demons worked so hard churning the ocean that many demigods and demons actually died as the result of their intense labour, but the supremely merciful Lord came and brought them back to life. Because Mandar Hill floated in the ocean, it was impossible to churn the ocean; so, the Lord appeared as Kurmadev (a tortoise) and, entering the water, held Mandar on His back. After that, many things appeared from the churned ocean, but first there was poison. Seeing the poison coming out, everyone got scared, but demigods came to Lord Sivji Maharaj and prayed to him for help. Sivji Maharaj mercifully came to the place and drank all poison: as the result, his throat turned blue, and since that time he has been famous as Nilakantha. Although Lord Siva drank the poison, some drops of poison got scattered around, and when those drops fell on the ground, they entered the bodies of snakes, scorpions, poisonous trees, plants, etc. Having got rid of the poison, demigods and demons continued churning the ocean. Next, Surabhi Cow appeared. Demigods took her to perform fire sacrifices (cows give milk that can be turned into ghee, butter, etc.). After that, a horse called Uchchaihsrava came out. Bali Maharaj took it. Then, so many other auspicious gifts came out: the kaustubha jewel, the parijata flower, apsaras (angels), Laksmi Devi, and so on. Demigods took everything. In the end, the Lord appeared as a man called Dhanvantari and brought nectar. Seeing the pot with nectar, demons decided not to lose time: they snatched the pot and quickly ran away. However, then demons started fighting among themselves, unable to decide who would drink it first. Demigods were shocked to see their boastful vanity: they went again to Vishnu and started praying to Him. Without saying anything to them in reply, Vishnu assumed the form of an extremely beautiful enticing young girl, Mohini. Coming to demons, Mohini cast some illusion on them, and all demons completely fell for Her unbelievable beauty. The Lord, in the form of Mohini, understood that demons had become weak, so He agreed to divide the nectar among them. However, demons were so blindly drawn to Mohini’s beautiful form that they did not notice that the Lord had cheated them: the Lord gave all nectar to demigods! Foolish demons were so bewildered that they did not even notice anything.

Some time before that, Sivji Maharaj was thinking about the Lord and prayed, ‘Prabhu, please show me some of Your pastimes. I want to see Your miraculous form and beauty.’ So, when the Supreme Lord Sri Vishnu appeared as Mohini, He decided to test Sivji Maharaj.

When Krishna suddenly appeared as Mohini after the churning of the ocean, He answered Sivji Maharaj’s prayer and appeared before him, playing with a ball. Seeing this amazingly gorgeous girl, Sivji Maharaj felt completed charmed and ran after Her.

Seeing him run, everyone said, ‘Oh my, why is this sadhu running behind a girl? Has he gone mad?’

Parvati (Lord Siva’s spouse) also said, ‘Oh my, where are you going, my husband?! I am your wife!’

What wife! Sivji Maharaj gave up everything and could not hear anything. In the end, he managed to catch Mohini, and when he embraced Her, the beautiful girl turned into Krishna, and their bodies merged into one: one part is Hari, and the other part is Hara. The place where it happened became known as Sri Hari-Hara Ksetra.

By a great fortune and mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma and all the guru-varga, we have come here today and have got an opportunity to remember this miraculous pastime of the Lord.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay. Sri Hari-Hara Ksetra ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line26 March 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Evening Class: Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama (Day Three)

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/5) Remembering Holy Nabadwip Dham

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my godbrothers and godsisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Today you have very nicely completed the third day of Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. Among many places, we went today across Madhyadwip, where Hamsavahan and other places are. Tomorrow is the adhivas of the holy appearance day of Sriman Mahaprabhu, and as each year, we will be finishing our parikrama on this day. The buses will come tomorrow, and we will go up to Champahati by bus, and after the parikrama, the buses will pick us up and bring us back here from Mamgachi.

We will be doing the parikrama of the remaining part of Koladwip, starting from Samudra Sen’s place – we will sit there and speak about King Samudra Sen. Then, we will go to Champahati. Mahaprabhu’s associate Dvija-vaninath installed the Deities of Gaura-Gadadhar there. In the time of Mahaprabhu, there were three places where His Deity was installed – in Kalna (Gauri Das Pandit’s place), in Champahati (the place of Dvija-vaninath, as well as Jayadev Goswami, who lived there with his spouse Padmavati Devi and composed Sri Gita Govinda), and the third Deity was installed by Sri Vishnupriya Devi at her father’s home. We will pay our obeisances at Champahati and then enter Ritudwip. We will be passing Shyama Kunda and Radha Kunda and speak about those places. After that, we will arrange for prasad for everyone. Then, we will continue to Vidyanagar, the place of residence of all knowledge (vidya) in this world (though Mahaprabhu called all this knowledge ‘a-vidya’, or ‘ignorance’). There is also Sri Sarvabhauma Gaudiya Math near there. Then, we will go to Jahnunagar where we will speak about Sri Jahnudwip. Finally, we will go to Modadrumdwip (Mamgachi).

We went to two islands today, and there are three more left for tomorrow. So, we will go there tomorrow and speak about the glories of those places. The place where we are now and where we return every day is called Godrumdwip, it is a place of kirtan. Nearby here is Madhyadwip, a place of smaranam (remembrance). Tomorrow, we will go to Jahnudwip, a place of vandanam (paying obeisances, praying); Modadrumdwip, a place of dasyam (servitude), non-different from Ayodhya. I told you the other day that all holy places are present here within Sri Nabadwip. Shyama Kunda and Radha Kunda of Vrindavan are also here. Ritudwip is a place of archanam (Deity worship).

You know that there are nine limbs of devotion – sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). Each of these nine kinds of devotion reside on a corresponding island here in Nabadwip.

There are some things left which I have not told today, so I would like to speak about it now. You can find it all written in Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala – buy this book and take it home; you can read it every day. You should study every day, otherwise one year later you will forget everything and fall into illusory bondage of Maya. The holy scripture manifests itself in two forms – grantha-bhagavata (a book-form) and Vaishnav-bhagavata (a devotee-form); there is no difference between these two forms. If you go back to your homes and do not chant kirtans the whole year being busy with your family affairs, then you will come next year and see that you cannot chant kirtans anymore. You must practise at home. Practice makes perfect. You must practise every day.

(2/5) Do Not Shun Service

There are nine kinds of devotion, among which sadhu-sanga, Nama-sankirtan, etc. are the main practices.

adau sraddha tatah sadhu-sango ‘tha bhajana-kriya

tato ‘nartha-nivrttih syat tato nistha ruchis tatah

athasaktis tato bhavas tatah premabhyudanchati

sadhakanam ayam premnah pradurbhave bhavet kramah

‘First, there is faith; then, saintly association and practising life. After that, unwanted habits gradually go away, spiritual life becomes stable, and spiritual taste comes. Then comes attachment, feeling and, finally, transcendental love. This is how love for the Lord comes to those who practise Krishna consciousness.’

(Sri Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, 1.4.15–16)

Among these steps of progress on the path of devotion, there is asakti – attachment. We must always have attachment to spiritual life. Our attachment is always kept in other places, but we have no attachment to the service of Krishna, to practising Krishna consciousness. We sing in one of the kirtans written by Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur,

aparadha-sunya haye laya krsna-nama
tabe jiva krsna-prema labhe avirama

‘When souls chant the Name of Krishna without offences, they quickly attain divine love for Krishna.’

(Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

kabe habe bala se dina amara
aparadha ghuchi’, suddha name ruchi,
krpa-bale habe hrdaye sanchara

‘Tell me, when will that day be mine? When, by the mercy, will my heart become cleansed of offences and the taste for the pure Holy Name arise in it?’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘When will my offences be destroyed and my heart chant the Holy Name?…’

Those of you who are going home after the festival must practise properly at home. I am not telling any of you to go, but I see that some have left already… [A devotee tries to give an explanation for devotees’ leaving – they had heard that trains would stop running, so they left earlier to avoid being stuck.] Who is telling these lies? It is lies. I am telling you that somebody is spreading these rumours. I heard yesterday some men talking at the ghat. One of them was saying, ‘There are rumours that a huge cyclone is coming.’ But the newspapers say that no cyclone is expected. People are telling lies.

You know, at the time of Gaura Purnima it is necessary to work so hard – it is necessary to do so many things, to give rooms to the devotees who come, to take care of everything, to make sure everything runs smoothly, to go to the market, etc. And I do everything alone. Now I have given some responsibility partially to Sripad Niriha Maharaj and Sripad Vishnu Maharaj, but still. Anyhow, before the festival, one–two men from Nabadwip (I do not want to tell their names) came to me and said, ‘Oh, there will be no buses or trains running at Gaura Purnima time!’ I asked them, ‘Where did you hear this news?’ He said, ‘Oh, so-and-so Prabhu said it.’ I asked that Prabhu, and he said, ‘Oh, a ricksha driver told me!’ Do you see? Only those who have little service mood can do or say such things.

When ** Prabhu told me that trains would not run, I did not believe it. I do not believe things just like that. I asked him, ‘Where did you hear that trains would not run?’ He said, ‘I know one man who works at the train station, he told me that.’ I did not believe it. People make up all kinds of excuses to leave. What do you think will happen? What obstacle are you afraid of? The whole matter is that they have started election in West Bengal, and to get all the farmers to vote, they prohibited all religious gatherings. Everybody is expected to show up at the election commission, so government does not want anyone to go to any religious gatherings. So, all these rumours about cyclones, trains stopping, etc. are just excuses. Only those who do not want to serve the Lord will listen to this and leave. This is all gossips. ‘Gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe.’ Do not listen to village talks, do not listen to village news. Mahaprabhu told this to Srila Raghunath Das Goswami. If you want to follow Mahaprabhu’s teachings, then you must not hear village talks (gossips) and you must not speak about village news (gossips).

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la’be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

‘Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour from others, give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236–237)

You have not come to this world to eat well and dress well. I always tell everyone – cook only some potato and rice for me. Because I am going on parikrama and have to exert myself (I walk, I sweat a lot, etc.), my blood sugar can fall down, that is why I am eating rice three times a day now. If I eat rotis, I will get sick. I like aloo-siddho [potato mashed with chilli, salt and mustard oil] and tok dal [dal with slices of green mango] very much. It is not necessary to make anything else. This is what I ate today in the morning, for example. So, I do not need anything special – I did not come from a zamindar’s house, neither was I born in a zamindar’s house. Somebody’s parents may have been zamindars, but that is another matter – as for me, I was not born in a zamindars’ family, I worked hard myself to grow up, to get education, etc. and to achieve everything. I have worked hard from my childhood. Wherever I went, I worked very hard to earn my position. When I came to the temple I started from the ground, from the drain level – I worked very hard and cleaned stool at the goshala. People could not believe it. I used to teach at a college, but when I came to the temple, I worked in the goshala. I did not care what people said – I liked working in the goshala, and I still sometimes go to the goshala in Ekachakra, Tarakeshwar or here to feed the cows. I like goshalas, and Gurudev also told me, ‘If you serve cows, the Lord will be very happy.’ Krishna Himself served cows. Not only that, Krishna Himself served Vaishnavs – He would invite Vaishnavs, and when Vaishnav guests came, He would take their shoes, clean them and keep them nicely to the side! Krishna Himself took up this service. But here, when somebody takes sannyas, they often think, ‘Oh, I have become a sannyasi, everybody must serve me!’ This is a wrong conception. Sannyasis are captains – when fighting against Maya, captains must go first and handle Maya. Sannyasis must not only go forward first, but they must serve more. Mahaprabhu distributed Jagannath prasadam and fed all the devotees who came to Puri with His own hand. Everybody sat with their plates full, but nobody started to eat – they said to Mahaprabhu, ‘Prabhu, nobody will start eating until You sit down and eat Yourself.’ Then Mahaprabhu had to sit down and eat. This is how Mahaprabhu Himself served everyone.

(3/5) Meaning of Chastity

Those who take sannyas must do more service. If one becomes a sannyasi and worries too much about their health and asks for a nice comfortable chair, etc., this is not right. Sannyasis are captains, and they are given more right for service. Tridanda (triple-staff) sannyas means ‘kaya-mana-vakya’: it means you must serve with your body (kaya), mind (mana) and speech (vakya). Gurudev gave one more explanation. He said that tridanda-sannyas means ‘being humble, tolerant and giving honour to others.’

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and who gives honour to others without desiring it for themselves is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

Those who have these qualities will serve others.

This is what Mahaprabhu taught. It is necessary to distribute prasad with your own hands, to do everything with your own hands. The problem is that we all want to be masters (prabhu), but none of us are actually masters. I have told you many times:

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

One time, a disciple phoned Gurudev saying, ‘Maharaj, this is so-and-so Prabhu speaking.’ Gurudev replied, ‘Oh, and this is your servant Gobe Das speaking.’ [‘Gobe’ is an extremely informal ‘village’ variation of the name ‘Govinda’; Srila Gurudev sometimes used this name in the intimate relationship with his Srila Guru Maharaj, saying to Srila Guru Maharaj, ‘I am your Gobe.’] I heard this from Gurudev. Many introduce themselves to their guru saying, ‘I am so-and-so Prabhu speaking’, but you are not a master (prabhu), you are a servant (das). Why do you call yourself prabhu? You are a servant (das)! We say, ‘This is your low servant (adham-das) speaking,’ and this is sufficient. You must tell the name your guru gave you [so-and-so ‘das’ – not ‘prabhu’; so-and-so ‘dasi’ – not ‘didi’ or ‘devi dasi’]. We must learn these things.

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami
pratisthasa asi’, hrdaya dusibe,
haiba nirayagami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav”, then I will never stop desiring honour – my heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You have heard this kirtan. We do not sing kirtans just for the sake of tune. When we were on the parikrama today, I heard somebody was singing lila-kirtan behind our parikrama party. They sing fancy tunes to please the minds of people – nobody listens to the meaning of the words in such kirtans. We never do this in our Math. You must never do this, too. If Srila Sridhar Maharaj saw or heard anyone do this, he would tell them to get out of the temple. But Gurudev did not kick anyone out, and I am also tolerating. One time, Srila Guru Maharaj (Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj) even kicked Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj out of the temple because he had gone to hear some melodious lila-kirtans. A few days later, he understood his mistake and came back, but Srila Sridhar Maharaj had kicked him out (although they were good friends).

I heard somebody was singing at the arati here today and yesterday also. I did not say anything yesterday, but I will say it today. They sang, ‘Gadadharer gatha mala.’ Never sing this. Have you ever heard me sing it? Guru Maharaj prohibited to sing this. This is sung by sahajiyas. You can ask me, ‘In some temples we hear that they sing “Sri Advaita-Sita Bhagavad-gita” in the song “Hari Haraye Nama Krsna”. Why do we not sing it in our Math? Everybody sings it, but why do we not sing it?’ Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s conception is not like everyone’s conception. Because you will sing this and think that Sri Advaita Prabhu’s spouse Sri Sita Devi is the same as your wife, you will mix it all together. That is why Srila Guru Maharaj prohibited to sing this; instead, he told to sing, ‘Sri Advaita-chandra.’ Otherwise, people will start thinking that all sadhus can keep a wife. Another thing is that Mahaprabhu shows the mood of Srimati Radharani, and He comes to this world to manifest His magnanimous pastimes (audarya-lila), but the divine love He manifests is niskama-prema (pure divine love devoid of any material desires). This is not the same love that your children show among themselves. Sahajiyas mix these things together – they say, ‘Oh, Krishna kissed so many ladies,’ and they start kissing many ladies, too. This is what sahajiyas (imitators) do. If you try to do this, people will beat you. So, no ‘Gadadharer gatha mala.’ It is ‘Bhakta-ganer ghata mala.’ We always chant, ‘Jaya Sachinandana Jaya Gaura Hari!’ and what do sahajiyas chant? ‘Vishnupriya-prana-dhana Nadiya bihari.’ Do we ever sing this? We do not. We sing, ‘Bhakta-gana-prana-dhana Nadiya bihari.’ One time, when we came to Yogapith with the parikrama, we heard somebody started singing ‘Vishnupriya-prana-dhana Nadiya bihari’, and Srila Yati Maharaj (President Acharya of Sri Chaitanya Math at that time) came and forcefully kicked them out.

It is necessary to understand that our conception and line is different from others and we do not mix with everyone – we do not go everywhere, we do not mix with everyone. Just recently somebody came to me and told me that he would not go anywhere now. I asked him, ‘Why do you mix with the opposition?’ Wherever there is some party or programme, he goes there to speak and gets pratistha from everybody. Gurudev is doing kirtan here, his parikrama is here, his Hari-katha is here, but he goes to whichever other party where there is a programme. I asked him, ‘Why do you go there?’ He said, ‘Oh, I go there for guru-seva (for the service to my Gurudev).’ ‘Guru-seva? Then why do those people never come here? You are wasting your time!’ We are separate from other groups! That is why it is necessary to know what chastity is. We do not mix with everyone. We always stay separately from other groups.

When I saw that Gurudev’s and Srila Guru Maharaj’s conception had all become perverted, I left that place [the Koladwip Temple]. They have destroyed all conception of Srila Sridhar Maharaj and Srila Gurudev, the entire conception and line of Sri Rupanuga Dhara. They have diverted that current! I left that place with so much pain in my heart. We are the current of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, Sri Rupanuga-dhara, Sri Rupa-Saraswati Dhara, Brahma-Madhva Gaudiya Sampradaya. You cannot only say ‘Gaudiya’, ‘Gaudiya’ with your mouth. Everybody says it, everybody chants kirtans, but why do we keep away from sahajiyas and other parties? Why must we allow these things to get mixed in? We will never allow all these things to be mixed with our conception and line. We do not care about the tune. Jagad-Guru Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur wanted to hear ‘Sri Rupa-manjari-pada’ kirtan from the holy mouth of Srila Sridhar Maharaj – there were other Vaishnavs present who could sing very well, but did he listen to this kirtan from their mouths? Why did he not listen to it from them? Because Srila Sridhar Maharaj was different from them. If you want to come to the current of pure conception (suddha-siddhanta-dhara), you must come to Srila Sridhar Maharaj. All these other things that are spread by sahajiyas and other parties will not live long.

You know, in my previous ashram, they held one-month-long kirtans. They hired people to chant kirtan for one month (240 prahar). There were women singing also from two o’clock at night – at that time, there would be a huge crowd, and when all the singing women left, the place would be empty. This is the kind of kirtan they did. People are paid well for such kirtans, they are fed well, they are given nice clothes, etc. I told them that until and unless they stopped these kirtans, I would not go there. This is my final word. They told me, ‘We have made a temple for you here, please come at least once.’ I said that I would not go there because they had not yet stopped those kirtans. I left all that and came here, and I do not want to go there and mix with that. Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s line is the current of pure conception (suddha-siddhanta-dhara). There is no place for sahajiyas in it, there is no place for mayavadis in it – there is no place for any other aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, ativadi, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari groups.

One devotee forced and forced me to allow him to stage a drama at our temple. I told him that I did not like such things. He still made it once in Ekachakra, but I do not like it at all. If my Gurudev does not like something, I can never go against him. I cannot do anything against my Gurudev’s desire.

Our line is separate. We do not mix with others. So many people come to hear those lila-kirtans, but how many people have they managed to bring to the pure line? How many of those people come to practise pure Krishna consciousness? How many of them become proper, real sadhus? That is why it is said that quality is one thing and quantity is another thing. If you go to buy eggplant at the market and somebody sells 1 maund (37.3 kg) of eggplants for 10 rupees, you buy it very happily, but when you bring it home, you see that it is all rotten. But if you pay 10 rupees for 1 kg of eggplant, you get good quality. You must eat good things [your conception must be pure]. Gurudev said, ‘You can eat luchi, but do not eat luchi fried in kerosine, otherwise you will have a problem with your stomach and start vomiting.’ Gurudev always told me this, ‘Do not eat luchi fried in kerosine.’

(4/5) Pastime at Gadigachha

We will listen today mainly about the glory of Sri Madhyadwip. Each of you should take a copy of this book, Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala. Those who already have it do not need to buy it, but those who have not got it yet must get a copy. If you buy a holy book, you can read it the whole year and more, but when you buy material books, you will read it once–twice, and that is it. You know, today I have got the biggest gift from Pujyapad Srila Jayapataka Swami Maharaj (he is gurudev of ISKCON now). I have known him since 1996 when I was a brahmachari, and he has always loved me from the beginning. He has sent me a full set of Srimad Bhagavatam. Just as Birhambir once stole all the holy books, all my books have also been stolen by dacoits. Gradually, devotees are giving me some scriptures, and I am very happy about it.

Anyhow, there is a village called Gadigachha within Sri Godrumdwip. I want to tell you about a pastime that happened at this place. There is a forest called Kamyavan that is situated within the churasi crore, eighty-four crores, of Vrindavan parikrama. This forest is now geographically situated in Rajasthan. When devotees do the eighty-four-crore parikrama of Vrindavan, they go there. I have told you before, ‘Kirtana prabhave smarana haibe: chanting (kirtan) arouses remembrance (smaran).’

One day, Durvasa Muni was resting in this forest when a small demigod boy (dev-sisu) came there and cut his sikha (jata) playfully. Becoming very angry, Durvasa Muni cursed the boy, ‘You shall live as a child crocodile in a canal for four ages – Satya, Treta, Dvapara, Kali!’ The boy began to cry and begged Durvasa Muni, ‘Please forgive my offence!’ Durvasa Muni replied, ‘All right, but I have already cursed you and cannot revoke it. But in the Age of Kali, Supreme Lord Sri Krishna will come as Gauranga Mahaprabhu to distribute His own Holy Name. When you hear His Holy Name, you will get liberation and return to your previous birth.’

From that time on, the boy lived as a crocodile.

One day, Mahaprabhu was walking with devotees in the area of Gadigachha. He told everyone, ‘Come, let us go to the house of my nephew.’ There was a devotee called Bhim Ghosh – he always called Mahaprabhu ‘uncle’, and Mahaprabhu called Bhim’s mother ‘Didi’ (elder sister). Bhim Ghosh met Mahaprabhu and invited Him in, ‘Come inside, mother has kept a lot of food for you all – condensed milk, curd, paneer, butter, etc.’ Mahaprabhu came inside the house and sat down surrounded by the devotees, and Bhim Ghosh and his mother fed everyone all kinds of milk products. After that, Bhim Ghosh’s mother asked Nimai, ‘How is mother (Sachi Mata)?’ Nimai said she was well. After eating and taking some rest, Mahaprabhu called everyone to go to the lake nearby. Hearing this, Bhim said, ‘Do not go there, uncle! There is a crocodile in that lake. Out of fear for that crocodile, even our cows do not go there to drink water.’ But Mahaprabhu knows everything, and He knew why He was going there. So, He said, ‘Nothing will happen. Come with Me.’ Mahaprabhu went to the lake chanting kirtan with all the devotees. Then, suddenly a small boy came out of the water and fell at Mahaprabhu’s feet. Nimai asked him, ‘Who are you? Where have you come from?’ The boy explained, ‘I was a demigod’s child. I have been living here for four yugas, but Durvasa Muni said that Krishna would come in Kali-yuga as Gauranga, and I would hear His Name and become rescued. I can understand that You are the Supreme Lord, You are Krishna, a hidden incarnation of the Lord in this Age of Kali. Please give me Your blessing so that I can return to my mother.’

This is the pastime that happened at Gadigachha in Sri Godrumdwip.

(5/5) Glory of Sri Madhyadwip

I would like to tell you about Sri Madhyadwip. It is an island of smaranam (remembrance of the Lord). Entering Sri Madhyadwip, Sriman Nityananda Prabhu told Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu, ‘This is a village called Majhdia’, and then He told him about the glory of this place:

Some time in Satya-yuga, there were seven sages who prayed here to Lord Brahma to attain the divine love of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu. Then, one day Lord Brahma became very pleased with the prayers of the sages, so he came to them and said, ‘You must all go to Nabadwip. If you chant the glories of Gaura there, you will easily get Gaura-prema.’ Attaining the mercy of a holy place, one attains saintly association; after that, practising Krishna consciousness in the saintly association, one attains the supreme benefit. This is the greatest happiness and fulfilment in life. Those who become attracted and attached to Sri Nabadwip Dham get the right to reside in Vraja. Without the mercy of Sri Nabadwip Dham, it is impossible to live in Vrindavan. (Many may stay in Vrindavan, but instead of actually living in Vrindavan they only pretend that they live there.) Hearing Lord Brahma’s advice, the sages went to Nabadwip Dham and began to dance and worship and glorify Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu.

The sages engaged themselves in severe austerities and earnestly prayed for the darshan of Sri Gaura Hari. Giving up all food and sleep, they only chanted the Holy Name of Gaura. One day, Gaura gave them His darshan to bestow mercy on these sages. He came to them in a dream (it all happened in Satya-yuga), and when the sages saw Him, they were astonished. They said, ‘O Lord, we surrender at Your holy lotus feet! Please bestow upon us devotion to You.’ Hearing their prayer, merciful Gaura Hari spoke, ‘Listen, dear sages, give up all other desires, all knowledge, karma, etc. and always speak Krishna-katha. Do not tell anyone for now what I have just shown you. I will come to this Nabadwip Dham very soon, then My pastimes will become manifest, and you too will be able to see those pastimes. For now, go to Sri Kumar Hatta and practise Krishna consciousness at a ghat there.’ Saying this, Gaura Hari disappeared. The sages followed Mahaprabhu’s order and started to practise Krishna consciousness at Sri Kumar Hatta.

Here, in Madhyadwip you can see seven hills. They are the place of residence of those seven sages. This is where they sat and attained Gaura Hari. Having told about this pastime, Sriman Nityananda Prabhu showed Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu a few other places…

It is said that a supremely pure river called Gomati flows here, and also Naimisaranya forest is present on this island. In old times, Saunaka and many other sages heard about the glories of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu from the holy lotus mouth of Sri Suta Goswami. One day, leaving his carrier bull Nandi, Sivji Maharaj took Brahma’s swan and came here to hear about the glories of Sriman Mahaprabhu. All the devotees surrounded Sivji Maharaj, and as they danced and chanted kirtan, they showered a rain of flowers upon him. That is why that place became known as Hamsavahan (‘riding a swan’).

Sriman Nityananda Prabhu also told Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu about one more place here at Sri Madhyadwip. There is a holy place situated within Sri Brahmapur on this island: it is called Puskara Tirtha, and a very secret pastime took place here.

In Satya-yuga, there was a brahman called Divdas. He left his home and set out to visit all the holy places. One day, he came to a holy place called Puskara Tirtha and felt very attracted to it. Later, as he continued travelling around the holy places, he came here, to Sri Nabadwip Dham. Here, he heard a divine message saying, ‘O brahman, you have come to this eternal holy abode. You should stay here.’ Following the order of the Lord, Divdas made a small hut and settled at that place. However, eventually his mind became disturbed because he always kept remembering Puskara Tirtha. Being unable to travel, he felt very sad. He cried and thought, ‘Will I never be able to see my dear Puskara Tirtha?’ Lord Puskaranath took pity on Divdas and appeared before him disguised as a brahman. The Lord said to Divdas, ‘Divdas, do not cry. Do you see this pond here, in front of you? Take a bath in it and you will see Puskara Tirtha in its water.’ Hearing the words of the brahman, Divdas quickly went to bath in the lake. He got transcendental eyes and could see Puskara Tirtha in front of him.

Seeing his dear Puskara Tirtha, Divdas said to the Deity of Puskaranath, ‘O Lord, You have taken so much trouble for me! You had to come here from so far!’ Lord Puskaranath replied, ‘Divdas, you are so fortunate! I have not come from far. Actually, I eternally reside here at Sri Nabadwip Dham. This Sri Nabadwip Dham is where all holy places are present, and I live here eternally too. Fools and unintelligent people want to leave Nabadwip Dham and stay elsewhere, they glorify other places, but there is no other place that can compare to this beautiful Nabadwip Dham. You can see Kuruksetra, Brahmavarta, Saraswati River, Drishdvati River here. I will tell you one secret. Very soon there will be a great joy in this Nabadwip Dham because Gaurasundar will appear here and distribute transcendental love in all four directions. The Lord will roam this Nabadwip Dham and perform sankirtan with His devotees. The whole world will be then flooded with transcendental love, but those who are interested in debates and logic will not be able to get this love. Even if they practise Krishna consciousness for millions and millions of years, unfortunate souls will not get any attachment or attraction to the Holy Name; but all unwanted elements leave those who practise Gauranga consciousness – such souls very quickly attain residence in Sri Vrindavan Dham. Divdas, stay here, you must definitely get the darshan of Gauranga Mahaprabhu’s associates.’

Saying this, Puskarnath disappeared, and after a while Divdas heard a divine message saying, ‘O brahman! This Kali-yuga is such a special time! You will be born here in Kali-yuga and, swimming in the divine love, you will chant the glories of Sri Gaura!’

Walking and speaking about all this, Sriman Nityananda Prabhu also showed Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu Uchchahatta (Kuruksetra) saying, ‘All demigods came here. Whatever holy places there are within Kuruksetra and Brahmavarta, they are all present here in Nabadwip. All holy places are serving Nabadwip Dham. If you spend only one night here, it is the same as spending one hundred years in Kuruksetra. When all the demigods came to live here, they established a marketplace where they would come to speak about Gauranga Mahaprabhu.’

Jay Sri Madhyadwip ki jay!

All this is also written in poetry form (in Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya by Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur), but if we read it, far not everyone will understand it, that is why I have printed it in prose. If you read it, it will be good. Everybody must read this book (Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala).

I see that there are fewer people today – are they all sleeping? The Lord has now mercifully given us all a place to stay, so what is the problem? We can stay here and hear and speak about the glories of Lord Nrisinghadev every day. So many devotees come here every day. All the temples never came to our old temple in Nabadwip, but everybody comes here because all temples’ parikrama parties come here. This place is crowded every day.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Sarvasva tomara charane sampiya’ and ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and, reciting the ‘Jaya Dhvani’, concludes the evening class.]

* * *

￼Line Line27 March 2021, Parikrama

Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama: Koladwip, Rtudwip, Jahnudwip, Modadrumdwip

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/9) At Sri Samudragad

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Avatara sara Gora-avatara’.]

Continuing our parikrama of Sri Nabadwip Dham, we have now come to Sri Samudragad. In ancient times, a king called Raja Samudrasen lived in this place, and this is how the place got its name. You know that we did the parikrama of Koladwip during the second day. Samudragad is also part of Koladwip, and Ritudwip starts from the Champahati temple of Gaura Gadadhar, which we passed on the way (after speaking here, we will return to it). Nabadwip Town is known as Kuliya, and the area here is known as Kalinagar. It is said in the scriptures that Samudragad is non-different from Sri Dvaraka Dham and Gangasagar.

In the previous age, a king called Raja Sri Samudrasen lived in this area. Although he was a great king and possessed much wealth, he was also a great devotee of Lord Krishna – he always thought about Krishna and knew nothing else except the Lord, and he wanted to get Krishna’s darshan very much. However, it is not so easy to get His darshan – if one wants to get Krishna’s darshan, they should connect with His devotees.

One day, Bhimasen came here to conquer the kingdom. Bhimsen and his soldiers had surrounded Samudragad, but Raja Samudrasen was very intelligent: he knew that Krishna was the master and close friend of the Pandavas, so if any of the Pandavas fell into danger, Krishna would definitely come to rescue them. So, the king thought, ‘If I scare Bhima, then the Lord will hear his prayer and come to my land, and this poor and fallen soul will be able to get His darshan.’ In this way, thinking about the Lord, the king brought his elephants, horses and soldiers, and a great battle began. In the end, the king’s plan was successful – as the battle went on and on, Bhima eventually became very afraid. Seeing no way out, Bhima prayed to the lotus feet of Krishna, ‘Prabhu, please protect me! I can neither win this battle nor lose it! If I lose it, I will not be able to tolerate so much humiliation.’

Lord Sri Krishna, the master of the Pandavas, heard Bhima’s cry and personally came to the battlefield. Then, something wondrous happened: King Sri Samudrasen got the darshan of Lord Sri Krishna’s form of exquisite beauty; he could see nothing except the Lord. At the sight of Krishna’s beauty, the king became overwhelmed with divine love and was on the verge of fainting. The king then prayed to the Supreme Lord, ‘O Lord, You are Krishna, the Lord of the entire world, Jagannath, You are the rescuer of the fallen – seeing this fallen soul, You have come to me! The whole world is chanting Your glories, and now that I have seen You with my own eyes, my desire has been fulfilled. At the same time, O Lord, I have promised that I will not go anywhere from here until You have come to this Nabadwip Dham. O merciful One! Have You come to fulfil my promise? However, my hidden desire is to behold You as Gauranga.’ Saying this, the king suddenly first saw the Vrindavan pastimes of Radha and Krishna and then the mysterious form of Rasaraj-Mahabhav Gauranga Mahaprabhu: Nimai Vishvambhar was chanting and dancing in maha-sankirtan together with His devotees. Some time later, the Lord disappeared, and when everything became calm again, the king began to cry.

In the meantime, Bhimsen saw the king crying (he could not understand why because he had not seen the Lord) and was astonished; Bhimsen thought that the king was crying out of fear. So, he again started fighting, and this time the king let him easily win the battle. Bhima got the tribute from the king and went away, feeling pleased with himself. From then on, the whole world chants the glories of Bhima, calling him ‘digvijay’, the conqueror of all directions.

Samudragad (Samudragarh) is situated near the border of Sri Nabadwip Dham, and even Lord Brahma himself does not know its glory.

One time, Samudra (the Ocean) came here and, taking shelter of Ganga Devi, started serving devotees. Ganga Devi told the ocean, ‘Prabhu, very soon my Lord will come and stay on your shore.’

‘O Devi!’ replied the ocean. ‘Can I tell you something? Sachinandan Gaura Hari never leaves Nabadwip. Even if He stays on my shore for a few days, He actually always stays in Nadia, in an unmanifest way. All the Vedas say that the eternal pastimes of Mahaprabhu continue eternally in Sri Nabadwip Dham. O Devi! I will stay here, in your shelter.’

Saying this, the ocean stayed in Nabadwip Dham and continues sitting here, in Samudragad, to this day, meditating on the eternal pastimes of Gauranga Mahaprabhu.

Sriman Nityananda Prabhu told Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu about the glory of this place, and by the mercy of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, we get to know about all this from Sri Nabadwip-dham-mahatmya. It is our greatest fortune that we are doing this parikrama today in the association of all the devotees and that we have got an opportunity to hear the glories of Sri Nabadwip Dham.

If you keep faith in the devotees of the Lord, the Lord will certainly bestow His mercy on you.

Jay Sri Samudragad ki jay.
Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama ki jay.
Harinam sankirtana ki jay.
Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, Koladwip ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura-bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

We will chant one more kirtan.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Bhajahu re mana’ and proceeds to Sri Champahati.]

(2/9) At Sri Champahati

The place here we have come is called Champahati. There was a champaka flower garden here, and Srimati Radharani would come here every day to collect flowers for Lord Govinda. We will speak here about Srimati Radharani, I will tell you about this place, and I am asking you to please listen carefully.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Radha bhajane yadi mati nahi bhela’.]

Sri Gaura-Gadadhar are present here at this temple. Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu is the combined form of Sri Radha-Krishna – He comes taking Radharani’s heart and halo. But one does not have only a heart and a halo – there is also the body. So, after Krishna took Radharani’s heart and halo, whatever remained of Srimati Radharani incarnated as Gadadhar. These Deities here are very ancient as They were installed in Mahaprabhu’s times, so They can be 530–535 years old. The service of these Deities was recovered by Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. This entire place was covered with a thick jungle. I have told you before that all the aul, baul, kartabhaja and other misconception people had destroyed so many places. Then, Srila Prabhupad came and arranged everything.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Radhe Radhe Govinda Govinda’, ‘Yadi Gaura na haite’ and the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.]

Continuing our parikrama, we have come to this temple of Sri Sri Gaura-Gadadhar, established by Sri Dvija-vaninath Prabhu (an associate of Mahaprabhu). In Mahaprabhu’s time, Mahaprabhu’s Deity was installed in three places: Sri Gaura-Gadadhar Deities, served by Sri Dvija-vaninath Prabhu in Champahati; Sri Gaura-Nityananda Deities, served by Sri Gauri Das Pandit in Kalna; and Dhamesvar Mahaprabhu, served by Sri Vishnupriya Devi. These three Deities have existed in Sri Nabadwip Dham for over five hundred years now.

When Sriman Nityananda Prabhu was doing Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama together with Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu, He came here and described the glory of this place:

In the previous age, there was a forest called Khadiravan in this place. Like Radharani, Champakalata Sakhi gathered champa flowers in this forest and used them to make garlands. Every day, she served Radha-Krishna with those champa flower garlands. When Kali-yuga came, gardeners came to this champa forest and started gathering flowers – they established a market (hatta) nearby where they sold champa flowers. That is why this place became known as Sri Champakahatta, or Champahati (lit. ‘champa market’).

Many years ago, when Sri Laksman Sen served as the king in Sri Nabadwip Dham (Nadia), a devotee called Jayadev Goswami lived here as one of the citizens of this area. Jayadev Goswami had a small cottage on the bank of Ballal Dirghaka (a pond in Ganganagar, Mayapur), where he lived together with his pious spouse Padmavati. Jayadev Goswami was a great poet. He composed many poems here in Sri Nabadwip Dham. Sri Gita Govinda and Dasa Avatara Stotram are particularly famous among his works.

Many come to Champahati and, remembering Sri Jayadev Goswami, chant his Gita Govinda, but we never do it. We mention the ‘Dehi pada-pallavam-udaram’ sloka from Gita Govinda and talk about Jayadev and Padmavati, but who will you tell about Jayadev’s separation? We do not have the qualification to speak about it or understand it.

Actually, Jayadev Goswami started composing Gita Govinda in another place in Nabadwip, but he could not finish it there. Later, when he came here, to Champahati, he finished it here.

One day, when Jayadev Goswami lived in Champahati and was going to write Gita Govinda, he forgot what the next line would be. Nothing came to his mind. Not being able to complete the sloka, he told Padmavati Devi, ‘I am going to take a bath in the Ganges. Have prasad ready, I will take it when I come back.’

A short while later, the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna Himself came in disguise of Jayadev Goswami and said, ‘Padmavati, is prasad ready?’

‘Yes, you said you would take prasad after taking bath, so come and take it.’

The Lord took prasad, and what did He do next? He went into the room where Jayadev Goswami would sit composing Gita Govinda, and the Lord Himself finished that sloka from Gita Govinda that Jayadev Goswami could not finish. After that, He left the room and went away.

Soon after that, real Jayadev Goswami came home. He asked Padmavati Devi, ‘Padmavati, where is my prasad?’

Padmavati Devi was surprised, ‘What do you mean where is your prasad? You have just taken prasad and went to your room. I saw you going there and writing something.’

Jayadev Goswami could not understand anything, ‘What? I went to bath, I have not come back yet!’ Then, he went into his room and saw that the sloka was finished – it was written there, ‘Dehi pada-pallavam-udaram: I am placing Your holy lotus feet on My head.’ The Lord Himself came there, wrote this and left. Krishna Himself wrote His prayer, saying that He was aspiring to attain the lotus feet of Srimati Radharani, and we know that Srimati Radharani also prays for the lotus feet of Krishna. In this way, Krishna showed that it was not necessary for Jayadev, or anyone else, to write about Radharani: He personally came to write what was necessary. Krishna Himself wrote what Jayadev did not have the courage to write.

Another time, when Jayadev Goswami composed his Dasa Avatara Stotram, King Sri Laksman read it and became very happy. He asked one of his men, ‘Whose poetry is this? Who has written this?’ The man replied that the poem had been composed by a poet called Jayadev Goswami. Excited, the king became very eager to meet with Jayadev Goswami. He secretly found out where Jayadev Goswami was staying, and one night, dressed as a beggar Vaishnav, came to him. Jayadev Goswami understood that it was the king, but at first he did not say it to him. After a while, the king revealed his identity to Jayadev Goswami and invited him to his house. Jayadev Goswami became annoyed and declined the king’s invitation, explaining, ‘I do not want to go to the house of a materialist. If you think that because I am your subject, you can order me around, then I will leave your land and go to some other place. Associating with materialists can never bring anything auspicious. I had better go to Nilachal (Sri Puri Dham).’

Hearing his words, the king became quite uneasy. He said, ‘Please do not leave Nabadwip! Prabhu, if you do not want to stay here, then there is a village called Champahati on the other side of the Ganges – please come to live there. I give you my word that I will never come to you unless you order me to: I will not come to see your holy feet until and unless you call me.’

Seeing the king’s humility and hearing his soft speech, Jayadev Goswami replied, ‘So be it. Although you are a materialist king, you are a devotee of Lord Krishna. You have no attachment to the material world. I have called you a materialist to test you, but you have no ego – hearing my words, you tolerated it silently. This is how I can understand that you are a devotee of Lord Krishna. I accept your proposal. I will come to stay in Champahati, and you can secretly come to see me, leaving behind all your royal opulence. I do not have any objection.’

So, the king constructed a small cottage in Champahati, and Jayadev Goswami stayed there, engaging himself in his eternal worship of the Lord.

Every day, Padmavati Devi gathered many champaka flowers and gave them to Jayadev Goswami, who worshipped the Lord with those flowers. One day, the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna mercifully came in front of Jayadev Goswami and Padmavati Devi, revealing His effulgent form, the colour of a champaka flower. Seeing the Lord’s wondrous form, they began to cry and immediately fell unconscious. Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu then took His two devotees on His lap and spoke, ‘You two are My dear devotees. Very soon, I will appear here in Nabadwip from the womb of Sachi Devi. I will spread the Holy Name and rescue the entire earth, and when I turn twenty-four, I will take sannyas and leave for Nilachal. There, I will taste the exclusive mood of My devotees, and I will especially relish the nectar of your Sri Gita Govinda in the company of devotees. You are My dear devotees, so after you leave your bodies, you will come to this transcendental Sri Nabadwip Dham, but for now, do Me a favour – go to Nilachal. You will serve Lord Sri Jagannathdev there and attain transcendental love for the Lord through that.’ Saying this, Mahaprabhu disappeared.

Not being able to see the Lord anymore, Jayadev and Padmavati began to weep. Burning with the agony of separation, they lamented, ‘O Lord! What will become of us now? How will we live, not being able to see our Lord? How can we ever leave this Nabadwip and go to Nilachal? We must have certainly committed some offence! Even if we are born as a beast or a bird, it is better than leaving! We can lose our life, but we will never be able to leave Nabadwip! O Lord! Please keep us here, at Your holy lotus feet!’ Both of them were crying and lamenting in this way when suddenly they heard a divine message in the sky, ‘Do not be sad. Go to Nilachal and remember what I am saying to you. You wanted to go to Nilachal before, so Jagannath has fulfilled your desire. He wants to meet with you – go to Him and make Him happy. When the right time comes and you leave your bodies, you will again return to Nabadwip and stay here eternally.’

Having heard this divine message and not being able to ignore the Lord’s order, Jayadev Goswami and Padmavati Devi decided not to delay, so they set off to Nilachal. As they started to walk, they stopped and looked back at Nabadwip from time to time, tears flowing from their eyes. From afar, they told all residents of Nabadwip, ‘Please be merciful to both of us. Please forgive our offences!’ Walking further and further, they kept looking back at their beloved Nabadwip, and when they could no longer see it, they crossed the border of Gauda-desh shedding incessant tears. Some days later, they arrived in Nilachal. Only after having got the darshan of Lord Jagannath, they got their life back.

This is the story of Srila Jayadev Goswami. This village Champahati is situated on an elevated place (a hill). Sriman Nityananda Prabhu told Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu that this was where Jayadev Goswami’s cottage was. The pastimes of Sri Sri Radha-Krishna take place here eternally.

There is also another matter that should be mentioned here, the pastimes of Dvija-vaninath Prabhu. In Dvapar-yuga, Dvija-vaninath Prabhu took part in the pastimes of Lord Krishna as a gopi called Kamalekha.

Before that, in Satya-yuga, one brahman lived in this place. Every day, he would come to the champak garden, pick champak flowers and serve Radha-Govinda with them. What did the Lord, who is very affectionate to His devotees, do? Actually, you do not need to offer any expensive food to please the Lord. The Lord says, ‘If one worships Me with a drop of Ganges water and a Tulasi leaf, I become very happy.’ So, when that brahman served the Lord with flowers, the Lord became very pleased. One day, when the brahman was meditating and serving his Deities, Krishna decided to appear before Him, revealing His beautiful form to him. The Lord thought, ‘This brahman has been serving Me so much, I shall give him My darshan.’ So, when the brahman was meditating on his beloved worshippable Deity, Shyamasundar Krishna appeared before him in His golden form, the colour of a champak flower (that is, in the form of Lord Gaurasundar).

The Supreme Lord said, ‘I will appear in this form that you see now in Kali-yuga.’ Saying this, Mahaprabhu disappeared. Since that time, the brahman always thought, with pain in his heart, ‘Prabhu, how long will I live? Will I live to Kali-yuga?’

Hearing his mind’s words, the Lord appeared before him in a dream on another day and said, ‘Do not become disheartened, do not cry! In Kali-yuga, I will come to the house of Sachi Mata and Jagannath Misra, and at that time you, too, will appear here in this village Champahati.’

That brahman appeared in Kali-yuga as Dvija-vaninath, who installed the Deities of Sri Gaura-Gadadhar at this temple in Champahati. Some time later, these Deities’ service eventually stopped, and almost one hundred years ago, Jagad-Guru Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur took charge of the Deities’ service, and since that time, the service at this temple has been running properly.

Now a devotee, Sriman Nityananda Prabhu, is serving at this temple single-handedly. He lives here alone. Actually, he is not alone, he is staying here together with Sri Sri Gaura-Gadadhar.

[His Divine Grace requests Sri Nityananda Prabhu to speak. Prabhu speaks about the mercy of Sri Gaura-Gadadhar and humbly expresses his affection for His Divine Grace, urging devotees to remain under his guidance and remember Sri Gaura-Gadadhar’s mercy and holy dham.]

(3/9) At Sri Vidyanagar (1)

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Gaurangera duti pada’.]

Devotees have chanted a very nice kirtan. You are walking to many holy places, but it is necessary to keep your mind in the holy place. I have seen with how much eagerness devotees run to take prasad. Your minds are not in the holy place: your minds are in the desires of your tongues. This is jihva-vega (the urge of the tongue). We sing in the kirtan: ‘Chhaya vega dami’ chhaya dosa sodhi’: please subjugate the six urges, rectify the six defects.’ One of those six urges is the urge of the tongue. Another urge is the urge of the mind. I often see how you run ahead to some shops and stalls. What were they buying here? Mangoes? [Devotee: Guavas.] Again food. You must keep your mind in the holy place.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Mana tumi tirthe sada rata’ for the first time.]

mana, tumi tirthe sada rata

ayodhya, mathura, maya, kasi, kanchi, avantiya,

dvaravati ara achhe yata [1]

‘O mind! You are always attached to places of pilgrimage: Ayodhya, Mathura, Maya, Kasi (Varanasi), Kanchipuram, Avantiya, Dvaraka and many other places.’

tumi chaha bhramibare, e sakala bare bare,

mukti-labha karibara tare

se kevala tava bhrama, nirarthaka parisrama,

chitta sthira tirthe nahi kare [2]

‘You want to travel all these places again and again for the sake of some liberation. These places will never help you fix your mind, so all this is just your illusion, a meaningless labour.’

You are struggling so much, walking all the way, but if your mind is not fixed on the holy place, what benefit will you get? We go to places that are non-different from Kasi, Vrindavan, Radha Kunda, Shyama Kunda, Dvaraka, Mathura and other very high places – you must keep your mind in those places. In this kirtan, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says (these are not my words, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur wrote it) that you take so much trouble coming to a holy place, but when it is the time to hear the class, you cannot fix your mind. You do not take sadhu-sanga, you only worry about food. You get food three times a day, but you are still fighting over food, creating much commotion. What is the point? You gain nothing by that. You come empty and will go back empty, too…

tirtha-phala sadhu-sanga, sadhu-sange antaranga,

sri-krsna-bhajana manohara

yatha sadhu, tatha tirtha, sthira kari’ nija-chitta,

sadhu-sanga kara nirantara [3]

‘The result of visiting a place of pilgrimage is sadhu-sanga (holy association) and being drawn to the exclusive service of Sri Krishna. A place of pilgrimage is where a sadhu (pure devotee) is. Always keep the association of pure devotees and firmly fix your mind.’

When there is sadhu-sanga going on, you must listen to it. This is how you get association. You do not associate with someone just by being near the person. I can hear women talking from so far: everyone is busy with their own things. You are coming to circumambulate a holy place in the holy association of devotees, but you are always busy with your own thoughts and matters. There is no use. I know that humans have natural practical rules: they need to go to the bathroom and take a shower. This is not a problem, this is something that one has to do, but you must stay focused the rest of the time.

ye tirthe vaisnava nai, se tirthete nahi yai,

ki labha hantiya dura-desa

yathaya vaisnava-gana, sei sthana vrndavana,

sei sthane ananda asesa [4]

‘I never go to a place of pilgrimage if there are no Vaishnavs in that place (what is the use walking so far?). Vrindavan is where Vaishnavs are; in such a place there is no end of joy.’

krsna-bhakti yei sthane, mukti-dasi sei-khane,

salila tathaya mandakini

‘In the place where there is devotion to Krishna, liberation is a maidservant and all water is Mandakini.’

Everybody wants to get liberation, everyones wants to get knowledge, wealth, etc. When people see something they want, they do not care about anything – they run to get it, and they do not care whether there are sadhus walking ahead and whether they should be given space first; no, everyone wants to enjoy first. What service mood is this? We sing in one of the kirtans, ‘Nijera posana kabhu na bhaviba, rahiba bhavera bhare: I will never think about my own maintenance, I will always remain in the shelter of loving attachment to You’ (Saranagati). We say, ‘I will never think about myself. My body is for You, for Your service. If it is required for Your service, I am ready to do anything, even if it is something wrong.’

yathaya vaisnava-gana, sei sthana vrndavana,

sei sthane ananda asesa

‘Vrindavan is where Vaishnavs are, in such a place there is no end of joy.”

krsna-bhakti yei sthane, mukti-dasi sei-khane,

salila tathaya mandakini

giri tatha govardhana, bhumi tatha vrndavana,

avirbhuta apani hladini [5]

‘In the place where there is devotion to Krishna, liberation is a maidservant, all water is Mandakini, all mountains are Govardhan, all land is Vrindavan, and the internal energy of the Lord automatically appears on her own.’

vinoda kahichhe bhai, bhramiya ki phala pai,

vaisnava-sevana mora vrata [6]

‘Vinod says, “Brother, what will I get by all this pilgrimage? My sole vow is service to Vaishnavs.”’

We roam this world, but what is the point? Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says, ‘My vow is service to Vaishnavs.’ Why do we arrange this parikrama and this whole festival? So that people can come to this line and practise Krishna consciousness, and so that we can keep our charge up. When you buy a mobile phone, you have to charge it. In the same way, when you do this parikrama for five–seven days, it gives you charge for the year, and after one year, you can come again. You must always keep yourselves charged. Sadhus arrange for the parikrama and go for preaching to give you charge. There are places that do business also: they charge you for joining the parikrama and make a profit. I prohibit to this do. Heart should go first. It is the first priority, and everything else goes after that. The first priority is that you can practise spiritual life and that you are safe, that is why I worry what mistakes you make when you come to take the darshan of the Deities. It is necessary to think about this.

(4/9) At Sri Vidyanagar (2)

I will speak now about the holy place where we have come. Many people say wrong things. For example, the local residents of Nabadwip do not know the truth: they think that Mahaprabhu learned knowledge (vidya) in Vidyanagar. This is not so. Mahaprabhu never studied in Vidyanagar. He studied in Ganganagar. What is the knowledge that resides and is taught here in Vidyanagar? There are many kinds of knowledge in this world, and the origin of all possible kinds of knowledge is present here. This is the place where all branches of knowledge appeared in this world.

Srila Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya was a great pandit who conquered all scholars. At this place, he had his house. He was expert in Vedas, Vedanta, all scriptures and knowledge, and he worshiped Deities following all the scriptures. The fact is that if you chant the Holy Name, you will get all possible results, but he followed the path of knowledge. I will tell you more about it when we go to Sri Sarvabhauma Gaudiya Math. Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya left this place and went to Puri.

When Mahaprabhu took sannyas and came to Puri, He first rushed into the temple of Lord Jagannath. He was so overwhelmed that He could not even pronounce the Name of the Lord. He just kept repeating, ‘Ja-ja-ga-ga, Ja-ja-ga-ga.’ Seeing Mahaprabhu’s state and forceful behaviour, the guards were at first going to beat Him, but when they saw Mahaprabhu showing the asta-sattvik-vikar (eight kinds of ecstasy), they could not touch Him. They called Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya, who was the head of all pandas (temple priests). Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya did not know who Mahaprabhu was, but he told the guards to take Him to his house (Mahaprabhu had fallen unconscious by that time).

Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya lived with his brother-in-law, Gopinath Acharya.

‘Do you not recognise Him?’ Gopinath Acharya asked Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya when he saw who had been brought to their house.

‘Whom? That unconscious man?’ Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya asked in reply.

‘He is the son of Jagannath Misra and the grandson of Nilambhar Chakravarti! This is Nimai Vishvambhar. He has taken sannyas from Keshav Bharati, and His name is now Sri Krishna Chaitanya. Can you not recognise Him? He is the Supreme Lord Himself!’

‘Really?’ Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya said. ‘I do not think…’

‘You do not have mercy, that is why you do not think so. I have some mercy, that is why I think it is so.’

isvarera krpa-lesa haya ta’ yahare
sei ta’ isvara-tattva janibare pare

‘The Lord can be known only by those who have got at least a drop of His mercy.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.6.83)

When you get the mercy of the guru, you will get the mercy of Gaura. How can you recognise your guru? Only by mercy.

When we go to Sarvabhauma Gaudiya Math, I will speak more about Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya and the purport of the ‘Atmaramas cha munayo’ sloka. Gurudev explained it very nicely, and I have heard it from him. In my life, I have asked only one question about scriptures (about this ‘Atmaramas cha munayo’ sloka), and Gurudev explained it to me. Other than that, I never asked any questions. When I said to Gurudev that I could not understand that sloka, Gurudev explained it to me.

Nabadwip Dham is described as a lotus flower, with Antardwip in the centre and eight petals (the other eight islands) around it. Nabadwip existed in the past and will continue to exist eternally. Sriman Nityananda Prabhu told Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu that even at the time of universal dissolution, the eternal abode of Sri Nabadwip remains as a lotus and is never destroyed: at this time, all incarnations of the Lord and some fortunate souls stay here at Nabadwip Dham. On this island of Ritudwip, there exists a supremely pure place called Sri Vidyanagar. This is the place where the Supreme Lord, assuming the form of a fish, held all the Vedas, and all rishis, munis and all knowledge (vidya) lived here, taking shelter of the Vedas. That is how this place got its name, Vidyanagar (lit. ‘a town of knowledge’).

One day, Brahma decided to again create the world. But seeing the previous universe destroyed (during the universal annihilation), he felt extremely sad. He thought, ‘I am creating one world after another, but then they are all destroyed.’ After the world is destroyed, Krishna tells Brahma to create the world again. For example, we live in Kali-yuga now: when this age finishes, Kalki Maharaj will come riding a horse and destroy everyone who is not chanting the Holy Name of the Lord. It is written in the scriptures that He will appear in a village called Shambal in Odisha (that is why His other name is Utkale Purushottam).

So, feeling sad that the world was going to be destroyed, Brahma prayed to the Lord, and, feeling compassion for Brahma, the Lord bestowed His mercy on him. When Brahma opened his mouth to pronounce his prayer, Saraswati Devi was born on his tongue, so when Brahma prayed, empowered by the potency of Saraswati Devi, he felt very happy. By the mercy of the Lord, it was arranged so that during the creation of the world, Maya stays on the bank of the Viraja River and pervades all directions, covering the entire material universe with her three modes. (There is Goloka Vrindavan on top, beyond Maya, and below the spiritual world, there is this material world: this earth, the planets of Lord Brahma and Lord Siva, heaven, hell, etc.) Then, the universe becomes manifest, and many rishis come to the world and try to reveal knowledge: they take shelter of Saraswati Devi and start studying knowledge in various places on earth, defeating ignorance. The place where these rishis reside exists eternally within this island of Sri Ritudwip.

In this way, Valmiki studied poetry here, Dhanvantari studied ayurveda, Visvamitra studied archery, Sanaka, Sanatana, Sanat, Sananda and others studied Vedic mantras here. Even Mahadev learnt about tantras in this place. The four Vedas manifested from the holy mouth of Brahma here. Kapila Muni also lived here and composed his scriptures on logic and logical argument. Patanjali, Kanada Rishi and Jaimini composed their scriptures on yoga here. Even Vedavyas wrote here many of his scriptures (Puranas, etc.). Narad Muni also lived here when he composed his book Pancha-ratra. So, this is a very important place.

One day, when Upanisads were worshipping Gauranga Mahaprabhu in this charming place, they heard in the sky a divine message from Mahaprabhu: ‘Your hearts have become polluted by misconception, so You will not get Me in this form of sruti (orally transmitted scriptures) that you hold now. However, if you are born as My associates when I come to perform My pastimes in this world, you will get to see Me just by dancing and chanting My glories.’ Hearing these words, Upanisads stayed here, waiting for this blessed Kali-yuga to come.

This is the glory of Sri Vidyanagar. This is the place where Sri Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya stayed with his brother Vidya Vachaspati. Actually, those who become proud of their knowledge and lineage (‘I am a brahman!’, ‘I was born in a higher caste!’) often think that everybody must stay at their feet, but this mood has no place here. This is Mahaprabhu’s place, and we must accept Mahaprabhu’s teachings. If we follow Mahaprabhu’s teachings, we will all sit on the floor (we will all take the lowest place). This is the rule.

yei bhaje, sei bada, abhakta—hina, chhara

krsna-bhajane nahi jati-kuladi vichara

‘Those who worship the Lord are great. Non-devotees are worthless and abominable. There is no consideration of class, caste or any other status for those who have taken up Krishna consciousness.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.67)

kiba vipra, kiba nyasi, sudra kene naya
yei krsna-tattva-vetta, sei ‘guru’ haya

‘It does not matter whether one is a brahman, sannyasi or sudra – whoever knows who Krishna is can become a spiritual master.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.8.128)

So, offering our obeisances at this place, we will now go to Sri Sarvabhauma Gaudiya Math. We will sit and speak there, in front of the Lordships for some time.

(5/9) At Sri Sarvabhauma Gaudiya Math

[His Divine Grace chants ‘E ghora-samsare’, ‘E mana Gauranga bine nahi ara’ and ‘Kabe aha Gauranga baliya’.]

e ghora-samsare, padiya manava,

na paya duhkhera sesa

sadhu-sanga kari’, hari bhaje yadi,

tabe anta haya klesa [1]

‘A person who has fallen into this terrible world never ceases to suffer. If you associate with sadhus and serve Hari, however, your suffering will come to an end.’

visaya anale, jvalichhe hrdaya,

anale badaye anala

aparadha chhadi’, laya krsna-nama,

anale padaye jala [2]

‘A fallen soul burns in the ever-increasing fire of mundanity. Avoiding offences, chant Krishna’s Name. It will pour water on the fire.’

nitai-chaitanya-charana-kamale,

asraya la-ila yei

kali dasa bale, jivane marane,

amara asraya sei [3]

‘Kali Das says, “Anyone who has taken shelter of Nitai’s and Chaitanya’s lotus feet is my shelter, in life and in death.”’

e mana! gauranga bina nahi ara

hena avatara, habe ki hayechhe,

hena prema parachara [1]

‘Dear mind! There is no one else except Gauranga! Will there ever be an incarnation like the one that has come? Will such divine love be ever preached again?’

duramati ati, patita pasandi,

prane na marila kare

harinama diya, hrdaya sodhila,

yachi giya ghare ghare [2]

‘He did not kill any living souls, not even the most wicked, fallen or atheist! He went begging house to house: giving them the Holy Name, He purified their hearts!’

bhava-virinchira, vanchhita ye prema,

jagate phelila dhali

kangale paiya, khaila nachiye,

bajaiye karatali [3]

‘He lavishly scattered all over this world that divine love which even the creator of the material world, Lord Brahma, has not been able to attain (out of which even he is cheated). Finding some paupers, He simply danced with them, playing karatals!’

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu scattered everywhere the very gift of transcendental love that Lord Siva, Lord Brahma and other greatest souls have not been able to attain, and the paupers who wanted to get it dance and chant this Holy Name, playing drums and karatals!

hasiye kandiye, preme gadagadi,

pulake vyapila anga

chandale brahmane, kare kolakuli,

kabe va chhila e ranga [4]

‘Laughing and crying, He rolled on the ground, throwing His limbs apart in great jubilation, and the lowliest dog-eating men and brahmans affectionately embraced each other. When has such joy ever been seen?’

They cry, laugh and roll on the ground, overwhelmed with divine love. In Mahaprabhu’s line, even chandals (dog-eaters) and brahmans embrace each other: there is no discrimination based on anyone’s caste!

dakiye hankiye, khola-karatale,

gaiye dhaiye phire

dekhiya samana, tarasa paiye,

kapata hanila dvare [5]

‘With drums and karatals, He loudly called out to everyone. He sometimes went away and then ran back. When Lord Yama sees this, He becomes terrified and slams his door shut!’

e tina bhuvana, anande bharila,

uthila mangala-sora

kahe premananda, emana gaurange,

rati na janmila mora [6]

‘The entire three worlds swelled with joy, and there arose a loud auspicious outcry. Premananda says, “No attachment to this Gauranga has appeared within me…”’

Jaya Gaura Hari Jaya Gaura Hari

Gaura Hari Jaya Gaura Hari

We must sing one more kirtan about Sri Gauranga.

kabe aha gauranga baliya

bhojana sayane, dehera yatane,

chhadiba virakta hana [1]

‘When will I pray to Gauranga and give up food, sleep and everything else related to this body, becoming disinterested and detached?’

We must cry out to Gauranga, praying, ‘When will give up worrying about food and sleep? When will I stop worrying about this body and become detached? When will I call out “O Gauranga!” When will I forget all bodily happiness? When will I forget all bodily interests, eating, sleeping – when will I forget everything?!’

kabe aha gauranga baliya

bhojana sayane, dehera yatane,

chhadiba virakta hana [1]

‘When will I pray to Gauranga and give up food, sleep and everything else related to this body, becoming disinterested and detached?’

navadvipa-dhame nagare nagare

abhimana parihari’

dhama-basi-ghare, madhukari la’ba,

khaiba udara bhari’ [2]

‘I will leave all ego and roam the towns of Nabadwip Dham – I will beg for some alms from the residents of the holy dham and eat what they give to my heart’s content.’

nadi-tate giya, anjali ajnali,

piba prabhu-pada-jala

taru-tale padi’, alasya tyajiba,

paiba sarire bala [3]

‘I will come to the bank of the Ganges and, repeatedly scooping water in prayer, will drink the water that comes from the Lord’s feet. Falling underneath some tree, I will give up laziness and feel strength in my body.’

kakuti kariya, ‘gaura-gadadhara’,

‘sri-radha-madhava’ nama

kandiya kandiya, daki’ uchcharabe,

bhramiba sakala dhama [4]

‘I will wander throughout the holy dham, crying helplessly and loudly calling out the names of Gaura-Gadadhar and Sri Radha-Madhav.’

vaisnava dekhiya, padiba charane,

hrdayera bandhu jani’

vaisnava thakura, prabhura kirtana,

dekhaibe dasa mani’ [5]

‘Seeing a Vaishnav, I will fall at his feet considering him my closest friend (closest to my heart). Vaishnav Thakur will then show me the glories of the Lord, considering me his servant.’

krsna-krsna-krsna-krsna-krsna-nama-kirtanam

rama-rama-gana-ramya-divya chhanda-nartanam

yatra-tatra-krsna-nama-dana-loka-nistaram

prema-dhama-devam eva naumi gaura-sundaram

‘Later, the Supreme Lord travelled to the holy places of pilgrimage in South India with a clever intention of delivering fallen souls. Appearing as a beautiful young renunciate, He distributed the sweet Names of the Lord, singing: ‘Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna he’, as He strolled down different pathways, entered temples and visited homesteads during the sacred pilgrimage. Infused with an inconceivable type of divine inspiration, the Lord freely chanted ‘Rama Rama’ and joyfully danced with the most charming gestures. Irrespective of time or personal qualification, the assembled bystanders were delivered by the Lord, who inspired them to chant Krishna’s Holy Names. I offer my obeisances to that beautiful Golden Lord, Gauranga Sundar, the divine form of Krishna-prema.’

(Prema-dhama-deva Stotram, 22)

Continuing our parikrama, we have come to Sri Sarvabhauma Gaudiya Math, which is the house and the birthplace of Srila Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya. Do you know the name of the guru of demigods? Have you ever heard it? His name is Brihaspati. In Kali-yuga, Brihaspati comes to this world as Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya. This temple here was built in 1936. Please listen carefully.

When Brihaspati, the guru of demigods, heard that the Lord would appear in Kali-yuga as magnanimous Lord Gauranga and would enjoy His knowledge-related pastimes, he left the assembly of King Indradev and took birth on earth together with his disciples to spend some time before the Lord’s appearance trying with great effort to please Gauranga Mahaprabhu. Coming to this world, the great guru of demigods Brihaspati became known as Vasudev Sarvabhauma.

Because Vasudev Sarvabhauma established a school here in Vidyanagar, his name became Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya. One day, he thought, ‘So far, I have not lost my memory, but if I later become tangled in the net of knowledge, I will forget everything.’ So, he came up with a clever plan. He thought, ‘If I am really a servant of Gaura, then my Lord will definitely bring me to Himself.’ Keeping all his disciples in Vidyanagar, he went to Nilachal, and not only that – when he came there, he started preaching about the mayavad scriptures (supporting the impersonal conception of Godhead).

Sri Advaita Acharya Prabhu also did that once. From His childhood, Mahaprabhu (Nimai Vishvambhar) always treated Sri Advaita Acharya Prabhu with much respect: He always offered him obeisances, praised him, etc. Sri Advaita Acharya Prabhu did not like it at all. So, one day he thought, ‘I will teach Him! I will see how clever He is!’ He left Nabadwip for Shantipur and started preaching there against devotion. When Nimai heard this news, He became very angry and, thinking to punish Sri Advaita Acharya Prabhu, ran to Shantipur together with Nityananda Prabhu. When They arrived, Nimai charged Sri Advaita Acharya Prabhu, ‘What are you doing, Advaita?! You called Me with Ganges water and Tulasi leaves, and now you are joking with Me like this? What is wrong with you?’ Saying this, Nimai started slapping Sri Advaita Acharya Prabhu! When Sita Thakurani (the spouse of Sri Advaita Acharya Prabhu) saw this, she began to cry, begging, ‘Nimai, what are You doing? Do not kill him! Do not kill him!’

Seeing the scene, Nityananda Prabhu, who was standing nearby, burst out laughing and did not say anything. But Haridas Thakur, who was also there, was very surprised and could not understand anything. Then, Sri Advaita Acharya Prabhu said, ‘Oh really? I have taught You a lesson! You have lost, and I have won! You have come today to punish me! Where is all that honour You have been showing me all the time?’ Saying this, Sri Advaita Acharya Prabhu then happily fed Mahaprabhu His favourite sak prasad.

So, Sri Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya Prabhu also went to Nilachal and started preaching against devotion, and all his disciples stayed here in Sri Vidyanagar. Nimai Pandit had a lot of fun with them. He crushed everyone! Nobody could compete with Him. Sometimes, Nimai would come to Vidyanagar and ask such difficult questions that everyone (both students and professors), not being able to argue with Him, would flee! This is how Mahaprabhu Vishvambhar manifested His vidya-lila pastimes, establishing that all ignorance (avidya) flees in the face of knowledge (vidya).

jada-vidya yata, mayara vaibhava,
tomara bhajane badha
moha janamiya, anitya samsare,
jivake karaye gadha

‘All mundane learning is a manifestation of illusion (maya) and an obstacle to Your service. It brings about infatuation with the temporary world and turns the soul into an ass.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu took sannyas, He took His danda that He had got from his sannyas-guru and set off to Puri together with a few devotees (Nityananda Prabhu, Mukunda and others). As Nityananda Prabhu, who is non-different from Balaram, was walking, He thought, ‘Prabhu is carrying this danda – why must He carry Me?’ What did He do then? Sri Nityananda Prabhu took the danda, broke it into three pieces and threw those pieces into the Bhargi River.

(After that, there appeared the tradition of taking tridandi-sannyas. The dandas that we carry are composed of three parts. Initially, Mahaprabhu took eka-danda sannyas from Keshav Bharati. There were nirdanda-sannyasis [no danda] and ekadanda-sannyasis [a single danda], but Nityananda Prabhu broke Mahaprabhu’s danda into three parts. These three parts represent body, mind and speech, and Gurudev explained that they mean humility, tolerance and giving honour to others [‘trnad api sunichena…’].)

So, Sri Nityananda Prabhu took the danda, broke it into three pieces and threw those pieces into the Bhargi River. Mahaprabhu was overwhelmed with Krishna-prema and did not notice anything – He only kept walking on. When they came to the Atharnala bridge near Puri, Mahaprabhu remembered about His danda. He asked, ‘Nityananda, give Me My danda!’

Nityananda Prabhu lied, ‘When You were doing kirtan, You became overwhelmed with divine ecstasy, so You fell over on the danda and broke it. Since the danda got broken into three pieces, I threw it into the Bhargi.’

Mahaprabhu got very angry, ‘Nitai, are You kidding Me? I have left everything and took only this one precious thing from Nabadwip, and what did You do? You have destroyed it! You know everything – You know why I have come to this world. I did not take anything with Me, only this danda – a stick! – it was My most precious possession in the whole wide world, but You have thrown even that away! Go away! I will not go with you all. Either I will go first and you will go later, or you will go first and I will go later. What will you do? Decide quickly.’

Everyone reasoned, ‘If we go first, how will we know in which direction Prabhu will go? We will never find Him then. But if Prabhu goes ahead of us, we will be able to see Him from afar.’ So, Nityananda Prabhu said, ‘Go first, and we will go behind You.’

As soon as Mahaprabhu heard it, He started to walk so fast that even though the devotees ran behind Him, they could not catch up with Him! In this way, walking like a mad elephant, Mahaprabhu stormed inside the temple of Lord Jagannath. In the temple of Lord Jagannath, there is a bamboo bar in front of the altar, and when Mahaprabhu ran into the temple, He stumbled onto the bar and fell on the ground. Foam started coming out of His mouth, and all He could say was, ‘Ja-ja-ga-ga, Ja-ja-ga-ga’ (He could not even pronounce the name of Lord Jagannath). His whole appearance became quite horrible: He did not at all look like a man.

Seeing that a mad-looking man had run into the temple, the guards reported about it to Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya, and Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya told them, ‘Whoever He is, it does not matter – take Him to my house.’

In Sri Nilachal, Puri Dham, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya was the manager of Lord Jagannath’s temple. He lived with his wife and brother-in-law Gopinath Acharya. When Gopinath Acharya saw Mahaprabhu, he immediately recognised Him. He asked Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya, ‘Can you not recognise Him?’

‘What do you mean?’ Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya asked him in reply…

I have already told you about their conversation. Not everybody can recognise the Lord.

isvarera krpa-lesa haya ta’ yahare
sei ta’ isvara-tattva janibare pare

‘The Lord can be known only by those who have got at least a drop of His mercy.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.6.83)

Everybody comes and sees some wooden or brass Deities, but I can see that here are Vrajendra-nandan, Radharani and Gauranga. That is why it is said that when the Lord gives you His mercy, you will be able to see Him. In the same way, when the guru bestows his mercy on you, you will be able to know him.

So, in the meantime, Nityananda Prabhu and the devotees had reached Jagannath temple and asked the priests if they had seen Mahaprabhu (they described Him to them), and the priests said, ‘Yes, He has been here, but He is not here now – He was taken to Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya’s house.’ When they came to Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya’s house, Mahaprabhu woke up. Actually, He was not asleep – seeing you all half-asleep now, I say ‘woke up’, but actually He was overwhelmed with asta-sattvik-vakar. When Nityananda Prabhu came and chanted the Hare Krishna maha-mantra into His ear, He slowly opened His eyes and sat up. Mahaprabhu asked, ‘Where have You brought Me?’ Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya explained that He was at his house, and Mahaprabhu asked, “‘Where is it?’ Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya replied, ‘This is Puri Dham. Do You not recognise anyone?’ Mahaprabhu said, ‘No, I do not…’

‘Why have You taken sannyas at this very young age? What have You studied? Have you studied the Vedas and Vedanta? It is impossible to take sannyas without studying these scriptures first. First you must study, then you can take sannyas. You are so young, but sannyas is usually taken after seventy-five.’

‘Prabhu,’ Mahaprabhu replied (pretending not to know anything), ‘I have become crazy. I gave up My mother’s service and, becoming crazy, took sannyas, but you are a great scholar, so please protect My sannyas.’

‘What have you studied?’ Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya asked.

‘Not much, I have studied some vyakaran—‘

‘What is the use of vyakaran (primary grammar)? This is only ABC, the basics! You must study Vedanta. So be it, I will teach it to You.’

After that, during seven days, Mahaprabhu listened to Vedanta from Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya: He sat and listened silently, like an obedient student at Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya’s feet. During these seven days, Mahaprabhu only listened, He did not ask any questions or say anything. Finally, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya said, ‘You have been only listening to Vedanta all these days, and You are not asking anything. How am I to understand whether You have understood anything?’

Mahaprabhu replied humbly, ‘Prabhu, when you read Vedanta, I can understand everything very nicely, but when you start explaining it, I cannot understand anything.’

Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya was taken aback, ‘What is He saying? When I was reading, He could understand everything, and when I was explaining, He did not understand anything?! What is this?’ Then, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya recited the ‘atmaramas cha munayo’ sloka, and Mahaprabhu asked, ‘Prabhu, can you explain this sloka?’ Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya explained the sloka, giving nine different explanations, and then requested Mahaprabhu to speak. Mahaprabhu gave eighteen more explanations of the sloka, not touching the nine explanations Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya had given.

(It is said that when devotees listen intently, Hari-katha flows from the speaker’s mouth. One time, Srila Sanatan Goswami asked Mahaprabhu to explain this same sloka, and Mahaprabhu said, ‘I do not remember what I said at that time…’ Srila Sanatan Goswami Prabhu said, ‘How can that be? I heard You had explained it in eighteen different ways to Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya. Can You not explain it now?’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘I do not know these things, I was mad, and I do not remember what I was saying, but you, Sanatan, are a great devotee and a good listener, then by your mercy I can say something.’ After that, Mahaprabhu gave sixty-one interpretations of that sloka! You can find that conversation and those interpretations in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. I have also written about it briefly in the Guidance books.)

Mayavadi’s teachings are brahma-jnan: they think Brahma has created everything. We sing in the guru-parampara kirtan, ‘Krsna haite chaturmukha hana Krsna-sevonmukha, Brahma haite Naradera mati. By Krishna’s association, Brahma became devoted to Krishna’s service, and by Brahma’s association, Narad Muni became a devotee.’ Brahma has got his power from Krishna, but mayavadis say that everything comes from Brahma. This is brahma-jnan. Rabindranath Tagor, Rama Krishna Mission, Sarada Asram, Bharat Seva Asram, Lokanath Math – they are all mayavadis, they do not believe in the doctrine of Krishna consciousness. And they cannot tolerate when a Deity of the Lord is installed because they do not believe that the Lord has any form. Actually, the followers of impersonalism (maya-vad) are those who bypass Krishna (Krishna-bad). Suppose I take ten thousand rupees from you today, and after a while I tell about you to others, ‘Oh, he does not have even a hundred rupees!’ Krishna has given us these hands, legs, eyes, nose, ears, everything, but we say, ‘Krishna has no legs! Krishna has no hands! He has no form!’ Rabindranath Tagore said in one of his poems, ‘What kind of wealth makes you so rich that you dismiss a touchstone? I place Your feet on my head desiring a particle of that wealth.’ He says he wants to put the Lord’s feet on his head, so there must be feet then! How can they deny that the Lord has a form? That is why we do not read Rabindranath Tagore’s books or go to him; he is a mayavadi and a brahma-jnani.

Hearing Mahaprabhu’s interpretation, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya still did not believe that Mahaprabhu was the Lord Himself. Then, Mahaprabhu showed His six-armed form, and Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya fell in a sastanga-dandavat at His feet. He fell on the ground and could not get up. Mahaprabhu called him, ‘Sarvabhauma, get up! Get up!’ Eventually, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya slowly got up. Turning around and looking all around him, he said, ‘What is this, Prabhu? What kind of form have I just seen? You were standing here, holding a conch, a disc, a club and a lotus. And what do I see now?’ Hiding His form, Mahaprabhu said, ‘You must have seen something wrong. You have got love for Krishna, that is why you see all this conch, disc, etc.’

After that day, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya became a devotee of Mahaprabhu and a great Vaishnav. He left all mayavadi conceptions and started preaching the pure conception about the Lord. His initial plan was successful: the Lord personally came and pulled him to Himself.

Hearing about the pastimes of Sri Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya and the glory of Vidyanagar, Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu asked Sriman Nityananda Prabhu, ‘Prabhu, I have some doubt in my mind. The knowledge of sankhya (detailed teachings of the soul), tarka (debates, logical arguments), etc. is inauspicious. How can it exist in this eternal holy abode?’

Sriman Nityananda Prabhu replied, ‘Hari bol! Hari bol! Listen to what I will say, Jiva. Nothing inauspicious can exist in a holy abode. Arguments, knowledge, etc. have no power here. Here, everyone and everything is subservient to devotion. Bhakti Devi (the Goddess of Devotion) resides in this abode, and everyone else are her servants and maidservants. Nabadwip is the place of nine kinds of devotion; here, jnana (knowledge) and karma (fruitive pursuits) always serve devotion. If the jiva soul is averse to Krishna, scriptures give them wicked and wrong conceptions, but if the jiva soul is a devotee of Lord Krishna, if their nature is gentle, then scriptures give them attachment to Lord Krishna. Prauddha Maya lives here eternally and serves Gauranga Mahaprabhu; she makes those who are averse to Vaishnavism and devoid of devotion blind and inflicts suffering on them.

‘All sins, all material activities are destroyed here. This is the place where Maya bestows knowledge. However, if somebody commits an offence to a Vaishnav, Maya removes them from here and leaves them to suffer in material bondage. Such sinners may live here, but they can never get transcendental love for Lord Krishna or the darshan of Gauranga Mahaprabhu – they only get the ignorance of knowledge. Therefore, knowledge is not inauspicious – it is ignorance, the shadow of knowledge, that is inauspicious.’

So, this is the story of Sri Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya. Coming to his birthplace, we pray to Vaishnav Thakur that he may, bestowing devotion to Lord Krishna upon us, keep us away from the material knowledge that is in fact ignorance and give us pure, transcendental knowledge.

vidyara vilase, katainu kala,

parama sahase ami

tomara charana, na bhajinu kabhu,

ekhana sarana tumi

‘I was so daring that I spent my time enjoying knowledge. I never served Your feet, but now You are my shelter.’

varddhakye ekhana, saktira abhave,

kichhu nahi lage bhala

‘Now that I am aged and devoid of strength, I do not feel for anything.’

jivana yatana, haila ekhana,

se vidya avidya bhela

avidyara jvala, ghatila visama,

se vidya haila sela

‘My life has become an agony; this knowledge turned out to be ignorance. I am chocking with the agony of ignorance – that knowledge turned into a powerful arrow driven right into my heart.’

tomara charana, bina kichhu dhana,

samsare na achhe ara

bhakativinoda, jada-vidya chhadi’

tuya pada kare sara

‘O Lord! There is nothing of value in this material world other than Your feet. Giving up mundane knowledge, Bhaktivinod accepts Your feet as his all-in-all.’

Jay Sri Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya ki jay!

(6/9) At Sri Mamgachi (1)

Please sit down. Today is the last day of our Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, and this is our last stop.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev, Subhadra, Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Sri Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur Yogapith ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Srila Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Srila Bhakti Prajnan Yati Maharaj ki jay.
All the assembled sannyasi-vrinda ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Devotee: Jay Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj ki jay. Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Passing Sri Jahnudwip on our way, we have now come to the birthplace of Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur in Sri Modadrumdwip. Every year, we complete our parikrama here. We will take prasad after the class and then return to our temple by buses. We did not stop in Jahan Nagar on our way because it is very hot and the road goes through the forest, so devotees would struggle to sit there. I will speak about Jahnudwip here. We have also passed Sri Murari Gupta temple, where Murari Gupta’s samadhi-mandir, bhajan-kutir and worshippable Deities are: we offered our obeisances but did not sit there because the place is very small. Finally, I will also speak about the place where we have come, which is the birthplace of Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur.

Srivas Pandit’s father-in-law (Malini Devi’s father) lived in this house, and he arranged the marriage of his niece, Narayani Devi, at this house. So, this is the house of Narayani Devi’s in-laws. Her husband’s name is not written anywhere, but we know her son’s name because he was a great personality who preached about Mahaprabhu and Nitai in this world. By the mercy of her son, Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur, we have got Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata. Later, Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur lived and worshipped the Lord in a city called Denur. When Nityananda Prabhu was going to Puri, He kept him there, saying, ‘You are not able to follow brahmacharya because you like to keep things for the future, which is not a brahmachari’s quality. Therefore, stay here and get married.’ The meaning of this order is that Nityananda Prabhu kept him in Denur for preaching: He ordered Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur to live a pure family life and preach. Not everybody can become brahmacharis and sannyasis. If you can worship the Lord (practise Krishna consciousness) and serve your guru living as a pure householder (sat-grihastha), then it is good, there is no problem with that. The main thing is that it is necessary to take shelter of a bona fide guru and practise Krishna consciousness. Because not everybody is able to live as a brahmachari or a sannyasi, some can live as householders.

So, continuing our Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, we have crossed Sri Ritudwip and have now come to Sri Jahnudwip (this area is known as Jahan Nagar). There is no temple on this island, but we usually stop and sit in the middle of the forest in Sri Jahnudwip for some time to speak about the glory of this island (because it is very hot, this time we came quickly here).

The enchanting forest of Jahnudwip is Bhadravan of Vrindavan Dham. In ancient days, a great sage Jahnu lived here and practised austerities for a long time, as a result of which he attained the darshan of Gauranga Mahaprabhu.

When we went to Ganganagar (Mayapur), we spoke about Ganga Devi, about how Bhagirath Maharaj took Ganga Devi to the ocean to rescue his ancestors, but Ganga Devi stopped in Ganganagar, saying that she wanted to perform austerities for one month until Phalguni Purnima, when Mahaprabhu appears in this world. One evening, when Jahnu Muni was sitting here, a pot that he used for the worship of the Lord fell into the swift current of the Bhagirathi Ganga and was carried away. Seeing this, Jahnu Muni became very angry and drank all water of the Ganges! (Can you imagine this? In the pastimes of the Lord, everything can be possible. For great sages, it is a small matter to drink all Ganges! But when we drink one glass of water, we have to go to the bathroom two times [His Divine Grace chuckles].) In the meantime, Bhagirath Maharaj noticed that the Ganges was nowhere to be seen. He searched and searched for the Ganges and eventually understood what had happened. He came to Jahnu Muni and explained to him everything very humbly, but Jahnu Muni did not say anything. Then, Bhagirath Maharaj stayed here and started worshipping and meditating on the sage to attain his mercy. Many days later, taking pity on the king, Jahnu Muni split his thigh and let Ganga Devi come out of it. This is how Ganga Devi got her name Jahnavi (‘born of Jahnu’).

Long after that, in Dvapar-yuga, Ganga Devi’s son Bhismadev came here to meet with his mother. Seeing her dear son, Jahnavi Devi showed much affection to him and took Bhismadev to the house of her father. Bhismadev lived at the ashram of Jahnu Muni for a long time and studied dharma from the sage (later, he taught these same teachings to Yudhisthir Maharaj). By staying at this Sri Jahnudwip within Nabadwip Dham and by receiving the treasure of devotion, Bhismadev became a great Vaishnav.

This is the glory of this island of Jahnudwip, which is non-different from Sri Bhadravan.

(7/9) At Sri Mamgachi (2)

After Sri Jahnudwip, we came to Sri Modadrumdwip (Mamgachi). So, we should speak also about the glories of this island. This island is non-different from Ayodhya.

When Lord Rama lived in the forest together with Laksman and Sita Devi, they came here and, constructing a small cottage under a banyan tree, lived here for some time. Seeing the effulgence of Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Ramachandra’s holy face lit up with a smile. Noticing it, Sita Devi asked the Lord, ‘Prabhu, why are You laughing? You are suffering so much roaming through forests, why are You laughing? Are You not feeling any pain?’

Sri Ramachandra said, ‘O Devi, it is a very mystic matter. When Kali-yuga comes, all jiva souls will get to see My golden form here in Nadia. I will appear in the house of Sri Jagannath Misra and Sachi Devi as Gauranga and deliver the entire world. Fortunate jiva souls will see My childhood pastimes and attain transcendental devotional love. Enjoying My scholarship pastimes, I will reveal the glory of the Holy Name to this world. After that, I will take sannyas and go away from here to Nilachal, and My wife, Vishnupriya, will cry on the lap of My mother.’

Hearing this, Sita Devi asked again, ‘Why will You make your mother cry? Why will You take sannyas and give so much pain to Your wife? What happiness is it to You if You do this? I cannot understand it.’

‘Dear’, said Sri Ramachandra. ‘You know everything. It is to teach other jiva souls that you are asking Me this, pretending not to know it. Those who have divine love for Me taste this divine love in two ways: in My presence and in My absence. The happiness of being in My direct presence is called union (sambhog), and the happiness of being far from Me is called separation (vipralambha). In separation, devotees always feel sad and hanker for Me, thinking, “When will I see the Lord? When will I come to the Lord?” Feeling this deeper hankering, they experience happiness. Those eternal devotees who, by My mercy, want to unite with Me experience happiness of estrangement, burning in the agony of separation. Separation from Me brings a great joy. Devotees can understand this. When there is a union after separation, the happiness is many times greater due to separation. My mother (Kausalya Devi) will appear in Kali-yuga as Sachi Devi, and you will serve Me as Vishnupriya. In this Treta-yuga, in the agony of separation from you, I will make your golden Deity and worship you in Ayodhya; in return, you will also, in the agony of separation from Me, make My golden Deity in Nadia and worship Me eternally, every day. Dear, this all is a hidden secret, do not tell anyone about it. This Nabadwip Dham is the dearest place to Me; there is no other place, not even Ayodhya, that is as dear to Me. Our Ramavat (cottage) will not be there in Kali-yuga, but it will always remain here in an unmanifest way.’

By the Lord’s will, Guhaka, a devotee and friend of Sri Ramachandra, took birth in the house of a brahman here in Sri Modadrumdwip within Sri Nabadwip Dham. He was known as Sadananda Vipra Bhattacharya, and he did not know anything in this world except for Lord Rama.

When Mahaprabhu appeared, Sadananda Vipra was at the house of Jagannath Misra. Seeing all the demigods, he could recognise that the Supreme Lord Himself had appeared. Jubilant, he returned to his home and started meditating on the Deity he worshipped. Suddenly, he saw Gaurasundar: Sri Gauranga Ray was sitting on a royal throne, and Brahma and other demigods were fanning Him with chamaras. Then, he saw Ramachandra near Mahaprabhu, with Laksman on His right, Sita Devi on His left and Hanuman in front of Him. Seeing this sight, he could understand that Ramachandra had come as Gaura in Kali-yuga. He kept saying, ‘How blessed I am! How blessed I am!’ Later, when Gauranga Mahaprabhu manifested His sankirtan pastimes, Sadananda Vipra would dance with Him, chanting the Holy Name of Gaura.

As Sriman Nityananda Prabhu spoke all these wondrous narrations to Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu, He showed him Sri Bhandiravan; and as they continued their way, they reached the village of Mamgachi.

Jay Sri Modadrumdwip ki jay.

(8/9) At Sri Mamgachi (3)

Remembering Murari Gupta’s Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Deities, we will chant Gopinath’s kirtan now.

[Noticing that devotees look fatigued and listless.] ‘Asustha naya mora sarira, asustha haya mora mana: our bodies are not sick, it is our minds that are sick.’ That is why you feel tired and sleepy during the parikrama… You can never get any result like this…

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Gopinath, mama nivedana suna’.]

gopinath, mama nivedana suna

visayi durjana, sada kama-rata,

kichhu nahi mora guna [1]

‘O Gopinath, please hear my prayer. I am a materialist and a very bad person. I am always attached to all sorts of desires, and there are not any good qualities in me.’

‘I am always attached to desires: I always want more, more, more. I am a materialist and a very bad person. I do not have any qualities.’ How can one develop good qualities? It is necessary to have faith in the Lord and to rely on the Lord:

gopinath, amara bharasa tumi

tomara charane, la-inu sarana,

tomara kinkara ami [2]

‘Gopinath, You are my only hope. I have taken shelter at Your holy feet – I am Your servant.’

gopinath, kemane sodhibe more

na jani bhakati, karme jada-mati,

padechhi samsara ghore [3]

‘Gopinath, how will You purify me? I do not understand devotion, and my materialistic mind is absorbed in material life. I have fallen into this dark world.’

‘Gopinath, I am so bad that it is not possible to purify me!’

gopinath, sakali tomara maya

nahi mama bala, jnana sunirmala,

svadhina nahe e kaya [4]

‘Gopinath, everything is Your illusion. I have no strength or pure knowledge, and this body is not free.’

gopinath, niyata charane sthana

mage e pamara, kandiya kandiya,

karahe karuna dana [5]

‘Gopinath, this wretch is constantly crying and begging at Your holy feet – please give me Your mercy.’

gopinath, tumi ta sakali para

durjane tarite, tomara sakati,

ke achhe papira ara [6]

‘Gopinath, You can do anything. You have the power to deliver very bad people, and is there a greater sinner than I?’

gopinath, tumi krpa-parabara

jivera karane, asiya prapanche,

lila kaile suvistara [7]

‘Gopinath, You are an ocean of mercy. Taking pity on souls, You have come to extend Your pastimes in this world.’

gopinath, ami ki dosera dosi

asura sakala, paila charana,

vinoda thakila basi [8]

‘Gopinath, what is my fault? All demons have reached Your holy feet, but only Vinod is still waiting.’

radha-gopinatha radha-gopinatha
radha-gopinatha radha-gopinatha

At the temple of Saranga Murari, there lived a brahman and a great devotee called Saranga Thakur who served Sri Sri Radha-Gopinath Deities. I will tell you this story briefly now. You can buy the book (Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala) and read it there.

Saranga Thakur served the Deities for a long time and eventually grew very old. (At Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya’s temple also, the devotee is now old, and he is worried that he is alone. At the temple of Sri Sri Gaura-Gadadhar, the servitor, Nityananda Prabhu, is also alone. It is difficult because not everybody has the fortune to serve the Lord permanently. Everybody is now fallen into the hole of material life…) So, when Saranga Thakur grew very old, he prayed to the Deities, ‘O Lord, I will not stay in this world long now, I can leave soon, but what will happen to Your Deities’ service? Who will take care of it?’ One day, he went to bed, worrying and praying in this way, and at night, the Deities came to him in a dream, saying, ‘Saranga, do not worry, you will get one person. When you go to bath in the Ganges tomorrow, give initiation to the first person you see and bring him to the temple. He will take the responsibility for the worship of My Deities.’ Saying this, the Lord disappeared.

The next day, Saranga Thakur woke up and went to bath in the Ganges. When he came into the water, he saw a banana-tree raft. In those days, it was not the age of science, so whenever somebody was bitten by a snake, they would call a healer. I told you yesterday that when Lord Siva drank the poison that arose from the churning of the ocean, some drops fell on the ground and entered various species (snakes, scorpios, some plants, etc.). So, when somebody was bitten by a snake in those days, they would call a healer, and if the healer could not help, they would put the dead body on a raft and set if floating down the river. When Saranga Thakur saw the raft, he saw that there was a dead boy lying on it. The Lord had told him to give initiation to the first person he would see, so Saranga Thakur spoke the Hare Krishna maha-mantra into the ear of the dead boy. Suddenly, the boy opened his eyes. He got up and offered an obeisance to Saranga Thakur, his guru. Then, they both went to the temple, and the boy started serving the Deities. He was about eleven–twelve years old at that time.

In the meantime, the boy’s parents got to know that their son had survived. They came to the temple to take him back home, but the boy said, ‘You threw me away into the Ganges, so I am not yours anymore. I am not your Murari anymore; I am Saranga’s Murari! I belong to my guru.’ In this way, Saranga Murari came and stayed at the temple of his gurudev, continuing the service of the Deities there.

(9/9) At Sri Mamgachi (4)

We have come to the temple (sripat) of Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur, who composed Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata. We have a small-size book, you can buy it. It describes the pastimes of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Many people first buy Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, but if you do not read Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata first, you will not be able to understand anything in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. You must first read Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami said that Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur is the Vyasa of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s pastimes (‘Chaitanyera Vyasa—Vrndavana Dasa’).

There are so many pastimes that we can speak about. I have written much in Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala. As we have come here today, we will chant one kirtan in glorification of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu that was composed by Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Nitai amara dayara avadhi’.]

Our Srila Guru Maharaj, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj wrote the pranam-mantra of Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur and Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami Prabhu:

dasa-vrndavanam vande krsna-dasa-prabhum tatha

chhannavatara-chaitanya-lila-vistara-karinau

dvau nityananda padabja-karuna-renu-bhusitau

vyakta-chchhannau budhachintyau vavande vyasa-rupinau

sri-guru-gaura-gandharva-govindas cha ganaih saha

jayanti pathakas chatra sarvesam karunarthinah

‘I offer my obeisances to Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur and Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami, who made public the pastimes of the hidden avatar, Sri Chaitanya. They were both adorned with the mercy-dust of the lotus feet of Nityananda. I offer my obeisances to these two inconceivable sages who assumed the form of Vyasadev, one explicitly (Vrindavan Das Thakur) and the other one secretly (Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami). Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda and Their associates are ever victorious, and we, students, pray for Their mercy.’

Sri Gaurangasundar, the Lord of my Lord (‘amara Prabhura Prabhu Gauranga-sundar’), advised: ‘Those who are humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, who do not desire any honour and give honour to others are qualified to always chant the Holy Name’ (‘trnad api sunichena…’); but Vrindavan Das Mahasaya, the ‘Vyasa of Sri Chaitanya-lila’, said: ‘If any sinner disregards this and makes any offence, I will kick this sinner on their head!’ How can this be harmonised? I thought that a devotee would show intense, heart-felt sadness – there is no such consideration here. What is this? Vaishnav Acharya said: in such cases, the Lord shows extreme mercy to the jiva souls. But what do we see here? Taken aback and amazed, I became quite intrigued to understand this. Acharya said also: in the cases when the Supreme Lord, or even spiritual teachers, ignore great offenders, Thakur Vrindavan does not ignore such sinners – personally taking this responsibility, he bestows punishment on them. Here, establishing a good or a bad relationship with the clan of such ‘candidates for Lord Yama’s punishment, who are not worth being looked at or touched’ (‘asprsya adrsya sei haya yama-dandya’), he pulls them into the court of the Supreme Lord.

(It is written very beautifully here. We do not have time to read everything now, but I will read some parts to you.)

When it comes to fighting for the dignity of His devotees, the Lord has given some sugar-coated concession to the protesting party; besides, He explained that first, unknown to them, they are given a grant to ensure the termination of their eternal poverty.

(How beautiful this is!)

‘No war, no booty’: if you can file a complaint against the police with the authorities, then it is possible to get somewhere (just as you get powder by pounding and grinding) – must this be taught again in this old-fashioned day and age? Therefore, Sri Vrindavan Thakur made provision for you all to prevent this ruckus – think hard and understand how indebted you all are to him for this! The Master said, so it is right. We will loot the wealth of Sri Vrindavan and rebel even more, but the acharya said that when they came to loot, they got such greatly valuable wealth that without caring to inform the authorities, they stealthy started a great festival of chanting and dancing within their overflowing hearts.

Within the Purbasthali Police Station in Bardhaman District, there is an ancient village called Mamgachi that exists to this day. The elders and the author of Bhakti-ratnakar instruct that this Mamgachi village is called Modadrum Island of Nabadwip. The Bhagirathi River flows on the outskirts of Mamgachi. The Deities of Sri Gaura-Nityananda, who were served by Sri Vrindavan Das, are worshipped in this village eternally. It is said that Thakur Vrindavan took birth in this village. Today, there is a place that is discerned as the house of Thakur Mahasaya, where Vrindavan Das is considered to have walked and spent his childhood.

The paternal house of Srivas’s spouse Malini Devi was in Mamgachi. Srivas Pandit lived in Sri Nabadwip. He is a dear devotee of Sri Gauranga – his brother’s daughter Sri Narayani Devi got married in Mamgachi. In her final years, Malini returned to her own father’s house and lived there. Narayani was married to one of the members of Malini’s extended family, and Sri Vrindavan Das appeared from the womb of this Sri Narayani.

Thakur lost his father in his childhood: because his venerable father left his body before becoming engaged in the service to Lord Sri Chaitanyachandra, his name is not particularly mentioned anywhere. Some say that because his father had not completely taken shelter at the holy lotus feel of the Lord, Sri Vrindavan Das Thakur’s identity is not related to the identity of his paternal family.

As of today, the holy Deities of Sri Gaura-Nityananda installed by Sri Vrindavan Das in the house of Srivas Pandit’s spouse Malini were moved to another place, and although they are served according to all appropriate rules and regulations, Their service does not have that same flourishing scope and effulgence.

Sri Vrindavan Das Thakur spent much time in Denur. We do not hear anything about Sri Thakur Mahasaya accepting a family life (getting married). Among his four disciples, he bequeathed all his property in Denur to Sri Ramahari, a kayastha brahman from North Rarhdesh. Shortly before Sri Gaurasundar left Nabadwip, Sri Thakur Mahasaya’s mother Narayani was only a four-year-old girl. At that time, she was a revered recipient of Sri Chaitanyachandra’s affectionate glance. In the future, when she became a member of her husband’s household in the parental house of Sri Malini Devi, she raised and took care of her jewel of a son, Srila Vrindavan Das, until his adolescence.

Much is written about Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur and much can be said. What Gurudev and Srila Prabhupad wrote is very beautiful. I do not know if you have understood what I have read or not, but I will finish by reciting the words of our precursory gurudev, Srila Kaviraj Goswami, which were spoken about Sri Thakur Mahasaya:

‘ore mudha loka, suna chaitanya-mangala

chaitanya-mahima yate janibe sakala’

‘O fools, just hear Sri Chaitanya-mangala! By hearing this book you can understand all glories of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.’

Jay Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur ki jay.
Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama ki jay.
Jay Srila Gurudev ki jay.

[The trucks with prasad arrive, and the crowd becomes too dense and agitated to continue the speech, so His Divine Grace concludes the speech and takes care of the prasad distribution arrangement.]

* * *

￼Line Line27 March 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Evening Class: Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama (Day Four)

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/11) Association and Chastity

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa-kula-churamani Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj ki jay.
Sachchidananda Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur ki jay.
Sarvabhauma Sri Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev Subhadra Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar, Giriraj Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Tadiya sakha math-samuha ki jay.
Sri Mather sevak vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Ananta-koti Vaishnav vrinda ki jay.
Sri Gaudiya Acharya vrinda ki jay.
Tridandi-pad-gan ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Nityananda Prabhu ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Mahaprabhu ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar, Giriraj Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math Nrisingha Palli ki jay.
Sri Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama samapta o adhivas maha-mahotsav ki jay.
Jay Sri Gaura Purnima, avirbhav maha-mahotsav ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Samagata sannyasi-vrinda, brahmachari-vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Samagata matri-mandali ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Devotee: Jay Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Parivrajakacharya-varya Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj ki jay. Harinam-sankirtan ki jay. Gaura premanande Hari bol.

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my godbrothers and godsisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Is everyone OK?

Devotees: Yes!

I had prayed to the Lord so that you would be able to complete this parikrama nicely. By the Lord’s mercy there were no obstacles, no rain, no problems. The parikrama went very well and smoothly. Everybody did the parikrama very well without any incidents.

[A devotee says that somebody had strayed and went to another party today during the parikrama.]

Those are vantasi (vomit-eaters) – they always go to different places. What did gurudev say? Who must you associate with? You must associate with those who are more senior than you are; you must observe and learn from those who have brought you to this line. Do you think you can become a sadhu just by dressing as one? You can buy these clothes on the street. If I buy the clothes of a policeman and hang a gun on my belt, will that make me a policeman? If I dress as a judge, does that make me a judge? I do not like all those aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, ativadi, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari. Srila Sridhar Maharaj said, ‘You cannot attach one tree’s bark to another tree.’ Where have you brought all these ideas from? I know where they went. Do you think I do not? I can tell you where they went. They were with us until Champahati; after that, there was another party, and they mingled among them. ‘Asat-sanga sada tyaga chhada anya gita-raga – give up bad association, do not listen to the material songs and music’ (Sri Prema-bhakti-chandrika, 15).

Once, a greatest devotee, Srila Sanatan Goswami, tied a red-colour turban on his head and came to Srila Jagadananda Pandit. When Srila Jagadananda Pandit came to Vrindavan, he was staying at the same place as Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami. So, when Srila Jagadananda Pandit saw the red-colour turban on the head of Srila Sanatan Goswami, it stirred his heart as he remembered Mahaprabhu. He asked Sanatan Goswami, ‘Prabhu, when did Mahaprabhu give you this cloth?’ Sanatan Goswami replied, ‘No, He did not give it to me. I got it from another sadhu called Mukunda Saraswati.’ At that time Srila Jagadananda Pandit was cooking some rice, and as soon as he heard those words – although he was junior and Srila Sanatan Goswami was much older – Srila Jagadananda Pandit dashed at Srila Sanatan Goswami, about to hit him with the pot of boiling rice! He said, ‘You love the Lord so much, and the Lord loved you so much! How could you take somebody else’s cloth and tie it on your head?!’ [In reply, Srila Sanatan Goswami explained, ‘Now I see how much you love Mahaprabhu! I wore this turban only to test you and to see your love for the Lord.’]

Saffron is taken only from one’s guru. You can see this boy here wearing saffron: he got it from me, and I also received saffron from my guru. You cannot just go to the market and buy it. Never do this.

…I saw that person entering the room, and I prohibited him to go there. He is my own, so I can say that. I can only prohibit something to those whom I take as my very heart and soul. What did the Lord say in Srimad Bhagavad-gita? ‘I do not know anyone except My devotees, and My devotees also do not know anyone except Me.’ One must become a devotee. When you take initiation, you take it to serve your guru, not to disturb your guru. Always remember this.

(2/11) Service Formula

In Mahaprabhu’s time, nobody came to disturb Mahaprabhu. Many devotees would cook, gather some fruit and bring it for Mahaprabhu. And there was once a peculiar pastime. Mahaprabhu had a servitor called Govinda. Govinda was actually Mahaprabhu’s godbrother (like Mahaprabhu, he was Ishwar Puri’s disciple), but he served Mahaprabhu.

Those who are sitting here near me always call me ‘Gurudev’, but none of them are actually my disciples: they are all my Gurudev’s disciples. Many of you can see that when they give garlands to everyone, they first give garlands to my disciples – some do not understand why, but that is done because they are my godbrothers. I have given sannyas to some of them, but they are still my godbrothers. Kamalendu Prabhu, Balaram Prabhu, Sripad Sadhu Maharaj and many others are my godbrothers. For you, they are your god-uncles. You must give them respect in this way. ‘Sakale samman karite sakati deha natha yatha-yatha: Please give me the ability to give honour to everybody properly.’ You must understand it and give honour to all godbrothers. When I was sick and could not even put my clothes on, they did everything for me – they even helped me to bath when I could not move my hands. This is how much they have served…

This is what we all must do – we come to serve our gurudev, not to disturb him. Sometimes, people come to my door and start disturbing – they know I am resting, but they are still crowding outside my door. I come here, I sit here, you can give pranami, etc. here. It is not necessary to come to my room. I know and remember you all. I know some of you are sad, ‘I have come but could not meet with gurudev. It would be nice to speak to him when I am leaving,’ but there are a thousand people here – how can they all come to me one by one? If I cannot even come out of my room to take prasad because there is a crowd of people in front of my room, what is my position then? I saw yesterday that there are a hundred people who want to take initiation, and I will have to chant on all beads. Sometimes, I want to go to the bathroom, to have my head shaved, and so on, but I cannot because my door is blocked. When the Deities are resting, do you block Their door? The same is here – you cannot block your gurudev’s door.

Service to gurudev means you must think how to keep your guru happy. Suppose gurudev is thirsty – if you give him a glass of water, that is service; you cannot give him a rasagulla instead. You can see also that before we start chanting kirtans, they go to bring some hot water. They supply whatever is necessary. They know I cannot eat certain things, so they cook certain things for me (some potato and rice, for example). What is called service? There is one sloka in Srimad Bhagavatam – when Gurudev was explaining its meaning, he said, ‘If I say, “I am hungry!”, you must give me food at once. That is called service.’

Anyhow, I started talking about Govinda. Govinda took charge of Mahaprabhu’s service. When Mahaprabhu left Nabadwip and came to Puri, he became Mahaprabhu’s personal servitor. All the devotees would come and bring all kinds of preparations and foods for Mahaprabhu, and later they all asked Govinda, ‘Did the Lord eat what I have brought? Did He like it?’ Govinda lied, ‘Yes, He ate it, and He liked it a lot.’ One day, Govinda came to Mahaprabhu and said, ‘Prabhu, how many more people do I have to lie to? I keep all the things in Your room, the whole room is full, but You are not taking anything, and I have to tell everyone lies that You have taken it and liked it.’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘Oh, you have to lie to them?… All right, then I will sit and take everything!’ He sat on an asan and started eating one thing after another until the room had became empty. Mahaprabhu ate whatever everyone had brought (there were thousands of devotees who had come and brought offerings!). Mahaprabhu ate everything, and asked for more, ‘Hey, why are you not bringing more? Why are you dawdling? Govinda, you told Me that there were so many things and I do not eat anything, where are those things? Bring them!’ Govinda said, ‘Prabhu, everything has finished. There are only Raghav’s bags left.’ Mahaprabhu always ate the preparations from Raghav’s bags during the whole year – He would eat little by little and remember Radhav Pandit.

So, if you think that you must come directly to gurudev and give something directly to his hand, it is not so. The main thing is that gurudev gives you service. Whether you give a hundred rupees, fifty rupees or one rupee, you can always give it to any of my servitors – when you give it to them, your money is already used for the Lord’s service. My servitors get annoyed because they worry about me, they tell me, ‘They disturb you, and you cannot get any rest.’ I was lying down, resting and reading, suddenly the electricity went out. I had to send someone to fix it. Then, there was no diesel in the generator, and I had to send someone to get it…

Listen to what I am telling you. It is not necessary to know too many things or to say too many things. What I am telling you is enough. I do not want to hear who did what, who said what, what somebody heard, etc., and you do not need to know it either. Listen to what gurudev says. If you really practise Krishna consciousness, where do you get time to hear all these other things? We have no time to hear all these things.

There are only twenty-four hours in a day. Where do we find time for other things? Those who practise Krishna consciousness chant the Holy Name, arrange for the things for the Deities – cooking, offering, worshipping, etc. They have so many things to do. Where is there time for prajalpa (idle talks and gossiping)?

If you bring something, I want you to bring people – go preaching and bring new people. ‘Bend the bamboo while it is green – if you try to bend it when it matures, it will crack (equivalent to English ‘strike the iron while it is hot’). Always think about your own spiritual life – think how you are practising Krishna consciousness. If you talk too much, you will waste too much time.

(3/11) Serve with Loving Care

You have all completed Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama very well. By the mercy of the Lord, there were no problems. If we get the mercy of the guru and Vaishnavs, then we must get supreme benefit.

We must always have three qualities: we must be sincere, we must be seekers, and we must have chastity. Sincerity means nistha – constancy, or firm determination. First and foremost, we must always think, ‘Do I have constancy, or firm determination, in chanting the Holy Name? Do I have constancy, or firm determination, in the worship of the Deities?’

When I went to the house of a devotee the other day, I told them, ‘there is one thing wrong in your service mood.’ He is worshipping Deities with much zest and has brought them here now, but this is not real worship because before you become a devotee of Lord Krishna, you must first become a devotee of Gauranga Mahaprabhu.

yadi gaura na ha’ta, tabe ki haita,
kemane dharitam de
radhara mahima, prema-rasa-sima,
jagate janata ke?

‘If Gaura had not come, what would have happened? How would we have lived? Who would have revealed to the world Radha’s glory and the extremes of Her ecstatic divine love?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

It is said in the scriptures that if you chant the Holy Name of Lord Sri Krishna, you will be making offences, but what Name can you chant without offence? The Names of Nitai and Gaura. We sing in one of the kirtans, ‘Nitai-Gaurer Namer aparadher vichar ta nai re. There is no judgement of offences when one chants the Names of Nitai and Gaura.’ When you chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, you must chant giving up the ten offences. On the one hand, as you chant more and more, your offences become removed (that is why it is necessary to chant more and more); on the other hand, unless you worship Gaura, you cannot get Krishna. We must worship Gauranga. If you disturb Gauranga with your ‘service’, then whom are you serving? You must think about it. You must be very careful that Deities do not become a burden and that you do not harass the Deities. ‘Do not keep a Deity and make Them a burden. Neither must you keep Deities and harass Them [by not serving Them properly]. Vigraha rekhe galagraha korben na, vigraha rekhe nigraha-o korben na.’

Gurudev always told householder devotees not to keep Deities because if you do, then the burden of offences will fall on your shoulders. In many houses, the wife and the husband worship the Deities, but their children do not come to this line. What happens to those Deities when the husband and the wife die? If their children come to this line and practise Krishna consciousness, it is well and good; otherwise, it is great danger in their life.

You can see what happens when you keep Deities. You cannot come to do the parikrama of Nabadwip Dham, you cannot come to any festival – you will be always staying at home with your Deities. But if you keep a photograph of any of our Deities, then even if you go away for some time, the worship of those Deities is anyway going on in one place or another, so it is not going to be an offence for you to leave – when you are at home, then you must eternally, every day without fail, worship the Deities. You can see here – how many Gopals devotees have brought! But you cannot bring three Deities (Sri Gauranga, Sri Radha and Sri Krishna) here. We have some space to keep Gopals, but there is no place to keep too many of them or to keep big Deities. That is why I tell everyone – you can take home a photograph and worship Deities in Their photograph form.

Always be careful.

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana
mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

‘Associate with sadhus, chant the Holy Name of the Lord, listen to Srimad Bhagavatam, reside in Mathura and worship Deities with faith.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.124)

You must serve Deities with faith. Do you understand? With faith. Serve the Lord dedicating all your mind, heart, soul, everything to the service.

(4/11) No Pain, No Gain

You have all done this Nabadwip Dham parikrama very well, and many of you also have come specially for the Gaura Purnima festival. The Lord will bestow His mercy on you.

The parikrama went very well and very beautifully. Whatever austerity, whatever difficulty there is, why will we stop? We have got this opportunity to do the parikrama, and we must appreciate it. I only feel pain because some devotees came and left early. Maya (illusory environment) is very powerful.

This year, a group of devotees came from Tarakeshwar. Usually they cannot come because it is the potato harvest time, but this year the parikrama is later, so they could come. But two days after they came, they started worrying very much about their houses, and they said that they had to go back to husk mustard… Engrossed in the material world, we are so deeply attached to material things that we cannot give our mind to the service of the Lord even for seven days. They cannot even do the parikrama for five days! There are 365 days in a year, but they cannot give even five days of their time to the Lord. The parikrama is over today, and they have already got their tickets for tomorrow. They are running away at once. What will you say? Many ladies have to stay with their husbands, sons – if they do not come back quickly, their family can kick them out. If they kick you out, it is well and good – you can come here then, and you will see that after a while, they will all come running here to bring you back. Sometimes, you must also teach them a lesson. You can tell your husbands, ‘I want to take a holiday for five–six days,’ but then you are thinking there would be nobody to cook for them, that they would suffer – you become a maid of your family, and because of them you cannot even come to do the parikrama of the holy dham. Some worry that they will not get a train, so they want to leave early in the morning. I have stopped some, but some have left. People are so attached to their material things… They worry that they will suffer some loss. If the Lord wants it, you can stay the whole year at home and suffer loss, and if the Lord does not want it, then even you stay here, your life will be complete in every respect – there will be no loss, no harm. Everything happens by His will. Every action happens by His will. Nothing can happen without His desire.

I have seen this in my own life, and I have seen this in Gurudev’s life also. Before my Gurudev came to the temple, he worked and earned twenty rupees a month. His father had left his body, and Gurudev supported his mother and two brothers (one was seven, the other one was three) with that money. When Gurudev left, they became beggars. One day, they came to Srila Sridhar Maharaj with folded palms, crying bitterly. Gurudev was sitting outside as the security guard of the temple. His mother was crying so much, but he still did not go with them. Srila Sridhar Maharaj told them, ‘Your son does not want to go. Why are you trying to take him forcefully? What will he go to that house for? As I understand, you are lacking food and clothes now. How much money did he give you?’ They said that Gurudev used to earn twenty rupees, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj said then, ‘All right, twenty rupees will be sent to you every month. Is there anything else you want?’ They said, ‘No, it is OK.’ After a while, Gurudev’s middle brother started working, and the younger brother came to the temple (Srila Sridhar Maharaj trained him as a brahmachari, but he did not stay at the temple). Srila Sridhar Maharaj warned him, ‘If you stay, it will be good for you; otherwise, if you leave, you will suffer.’ He went back home and ended up in some scrape. Now he is dead, and his wife was also sick and suffered. They did not listen to Srila Sridhar Maharaj. The other brother who got a job lived a good life. So, when Gurudev left, nothing happened to the family, they all continued to live and managed.

When I left home and came to the temple, they told me, ‘He was a highly educated boy, but now he has become crazy! He is now wearing tilaks, beads and roams around as a sadhu. He is crazy. He had a good job, but he left his job and his parents!’ Those who criticised me in this way died without any food in their house. They did not even have anything to eat. That was their situation. All my brothers got a share of the family land, about four–five acres each; they could have cultivated the land and live off that. We have a devotee who has his own land and cultivates it – he works in the field like an ass the whole day, but they have food, the Lord provides everything. On the other hand, we have eleven acres of land in Hapaniya, and there are two people who cultivate it, but they still cannot manage the temple – I have to send money to the Hapaniya temple. They could be cultivating the land (it is eleven acres!) and manage the temple with that money and produce, and also send some money to me… So, those who cultivate land know it very well that unless you toil yourself nothing will appear on its own. It is necessary to labour yourself. When I lived in Nabadwip, I cultivated enormous land (about thirty-one acre) – I had wheat, sesame and mustard planted. Mostly, the profit from all that land was straw for the cows, nothing else.

So, if we serve the Lord, if we stay with the Lord, if we always think about the Lord, if we have faith in the Lord, then we can be successful. All scriptures say that faith is the main thing.

‘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)

Your debt to your father, mother, rishis (sages), demigods – all debts are cleared if you serve the Lord. The problem is that we do not have faith in what we say, we do not have faith in what the scriptures say…. I was telling you today – they placed the dead body of a dead boy on a raft and let it float down the river, then Saranga Thakur spoke a mantra into the dead boy’s ear, and the boy came back to life. He had faith. Mayavadis (materialists who deny that the Lord has a personality) who do not have any faith in the Holy Name will not be able to see these things…

(5/11) Accepting the Rules

It is said, ‘Avasya raksibe Krsna visvasa palana: surrender means believing that Krishna will certainly protect me.’ Krishna is the protector, Krishna is the maintainer.

Have you ever seen in the news that when an earthquake or some other calamity (whirlpool, etc.) happens, big buildings can get broken – everybody can die – but some two-year-old child survives. If the Lord keeps you alive, nobody can kill you, and if the Lord kills you, nobody can save you. Therefore, it is necessary to keep faith in the Lord. It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, in Srimad Bhagavatam and other scriptures that it is necessary to have faith.

I heard yesterday that there are a hundred people who want to take initiation. If you only want to take initiation and then go back home and live as before, it will not do. You take initiation, then go back home and do not keep any connection with your guru – there is no news about you for one–two years. I do not want your money, wealth, cars, houses or any other things – you must only give your heart, your soul. So many people have come, but I have never told anyone, ‘You are coming for five days, you must give me money for that.’ If you give something, it is OK; if you do not give anything, it is OK, too. You can see also that we have rented several buses for three days, but I never take any bus fare from anyone.

When you take initiation and disappear after that, it is like getting enrolled into a school and then never come to study. You take initiation, give some pranami and take the beads, but after that you do not care whether you chant or not chant, you do not keep any connection, you do not build any relation with your gurudev, you do not practise anything. If you enrol into a school and study like this, then you will never pass the exams. You are coming here to practise Krishna consciousness, to serve the guru: this is why people take initiation. You must always remember this.

Also, I do not tell these things every day, and I do not know if anybody has told you about it or not, but all those who are taking initiation must at least follow the four regulative principles. If you are not prepared to follow them, you should not take initiation here. I do not need a large quantity of devotees. If I get only one good disciple, he can rescue the whole universe. I do not need a thousand people. My gurudev has kept just me alone here, and you all come running after me. If you needed a big building, you would not come here – you would stay at the old temple in Nabadwip (jal-mandir). When I came here, to this jungle, you all came with me. Now there are many buildings here, and more people want to come. Do you think that I do not understand this? Now that we have made the fourth floor and a new guesthouse, people want to come, but before they used to worry if there is place to stay or not, if there are any arrangements or not, and they criticised and gossiped about us. I have told you before,

vaisnava-charitra, sarvada pavitra,
yei ninde himsa kari’
bhaktivinoda, na sambhase tan’re,
thake sada mauna dhari’

‘The character of Vaishnavs is always pure. Bhaktivinod keeps quiet and does not associate with those who are envious of Vaishnavs and who criticise Vaishnavs.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I never chase anyone away. Others may do what they do, but I do not need to do what others do. Always remember this and try to be like that.

The four regulative principles means no gambling, intoxicants, illegal sex and meat-eating. Gambling means playing dice, cards, buying lottery tickets. Intoxication means drinking alcohol, drugs, smoking, drinking tea. You must give all this up. Many have a habit to suck chocolate instead of drinking tea – this is how they give up their habit of drinking tea. Illegal sex means you must not associate with any women except your own wife, and you must also not be too attached to your wife. You can only enter into a relationship with your wife to have children; you must not have too much attachment to each other. Meat-eating means you must not kill any jiva souls – you must not eat any meat, fish, eggs, onion, garlic, masoori dal (lentil). Never eat these things. Remember it. Never eat fish, meat, eggs, onion, garlic, masoori dal (lentil). Also, you must follow ekadasi. You can also keep a photograph of the Deities and offer bhoga to the Deities – it is not necessary to cook anything extraordinary; you can cook some potato and offer potato. Many people have wild spinach growing in their garden – this spinach is Mahaprabhu’s favourite, you can cook it and offer it (Mahaprabhu will be even happier). Place the offering with a Tualsi leaf in front of the photograph of the Deities, chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra and say, ‘Prabhu, I do not know anything, please take this. I do not understand anything, but I am giving this offering to You.’ After that, put the prasad on another plate, and you can take it. Keep some plates separately for the Lord. If you eat muri (puffed rice), you can also offer muri; if you eat rice or rotis, you can offer that to the Lord. Offer whatever you can get. ‘Prasada-seva karite haya, sakala prapancha-jaya: by honouring the Lord’s prasad we can conquer all worldly illusions.’

The second thing I want to say is for those who are taking second initiation: wherever you may stay, you must remember that you are getting brahman initiation tomorrow. You must become a brahman. You will wear a brahman thread, and you must shave your head tomorrow. [To a male devotee] Why do you keep your hair so long? You do puja at different houses, why do you need to have such long hair?…

(6/11) Plausible Priority

[Regarding one of the devotees present] The boy is good, simple-hearted. He buys books and reads them, but I want to give him very good service – I want him to leave his job at the hospital and take up a job here (serving to the Deities). But when will that happen?… I want to give him a very good job here, but how long will he work for other people? You must become a bhava-rogi doctor (a doctor of those who suffer from heart disease).

hrdaya pirita ya’ra, krsna chikitsaka ta’ra,
bhava-roga nasite chatura

‘Krishna is a doctor for those whose hearts are diseased; He is very expert at destroying the heart disease of material existence.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I have many patients, but how many can I treat personally? You too must treat them. It will not do if you only chant the Holy Name on your own.

kiniba, lutiba hari-nama-rasa,
nama-rase mati’ haiba vivasa

‘I will buy and then distribute the ecstasy of the Holy Name – I will forget myself, becoming mad with the ecstasy of the Holy Name.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I will ‘buy’ the wealth from gurudev and then distribute it to others – I will preach Hari-katha all over the world. If I can manage to bring people to this path, I must do that; otherwise, if I cannot do that (if people’s disease is very hard), then I will bring them to gurudev and throw them at his lotus feet. This is how I brought people to my gurudev.

I do not want anything from devotees. I have no desire for religiosity, wealth, material things or liberation. I do not need anything. But if somebody wants to practise Krishna consciousness, or somebody actually practises Krishna consciousness, then I am encouraging them to go forward – I help them go forward and try to bring them to this path. ‘Ara kota kala ghumaibe maya-pisachira kole. How much longer are you going to sleep on the lap of this witch Maya?’

This is how we must practise Krishna consciousness. We must take Krishna consciousness seriously. Otherwise, you come to gurudev, take the beads and go away thinking you have become a sadhu. This is wrong.

You chant with your mouth (I heard ** Prabhu singing in the kitchen today), ‘Guru-mukha-padma-vakya, chittete kariya aikya: make the words from the guru’s lotus mouth one with your heart.’ But tell me, does anyone understand, and follow, the meaning of these words? Does anyone realise what these words mean? If I tell anyone, ‘Stay here’, they will run away saying, ‘No, I have things to do at another place.’ How many can understand, ‘I will do what my gurudev tells me to do’? It is necessary to give priority to what your guru says. It is necessary to understand where the priority lies.

One time, a foreign devotee came to India, and Gurudev told him, ‘Stay here and sit with me.’ The devotee sat there quietly. Gurudev spoke to others, did his things, and that devotee kept sitting at his veranda without saying anything. Then, another devotee asked him, ‘What are you doing there sitting with Gurudev?’ The devotee said, ‘Nothing. Gurudev told me to sit, and I sat.’ ‘Oh, nothing? Then come with me!’ He went with the other devotee to clean the kitchen. He ended up getting busy and had not come to see Gurudev for three days. When he finally came, Gurudev, who had noticed that he had not seen that devotee all those days, asked him, ‘Oh, what has happened? Have you not come all this time because you do not want to see my ugly face?’

Gurudev asked him just like that. The devotee got shy and tried to explain it, but Gurudev asked him, ‘Where have you been all this time?’

‘Another devotee gave me some service’, the devotee said.

‘Oh, so sitting here is not service? I told you to sit here quietly – that is service. I told you to do nothing and sit here – that is service.’

Such is Gurudev’s vision. Anyhow, much has been said already. Tomorrow is a very good day. You must all chant the Holy Name, join the class and kirtans. I will be busy in the morning (giving initiations).

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

[His Divine Grace then chants ‘Gurudev bada krpa kari’, ‘Krpa kara Vaisnava Thakura’ and ‘Gaya Gaura madhura svare.’]

(7/11) Guru-Pada-Asraya

[After chanting the kirtans]

Do you understand the meaning of the kirtan? ‘Grhe thaka, vane thaka, sada Hari bale daka. Whether you are in a house or in a forest, always call out to the Lord.’ ‘Sukhe duhkhe bhule nako, vadane Harinama kara re: in happiness or sadness, never forget it – always chant the Holy Name.’ When happiness comes, we forget the Lord, and when unhappiness comes, we remember the Lord. This will not do. You must chant the Holy Name and remember the Lord always, eternally, both in happiness and unhappiness. It is said in the scriptures,

asraya laiya bhaje, tare krsna nahi tyaje,
ara saba mare akarane

‘Krishna never leaves those who have taken shelter in His devotees and worship them; everyone else simply dies in vain.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

The root, the basis of devotion to the Lord is guru-pada-asraya (taking shelter at the holy lotus feet of a bona fide guru). It is necessary to take shelter at the holy lotus feet of a bona fide guru. You must find a guru who exists within the current of the guru-parampara, who holds Sri Rupanuga line (Sri Rupanuga-dhara), who holds the authentic conclusions of devotional teachings (bhakti-siddhanta-dhara) – find this kind of guru and take shelter at his holy lotus feet. One cannot become a guru on their own – the guru must be selected. It is necessary to follow guru-parampara. So, guru-pada-asraya means accepting a guru who is situated within the authentic guru-parampara. What sort of guru must one take initiation from? For example, although Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur had not left anyone as the next acharya, he ordered Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, through the kirtan ‘Sri Rupa-manjari-pada’, to continue preaching the teachings of Sri Sri Rupa-Raghunath. Moreover, when Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur was reading Sri Bhaktivinod-viraha Dasakam composed by Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj and came to the line ‘Sri-gauranumatam svarupa-viditam…’, he said, ‘Happy style. Now I can die peacefully. I do not have to stay longer here. I can leave peacefully knowing that there is somebody left in this world who can preach what I have told.’ This selected personality is Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj.

Later, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj initiated many brahmacharis, many sannyasis, but among all his disciples he selected our Gurudev (Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj). Having seated him on his throne in 1985, he left this world on 12 August 1988. And as for me, you know my story, I do not want to tell it. Those who were there at that time heard what Gurudev said, and whether somebody follows it or not, I am not saying anything about that. I do not want to dredge up the past. If I start digging in a drain, then only dirt will come out, and I do not want to smell that dirt. It is not necessary for me to say those things.

So, as I was saying, it is necessary to take initiation from a guru who is situated within an authentic guru-parampara. When gurudev selects one of his servitors and says, ‘Follow him, listen to him and obey him’, then it is necessary to follow it. You can look at foreign devotees – they take initiation and practise Krishna consciousness properly, they always keep connection with us and do service. Those who do not practise Krishna consciousness properly take initiation like the Bengalis – many take initiation and then go away. You do not become a disciple just by taking a mantra from a guru. If you are to be a disciple, you must change and mould yourself according to your gurudev’s disciplining.

We must always follow our gurudev’s words. You cannot follow him partially. Gurudev often said, ‘There are 10% devotees, there are 20% devotees, there are 50% devotees, and there are 100% devotees.’ Gurudev would see the percentage of devotion. There are very few 100% devotees, maybe only one; mostly, devotees are 10%, 20%, 50%, etc. It is necessary to be sincere, to be a seeker and to have chastity. To be sincere means to have nistha – to be fixed and dead on in one’s practice and service, to be firmly fixed in following your gurudev’s words. To be a seeker means to search for good things – it means that when you get something good in some place, you do not go wandering everywhere looking for something else. You cannot take initiation from your guru and then go everywhere looking for other things. It is necessary to be a sincere seeker.

You know, many people from this country go abroad looking for money. People go abroad in search of dollars, but what did Guru Maharaj and all our guru-varga (Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj and others) say? They said, ‘You are coming abroad looking for dollars, but I have come abroad to give you the wealth of India.’

(8/11) Priceless Wealth

** was a boy from a ‘big house’, but now he says that he wants to practise bhajan (secluded practice of Krishna consciousness). He came here the other day and said that he wanted to continue with his own bhajan. I said, ‘OK, practise. Later you will understand it and come back. No problem.’

When Param Guru Maharaj’s (Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj) gurudev left this world, he first went away to Vrindavan, but later he returned… You know, we also had much pride and ego at first – we were first in class, studied very well; but when we came to the lotus feet of Gurudev, seeing his vast knowledge, we said, ‘In front of him, we are just babies.’ Gurudev did not go to school, but I saw his handwriting on bank cheques – his handwriting was very beautiful. Even having studied for a Master’s Degree, I could not write like that. I still keep some cheques with his handwriting. I also have some letters that he sometimes wrote to me. There used to be no mobile phones before, and gurudev would write letters to me, and some to others also. Those letters are my priceless wealth – gurudev himself wrote them. I always take them with me wherever I go. There is always a danger of dacoits attacking me, so I always keep those letters with me.

‘Guru-mukha-padma-vakya, chittete kariya aikya ara na kariha mane asa – make the teachings from Sri Guru’s lotus mouth one with your heart, and do not desire anything else.’

It gives pain. I am revealing my heart to you – many come to take initiation, but what do they practise? The other day one man said to me (we were in Subarna Bihar at that time), ‘Oh, I have done dry fasting, and I will take paran now.’ How much ego the person has – he has to come and tell everyone that he had done dry fasting. If he fasted, it is OK, but why tell it to everyone? You think you can dry fast and go to Vaikuntha. OK, just do nirjal ekadasi, nothing else is required, and you will go to Vaikuntha, and we all sit and take anukalpa, so we will go to hell…

(9/11) Temporal Distortions

Tell me now, does anyone have any questions? I have been talking for so many days, does anyone have any questions in the meantime?

[Somebody says they have a questions. Knowing the person’s mood, His Divine Grace says] I will not take your question.

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant enquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

First become surrendered, then you can ask questions. One does not become surrendered just by paying sastanga-dandavats.

[An indistinct question related to family matters and offering bhoga to the Deity of Gopal four times a day.] Do it then at the time when you can. What else can you do? [The devotees asks something further in relation to their family matters.] What can you do? Hiranyakasipu was a demon, but his son Prahlad Maharaj was a devotee. And Prahlad Maharaj’s son Virochan was a dacoit. What can one do? Prahlad was a great sadhu, a great Vaishnav, there is no other Vaishnav like him in this world (the Lord Himself took him on His lap and petted him!), and the son of this Prahlad Maharaj was a demon. But the son of Virochan, Bali Maharaj, was good – he associated with Prahlad Maharaj and came to this line. So, what is the use thinking about all this? What can I do about it? You can try to bring your child here…

[Another indistinct question about keeping and worshipping Gopal’s Deity.] What will you do if you keep Gopal’s Deity? Keep Him at home without feeding Him? My first question to those who ask this is, ‘Do you eat meat and fish at home?’ [The devotee says they are vegetarians.] If you cook vegetarian food, then you can offer bhoga to the Lord. You have children at home, do you not feed them? You feed your children, and then you eat something yourself. But when you keep Deities in the house, you must give up eating unoffered food. You also know that women get their period every month – this is a bodily disease, so at this time, according to the rules, they become contaminated, but does it mean that the Lord will be kept starving for those four–five days? The offence will be even more then. They must take a bath, wear clean clothes, and they can offer bhoga to the Lord. What is the problem? Otherwise, if there is anyone else who can offer bhoga, they can do it; if not, then they must offer. What is the problem? [The devotee says that people will be criticising.] What others say is not the point. I have told you – do not gossip and do not listen to gossips. First, it is necessary to be surrendered. First become surrendered yourself, then others will listen to you; otherwise, who will listen to you?

Are there any questions?

[An indistinct question about Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s lineage and birthplace.] At first the line flowed properly, but later it turned into sahajiya, aul, baul, etc. You will see the same also happen in the line of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur. I have told you before that Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur had eleven sons, and one of the brothers of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, Lalita Prasad, did not follow Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s line. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s birthplace is in Ulagram, Birnagar, and Lalita Prasad became the head of the sampradaya at that place. Many of the places of Mahaprabhu’s pastimes (Katwa, Gambhira, Raghav Pandit’s house and others) turned into places of aul, baul, karttabhaja, neda, daravesa, sani, sakhibheki, jata-goswami. So, similarly, Virachanda Prabhu kept the line flowing properly, but after him it slowly became distorted. My gurudev’s father also sang lila-kirtans at different houses and earned money in this way. And he initiated people – anyone could come to him, and he would give them initiation without any reservation (people could eat meat, fish, etc.). Bamunpara’s Deities are over four hundred years old, and Bamunpara itself was also part of Nityananda Prabhu’s line, but it gradually became distorted and a sahajiya line appeared there.

(10/11) Where Chaste Ones Never Tread

[An indistinct question related to reading Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita and Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata.]

First of all, it is important to understand the siddhanta. Not everybody understands the purport of Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita because Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami wrote about very high things. Moreover, even Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami himself always showed much respect for Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur – he always took his name with much respect (‘chaitanya-lilara vyasa—vrndavana-dasa: Vrindavan Das is the Vyasa of Chaitanya-lila’). Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, composed by Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur, contains all pastimes of Mahaprabhu’s childhood, youth, grihastha, and he described everything in simple language. If somebody cannot understand Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, then it is going to be very difficult for them to understand Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. I have heard many people, including big pandits from Bangladesh, say that they could not understand anything in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. So, first read Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, then Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. Gurudev also said the same thing. I remember when I just came to the temple, Gurudev told me to read Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita in the evenings during the class, but I would also listen to Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata every morning, when another devotee read it.

Are there any other questions?

[A question about some popular mantra and why it is not chanted or recognised in our line.]

People use this imaginary name, but Mahaprabhu did not tell anyone to chant it. It is actually an offence to the Holy Name to chant it. It is not the Name proper. It is not necessary to even pronounce it. You can compare chanting it to mixing with your brother-in-law. If a wife is to mix with anyone, it is her husband, not her brother-in-law. For a wife, to mix with her brother-in-law is abominable.

When Mahaprabhu left this world, many misconception people became prominent. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says, ‘There are thirteen apa-sampradaya (lines that teach misconception) in this world – aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, ativadi, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari. One must never mix or associate with them.’ When Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur lived in this very holy abode, Sri Nabadwip Dham, he said, ‘I am a sweeper! So many rascals disguised as brothers-in-law are sitting at this market, so many fake, mind-following shopkeepers have opened their shops at the market, but I will chase them all out with a broom!’ Sri Nityananda Prabhu has opened Nama-hatta (the market of the Holy Name), but so many misconception people infested it; Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came and declared, ‘I will start this market from scratch! I will personally become a sweeper and chase all these auls, bauls, etc. out of here.’

[The same devotee is asking if they can give some prasad to people from those apa-sampradayas.]

Why do you need to go there? My Gurudev never went there. If Gurudev went there, I would go, but Gurudev did not tell us to go there and did not give us permission to go there.

You know, if anyone invites Sripad Niriha Maharaj to any programme (even if it is somebody from Mayapur), he says, ‘Tell Gurudev about it. If he tells me to come, I will come.’ One time, they called me from Mayapur and asked, ‘Maharaj, there will be a vaishnav-seva programme, can you or somebody from Nrisingha Palli come?’ I asked, ‘Have you not told Niriha Maharaj?’ The devotee replied, ‘I have, but he says I must tell you, and if you tell him to go, then he will come.’ Then, I sent him to go there.

So, if it is necessary, I will send you to go to that place, and if not, then I will not send you there. I do not send everyone to all places. For example, we also do not go to all temples of Mayapur. Why will I enter the places of those who have beaten my gurudev on the head? Never. You know, we have a big temple behind the old Nabadwip temple, but I have never entered it. When there was a bamboo grove there, I used to go there to pass stool. After that, I never went there because this who stay there are offenders of Srila Sridhar Maharaj. When they were going to buy that land, I told Gurudev, ‘What if I buy that land first [to prevent them from settling there]?’ Gurudev said, ‘Are you going to buy the whole world? If they make a temple nearby, what is the problem? You have good food in your pond, then all the fish from other ponds will come to your pond.’ We have Srila Guru Maharaj’s books, Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s Hari-katha, Gurudev’s books, then everybody will come to us. One day people will understand their mistake, and they will come to the real path. It is a matter of time only. You can see now too how many people come to our temple for the parikrama and how many people they have (I saw when we were passing them on the street that they only have a handful of people). Anyway, we do not want to talk about all this. The main point is that we do not go to all places. Go along the straight road and do not change the line to any other place. I do not even want to hear the name you are mentioning – I want to stick my fingers into my ears. What to speak of going there, we should not even hear their name.

There is a temple where they never have any kirtans, preaching, arati, lectures, etc. – they only offer bhoga at random times and take prasad at random times. The very heart of a temple is kirtan. It is necessary to listen to Hari-katha and to chant Hari-kirtan. You cannot live following your mind. First, we must learn from our gurudev what our gurudev says, what is gurudev’s line, then only can we try to say something to others. It is not so easy.

You can see here sannyasis who are big preachers, but they never tell me, ‘Can I speak at the lecture, please?’ My disciples never say this either. When you are with your guru, you must not speak at all – sit quietly. If gurudev says you should speak, then you can speak. On his last Vyasa Puja, Gurudev told me to speak for ten minutes, and I spoke briefly at the end of his speech, that too for only five minutes. That was the only time I spoke together with Gurudev. It was Gurudev’s last appearance day celebration, 4 December 2009. You must always keep quiet in front of your gurudev: it is necessary to listen to what your gurudev says. If you have some question, you must wait for permission to ask. For example, I have told you all just now that you can ask questions (I have given you an order to ask), so you can ask.

(11/11) Do Not Get Mixed Up

[An indistinct question about somebody chanting some kirtans and speaking some Hari-katha.]

We have Gaudiya Gitanjali (Kirtan Guide) at our Temple: these are the kirtans you should sing. Take Gurudev’s books, you can read them during the class. I also have Guidance (Volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4) – you can read them during the class. This is Hari-katha. I wrote Hari-katha in those books. When I went for the parikrama today, I saw a new book and wanted to buy it. I am habituated to reading. For example, we have Srimad Bhagavad-gita published by our temple, but I wanted to see what is the difference between Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s and Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s explanations. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s Srimad Bhagavad-gita is a very thick book, and I will read it when I get time.

Actually, not everybody can digest everything. For example, as I told you before, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur mixed with bauls, but he did not become a baul himself – he brought them to this path. So, we can listen to what other sampradayas say, but we must watch out that we do not become polluted by that. You can see an example in front of you – there is a devotee who has listened to wrong people and ended up rejecting both Srila Prabhupad and Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur. He is a big pandit, big scholar, but he has rejected Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s teaching. This is an offence at Sri Gurudev’s lotus feet. That is why Srila Prabhupad himself told, ‘Bahu grantha na paribe, bahu kalabhyasa na karibe: do not read many books, do not practise many things.’ It is not necessary to know many scriptures, and it is not necessary to do many things in general…

Are there any other questions?

[A devotee invites His Divine Grace to their place for a programme and asks what is required for a programme.]

All right, I will come. I do not need any money, and I do not come to anybody’s house to waste their rice. I will come only to speak Hari-katha. You must arrange for some prasad for the people who will come, and I will come and do kirtan and speak Hari-katha. I will come wherever you call me. I have gone to Muslim countries, and I had no fear of death or anything.

Question: What happens if we hear the Holy Name from the mouths of those who do not respect our gurudev?

You should not listen to the Holy Name from their mouths. If somebody is against gurudev, why will you listen to the Holy Name from them?

[A devotee asks about somebody collecting money and then misusing this money.]

They will get a reaction. If you produce an action, you will get a reaction. If you give them money and they misuse it, you will also get a reaction. For example, if I take money from devotees and use it for myself, I will get a reaction for that. So, we must not go to such people. It is said in one of the kirtans composed by Srila Lochan Das Thakur, ‘I will not go to a place where there is no Nitai. I will not see the faces of those who are against Nitai.’ Nitai means gurudev. We must not even see the face of those who are against Gurudev. Did you understand? Lochan Das Thakur is saying this.

It is necessary to have chastity. Women can understand what chastity is. If a lady mixes or makes love with somebody else besides her husband, it is an insult to her husband. Here also, there is a guru. Gurudev told who the guru is, he seated him in this place, and if you do not listen to what that guru says, if you go somewhere because you want to satisfy your own desires, then it will not give you anything – it will destroy your spiritual life.

Devotee: But a devotee can be collecting for the temple…?

Who does collection? Somebody who does not live at the temple?

Devotee: No, people at other temples say that when they come to collect for the temple, it is an offence to do that.

What offence is there in doing collection? If you go for collection, I will give you a bill book, and you will bring it back after that for the Lord’s service. What offence is there? Others can say whatever they like. Why will we listen to what they say? They are against our gurudev, and they left gurudev (they are guru-tyagi). There are three types of people – guru-tyagi (those who renounce, or reject, their guru), guru-bhogi (those who use their guru) and guru-sevi (those few who serve the guru). Those who you are talking about are guru-tyagi, then what is the need to even talk about them? When Gurudev was there, they made Gurudev very angry.

Whatever. Leave it; it is not necessary to talk about all this. [Devotee mentions a name, about to say something about them.] It is not necessary to tell about anybody or pronounce anyone’s name. It is not necessary to complain about anyone. Do not look for holes in others. Do not look for faults in others. I have told you that many times. Who does what, who says or not says what – it is not necessary to know all this. Do not look for holes in others. We must always think, ‘I am at fault.’ ‘Vaishnava habe adosa-darasi – a Vaishnav will not see others’ faults; he will see his own faults.’ First we must see our own faults.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line28 March 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Sri Nrisingha Palli

Evening Class: Sri Gaura Purnima Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/2) Sri Gaura Purnima Address (1)

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First I am giving my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my beloved Gurudev Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, to all my guru-varga, godbrothers, godsisters and all the devotees.

Many foreign devotees could not come this year due to the current pandemic situation with COVID-19, but they could see our parikrama through the internet, skype, etc., they could also see the photographs from our programmes, and I know they are very happy with that.

My gurudev gave me the responsibility of arranging Sri Gaura Purnima Festival and Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama in 1994, and he always checked everything, always gave me so much mercy all these years. I have also got the mercy, the love and affection from all foreign and Indian devotees. Owing to all that, we have never stopped this Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama and Sri Gaura Purnima Festival since 1994 (this parikrama has been going on non-stop from 1994 until present, 2021). When I left the headquarters of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Nabadwip in 2017, the temple here in Sri Nrisingha Palli had not been finished, but we still did this parikrama from here in 2018. Many foreign devotees also came that year…

Many of the Gaudiya Maths did not make a parikrama this year fearing the coronavirus and worrying whether the government would give permission or not. I never depend on the government’s permission – I always depend on, and get the permission from, my gurudev, from devotees and from Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. The only permission that is necessary to get is the permission from Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. If I can get Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s permission, that is sufficient to make this festival.

Although many Indian and foreign devotees could not come this year, they still helped this grand festival financially and in many other ways. I miss Srila Ashram Maharaj, Srila Janardan Maharaj, Srila Trivikram Maharaj this year, but they are giving me enthusiasm to make this parikrama. They helped to make this temple and the new guesthouse. Many devotees from Venezuela, America, Mexico, Colombia, Spain, Russia, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Mauritius, South Africa and other countries helped very much to make this festival and build the new guesthouse. You will see in the future also – we are making a Prasadam Hall now next to the temple, and I want to make a guest house for Indian devotees above it. I will make another three or even more floors (total seventy rooms). Then, you will not have to go so far next year. Foreign devotees can stay in the guesthouse that is a little distance from the temple. I know everybody is a little reluctant to live so far, and it is not comfortable for you all to come here walking all the time. Next year, you will be able to stay near, above the Prasadam Hall.

Actually, there is something I want to tell you all. When somebody comes to me to take initiation, I do not think that I am giving initiation to them: I think that they have actually come to give me their mercy. I want your mercy, I want your help, your assistance. I always need it. This is your home, your real home, so you can come here at any time and stay here. You stay 365 days a year in a place that you think is your home, but you must come and stay here every two–three months. You can come here for seven days every three months and do some service here. It would be very good. This is your real home here. You must come.

You think that you are taking care of your family, but I am also your family member: you must come here and take care of the temples. You come only once a year, dance, chant, ‘Hari bol! Hari bol!’ and when the festival finishes, you go back to maya, to the land of illusory environment, and you forget that you must come next year. Come from time to time and do some service directly here. This is what the relationship between the guru and the disciple is. This relationship must be tight; it must be established and maintained properly. It is not like you sprinkle some water on a banana leaf and then brush it off. Not like this. You must tie your devotion through your service.

So, come from time to time, keep connection with your guru. You come thinking, ‘I have taken initiation (I gave some fruit and money on a plate and got my beads), and now I can go away. I have taken initiation and become a disciple!’ If you want to become a disciple, you must have some responsibility. When a father gets a son, the relationship does not end there: his son has some duty (he must serve his father, he must help and look after his father, and so on). In the same way, disciples must also serve their guru.

You have got a devotional seed from your guru, and you need to cultivate it. If you plant some fruit tree or some rice paddy and do not take care of that seed after that, the seed will dry. The same is true in spiritual life. You have entered this relationship with your gurudev. Gurudev has planted a holy seed of devotional creeper (bhakti-lata-bij) in your heart, and you must take care of that seed through nava-vidha bhakti – sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). You must cultivate your devotion through these practices, through surrender, through developing real faith (sraddha). Otherwise, if you do not take care of this seed, it will eventually dry or rot, and die…

(2/2) Sri Gaura Purnima Address (2)

You have taken initiation, but only taking initiation is not sufficient – you must now take care of the devotional seed properly. It is necessary to practise sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). Sravan and kirtan are the main practices. Listen to lectures, buy books from the temple, take Vaishnav calendars, and come to festivals from time to time. Keep connection through mobile phones and email. In this age, you can keep connection with your guru through mobile phones and other technology. Call your guru from time to time and ask, ‘How are you?’ These things are necessary to maintain a relationship.

Suppose you have a daughter. You live with her for twenty years at your home, then you get her married. If you do not care about her after that (if you do not call her or visit her to know how she is; if you do not bother to know whether her husband is beating her or taking proper care of her), then all relationship will be gone. When you enter a relationship with somebody, you must maintain connection with them, you must keep in touch. If you do not keep in touch with some relative for one–five years, if you do not hear anything from them, then the relationship will be gone.

So, when you take initiation from your guru, you enter into a relationship with him, and you must maintain that relationship, you must keep in touch with him. You will get a father, mother, daughter, son, wife, husband and other relatives in every birth, but you will not get a guru in every birth. Fortunately for you, you have taken initiation from a guru, and you must keep this connection properly after taking initiation. Ultimately, it depends on your faith. There are four types of faith – kamala-sraddha (gentle, lotus-like faith), taranga-sraddha (fickle, wave-like faith), drdha-sraddha (strong faith), sudrdha-sraddha (the strongest faith). Those who have the strongest faith have the strongest devotion. ‘Sraddha-anusare haya bhakti-adhikari: your devotion depends on how strong your faith is.’

There are many kinds of sahajiya gurus in this world. You come to them, take initiation, and then these gurus will come to you once a year saying, ‘Give me money (pranami).’ This the relationship you get, but the relationship between a bona fide guru and a disciple is not like that. You can easily find a kaulik-guru, a laukik-guru (ancestral and commonplace gurus) and many other kinds of gurus in this world, but it is very rare to find a paramarthik-guru (a genuine spiritual guru). If a guru cannot rescue you from the deathly world of birth and death, he is not a guru, just as if a father cannot bring his son to the path of devotion, he is not fit to be called a father:

gurur na sa syat svajano na sa syat
pita na sa syaj janani na sa syat
daivam na tat syan na patis cha sa syan
na mochayed yah samupeta-mrtyam

‘It is not your guru, it is not your family, it is not your father, it is not your mother, it is not your god, it is not your husband if that person cannot save you from the world of birth and death.’

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 5.5.18)

If a woman, or a wife, cannot bring you to the path of devotion, you must not even touch the water that comes from her hand.

Sriman Mahaprabhu’s line is Srila Rupa Goswami’s line. Sriman Mahaprabhu’s conception comes only through Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Sanatan Goswami, Narottam Das Thakur, Shyamananda Prabhu, and so on all the way down to the Gaudiya-sampradaya of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. This is the perfect, proper line – any other line is bogus.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur also arranged Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama like we have done here. One year, all the devotees looked for him after the parikrama, ‘Oh, I want to give some pranami to gurudev before I leave,’ but Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur felt very sad thinking, ‘They come, chant and dance for seven days, they stay here with Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Maheswar, Vyasadev, Sukadev and many others, but after that they leave everything and jump back into the ocean of illusory environment!’ When the devotees finally found him, they saw Srila Prabhupad was crying! Srila Prabhupad told them, ‘You are going away, but you must not forget me! Do not cheat me!…’

Scriptures say about Sriman Mahaprabhu’s mercy:

sri-krsna-chaitanya-daya karaha vichara
vichara karile chitte pabe chamatkara

‘Just consider Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mercy! If you do, you will feel astonished in your heart.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.15)

And this Mahaprabhu said:

prithivite achhe yata nagaradi grama
sarvatra prachara haibe mora nama

‘My Name will spread to every village and town on this earth.’

(Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu)

These are Mahaprabhu’s words, but who is preaching it now all over the world? Mahaprabhu first sent Srila Sanatan Goswami and Srila Rupa Goswami to preach in the Vrindavan area. As for Mahaprabhu Himself, He came to this world for two reasons: one is the main reason, and the other one is a hidden reason. First of all, Mahaprabhu wanted to give His own Name (to preach Krishna’s Name) in this world, and the other reason is that He came as a devotee, garbing Himself in Srimati Radharani’s heart and halo.

yadi gaura na ha’ta, tabe ki haita,
kemane dharitam de
radhara mahima, prema-rasa-sima,
jagate janata ke?

‘If Gaura had not come, what would have happened? How would we have lived? Who would have revealed to the world Radha’s glory and the extremes of Her ecstatic divine love?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

If Mahaprabhu had not come, who would have been able to understand Srimati Radharani and preach about Her? Her name is not mentioned anywhere in Srimad Bhagavatam, so how would the world have known about Her then? That is why Krishna Himself comes to this world as Gauranga Mahaprabhu, a combined form of Sri Sri Radha Krishna. Taking the heart and halo of Srimati Radharani, Krishna becomes Gauranga Mahaprabhu, and He comes to express in this world Sri Radha’s heart and halo, the feelings of Srimati Radharani. The Lord comes to taste and relish Her mood. Along with Him, there were also Svarup Damodar and Raya Ramananda, who are Lalita and Visakha. In their company, Mahaprabhu revealed Srimati Radharani’s form in this world – He showed how much separation She feels from Lord Krishna.

varaja-yuvati, bhavera bhakati,
sakati haita kara?

‘Who would have shown the power of Vraja-gopis’ ecstatic devotion?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

Who can understand these things? Who has the power to preach about all this? Who can feel these things? Only Mahaprabhu can, and He comes to this world and shows this mood to the entire world.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur and Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur are Nayana Manjari and Guna Manjari; they, too, come to this world to preach this conception of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur made many disciples in this world, and in his lifetime, so many digpals, great acharyas, who were like pillars of the Mission, appeared in this line. Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Prajnan Keshav Goswami Maharaj and many other pillars came at that time. They all preached Mahaprabhu’s line. Before Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj’s demise, he told all foreign devotees, ‘You can go to Srila Sridhar Maharaj after I leave.’ Following his instruction, many foreign devotees came to take shelter at the lotus feet of Srila Sridhar Maharaj. Srila Sridhar Maharaj said at that time that he could not manage foreign devotees and gave all responsibility for them to our gurudev, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj. After that, our gurudev preached all over the world in twenty-five world tours and brought many great souls to this Mission who are now preaching for Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. For this reason, I consider myself a very fortunate soul because I have got not only a great and bona fide guru but also many well-wishers and good friends who are helping me preach about Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

I am also very happy with all the Indian devotees. Everybody has helped this Nabadwip Dham parikrama in many ways; devotees have come to make this festival and helped in so many ways. I do not want you to only come and give me your money or wealth: if you can come and help this Nabadwip Dham parikrama with your heart and soul, that is my greatest happiness.

Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol!

…I would like finish here and start the kirtan. Srila Sridhar Maharaj would always sing particular verses from Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita on this day, and later gurudev also sang them every year after the class on Sri Gaura Purnima. In his lifetime, he ordered me to also chant these verses at every Gaura Purnima, so I would like to start it now.

[His Divine Grace chants verses 1.13.89-124 from Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita.]

* * *

￼Line Line1 April 2021

Kolkata – Ecuador

Online Class

(English) ￼Line Line

(1/1) Turning Point In Your Life

Hari bol! Dandavat. Please accept my humble obeisance.

I am very happy that you are preaching in your country as much as you can. Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur told: ‘Prana achhe yara sei hetu prachara – for as many days we are alive in this world, we must preach Krishna consciousness.’ We must preach all over the world the pure conception that Gurudev and Guru Maharaj gave. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that we are postmen (pion) who must distribute the message of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu door to door and heart to heart: we must bring it to everybody’s heart. This is the main purpose of our life.

This year, many people have come for Sri Gaura Purnima from all of Bengal and India, so I have been busy with the festival, arranging all programmes during the past fifteen days. Now the programme has finished, and tomorrow is the pancham dol: Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Gopinathjiu’s appearance festival in Hapaniya. We will go to Hapaniya tomorrow, and then we will go to Kolkata because I have some service there. Next week, I must go to Vrindavan, and after that, I will go to Siliguri. I will start preaching again. In the meantime, I heard that you have arranged for two fortunate souls to receive initiation.

[Addressing the two new devotees.] You have got some good association, such as that of Sripad Bhakti Bandhav Puri Maharaj, who is one of the senior devotees in our society. He used to be in ISKCON at first, but then he joined our mission, coming first to Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s lotus feet and then to our gurudev, Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj. Therefore, he is actually senior even to me. Because you have got some good association from him, I have no doubt that you will practise properly. But now that you are going to take initiation and enter a completely new life, you must harmonise everything.

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 have been coming and going in this world all the time, but this time you have got some good association, as the result of which you are now facing an important moment in your life: you are about to receive the holy seed of the Lord’s Name.

This Holy Name comes from Goloka Vrindavan, where we all come from. We are all parts of Krishna (we are jiva souls); we are not this body. This body is temporary. We have got many different bodies before (we have been in a dog’s body, cat’s body, cow’s body, pig’s body, and so on), but now we have got this human body, and it is important that we use this body for the service to the Lord. This body is not for eating, sleeping and enjoying. We have been enjoying and doing anything we want for many births, and even when we have finally got this human body, we have been enjoying so much, but the only enjoyer is Krishna, and we are all His servitors. Because we have some ego, we think that we can enjoy, but we are not enjoyers, we are only servitors. Everything that is created in this world must be used for the Lord, for the service to the Lord.

So, just as the Lord comes from Goloka Vrindavan, the Holy Name also comes from Goloka Vrindavan. This Holy Name came from Lord Krishna to Brahma (Lord Brahma also took initiation from Krishna), from Brahma to Narad, from Narad to Vyasadev, from Vyasadev to Madhvacharya, and in this way, it eventually came to Madhavendra Puri. Then, this Holy Name came from Madhavendra Puri to Ishwar Puri, and from Ishwar Puri to Mahaprabhu. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the Lord Himself, but in Kali-yuga, He appears as a devotee in Nabadwip, where I am sitting now, and shows the importance of receiving initiation from a bona fide guru by His own example (even He also took initiation from His guru, Ishwar Puri). After that, the disciplic line eventually came to Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur and, finally, our Param Gurudev, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. In his lifetime, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj declared our Gurudev, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, his successor, and Gurudev also in his lifetime made me his successor. He told me that if any sincere seeker wants to follow all rules and regulations, practise properly and follow ekadasi, then I can give initiation to them. Therefore, I consider that having got some good association from Sripad Puri Maharaj, you are ready to receive initiation.

Sripad Puri Maharaj, please place the beads in the first devotee’s hand and make sure the devotee is wearing the kanthi-mala.

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrinda

First, chant the Pancha-tattva’s name and ask Them for mercy because They have brought this Holy Name to this abode and we cannot chant this Holy Name without Their mercy. After that, start chanting from the big beads:

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Listen properly. After you have chanted on the first big bead, take the next bead and chant again:

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Chant in this way on each bead, one by one:

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Chant in this way on each bead, one by one, from the big beads to the small beads, turn the beads, again chant from the small beads to the big beads, then again from the big beads to the small beads, and again from the small beads to the big beads. Chant sixteen rounds or more in this way every day, it will be good for you. If you are busy with service any day, you must chant at least four rounds. Four rounds must be chanted every day. Chant in this way, and Krishna will reveal Himself in your heart, you will be successful in your spiritual life.

There is also the ten offences book. You must read the whole book. Mainly, pay attention to the ten offences: you must read what the ten offence are, and you must avoid them. If you chant without offences, you will get the result quickly, and you will succeed in your spiritual life. Please chant four rounds now.

All right, next devotee please.

The central, biggest bead is called sumeru. Hold the beads and say:

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrinda

This is the Pancha-tattva’s name. First chant this Pancha-tattva’s name and ask Them for mercy because They have brought the Holy Name to this abode and we cannot chant the Holy Name without Their mercy. Then chant on each bead, one by one, starting from the big beads:

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Chant on each bead, one by one. The next one:

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Next one:

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Next one:

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Chant in this way, from the big beads to the small beads, turn the beads and continue chanting from the small beads to the big beads. Chant sixteen rounds or more every day in this way. If you are busy with service any day, you must chant at least four rounds. You must chant minimum four rounds every day.

There is also the ten offences book. Read the whole book and pay attention to the ten offences. You must read what these offences are, and you must avoid these offences. Chant without offences, and Krishna will reveal Himself in your heart, you will be successful in your spiritual life: you will get the result quickly.

* * *

￼Line Line2 April 2021, noon (Hapaniya)

Hapaniya (West Bengal)

Anniversary Programme: Temple Inauguration and Deity Installation

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/4) Remembering Srila Guru Maharaj (1)

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj begging him for his causeless mercy, aspiring to serve him; after that, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy feet of all guru-varga, godbrothers, all the sannyasis, brahmacharis and devotees, praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

As each year, we have come today to the holy appearance place of Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj in Sri Hapaniya Dham, where our Gurudev made this beautiful Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Ashram. Many of Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s godbrothers came here, and they also installed the Deities of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Gopinath. It is said in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita (1.1.19): ‘Three Deities (Madan-mohan, Govinda and Gopinath) have stolen the heart and soul of Gaudiya Vaishnavs (followers of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu).’ Mostly, there are Gopinath Deities installed (the descendants of Nityananda Prabhu always installed Gopinath Deities). These Deities here were installed by Srila Bhakti Pramode Puri Goswami Maharaj and other guru-varga on this day. On this occasion, we come here every year after Gaura Purnima (on the pancham dol day).

Pujyapad Jajavar Maharaj said that this place is non-different from Sri Varshana. This is a very high place. Even when there was a very big flood in 2000, there was no water in Hapaniya. The word ‘Hapaniya’ means ‘sweet water’, and water, especially coconut water, is indeed very sweet here. The place where the Deities are situated is the place where Srila Sridhar Maharaj was born. His family gave this place to the temple along with the Deities. Later, his sister Rama Didi and other family members gave all property to the temple. Gurudev took care of the land, and later, I started taking care of it. This is how this familial temple was established. This whole village used to be a place of brahmans, but in the course of time most of them left for big cities in search for jobs. In the olden days, brahmans spoke Sanskrit. In the family of Srila Sridhar Maharaj, family members did not speak Bengali at home – they always spoke Sanskrit. So, Srila Sridhar Maharaj was a very scholarly person and an expert in Sanskrit.

There is a lot we can learn from Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s life.

(2/4) Remembering Srila Guru Maharaj (2)

From his childhood, Srila Sridhar Maharaj had transcendental attraction to Lord Rama. He appeared on sri navami-tithi. There is Rama-navami described in scriptures, but Srila Sridhar Maharaj appeared on a Sri Krishna navami-tithi in the month of Kartik (26 Ashvin 1817 [Bengali], or 10 October 1895 [English]). Srila Sridhar Maharaj appeared on the same day as Sri Virachandra Prabhu. It is a great fortune for us to observe the day on which Srila Sridhar Maharaj chose to appear in Kirtida-nandini’s dearest month.

From the time he was a small boy, Srila Sridhar Maharaj had a very strong faith in the Lord. When he finished college in Baharampur, his classmates would say, ‘Ramendra Babu passed the exam without even studying! We had been studying so hard, but we could not pass it! He only studies Gita all day long and chants the Holy Name, and he has passed!’

At his birth, a Hindu astrologer predicted, ‘This boy will not stay at home.’ At first, Srila Sridhar Maharaj stayed here in Sri Hapaniya Dham, absorbed in reading scriptures.

If this great soul had not come to this world in this place, we would never have come here. In Mahaprabhu’s time also, Mahaprabhu would go to the birthplace of His gurudev with all the devotees. He would tell everyone, ‘Take the dust of this place on your head.’ As devotees took and took dust from that place, there appeared a pond! That pond is still there, it is situated near Halisahar and is called Chaitanya-doba.

As Srila Sridhar Maharaj appeared here, he went to the primary school in the village nearby and after that attended Okorsa High School. After high school, he went to college in Baharampur and then to university in Kolkata, where he studied law (LLB). There are scriptures where his full biography is described [can be found in Centenary Anthology in English], you can read about it there.

From childhood, Srila Sridhar Maharaj had a renounced mentality. He would wake up early in the morning and go to bath in the Ganges (you know how far the Ganges is from here, but he would walk all the way there, every day). On the way back, he would bring a lotus flower from a pond and offer it to Lord Siva with the water from the Ganges. You have seen that there is a small temple of Lord Siva next to the temple (the place was given to the temple, and we made a small building there later). Sometimes, he would also go to Jhamatpur to have the darshan of Buroraj Lord Siva.

Like Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, he had no attachment to the material world (money, houses, cars, etc.), but his parents forcefully had him married. Many do not know about this, but he was forced to get married. His spouse’s name is Shanti Devi. Gurudev named the pond near the temple Shanti Sarovar in her honour. When Srila Prabhupad told him to come to the temple, he thought, ‘How will I come?’ He continued listening to Hari-katha from Srila Prabhupad’s lotus mouth, and by the will of the Lord, his spouse got very ill. It happened so that at that time, Srila Prabhupad called him to come to Chaitanya Math, so he had to make choice: on the one hand, he was called to Chaitanya Math, and on the other hand, his spouse was ill. He came to his house to give some medicine to his spouse, but a few days later she died. He had no bondage left. His father, Upendra Chandra Bhattacharya, had also left by that time.

Detached from the material world, he came to stay at Chaitanya Math in 1923, first as a white-clad devotee, then he took brahmacharya and, finally, sannyas in 1930, seven days later. Srila Prabhupad gave him the name ‘Sri Bhakti Raksak Sridhar.’

(3/4) Remembering Srila Guru Maharaj (3)

When Srila Sridhar Maharaj was young, his mother would cry when she fed him. She lamented, ‘I have cooked so many things for my son, but he only takes a plate of plain rice with some cooked neem leaves (neem-patar jol).’ Srila Sridhar Maharaj punished his tongue in this way, ‘You have been eating opulent dishes for many lives, but now you must eat rice with neem water!’ He boiled some neem leaves and took rice with that water and salt. His renunciation was so strict! After his father died, he did not wear shoes or use an umbrella for one year, and he would sometimes go all the way to Katwa on foot, walking bare feet in the scorching sun.

I am telling you some things that I remembered from his biography. I do not remember everything, but I am telling you what comes to my mind now.

There are many great things written about Srila Sridhar Maharaj. Many great goswami acharyas (Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Vichar Jajavar Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Kamal Madhusudan Maharaj and many others) wrote about him, ‘If you want to hear Hari-katha, you must go to Srila Sridhar Maharaj. You must come to him if you want to hear the Hari-katha of our Guru Maharaj (Srila Prabhupad).’

Srila Sridhar Maharaj was a great speaker, and nobody could defeat him in Hari-katha. Many great scholars and knowledge-seekers came to his lotus feet from all over India and also abroad. Even ISKCON’s founder-acharya Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj told his disciples, ‘You must come to India and hear Hari-katha from my siksa-guru, Srila Sridhar Maharaj.’

Before leaving this world, Srila Prabhupad indicated Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s position through the kirtan ‘Sri Rupa-manjari-pada’. He also said, ‘I can leave being confident that one person will stay in this world who can preach what I have told.’

Srila Sridhar Maharaj wrote many beautiful things. If you read his holy books, you will learn much. There is Loving Search for the Lost Servant, Sri Guru and His Grace, Sri Sri Prapanna-jivanamritam and many other books. Sri Sri Prapanna-jivanamritam is the highest scripture. Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad took Sri Sri Prapanna-jivanamritam and Srimad Bhagavatam with him when he first went abroad. Sri Sri Prapanna-jivanamritam is a very beautiful book.

All Gaudiya Vaishnavs appreciated and respected Srila Sridhar Maharaj. He composed a kirtan in glorification of Srila Prabhupad:

sujjanarvuda-radhita-pada-yugam

yuga-dharma-dhurandhara-patra-varam

varadabhaya-dayaka-pujya-padam

pranamami sada prabhupada-padam

‘I offer my obeisance to Prabhupad (Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur), whose holy lotus feet are worshipped by millions of pious souls, who is the establisher of the religion of the age (Krishna-sankirtan), who is the presiding divine successor (at the Visva-Vaishnava-Raja Sobha, the assembly of Vaishnavs of the whole universe), who fulfils the desires of the dispellers of all fears. I eternally offer obeisance to the radiance emanating from the toenails of my master.’

(Sri Sri Prabhupada-padma Stavakah, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Srila Jajavar Maharaj often came here to Hapaniya, and he would say that this place is non-different from Sri Varshana. Srila Bhakti Kamal Madhusudan Maharaj would enter our Nabadwip temple and come to Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s veranda paying sastanga-dandavat, getting up, paying sastanga-dandavat again, and so on. Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj would come here also, walking all the way from Nabadwip, and as he walked, he would chant the whole Sri Prema-Dhama-Deva Stotram:

krsna-krsna-krsna-krsna-krsna-nama-kirtanam

rama-rama-gana-ramya-divya chhanda-nartanam

yatra-tatra-krsna-nama-dana-loka-nistaram

prema-dhama-devam eva naumi gaura-sundaram

‘Later, the Supreme Lord travelled to the holy places of pilgrimage in South India with a clever intention of delivering fallen souls. Appearing as a beautiful young renunciate, He distributed the sweet Names of the Lord, singing: “Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna he”, as He strolled down different pathways, entered temples and visited homesteads during the sacred pilgrimage. Infused with an inconceivable type of divine inspiration, the Lord freely chanted ‘Rama Rama’ and joyfully danced with the most charming gestures. Irrespective of time or personal qualification, the assembled bystanders were delivered by the Lord, who inspired them to chant Krishna’s Holy Names. I offer my obeisances to that beautiful Golden Lord, Gauranga Sundar, the divine form of Krishna-prema.’

(Prema-dhama-deva Stotram, 22, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

He remembered the entire poem by heart. Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj compiled our Gaudiya Gitanjali. He would walk here from Nabadwip chanting kirtans. When he came here, he would search where Srila Sridhar Maharaj studied, in which pond he bathed and other places of Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s early pastimes. He went to Okorsa High School. Srila Sridhar Maharaj told him, ‘You are my godbrother. You go to Hapaniya, it is all right, but why do want to know which school I went to, where I went to toilet and bathed?’ Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj replied, ‘Maharaj, you composed great slokas. When I read your verses, I remember Srila Rupa Goswami, and I consider you non-different from Srila Rupa Goswami and Srila Sanatan Goswami. I feel Srila Rupa Goswami himself came to compose these slokas.’

When Srila Sridhar Maharaj wrote ‘Sri Bhaktivinod Viraha Dasakam’, in particular:

sri-gauranumatam svarupa-viditam rupa-grajenadrtam

rupadyaih parivesitam raghu-ganair-asvaditam sevitam

jivadyair abhiraksitam suka-siva-brahmadi sammanitam

sri-radha-pada-sevanamrtam aho tad datum iso bhavan

‘O wonder of wonders! That which, on the order of Sri Gaurachandra, Sri Svarup Damodar knows the internal purpose of; which is adored by Sri Sanatan Goswami; which is distributed by the preceptors, headed by Sri Rupa Goswami, who teach transcendental mellows; which is tasted and enhanced by Sri Raghunath Das Goswami and his followers; which is carefully protected by the votaries headed by Sri Jiva Prabhu; and which (from a respectful distance) is venerated by great personalities, such as Sri Suka, Lord Siva, the chief of the demigods, and Lord Brahma, the grandfather of all beings – you are capable of giving us that treasure of the nectarine rapture of servitude to the holy feet of Sri Radha.’

(Sri Bhaktivinod Viraha Dasakam, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

Srila Prabhupad said, ‘You did not write this. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur himself came and wrote this.’ This is how much Srila Prabhupad praised and appreciated Srila Sridhar Maharaj and his writing.

(4/4) Remembering Srila Guru Maharaj (4)

Srila Sridhar Maharaj had a very profound vision; he could see the future. He also had a strong common sense. When Srila Sridhar Maharaj purchased the land of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in 1941, he knew that this temple would grow very big. Whenever any of his godbrothers came to the temple, he would give everyone some place to stay. At first, the temple rented some houses, but later those houses were sold one by one to the temple. The temple’s territory expanded in this way.

Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s two brothers, Mani Babu and Amar Babu, gradually came to this line, too, and their wives took initiation as well. Amar Babu’s son, who was a school headmaster in Purbasthali, eventually came to stay here. Apart from that, there are not many family members – there are still one–two people in this lineage, but they live in other places now…

There is a book describing Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s biography in Bengali, and one of the chapters, written by Sri Saurindranath Bhakti Varidhi Prabhu, describes that one time, while on the parikrama of Vrindavan, Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj did a full arati of Srila Sridhar Maharaj, offering him 108 ghee lamps. You all know Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad who became a great worldwide guru. Srila Swami Maharaj spent, perhaps, only ten days with his guru, but he spent much time in the association of Srila Sridhar Maharaj. It was as the result of that association that Srila Swami Maharaj became eager to take sannyas and preach all over the world.

There is also a tape recording in which Srila Sridhar Maharaj spoke about his life. [This recording was published in Centenary Anthology and also translated into Bengali by Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s godbrothers, forming the basis of the book from which His Divine Grace is reading below.] I will read it to you now:

I was born at midnight, Saturday 10th October, 1895. Navami-tithi [ninth lunar day] under the same sign as Lord Ramachandra: krishna-paksa [dark moon fortnight]. Sriman Mahaprabhu was also born on a Saturday. I was the second child. The first was a daughter, but she died early, so a Rama kavach [a protective mantram and amulet] was given to my mother for the protection of the next child, that is, myself. So I was born after my mother took the Rama kavach.

There were two thatched rooms, one of which was the maternity room. Because the first child had been lost, after I was born and my mother was still confined within the maternity area, just in the front of that place my two English-knowing cousins kept night watch to make sure that any ghosts or something like that may not come in the shape of a cat, or in any other way. So as they were reading and studying, they would protect the first half of the night. They were B.A.s studying for M.A. And during the second half, or last portion, of the night two Sanskrit students, one cousin and another an uncle, sat there just in front of that temporary shed, reading, to guard against any unseen attack at that time. They all kept night watch.

Then, as I remember, when I was a boy being carried on the shoulder of my father, there was going in the distance a sankirtan party; crying, I asked him to take me there. Anyway, to console me he took me there for some time and then came back.

I had a very good memory, especially in Sanskrit. I was taught a sloka in praise of Lord Siva (‘Namami sivam siva kalpataru’), and I could chant that by memory. When I was one year eight months, my grandfather died, but I can’t remember him. My earliest recollection is an earthquake. I was born in 1302, Mohammedan era, and 1304 in the month of Vaisakh there was an earthquake. I was only a child then of one year and eight months or so, but I remember that. I remember the shaking of the earth, so many cows gathered, and so on – this is my earliest recollection.

Then, my first brother was born when I was three. I remember the scene of the birth of my brother, around August, 1898. I can also remember when I reached the age of five and was engaged in studying writing, I was given to my maternal uncle’s house. Many things before that I can remember as well. And when I was in my maternal uncle’s house, for three years for early education in a primary school, I got some help from one of my aunts who taught me Ramayana and Mahabharata. That helped me a great deal. Already I had some affinity for all those things, some type of intuitive knowledge and partiality to ancient mythological teachings and culture of the orthodox section. From very childhood my tendency was with the culture of the orthodox section – Vedas, Upanisad, etc., faith in God, all these things.

At nine, I was admitted into high school [intermediate, according to the current system in India]. As a student, there in the debating club I always sided with the ancient sastrik culture, even against the teachers that took up the cause of the renaissance, or reformation. I was always on the side of the previous culture. I fought with them, and I don’t think they could defeat me. Then I got my sacred thread in the family tradition when I was fourteen years of age. I feel that my memory was more or less quite sharp. I could remember what I saw and heard in my early age.

I am told that I had a general tendency that if anyone would come to ask me something, I would reply, ‘No.’ Whatever would be asked of me, ‘No.’ But once, when one of our family members, a scholar, went to appear for his examination, he came to ask me whether he would pass or not. I pronounced, ‘Yes.’ And he won a scholarship. Then I matriculated from the local High School when I was fifteen years of age. I could write Sanskrit verse before that.

I like sacrifice in life. The magnanimous side. I had affinity for Lord Ramachandra, for the model pastimes, but not so much Lord Krishna, because of His Vrindavan-lila. I could not accommodate why God should be a liar and a girl-hunter. I could not accommodate this. Though I saw Radha-Govinda murtis [Deities] – They seemed to be very, very charming. I found some mystic background there, but on the surface, I had more liking for Ramachandra than Krishna.

My attraction to Krishna first came through Bhagavad-Gita, and then through Mahaprabhu. I liked Ramachandra for His magnanimity. I was mainly attracted by the self-giving ideal. So I liked Radharani very much, I liked Mahaprabhu very much, but my attraction to Krishna was less. My attraction to Krishna came through Mahaprabhu and through Radharani – from Their side. When I was nine–ten or so, there was a temple where Radha-Krishna Deities were installed in Jagadanandapur, near Katwa, and where my father used to read Srimad Bhagavatam every year in Kartik month. Sometimes I visited that temple with him, and I found some mystic atmosphere there. It seemed very mystical to me.

After matriculation I went to Berhampore [District Murshidabad] for college study at the Krishnanath College. There, with the company of one of my cousins, my maternal uncle’s son, I came into connection with the East Bengal people, who were renowned, we had heard, for their boldness and sacrificing nature. I took residence in the same hostel as them.

Somehow, I had passed matriculation in the second division [Srila Sridhar Maharaj had suffered a very dangerous bout of malaria for a whole year at that time. – Ed.], but I passed I.A. [Intermediate Arts] in the first division. When we were studying in the local school, we had to do some family works along with our study. But now, from the hostel, I passed in the first division.

Then I was again admitted in that same college at Berhampore. After the fourth year, we sat for the B.A. examination. When I was a student of the fourth year, I came into the connection with a younger boy who had just passed matriculation and was newly admitted into the college. In the college I found that there was a small section of students who were addicted to some meditation, puja, etc., and there was another group that did not care for worshipping, but they liked to serve patients and do good for the public. But I have an internal nature for both.

I was a fourth-year student and that boy was a first-year student, so there was a three-year gap between us. I found that he was given to both sides very intensely: sometimes taking the Name of the Lord very loudly like a madman, and also doing sandhya-vandana [regular morning, noon and evening prayers and worship], etc.; at the same time, when there was any patient, he would engage himself in their service, even neglecting to attend the college classes. Both sides – social service as well as worship - were combined in him.

Before this, when I was at school, I got a book where it is mentioned that if we can go on with the japam [meditational chanting] of gayatri 432 times daily, we can achieve a very good spiritual improvement. I practised that for some time, and at that time I tried my best to understand the revealed truth, without consulting any dictionary or grammar (I had heard that gayatri is conscious, spiritual, not dead words)…

[His Divine Grace Srila Acharya Maharaj notes] You have heard that later Srila Sridhar Maharaj revealed the meaning of sri gayatri mantram: ‘Gayatri muralista-kirtana-dhanam Radha-padam dhimahi.’ The gist of the gayatri mantram is remembrance of the lotus feet of Sri Radha.

…So, if I go on with japam, gayatri itself will express its meaning and purpose. I approached it with that attitude, and I used to feel some light coming from the words of gayatri itself; I had some knowledge about that for some time.

Then, as I said, I came in connection with that boy in college, and I tried to associate with him. His name was Sri Suresh Bhattacharya – he came from a brahman family of Faridpur. The founder of the Bharat Seva Ashram, Sri Pranavananda, was from his village. Sripad Madhusudan Maharaj also comes from the same village – Bajepratappur in the district of Faridpur.

One day, when we two were going on a morning walk and also cleaning our teeth with small twigs, he referred to his father with the expression, ‘that gentleman’. I took exception to that.

‘Why do you use this expression for your father? You say “that gentleman”? What is this!’

He said, ‘Yes, I have committed a wrong; I shouldn’t have spoken in this way before you. But really it is like that. “That gentleman” – he was a gentleman; in this life, I came to him and he has protected me for some time, and in the next life, I shall go to some other place. In this way we are moving hither and thither, coming to some gentleman, and from there to another gentleman…’

[His Divine Grace Srila Acharya Maharaj notes] This is true. Our father gives us a body, but he does not give us life. So, why must you call this gentleman a father? We have had so many of such fathers – when we were goats, we had a father and a mother; when we were dogs, we also had a father and a mother; and now we have got a human body, and we also have a father and a mother – but they are not our real parents. Gurudev is our real parent. It is necessary to understand that there is a soul within all big and small living entities.

…Although I gave opposition, that point hit me very hard. I began to think, ‘Yes, it is true. We are in the midst of father, mother, brother, or, as he said, “that gentleman”. What real connection have I got with them, or they with me? We are all almost like strangers!’ Thinking and thinking of this point, the whole world became as if vacant. I felt a furious atmosphere, with no shelter to take anywhere. A chaotic position, and I have no position of stability. Wherefrom am I coming, where to go, how long am I to stay here – this is a point in the infinite. I am an uncertain point in the whole of the infinite. A great shock came to me in this way. And that was the great turn in my life….

I wanted to become a sannyasi, but the countrymen wanted one year, so I thought I must sacrifice this for them. I left law college and worked for some time posted as a secretary of the movement here in Kalna, and sometimes in the village, for two or three years. Then it was stopped for some time, and later I was wanted for service in Kolkata. With the help of a government office superintendent, I got some vocation and was put up in Kolkata. I attended the office there.

My attraction stays always towards Mahaprabhu. In the meantime, I wandered here and there searching for a sadhu from whom to take initiation, but I couldn’t select anyone to my taste or satisfaction.

One day, I was returning from the office when I found a placard in Chittaranjan Avenue: Gaudiya Math Mahotsav [Grand Festival] for one month. The address was given, near the Pareshnath Temple. I found this red-coloured placard. I thought, Gaudiya Math must be Mahaprabhu’s followers, let me go and see what is there. When I was a law student, through Suresh Bhattacharya I knew the founder of Bharat Seva Ashram, Sri Pranavananda, and he tried his best to take me into his mission; but I flatly refused.

‘My head is sold to Mahaprabhu, Gauranga, so I can’t go anywhere else.’

He said, ‘I also have great reverence for Mahaprabhu Chaitanyadev, but I think the first stage must be Buddhistic abnegation, or vairagya, and indifference; second, Sankar’s Vedanta, or jnana; and the last and highest will be Chaitanya’s prema. Otherwise, people will misunderstand that prema for lust.’

I replied, ‘Yes, what you say is alright – that Sri Chaitanyadev’s prema-dharma is the highest, above the Buddhistic and Sankarite conceptions of theism. But Chaitanyadev did not tell us, “Go to the Buddhists and practise vairagya, and then go to Sankar and have knowledge of the Vedanta, and then come to Me.” He said that “wherever you are, take the association of a sadhu and you can take the Name.”’

He was silenced.

I said to him, ‘If you have got any supernatural power, I will be grateful if you can say where my spiritual guide, my gurudev, is.’

But he took the name of some gentleman, Haranath. I went to search for him but could not find him. But this was when I found that placard and went to Gaudiya Math. There I found only one gentleman manning the outside hall, and the rest had all gone on a procession of nagar-sankirtan [congregational chanting in town]. Then I had a little talk with that gentleman. I had studied something about Chaitanyadev and other scriptures, but I found that those people representing the Math had deeper and more sound knowledge than I. Then, the party came back from nagar-sankirtan and I found Guru Maharaj at the front with his danda [mendicant’s staff]. As soon as he reached the front of the Math, some disciple came and took the danda from him, and gradually he was received there.

At first sight, I found Guru Maharaj’s attitude was that of complete indifference to the ordinary world. He does not care for anyone, he is self-sufficient. I got that sort of impression from his first sight. Then I began visiting. Gradually I came to realise that I wanted to stay in that company.

Unfortunately, I had been unable to find it before, but now the thought came to me, ‘What’s to stop me coming and staying here?’ I cast my glance homeward: father gone, mother living, three younger brothers, they won’t be much affected, but my wife will be affected. I don’t know why, but a sudden thought came in my mind that if she died, I would be free. This thought came. I was attracted by that association because there were so many members of gentlemanly and educated nature and wholly given to the service of Mahaprabhu. That attracted me most.

And it was that very day when I came to my quarter and found that my wife was ill. I came home that night, and after three days she passed away. My mother tried to have me married again, but she could not do so. And within six months she also disappeared in Haridwar, at the time of the Kumbha Mela. She died there. One of my brothers, Satyen, was attending to her with other pilgrims and sisters, etc.

I was free. I was visiting the Math. I was thinking that I must cast my faith here, so I thought it necessary to know as much as possible about the mission; and to know the mission means to know the leader of the mission. So I tried to go upstairs to where Guru Maharaj stayed. I would go in front of his room and sit there to hear, because I was thinking I shall join here. Then one day, it so occurred that Kirtanananda Prabhu, one brahmachari, stopped me when I was making an attempt to go upstairs.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going to Guru Maharaj. I like it very much [to hear and associate].’

‘No, never. You must stay here in the waiting room, and when you find anyone, you will inform him who you want to meet. He will check, and when he returns with the answer, you can go. Otherwise, you must stay here. Never cross this threshold.’

A little harsh. Then I thought, ‘What should be the considerate nature of sadhus? Why should there be any difference outwardly and inwardly? So, I need not come here again!’

But at that very moment the position of Sukadev appeared in my mind. I had read in Mahabharata that Srila Vyasadev sent Srila Sukadev Goswami to Rajarsi Janak to finish his education, or sadhana. Srila Sukadev came, but he was detained for seven days at the outer gate. Then information went to Janak, who sanctioned, ‘Allow him to pass the gate.’ The next gate. He was again detained. In this way, there were seven boundaries of the capital, and at each of the seven gates he was detained for seven days. So, seven times seven means forty-nine days he was detained, and only then could he meet Janak. This thought came in my mind. And then the next concluding thought came, ‘If there is anything bad here and they take me and put me onto a throne to worship me, I should not come here; but if there is real good and they beat with a broomstick, I must not leave!’ That conclusion came in my mind, and I kept visiting.

Then one day, Guru Maharaj was strolling on the roof just after having taken his afternoon meal (generally he did not take any food at night). I just approached and took my stand in a corner. One man was attending him, and Guru Maharaj asked him, ‘Has he something to say?’

The attending person came and asked me, ‘Have you something to say?’

‘No. I have nothing to say.’

He went back. ‘He says he has nothing to say.’

Then Guru Maharaj said, ‘Has he something to ask?’

He again came to me and said, ‘Guru Maharaj asks if you have got something to ask’

‘No, I have nothing to ask.’

He again returned to Guru Maharaj. ‘He says he has nothing to ask.’ Then again Guru Maharaj put forward, ‘Has he got some purpose in mind for coming here?’

The person returned to me.

I said, ‘Yes, without purpose no incident can happen. When I have come, I have some purpose.’

‘What is your purpose?’

‘To gain the grace of you all.’ That was my answer. ‘Apnar prasannata (for Your grace).’ Nothing else but that.

Perhaps that touched Guru Maharaj. He approached me and enquired from me who I was, what I did, where my home was, and so on. And then he said, ‘Yes, you are fortunate. You were born in the area of Gauda-mandal.’

They had one booklet printed then, and the attending person said, ‘Guru Maharaj is offering this booklet to you.’

I said, ‘I already have it.’

He said, ‘That does not matter. With his good will he is giving this to you, so it is something else. Take it.’

Then I took it on my head and accepted it. That was the first talk with Guru Maharaj.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.

We do not have time to read all of this chapter now, but it is a very beautiful text. [His Divine Grace then chants Nitai-pada-kamala, Emona durmati, concluding the class, and then starts the bhoga-arati.]

￼Line Line4 April 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sevak Bhavan, Kolkata

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/8) Happy and Busy Days

Dandavat. Jay Gurudev.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

I am very happy to see you all today. Past two–three weeks I have been busy in Nrisingha Palli, and after that there was Hapaniya pancham-dol – the appearance festival of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Gopinathjiu in Hapaniya. When the festival in Hapaniya finished, I returned the same day to Kolkata. I had some work yesterday here, and today I have been to Uluberia. I had to do some service for the new temple’s inauguration: I met with the devotees there and discussed how we will manage the inauguration. I came back from travelling just one hour ago, and I am very happy to see you. I see that everybody is here.

Please accept my humble obeisance, Srila Ashram Maharaj, dandavat.

Srila Ashram Maharaj: Please accept my humble obeisance, too. How are you, Maharaj?

I am fine. After the festival, Krishna and Gurudev are giving me so much nourishment because this year I have no problems with health – no sickness, nothing. I am OK.

During the parikrama and festival time I was afraid to check my blood sugar because I had not been following all health rules and regulations so much (did not watch my diet so much, did not take my meals timely, and so on). I knew that if I had checked my sugar and it had been high, I would have had some tension, but I checked it yesterday and my sugar level is 106 after fasting. I am thinking it is Krishna’s mercy: during the parikrama I sometimes took rice three times a day because I did not want my stomach to disturb me (if I take chapati or some other things, I get much problem with the acidity and other things, that is why I took rice), and there was no problem, I see my sugar is OK.

As I was saying, I had some bank job here in Kolkata yesterday, and today I went to Uluberia because they are starting to paint the temple, and when all painting works are finished, I will make the date for the inauguration of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda Sundar. I still have not make the date yet.

This Wednesday I am going to Vrindavan. I have some service in Delhi and Vrindavan, so I want to go to Vrindavan and Govardhan for a few days. I know that it is very hot there now and I cannot tolerate so much heat, but I have to go there for some service. I have not been able to go to Vrindavan for many days and months because of the pandemic situation (I usually go there every kartik, but I could not go there last year), that is why I am thinking I must go there. I have bought the ticket for going there, but I have not bought the return ticket yet. I must see how much service is there, then I can decide when I can come back. It is not sure for now. If I can finish everything quickly, I will come back soon. I have some service there, and when there is some service somewhere, I must go there. I do not want to waste my life: if I can use all time for the service to Gurudev, I am always happy.

I spent almost twenty days in Nrisingha Palli, the festivals have finished there, and next is Gurudev’s disappearance festival coming, then Nrisingha-chaturdasi. Every temple will make festivals on these days, and I will also make a festival wherever I am at that time.

You know, there was a very strange number of initiations this Gaura Purnima. Total one hundred and forty devotees took first and second initiations. Thirty or thirty-two devotees took second initiation and one hundred and eight devotees took the first initiation. It is too many initiations in one day. I started in the morning and finished only at about four o’clock, and immediately after that I joined the Gaura Purnima programme – Mahaprabhu’s appearance festival. I had been giving initiations the whole day; it was too much for me that day…

(2/8) Whose Child Are You?

Actually, when somebody who does not practise properly takes initiation, it gives me a problem, health-wise also. Gurudev sometimes said, ‘The day when I do not give any initiations, my health is good, and the day when I give initiations, my health becomes bad because people come and give all their bad karma to their guru.’ So, if somebody does not practise properly, it creates a problem to gurudev’s health. This is what Gurudev told.

That is why, this year I told the devotees who were writing down the names for initiations that initiation can be given only to those who follow all the rules and regulations, who practise properly and chant the Holy Name, who follow the four rules and regulations (who avoid all bad things, such as gambling, drinking alcohol, illegal sex, eating meat, fish, etc.; they have to be proper vegetarians). Only such people can take initiation otherwise, so much problem is coming to me…

It is necessary for everybody to practise properly. I went today to Uluberia, and one Indian boy there is actually ready to take sannyas, but his parents are crying. The boy does not want to get married, and I tried to reason with his parents, to give them some advice. Parents only give you a body, they do not give you yourself, so if Krishna wants to take you for His service, it is great fortune. Srimad Bhagavatam says that is one member of any family becomes a sannyasi, fully surrenders to the Lord, then twenty-one generations of that family finish all their material bondage (karma-bandhan) and get liberation.

Gurudev also said, ‘Brihat svartha paite haile, ksudra svartha tyaga karte habe.’ It means that if you want to get a great benefit, you must avoid small, trifle benefits. His parents cry, ‘Oh, my son is running the shop!’ What is this? This is such a small, trifle matter. This boy is Krishna’s son, and if Krishna wants to use His own son in His service, who can stop it? If you want to stop it, then you will only get a body – the Lord will take this boy to his dham.

You are not born in this human body to serve Maya. You have got this human body to serve the Lord, to serve your gurudev (the Lord’s associate). You did not get this body to serve Maya. We only always serve Maya, we are always surrendered to Maya; this is our main problem. We are always surrendered to Maya. What is this? Sometimes I become very annoyed, very unhappy about this kind of situation.

Krishna wants you to come and surrender to Him – He wants you to become a full-timer, wants you to give your entire life to His service – and then what kind of bondage, what kind of things come up? Maya always comes in between! Maya Devi is always very strong, and sometimes we are surrendering to Maya. That is our problem.

(3/8) Adjust Your Wavelength

This year I miss everybody who could not come for Gaura Purnima very much. I know you all have a great desire to come, and if you have a desire to come for next Gaura Purnima, Krishna will certainly fulfil your desire. Surely Krishna will fulfil your desire. Try to come and try to arrange for your plane ticket, plane fare. I know there are many economical problems in some parts of South America, and the economical condition in the world in general is not good, but you should remember at this time:

tomara sevaya, duhkha haya yata,
seo ta’ parama sukha

‘Even whatever unhappiness I feel when serving You is a source of great happiness for me.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

So much sadness, so many problems, so much bondage will come, but we must overcome everything and always go forward. We must have a great desire. It is necessary to have a great desire to do service. Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that if you make one step towards Krishna (if you come forward to Krishna one step by one step), Krishna will make ten steps towards you (He will come towards you ten steps by ten steps). The guru and Krishna are always ready to give you mercy, but the problem is that we do not have the qualities, we do not have the capacity to accept that mercy – we cannot catch and receive that mercy. We must be proper receivers; it is necessary. The line is OK, but the problem is that the receiver is not good. We must be proper receivers; otherwise, we will not get the sound properly, we will not hear anything properly.

This year many temples did not make Nabadwip Dham parikrama. ISKCON did a small parikrama (instead of five–six parties, they had only one party who did the parikrama), and this year also they did not stop or halt us. They did the parikrama in the same way as we did – started in the morning and came back in the evening. Our previous temple, Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math (‘jal mandir’), also did a small parikrama with about 150–200 people, not so many.

Actually, it is not about the quantity of people. This is a grand festival of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Temples are supposed to get government permission to have this festival, but why must I get their permission? I did not ask any permission. I know that government will give permission for only one hundred people! Why is it necessary to go and get permission from the government? It is not! When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu chanted kirtan, He did not ask Chand Kazi for any permission! Even Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur never asked government for any permission. Then why is it necessary to ask government for permission now? I said it was not necessary. If I was to go and apply for permission to hold this festival, the government would forward it to the police, and the police would come and disturb us. We did our parikrama without any police, without anything. What is the problem? No problem. Everything is the will of the Lord, the will of Krishna.

If you have the strongest faith, then you will succeed and overcome all obstacles. It is necessary to have the strongest faith.

Anyhow, the festival went fine, it was very nice. Fifty-seven rooms were ready in the new guesthouse building. Despite that, many people still stayed in the nat-mandir because they did not want to walk a little far: they preferred to stay with me and disturb me. People still slept in the corridor on my veranda; they like to disturb me. I came after the class at ten o’clock at night and wanted to go to sleep, but they talked and laughed in front of my gate until twelve o’clock. OK, no problem. I have to tolerate. Gurudev tolerated so much, and I must tolerate everything too… Gurudev told sometimes, ‘When I am in my room, I am used to hearing dogs bark, so no problem, if you put a generator right behind my door, I will get used to it, too.’ My situation is the same. No problem.

(4/8) Avoid Provincialism

[Addressing one of the devotees.] I did not see you in the photographs of the Gaura Purnima festival in your city. Did you not join the programme this year? Why? Because you were not invited? You must make this grand festival all together. Why is it necessary to wait for an invitation? I never invite anyone for this festival. I only say that everybody can come for Gaura Purnima, but I do not invite anybody personally.

It is necessary to preach. It is necessary to preach and expand Srila Gurudev’s mission. Everybody must avoid enviousness, everybody must avoid anger and ego. Ego is always a problem. Try to understand this.

Everybody says that there is a lack of harmony in some countries, but everybody must understand that we do not hanker for any post. We do not go after posts – it does not matter who the president is, who the secretary is, who the treasurer is, or who the regional guru is. The post is only one – Gurudev; and we are all ‘lamp posts’. It is very important to understand this. It is not necessary to think, ‘Oh, he is the temple manager, and I do not have any post at the temple.’ This post, that post – this is not a question. If somebody washes the plates, takes care of the garden or does cow seva at the temple, these are all great services.

You know that Mahaprabhu would always tell everybody not to touch His feet, but Mahaprabhu did not forbid Kalidas. Mahaprabhu said about Kalidas, ‘Do not tell him “no”.’ Mahaprabhu allowed Kalidas to touch His feet. Why? Because Kalidas is extremely humble. He took prasadam from everybody’s discarded plates, thinking, ‘I have no capacity, I have no right to sit together with great Vaishnavs. When they throw away their plates after taking prasadam, I will take their remnants from those plates. This is my capacity.’

It is necessary to be humble, tolerant and to give honour to others.

There is another thing called pradesi-katha (provincialism). I wrote about it in the third volume of Guidance; these are the words of Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. The chapter is called ‘Pradesi-katha and Hari-seva’ (Provincialism and Service to the Lord). It means the following. Somebody’s mentality is, ‘I was born in Bengal, so I will only show love and affection for Bengali people.’ This is not good. We must show love and affection for everyone from all over the world. Sometimes somebody lives at the temple or becomes the temple manager, and they give a nicer room to those who come from their own country or village, they give much more preference to them. This is called pradesi-katha (provincialism, putting one’s own provincial interests above the interest of the whole). Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur says that this mood is not good. I have seen that so many devotees have this kind of quality in them. They say, ‘Oh, he is coming from my family, he is my relative,’ so they give them many opportunities to do service. This is not good. First you must see who does service, and it does not matter whether it is your family relative or not. You must not discriminate. This is called ‘nepotism’ (svajana-posanata: the practice among those with power, or influence, of favouring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs, etc.) You give preference to your relatives, but who is our relative? Somebody is born in the same family as I, so I think he is my brother? No. Everybody is my relative! Everybody belongs to our one and the same family: Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Family. You must understand this. We must give everybody a chance to serve. We do not see who comes from where. Sometimes we also breed some family quarrel among devotees, which is not good. Why will we do that? We must finish all family quarrels within family – we must not transfer it onto others.

Even Srila Sridhar Maharaj shows this. Gurudev said that when Rama Devi had done something wrong and Srila Sridhar Maharaj gave her a tight slap, she remembered it for her entire life after that. Even Srila Sridhar Maharaj did not discriminate, ‘Oh, she did something wrong, but she is my sister, so it is OK, we will not punish her.’ No, it is not like that. Srila Sridhar Maharaj was not like that. Gurudev told also once directly to me when I was in his mother’s room, ‘If you listen to me, if you are my disciple, then you are not to go to Tarangini Devi’s house ever again.’ (Gurudev never said ‘my mother’; he always said ‘Dhananjay’s mother’). He told me to never go to her house, and I followed that; I did not ask him why.

You must understand what I am trying to say. I wrote about this in the third volume of Upadesh, the English translation is also there. You can read what Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur says. It is a very nice chapter. Guidance Book, Volume Three, the chapter ‘Provincialism and Service to the Lord’ (page 109).

Provincialism and Service to the Lord

(From Guidance 3, page 109)

There are innumerable kinds of thorns and traps in the domain of service to the Lord. One of them is provincialism [putting one’s own provincial interests above the interest of the whole]. There are many mundane pious programmes organised with a provincial interest, and many become attacked by this mentality during devotional programmes as well. In fact, when one becomes overcast by this mentality, it creates an obstacle for devotional programmes. If one makes a show of trying to make something that externally looks like a devotional programme, then it is just one of the activities meant for enjoying its result.

When people, bound by provincial or national mentality, display enthusiasm and readiness for devotional(?) activities, they actually have no eagerness for service to, or love for, the Lord and Vaishnavs – they are more or less just beggars for sense gratification or selfish opportunism. Provincialists and nationalists who are engaged in either pious or inauspicious activities call it ‘love for one’s country’ and ‘love for one’s nation’ and are highly esteemed by the society; but such mundane love(?) is considered and censured as ‘lust’ (kama) and has no place whatsoever in the domain of loving devotion.

When provincialists put on a show of making a devotional programme, they look at the country, society, nation of the people from their former (non-devotional) life and think that they are dependent(?) on their mercy, easily and very firmly enthroning the concern about the benefit(?) of the non-devotee society and country in their hearts. They personally speak Hari-katha, chant kirtans, or, with even greater enthusiasm, arrange for others to speak Hari-katha while they themselves get very busy ardently performing all kinds of other services (welcoming, serving guests, etc.) – but very often sincere sadhus (indifferent to the material world), for the fear that others will give them a side-eye, become a little restrained, but, no matter how hard they try, their internal, heart-felt passion cannot cover up for the love of non-devotees towards their country, friends, and family. How long can those who feel a natural surge and inspiration deep in their hearts hide themselves under the cover of such external hesitation?

Sometimes people also see someone from their province or country and, identifying themselves with their group, or introducing themselves as a representative or a leader from that group, they act as if they are very enthusiastic to arrange various devotional(?) programmes supporting service to the Lord, (Harinam-sankirtan, circumambulation of the holy dham, staying in the holy dham, listening to Hari-katha, etc.). However, when such people do not identify themselves with that particular group, they have no enthusiasm to do all this, neither do they want to get involved in any way.

Sometimes people also think that if somebody wants to build a house for the Lord or some temple in their area or country, they are ready to give support or show sympathy; but if somebody wants to build a temple, etc. or preach in another district, then their compassion diminishes, often coming to a complete halt, or even turns into envy or animosity. For example, no Indian or Bengali will agree to help you financially if you want to preach Krishna consciousness or build a temple in London or Germany. The West or North Bengalis will help you financially to build a temple or preach Krishna consciousness in East Bengal (Bangladesh), but the East Bengalis (Bangladeshi) do not want to help preaching Krishna consciousness in West and North Bengal.

Some people are even more narrow-minded – so much so that they say that if you do not build a temple in our area, if you do not preach Krishna consciousness in our area, we will not support or help you in any way. There are even people who for the sake of preaching Krishna consciousness(?) first help a lot, and when they hear that there will be another temple in the area half a mile away from them, you will get no help from them for that temple! Such people think rationally, ‘If we have a temple in our area, our housewives can go there to have the darshan of the Deity on foot, but if they propose to make a temple a little far, then our beloved wives will feel deprived of such an opportunity. So, we cannot help or support such temple construction in any way.’ Such rational thinking proves that the enthusiasm, the eagerness one feels at first is not out of love for transcendental Lord Krishna or His devotees – it is for satisfying one’s own senses, for seeking an opportunity to enjoy or secure commodity for enjoyment. Such pretence of service to the Lord is nothing more than an external screen. Internally, they are trying to fulfil their own purpose (religion, wealth, material aspirations, liberation) or find mundane happiness with the help of the Lord and His transcendental devotees.

Many people put on such a show to come in the proximity of the lotus feet of a bona fide guru. When it comes to using the money from their locality for the service at the temple of another locality, they take the opposite side and stand still showing their ethical and impartial (detached) side. They show no support for the preaching of Krishna consciousness in other areas. Moreover, if another locality is more attracted to Krishna consciousness, or there is much more preaching of Krishna consciousness in another locality, people pull back! The reason why it is important to analyse this mentality is because in this mentality, the eagerness to enjoy is stronger than the enthusiasm for service. Spiritual benefactors always pray for the mercy of the Guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord so that they may leave this mentality; they constantly and sincerely cry to the guru and Vaishnavs so that pure consciousness may awaken within them, filled with the causeless, unconditional desire to satisfy the desires of Lord Krishna – they do not pray for any service performed out of provincial self-interest. Even though love for one’s country or one’s nation may be the highest moralist teaching in the world of selfish undertaking, no matter how highly it is esteemed by the mundane non-devotees, this mentality is contrary to the love of Godhead. The acute deficiency of love of Godhead and love (attachment) for one’s body, house, etc. – these obstacles possess the hearts of both materialists and practitioners.

Provincialism is not kindness to the jiva souls. ‘Mercy to the jiva soul’ has nothing to do with the country, time, nation, or the person. There is no pursuit of self-interest in mercy to the jiva souls. There must be no attachment to mundane objects (one’s own body, house, country, society, etc.). Only those who are initiated into the propensity of the consciousness focused on pleasing the Lord can be inspired to extend kindness to the souls. Attachment to one’s house in disguise of nobility stands on the stage of the world in the form of a Mohini-murti of provincialism – sometimes it also wears a long piece of cloth (worn on one’s neck, similar to a scarf) with the name of religion printed all over it and flashes it in front of all common people; but spiritual experts have caught up with this deceit and cheating. Practitioners must be careful about this.

There are two dangers in the practising life – fostering anger towards provincialism or, on the contrary, attachment to it. It is not a duty of the intelligent people who practise Krishna consciousness to become vindictive towards any particular province, be it your own or others’. We must leave all designative ideas and become eager to engage in the service of the Lord without hypocrisy and tendency to cheat ourselves or others but with a clean consciousness, free from offences; we must worship the instruction coming from the holy lotus feet of our Divine Master in each and every province; preach the name of Sri Guru and Gauranga everywhere; we must dedicate everything – our life, wealth, knowledge, intelligence, speech, all ‘place, time and person’ – in selfless assistance to the service of the Lord. If devotees can preach Krishna consciousness or build a temple of the Lord in America using the money of Bengalis(?), it will be service to the Lord; and if devotees can build a place for the devotees of the Lord to practise Krishna consciousness in some area in Bengal using American money, or if devotees preach the translation of Srimad Bhagavatam in Bengali, then more people can know about the Supreme Lord – in this way, the Lord will be satisfied. We must engage in the service of the Lord, inspired and encouraged by this ideal. East Bengalis (Bangladeshi) are not the owners of wealth, neither are Americans, nor are Indians – the king of this world is not the owner of wealth, neither are his subjects. People are only entrusted with some particular amount of money. The exclusive owner of all wealth, all knowledge, all living entities is the Supreme Lord, and He can be found in this material world only in the form of the transcendental sound. He appears in this world in the form of a Deity and the transcendental Name. Wherever there is service to this Holy Name, wherever there is love for Sri Harinam Prabhu, wherever, be it abroad or in this country, the Name of Sri Chaitanya is remembered – every country’s, every province’s, every nation’s wealth, knowledge, intelligence, living entities must be utilised. We must not prevent the world from having the consciousness that ‘everything belongs to Him’ (isavasya) by drawing the curtain of provincialism over service consciousness. Beware!

Many provincialists will not hear anything about the eternal spiritual religion save and except if it is the religion of one’s country, nation, bodily heritage. If one possesses this mentality, then, even if they pretend to hear about the exclusive and genuine religion of the soul, they will neither allow it to enter their ears, nor will they be able to judge about it with an unbiased mind within their hearts. This mentality, as well as fanaticism in the name of faith in the common and ancestral religion, love for the nationalist or patriotic religion is actually defined as apathy towards the benefit of the soul. ‘Our family line is saktas,’ ‘Our society or nation is Sivaite,’ ‘Our province’s religion is Buddhism’ or we accept whatever other concocted religion, worshipping our ancestors, five deities (panchopasana, mayavadi conception), etc. so-called Vaishnavism, or prakrita-sahajiya. Therefore, just as people stick to drinking hard water from a well just because their father had dug it (‘tatasya kupah’), we also follow various concocted religions lending our faith to family, nation, society or country. Sincere seekers and spiritual benefactors never follow such ideas. If just because Christianity is preached in Europe; Buddhism is preached in various places on the Asian continent; mayavad, karma-jada-smartism, worship of ghosts, sahajiyaism, atibari, etc. are preached in India – if people from all those places, inspired by the love for their own nation, try to excommunicate the non-deceitful non-dual eternal religion of the soul, who will they be cheating then?

‘I was born in Odisha, so I must support the atibari doctrine. I was born in Bengal, so I must flatter the sahajiyas. The society of Raja Ram Mohan Roy has increased, so it is necessary to establish it in any possible way. Or because I was born in Europe, if there is anything other, higher and more nourishing, than Christianity, I will not care to listen to it,’ – this resolute promise has nothing to do with the search for the truth or the love for the truth. If one, under pretence of searching for the truth or love for the truth, tries to measure the religion of the soul through their sense perception to see whether some other type of provincialism arises or not – this is also not search for the truth.

Trying to measure the eternal benedictine religion of the soul under the cover of searching for the truth, Raja Ram Mohan Roy’s expedition to Tibet and his discussions about Indian and foreign religions are nothing but a form of provincialism. Mundane thinking, or worldly thinking, is the mother of provincialism. There is one preacher of a concocted religion who saw once a mouse stealing ghee wicks from the room where Siva-linga was. Seeing it, he reasoned, ‘Will the Lord who is not able to protect the paraphernalia that is to be offered to Him be able to protect anyone else?’ It was, perhaps, under the influence of such thoughts that he actually left his own provincial religion and pretended to search for the truth, but in fact he did not reject provincialism because what he accepted later on, with even more faith and determination, proved to be the same provincialism but in another form. Because he had provincial eyes he could not understand that what he saw was mundane and provincial. His sharp intellect, genius, erudition, judiciousness were covered by the screen of self-deceptive search for the truth, throwing him eventually into a tight grip of provincialism. In this way, his sham search for the truth proved to be a manifestation of mundane mentality and was even more condemnable.

There is a fake doctrine of so-called synthesis (samanvayavad) preached in this world to cater for such sham search for the truth through mundane vision, which is but an even greater deception of oneself and others. This so-called teaching of synthesis appeared as a cooked up form of amusement for people on pretence of supporting all forms of provincialisms. If we say, ‘The highest religion is only the religion of the soul, or bhagavat-dharma,’ then we cannot place any provincial doctrine on our heads considering it to be equal. So, ‘it does not matter where and what kind of provincialism it is, all are the same’ – forgetting this basic principle, people resort to various devious means to promote their own provincialism, which is but ‘synthesis’ for the sake of one’s own pleasure.

We must be cautious and not fall prey to any despicable version of doctrines that offer provincialism in disguise of real search for the truth. ‘A bona fide religion is enacted by the Supreme Lord Himself’ (dharmantu saksad-bhagavat-pranitam); devotional service, beginning with the chanting of the Holy Name of the Lord, is the ultimate religious principle for the living entity in human society (etavan eva loke ‘smin pumsam dharmah / bhakti-yogo bhagavati tan-nama-grahanadibhih), ‘the supreme occupation for all humanity is service to the transcendental Lord’ (sa vai pumsam paro dharmo yato bhaktir-adhoksaje), ‘Bhagavatam is a religion for the pure devotees who completely reject all religious activities motivated by material gain and who are free from envy’ (dharmah projjhita-kaitavo ‘tra paramo nirmatsaranam satam), etc. – if we consider these scriptural statements, we can see that pure devotees reject all kinds of provincialism, they are devoid of envy and live by the eternal religion of the soul that is supremely worshippable and devoid of even a trace of deceit – such a religion must be accepted independent of the place, time or person.

Practitioners who seek truth aspiring for eternal spiritual benefit and entrance into the spiritual domain must always be careful about this. All teachings that have sprung, are springing and will spring from provincialism are an obstruction of the religion of the soul and are a fleeting friend of material religions. As soon as we see any of these symptoms in any doctrine, we must always keep away from it. The followers of all these doctrines will try to tarnish the eternal religion of the soul in the name of provincialism or some other dull religion, but it is necessary to judge such teachings with a neutral and sane mind, and when you come to judge it, you must internally, with a pure heart and intense desire, pray to the Supreme Lord so that the soul may remain always engaged in the loving service and that it may be wise enough to become free from provincialism. If there is even a slightest attachment to the mundane or worldly mentality, one’s sincere search for the truth cannot not prove successful. Beware!

(5/8) Dubious Actions

I saw today in the news that the BJP chief minister of Tripura (where Agartala is, there is also a famous Jagannath Temple there) Biplab Kumar Deb went to one man’s house and cut his hair with scissors because that man had promised in 2018 that he would not cut his hair until the communist rule had not gone away (he said, ‘When the chief minister comes to my area, then I will cut my hair).’ So, this chief minister came to his house and personally cut his hair. This was published in the news about Biplab Kumar Deb. He is a very young man, forty-nine years old; he is a good man.

One time, Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, also chastised one man. The man had promised that he would not wear shoes until Narendra Modi became the prime minister. When Narendra Modi got the news, he called that man’s house and chastised him, ‘What kind of promise have you made? It is nonsense! You must wear shoes!’ Then, the man said, ‘All right, since you are telling me to do it, then I can wear shoes.’ There are such people in this world…

There is a devotee also who took a lock of Gurudev’s hair when Gurudev left and tied it to his sikha. But Gurudev’s things, everything related to him is auspicious, and we sometimes go to the bathroom, go to the toilet – we do not want to take any part of Gurudev to the bathroom or toilet. Do you understand? But he did that…

Gurudev’s body is aprakrita, his body is not natural or material. Gurudev left his body at 4:20 a.m., but when we were bathing his body in front of the samadhi-mandir of Srila Sridhar Maharaj, his body was not hard at that time – it was soft. Even when I had to push and place the body into the samadhi (it was almost evening time), I saw there was no difference in his body – it was just as it was, not hard, not anything, he looked the same, as if he was just sleeping… That day is coming on 24 April this year… Every year this day is very unbearable for me, and every year this day comes to me. I have to tolerate this day every year… Gurudev also could not tolerate Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s disappearance day. I have only once or twice seen Gurudev present in Nabadwip Dham on this day, all other years he passed his time with other devotees either in Kolkata or some foreign country (mostly with devotees in foreign countries).

(6/8) Effect of Pure Chanting

Question: Could you please comment on verse 66 from Sri Sri Prema-Dhama-Deva Stotram?

I am not such a big expert at Sanskrit, but I can see and read it to you from the book.

atma-siddha-savalila-purna-saukhya-laksanam
svanubhava-matta-nrtya-kirtanatma-vantanam
advayaika-laksya-purna-tattva-tat-paratparam
prema-dhama-devam eva naumi gaura-sundaram

(Prema-dhama-deva Stotram, 66, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

This verse is describing antya-lila, Mahaprabhu’s last moments. It is written here that when the Lord showed the mood of Srimati Radharani, He showed very deep separation from the Lord, and because of that separation Mahaprabhu became like crazy… ‘This is the all-conquering conclusion: the highest conception of the Ultimate Reality must also be the highest form of ananda, ecstasy. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Krishna, ecstasy Himself, tasting His own sweetness and dancing in ecstatic joy. His own Holy Name is the cause of His ecstasy, expressed as dancing, and the Holy Name is the effect of His ecstasy, expressed as chanting. The cause is the effect. The dynamo is creating ecstatic energy which makes Him dance, and His chanting distributes that ecstasy to others. I offer my obeisances to that beautiful Golden Lord, Gaurangasundar, the divine form of Krishna-prema.’ This is the translation of this verse. It is written here that this kind of ecstasy would occur through His chanting of the Holy Name. ‘The highest conception of the Ultimate Reality must also be the highest form of ananda, ecstasy.’ How can I explain this to you?!

‘Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Krishna, ecstasy Himself, tasting His own sweetness and dancing in ecstatic joy. His own Holy Name is the cause of His ecstasy, expressed as dancing, and the Holy Name is the effect of His ecstasy, expressed as chanting. The cause is the effect. The dynamo is creating ecstatic energy which makes Him dance, and His chanting distributes that ecstasy to others.’

He is enjoying Himself, and His chanting distributes that ecstasy to others. This realisation produces happiness. Reality must be the highest form of ananda. Mahaprabhu is experiencing that pleasure, ananda, Himself, He is feeling that joy Himself, and He is distributing that joy to others also because Mahaprabhu comes in the form of the Holy Name. Krishna’s Name, beauty, pastimes, etc. are non-different from the Lord Himself. So, Mahaprabhu is getting pleasure Himself, and He is distributing that pleasure to others. This is the main meaning of this verse. This is the kind of pleasure that comes through the chanting of the Holy Name. When you chant, chant and chant, this kind of pleasure can come. But we cannot experience that until we become qualified to chant the Holy Name purely. We always chant nama-aparadha and so much namabhasa, but pure chanting of the Holy Name comes through good association. If you can chant through good association, at that time you will get pleasure and more pleasure. It is necessary to realise this.

(7/8) Correcting Your Attitude

Question: On the one hand, it is said that devotees should think in the interest of the Math, and, on the other hand, it is important to practise properly at home, but this practice should not prevent the interest of the Math. But then somebody says, ‘Oh, I have Deities at home’, ‘I am chanting at home’, so I do not need a temple…

It is necessary to follow this: everybody should understand the interest of the temple, the interest of devotees. You cannot be biased thinking, ‘Oh, she is my family member, so I will support her even if she does something wrong.’ This is not correct.

Devotee: …If the person already has this attitude that, ‘I am OK, I am practising at home,’ how can they correct themselves and focus on the interest of the temple?

If they listen to lectures, if they want to change, then slowly, slowly they can change. If somebody wants to correct themselves, if somebody wants to purify themselves, then if they try, they can do it. If somebody is not interested in that, if they think, ‘What I am doing is right, what I am thinking is right,’ then there is no question. Actually, this is wrong. You must always think, ‘Is what I am thinking correct or not? Is what I am doing correct or wrong?’ You must understand this yourself. If you only see things your way and think this is the only right way, then you have a problem. We must correct and adjust ourselves. It is necessary for spiritual progress.

Question: You always say there is no time to lose in this world, but you also say that we need to have patience in the process…

Gurudev often said, ‘Sahasa vidadhita na kriyam: do not do anything suddenly.’ It means, ‘Wait and see.’ That is why Gurudev always says that we must be tolerant and patient. It is necessary to have these qualities. And not to lose time means you must not waste your time on other things. You must always be alert, always eager and available for the service of the Lord. Always engage yourself in the service of the Lord. Even I must also engage myself in the service of the Lord. And when it comes to other things, then you must exercise patience, but not in relation to service. When it comes to service, you must do what is necessary immediately.

It is also necessary to be patient and tolerant when somebody does wrong. If you do something wrong, you must understand it is not good, you must tell yourself, ‘It is not good’, ‘It is not good’, and correct yourself. This is how you can sometimes control and handle the situation. Otherwise, if you cannot control it, you must give everything over in the hands of the Lord.

This is what happened in Hapaniya. Last year, some man forcefully took Gurudev’s favourite pond, Shanti Sarovar, in Hapaniya. At first, that man wanted to give me money for it (ten thousand rupees per year), but I told him that I am not a businessman, I told him not to do this, but that man is very bad, he is a big gunda [thug] who hammy have killed many people. He had been always nagging me about that pond, and in the end he took the pond forcefully. I prayed to Radha-Gopinath, ‘O Gopinath, You are the controller. Please arrange something!’ In the end, one or two months ago somebody threw a bomb and killed that man. The man was so bad that when the news spread that he had died, all the villagers made a festival.

So, there is a controller – Krishna. We will try our best, but when we cannot manage, we must give it up to His hands, ‘Gurudev, Krishna, please you take over now.’

You all know that I am out of the main temple of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, and so many people come and tell me, ‘Please come and take over the temple!’ but I always say, ‘No, wait and see.’ It is necessary to have patience. One day will come, and we will go there easily. When their offences increase and get very high, then they will go down on their own. This is called ‘aparadher bhoja’ – the load, or burden, of offences. When this burden of offences becomes too much, their boat will sink and they will go to hell. If you put a five-kg bag into a boat, the boat can take it, but if you put a five-quintal (five-hundred-kg) bag, the boat will sink. So, when the load of their offence becomes too much, they will sink. In the meantime, we must oil our own machine: we must see to ourselves, we must not see others’ faults. We must be very humble. Krishna is powerful, He has all power, and He is the controller, so one day will come when everything will be harmonised. It is not necessary to worry.

(8/8) Pure Surrender Without Gaps

[Addressing Doyal Nitai Prabhu’s mother.] When everybody here hears about Doyal Nitai Prabhu keeping money for Gaura Purnima and you sending it, everybody is astonished – a little boy, but every day he keeps aside some money for Mahaprabhu. You have taught him in this way, and I can say that all parents must raise their children in this way. Boys must learn to come to Vaishnavs, pay dandavat, they must learn to play the mridanga, to chant kirtans, dance, and so on. Almost every family has children, and they must teach their children in this way. You give him tiffin money (pocket money) to buy some food at school, but he keeps one–two dollars from that money for Mahaprabhu’s service, for gurudev’s service. Muslim people also have a rule: when they earn some money, they must give 1–2% of that money to Allah. Many devotees also do this. I know they are getting much austerity in their lives. I see devotees from Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, and I know how difficult their lives are. They go to Spain from Venezuela, and they work there the whole day just to pay their bills, house rent and get food. Still, they are happy to serve the Lord, to serve Krishna consciousness.

Question: How can we stop feeling disturbed by the three-fold miseries?

Adhibhautik, adhidaivik, adhyatmik: miseries caused by other living entities, by the nature and one’s own mind. This is a simple matter, a simple question. ‘Bhagavata pada Vaisnavera sthane, ekanta asraya kara Chaitanya-charane’: read Bhagavatam under the guidance of a great Vaishnav and take shelter under guidance of Gauranga Mahaprabhu and His associate. That is the main answer.

Mahaprabhu also chastised Srila Sanatan Goswami:

diksa-kale bhakta kare atma-samarpana
sei-kale krsna tare kare atma-sama

‘Devotees submit their entire being when they take initiation. At this time, Krishna accepts them as His very own.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.192)

The main problem is that we do not surrender properly. I was talking to that boy in Uluberia today. I told him: what kind of surrender is this? Are you surrendered to Maya, or are you surrendered to your guru? Ask yourself this question. If I show off, ‘I have taken initiation! I put on tilaks, wear kanthi-mala, I chant on my beads – I am surrendered!’, this is not what a surrendered soul is. A surrendered soul is one who follows 100% what gurudev says. If gurudev says, ‘Jump from the seventh floor,’ you must jump, you must not think whether you will die or not. You must depend on your guru. But the problem is that you do not have any faith in your guru. You are thinking, ‘Oh, if I go there, what will happen?’ You do not depend on your guru, you do not have faith in your guru. You must go wherever gurudev takes you, even if gurudev takes me to hell, OK, I will go to hell. It is necessary to have proper surrender.

If you do not surrender properly, then some lack of devotion, some gap will be there. We sometimes follow all rules and regulations, we put water in the pot – we put, and put, and put, again and again – but the pot never gets full, it always remains empty. You are pouring more water, but again the same thing. What is happening? Your pot never becomes full because there is a hole in its bottom! So, we do what is favourable to devotion, but at the same time we also do what is unfavourable to devotion (we eat more, we sleep more, and so on). This is not favourable to devotion. Eating too much, sleeping too much, gossiping a lot, a lot of prajalpa, a lot of gramya-katha. Everybody keeps asking me, ‘Maharaj, how do you get so much energy to chant?’ I do not waste my time on talking and gossiping – talking, talking, talking, talking nonsense, I do not like it. If I hear somebody talking too much, I get very annoyed. Now I cannot tolerate it so much, I cannot take it when I hear somebody gossiping and talking, talking, talking nonsense things and prajalpa. I am not interested in all this.

Sometimes, we see people have so many exercise machines at home: they practise body balance, they do fasting, they control their diet, they do all sorts of things to keep their body fit, but if you just pay full obeisances one hundred times a day, it will cover all your exercises. If you have the habit of walking for one or two hours a day, you will get energy. If you sit in one place all the time, then you will walk for fifteen minutes at the parikrama and you will be out of breath. You must be habituated to being energetic. As the saying goes, ‘a man is a slave of habit’: if you do something every day, it will become your habit. Try to understand this.

As for the three-fold miseries, you can see the examples of Srila Sanatan Goswami, Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami. Their characters and practices show it perfectly.

You know, one time, Gurudev said about one sannyasi, ‘He is my servitor, he always stays near me, but why does he always fight with me?’ I said, ‘Gurudev, it is like Jagadananda Pandit and Mahaprabhu,’ and Gurudev became very angry, ‘Jagadananda Pandit?! Are you comparing him to Jagadananda Pandit?! Jagadananda Pandit followed 100% what Mahaprabhu told, but does he follow me?! When Jagadananda Pandit went to Vrindavan, Mahaprabhu told him not to mix with the Vraja-basi people and to always stay with Rupa Goswami and Sanatan Goswami, and he listened properly. Does he [that servitor] listen to me?!’ Gurudev was angry with me, ‘Are you comparing him to Jagadananda Pandit?!’

…So, I am going to Vrindavan next week because there is some service there. I am not going there for eye-exercise. When devotees come, then I will do the parikrama. This time I am not going for parikrama. I am only going to my temple (Gurudev’s temple) and Radha-Damodar’s Temple to pay my obeisance, to offer my dandavat. Then I will go to the Govardhan Temple and will pay my obeisance to Giriraj Govardhan there. I am not going on parikrama this time. I am only going there because there is some emergency service there that I have to attend to.

Jay Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line11 April 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Vrindavan

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/5) Current of Eternal Service

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa-kula-churamani Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math Mission ki jay.
Sri Dham Vrindavan ki jay.
Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Rasabihari jiu ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Dandavat, all the devotees. Please accept my humble obeisance. I am now in Vrindavan, in front of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Rasabihari, in the nat-mandir. I have been to Govardhan today: I had some service in Nandagram and at the Govardhan Temple. I also went briefly to Varshana, but I paid my dandavat from downstairs, I did not have time to go up. I returned to Vrindavan after lunch; there is a little service here.

The Govardhan Temple is very nice. I saw ** did a good service: they made a very good, high wall and a garden. In Gurudev’s time, Gurudev said there would be a chabutara (a raised cottage, or hut) there, and the chabutara (where the puspa-samadhi-mandir is) looks good. Also, Gurudev wanted to have a small goshala in Govardhan. There used to be one cow at the temple before, but it disappeared a few years ago. So, I am thinking to make a small goshala there. It will be possible to do it in two–three days. I will keep one cow there; the man who will serve the cow is coming from Nabadwip this Thursday. I went to search for a cow today. I have visited many places, some devotees are also searching, but we have not found anything so far. Anyhow, there is a market in Govardhan, so I will buy a cow there next Thursday. It is necessary to keep a cow in our Govardhan Temple for service. We have cows in every temple where there is capacity to keep a cow. For example, there is no place to keep a cow here in Vrindavan, but there is place in Govardhan, and I think if there is one cow, it will give five–six litres of milk, that will be sufficient for the devotees and for the bhoga of Giriraj Govardhan. They have been buying milk every day, but it is good to have our own milk.

Srila Ashram Maharaj: You mentioned also you had some service in Nandagram…?

Yes, I had some service in Nandagram, but I do not want to tell about it for now…

Actually, there is Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s bhajan-kutir in Pavan Sarovar, and I want to establish that place… Pavan Sarovar is also where Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj’s and Srila Sanatan Goswami’s bhajan-kutirs are, so I want to establish something there. Some of our devotees can stay there, it will be good. This is the service I have in Nandagram.

By the blessings of all the devotees, I am very well here in Vrindavan. It is a little hot here, but it is tolerable, no problem. Sripad Purujit Prabhu (from Venezuela) did a very excellent service in the building of Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami, on the top floor. He made toilets and bathrooms in every room, and he also installed A/C in two–three rooms. It is very nice. He did a very nice service. He also painted all temple, all guesthouse, all of Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami’s house, upstairs, and even in Govardhan also. He did a very nice job, very nice service. I appreciate his service very much. May he increase his spiritual life by the mercy of Sri Sri Radha-Rasabihari. They did so much while they were here. When I come, I do not stay here for a long time, so I cannot do so much, but Sripad Purujit Prabhu was staying here with Amita Sakti Devi Dasi and his brother Nimai Chandra Prabhu, and they only asked my permission, ‘Can we do some service here?’ I agreed, and they did a very nice painting job, made very nice bathrooms in Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami’s building. I saw today they also painted the Govardhan Temple. It is also very nice. I am very happy with their service. May Krishna bless him. Not only does Purujit Prabhu maintain the Parama Karuna Temple in Caracas but he also did service here. He is giving everything he has for the service of Gurudev. It is very rare to get a devotee like that.

(2/5) Proper Preaching

Last programme I said something about ** taking Gurudev’s hair, but some misunderstood it thinking that ** has made an offence. Both he and his wife have much attachment because they both personally served Gurudev in Gurudev’s last days, and when they and I were taking Gurudev’s eternal body in the ambulance from Dum Dum Park to Nabadwip, there was very much separation, so after that they did something with a lock of Gurudev’s hair. It is not actually an offence. Gurudev allowed it in his lifetime, so it is not a problem. You do not need to think, ‘Oh, he has made an offence!’, ‘This is such a big offence!’ No. I read what is published at Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math International website. Somebody can think, “Oh, we are taking that hair to the bathroom, it is not good,” at the same time we also sometimes clean Gurudev’s stool, and that is also service. Actually, it is not necessary to gossip about all this.

[Observing the devotees present at the temple in London, His Divine Grace remarks] …Can you not make brahmacharis in London?

Devotee (London): It is not so easy! I do not know why…

Because there is too much maya. If you practise Krishna consciousness without the guidance of gurudev, then your practice will be the practice of maya (worship of illusion). Always have chastity, always be sincere. You must be a sincere seeker, you must have chastity. I am telling this not only for the London devotees but for everybody. It is necessary to be a sincere seeker and to have chastity, then there will be no problems – if you make a temple or preach in this way, Krishna will send people to you. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur opened sixty-four temples, and so many brahmacharis and sannyasis joined at that time. So, if you preach properly, it will not be necessary to hire anybody from outside.

It is necessary to practise Krishna consciousness. Sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). Sravan (hearing about the Lord) and kirtan (chanting the Lord’s Names and glories) are the main necessary practices, and it is necessary to practise sravan and kirtan through good association. ‘Guru-mukha-padma-vakya, chittete kariya aikya, ara na kariha mane asa – make the teachings from the guru’s lotus mouth one with your heart, do not have any other desires.’ You must follow what gurudev tells 100%, otherwise problems can come. It is necessary to following gurudev’s order, gurudev’s will 100%: we must do what he wants us to do.

We must be open with everybody, it is not necessary to hide anything. These are the main things.

Question: We know from the texts such as Gaura-ganodesha-dipika that the associates and servants who accompany Lord Chaitanya are also present in His pastimes as Krishna. My question is whether these associate and servants recognised their own and each other’s transcendental personality.

Yes, all those who perform pastimes in Krishna-lila come as associates of Sriman Mahaprabhu:

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari’

svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari

‘To bestow His mercy to jiva souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Can they recognise themselves? Is that your question? Even if they do, they will not tell about it in front of everybody. The point is that we can recognise them. Srila Sanatan Goswami once said to Mahaprabhu, ‘There are some symptoms of the Lord described in Srimad Bhagavatam, and I see all those symptoms in front of me right now. I think that Kali-yuga’s avatar has already come.’ Hearing this, Mahaprabhu said, ‘No, no, no! You are just very attached to the Lord, that is why you are saying this. I do not know anything about that.’

(3/5) Srila Gurudev’s Festival Etiquette

Question: I am your disciple, please give me your mercy and service. All devotees want to arrange the disappearance festival of Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj. Please instruct us what to do to offer an appropriate festival.

Gurudev’s and Guru Maharaj’s appearance and disappearance days are non-different. They are the same. On this day Gurudev always gives his mercy. Gurudev is always eternal, so his tirobhav (disappearance) and avirbhav (appearance) are not different from each other, they are the same. You must serve Gurudev’s mission and Gurudev’s devotees at any time, all the time, not only on these days.

As for how to observe this festival, there are many rules and regulations. You can cook something that Gurudev likes and offer it to Gurudev. Remember him, glorify him. That is sufficient. You can also try to serve the mission Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math according to your capacity. These are the main things. The important thing is to do it under the guidance of your guru.

At the same time, none of our guru-varga ever says, ‘You are all my disciples.’ Rather, they say, ‘You are all my gurus.’ So, I also think that you are all my gurus: when you took initiation from me, it means you gave me mercy, that is why you took shelter in me. This is the vision of our guru-varga. I always want to be a disciple, I do not want to be a guru. I always want to remain a disciple; therefore, I want to serve everybody – it does not matter whether somebody took shelter in Gurudev, in Guru Maharaj or in me. For me, all devotees are great Vaishnavs, and I am their servant. This is my vision.

So, understanding that Gurudev’s appearance and disappearance are non-different from each other, you can always serve him in whichever way you can. Every day when we come to do puja, we start from guru-puja; when we come to do abhisek, we start from guru-abhisek; when we do archan, we start from guru-archan. Whatever we do, we always start from the guru. This is our line, this is the Gaudiya line. Gurudev is asraya-vigraha, embodiment of shelter: he is non-different from Sriman Nityananda Prabhu or Srimati Radharani.

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 so by pious souls, but who is also no doubt the Lord’s dear associate.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

Gurudev is the Lord Himself (he is non-different from the Lord). Sri Uddhav Maharaj also says that the guru is non-different from the Lord. So, we have to follow proper etiquette and be humble, tolerant and give honour to others. Do not discriminate, ‘He is Acharya Maharaj’s disciple’, ‘He is another guru’s disciple’, ‘He is that guru’s disciple’, ‘He is this guru’s disciple.’ It is very bad to see like that. Those who see it in this way have a very short-sighted vision. Your heart must be broad. Do not be narrow-minded.

(4/5) Quality and Qualification

Question: Srila Sridhar Maharaj says if we chant with a wrong conception or unconsciously, then it is called namabhasa, or shadow of the Name, and we will not get the real thing through that. What should our conception be? What should we be thinking about while chanting?

Gurudev says that the main thing is not to make nama-aparadha (offences to the Holy Name) so much. We are always making many nama-aparadhas. You can often see that when somebody comes and says, ‘Prabhu, can you do this service?’ the person replies, ‘Oh, I am busy, I am chanting japa!’ If I have some service, but I am avoiding it, that is also nama-aparadha.

Srila Haridas Thakur said, ‘How will we get liberation? Through namabhasa.’ Sometimes, we are sleeping and chanting – that is not chanting; that is nama-aparadha. Sometimes we are chanting and suddenly some service comes, but we avoid that service. What for do we chant? We chant in order to get service, so when we get service, chanting becomes of secondary importance. That is why Gurudev sometimes told, ‘Everybody tells me they are chanting sixteen rounds, they are chanting sixty-four rounds, but when I am chanting just four rounds, I sweat so much!’

‘Sevonmukhe kaha Krsna Nama.’ It means that you should chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra with your mouth when you are doing service. That is the best process.

Question: How can we use common sense in Sri Gurudev’s service for his satisfaction?

The scriptures, Gurudev and Guru Maharaj say, ‘What is called seva? Service means we must satisfy gurudev and the Lord.’ If we think how Gurudev, Guru Maharaj, and the Lord will be satisfied and do that, that will be service.

Question: Is thirteen years old too young to take the second initiation?

Do you want to do more service?

Devotee: Yes, I want to help with the cooking and puja.

Then it is necessary for you to take the second initiation. It does not depend upon age, it depends only upon one’s qualification. Those who have the quality and qualification can take the second initiation, or the first initiation. If you have no service mood, no service quality, what for will you take the second initiation or the first initiation? If you have service mood, if you are eager to serve, if you have desire to serve the Lord, to engage in the Deities’ service, in the cooking service, then you should take the second initiation.

Question: I understand that the connection with the Divine Plane is through a guru, but in my case I have abandoned my diksa-guru, and at the moment I am without any formal initiation. My question is who do I offer my service to? Can I offer it to you?

That is up to you. If you have faith in me, I have no objection. You must always serve my Gurudev: I accept service for my Gurudev, not for myself.

[Regarding another devotee.] I have invited him to please come here while I am in Vrindavan, and now I am waiting when he will come to see my ugly face. I have sent devotees to invite him because I do not want to go to the mission where he is staying – I have already sold my head to the lotus feet of Gurudev, and I keep my head under my Gurudev’s guidance, I cannot give that head to others. That is why I cannot go there myself.

(5/5) Best Worship

Question: When Mahaprabhu asked Ramananda Ray, ‘Who should we worship?’ he said that the worship of Radha-Krishna was the best. Then, be it at home or at the temple, is it enough to worship only Mahaprabhu, or should we worship and install the Deities of Radha-Krishna as well?

mahaprabhu sri chaitanya, radha-krsna nahe anya,
rupanuga janera jivana

‘Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is non-different from Sri Sri Radha-Krishna and is the life of Sri Rupa’s followers.’

(Sri Guru-Parampara kirtan)

Radha and Krishna are non-different from Gauranga Mahaprabhu, but in this Age of Kali, it is very difficult to worship Radha and Krishna. It may be not actually difficult, but people sometimes become sahajiya when they do so. That is why Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said:

matala hari-jana kirtana-range
pujala raga-patha gaurava-bhange

‘We will worship the path of raga-marga (spontaneous loving service) from afar and live in adherence to the Vedic rules and regulations.’

(Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad)

You must keep raga-path (the path of worshipping the yugala-murti of Sri Sri Radha-Krishna by rendering spontaneous loving service) in your heart. Mahaprabhu also asked Ramananda Ray another question. He asked, ‘Who should we meditate on? Which meditation (dhyan) is the highest?’ The answer is the lotus feet of Sri Sri Radha-Krishna are the best objects of meditation. This is what you should keep in your heart. You can always practise meditation (dhyan) by thinking about Their lotus feet, but it is not necessary to show it externally, like sahajiyas do. When you come to Vrindavan, you can hear everyone here says, ‘Radhe! Radhe!’ But we will worship Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu.

yadi gaura na ha’ta, tabe ki haita,
kemane dharitam de
radhara mahima, prema-rasa-sima,
jagate janata ke?

‘If Gaura had not come, what would have happened? How would we have lived? Who would have revealed to the world Radha’s glory and the extremes of Her ecstatic divine love?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

If Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had not come, who would have let us know about the glory of Srimati Radharani? Srimati Radharani’s Name is not even mentioned in Srimad Bhagavatam. Sri Vasu Ghosh writes very nicely in his song,

varaja-yuvati, bhavera bhakati,
sakati haita kara?

‘Who would have shown the power of Vraja-gopis’ ecstatic devotion?’

(Sri Vasu Ghosh Thakur)

So, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s worship is the best and main worship, but first it is necessary to take shelter of a bona fide guru. Without the mercy of gurudev, without the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, it is not possible to worship Gauranga. ‘Guru bada diye Gauranga bhaje, sei papi raurave padi maje: the sinner who worships Gauranga bypassing the guru will fall into a terrible hell.’ So, we worship both Gauranga and Nityananda, Nitai and Gaura. This is our main worship.

…Many people from Gauda-desh want to stay at Radha Kunda. They come and start saying, ‘Radhe! Radhe!’ but they do not actually know Srimati Radharani’s mood, do not know the mood of Srila Raghunath Das Goswami. They only want to copy and imitate what they hear from gurudev. Sahajiyaism, the sahajiya conception, and mayavad are very bad diseases. Everybody comes to Vrindavan for their own interest…

nijera posana, kabhu na bhaviba,
rahiba bhavera bhare

‘I will never think about my own maintenance, and I will always remain in the shelter of loving attachment to You.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

People come to Vrindavan for their own interest, not for service, not for Gurudev’s mission, not for the service to Sri Sri Radha-Rasabihari – they only come for their own interest. They stay here and become bhogi (enjoyers). There are three categories of people – bhogi, tyagi and sevi. Bhogi are enjoyers, tyagi are renouncers, and sevi are servitors. But I see that everyone here in Vrindavan is now becoming bhogi – everybody wants to be an enjoyer. They use motorcycles, watch television, and they stop sravanam, kirtanam and other practices. That is why I have come here: I want to make some changes…

[Addressing a devotee.] Anyhow, practise properly and try to serve. Do not listen to gossips and so many nonsense things. Do not criticise others. All right? Ku-baliba na, ku-suniba na, ku-dekhiba na – we will not say bad things, we will not listen to bad things, and we will not see bad things.

[Addressing another devotee.] If you are afraid of death, chant the Holy Name. One day we all have to die. You know that. Do you remember the story of Vritrasur who was killed by Indra (how demigods took Dadhichi Muni’s bones and how Vritrasur surrendered)?* That pastime shows very nicely that you can never say who is a Vaishnav, a devotee.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.

Dandavat. Please accept my humble obeisance and please forgive my offence.

[*Srimad Bhagavatam describes this pastime in the Sixth Canto, chapters 9–13. Presenting below a short summary of this pastime.]

When Vritrasur, a fierce-looking and extremely effulgent demon, by mistake appeared from a yajna, fear-stricken demigods ran to the Supreme Lord to seek a solution how to get rid of this imposing demon. The Supreme Lord advised demigods to turn for help to a sage called Dadhichi whose bones could serve as a powerful weapon against the demon. Following the instruction of the Lord, demigods came to Dadhichi and asked him for help. Dadhichi agreed to sacrifice his body for a higher purpose, and demigods thereby got a weapon that could kill Vritrasur. A great, long battle between demigods and Vritrasur started during which Vritrasur happily embraced his fate, advising Indra, ‘If one is a devotee of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and depends on Him in every respect, then victory, opulence and peace of mind are all automatically attained. Such a person has nothing to aspire for in the three worlds. The Supreme Lord is so kind that He especially favours such a devotee by not giving him opulence that will hamper his devotional service. Therefore, I wish to give up everything for the service of the Lord. I wish to always chant the glories of the Lord and engage in His service. Let me become unattached to my worldly family and make friendships with devotees of the Lord. I do not desire to be promoted to higher planetary systems, even to Dhruvaloka or Brahmaloka, nor do I desire an unconquerable position within this material world. I have no need for such things.’

* * *

￼Line Line18 April 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sevak Bhavan, Kolkata

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/5) Latest News

Dandavat. Last week on Sunday I was in Vrindavan, and today in the morning I came back to Kolkata. I started off from Mathura yesterday in the morning and arrived in Kolkata very early in the morning today; the journey did not take so many hours (about twenty-four).

I went to Vrindavan and Govardhan to make some little changes in the management there. That was my service in Vrindavan. That is why I suddenly went there. Gurudev told me to take care of his mission, that is why I had to go there. I always take care of all temples, particularly in Puri and Vrindavan. Now it is all very clean. This was the main service, and there was also some other service. In his lifetime, Gurudev said that he wanted to make a chabutara (hut) in Govardhan, and the devotees there are taking good care of that chabutara (where the puspa-samadhi-mandir is). I saw they also made a big wall because the neighbours had been causing disturbance. They did a good service. They also take very good care of all the trees, and made a garden behind the temple. In his time, Gurudev also said that it was necessary to keep one–two cows in Govardhan, so this time I also made there a goshala and got two cows and two calves. The cows are giving a lot of milk, so it is not necessary now for the Govardhan temple to buy milk. I got very big cows.

That was the main service in Vrindavan and Govardhan this time. I spent there about seven–ten days and came back this morning. Tomorrow I have a train to Siliguri.

Every year I make Gurudev’s festival in different temples, and this year I want to stay in Siliguri. I always make temple anniversary festivals in Siliguri, but I could not go there last year because there was a lockdown right after Gaura Purnima. Besides, the preaching in Siliguri is not going on properly because there is no good preacher there. That is why I was thinking to stay there for seven days and make Gurudev’s festival there this year; it will also bring much happiness to the devotees in Siliguri and North Bengal. Because there is no proper preaching there, not so many devotees come from Siliguri (to Nabadwip and for the parikramas). Actually, a temple is for preaching. If there is no preaching, then it is very difficult. That is why I have to go there. My train is tomorrow. I only came to Kolkata today to have a little rest and to take some books from here to Siliguri. I also took some books to Vrindavan because almost all books had finished there. So, I have been resting today. Some devotees also came to me, and I spoke to them…

(2/5) Hapless Hindus

Question: I have some Hindu relatives who do everyone’s puja – Krishna, Siva, Rama, everyone – and they also eat meat and cannot give it up. I am wondering what I can say to them.

You can tell them that if they eat meat, they will get karma-phal for that. If you eat meat (be it cow’s meat or chicken meat or any other meat), you will become a cow, a chicken, a goat or some other animal in the future. This is what the scriptures say. Even if you take fish, you will get a fish body in the future. This is what you can tell them, and this is what is said in the scriptures, Manu Samhita in particular.

mam sa bhaksayitamutra
yasya mamsam ihadmy aham
etan mamsasya mamsatvam
pravadanti manisinah

‘That creature whose flesh I am eating here now will consume me in the next life. Thus, meat is called “mamsa”: “mam” means “me”, “sa” means “he” (I am eating him, he will eat me). This is stated by learned authorities.’

(Manu Samhita)

This sloka is there, and its meaning is that if you eat any flesh it means you are taking your own mamsa, flesh. Sometimes, Bengali people eat only fish, and they are proud that they do not eat meat, but it is all the same – if you eat meat or if you eat fish, the result will be the same: you are eating your own flesh. We always change our bodies, and when this body is dead, you will go to another life form. This is what happens.

Another thing is that you say they worship Siva, Lord Krishna and every other Deity, but they must understand that Krishna does not take their puja because they are not devotees. So, if they worship Krishna, Jagannath and all other Deities, all these Deities will not accept their puja, so their worship is useless. This is the answer to that. Krishna Himself says in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, ‘My devotees only know Me, and I know only My devotees. I do not see anybody else other than them.’ Krishna only takes care of His devotees, He does not take care of anyone and everyone. That is why it is important to become a proper devotee, ‘Grhe thako, vane thako, sada “Hari” bole dako. Whether you stay in a house or in a forest, always call out the Holy Name.’

At the same time, when they do such worship, they can get some punya for that, and it may bring something auspicious to their life, but ultimately they get this human body, or any other body, and they will get the karma-phal (the result of their material actions to be enjoyed or suffered later) depending on how they use their life. The problem is that they have got a human body, but they cannot understand that this human body is very meaningful, very valuable. Those who understand the value of this human body use this human body for the service to the Lord.

(3/5) Enter Auspicious Life

Always give attention to service, that is the main thing. Service is our vow. I will explain to you what service means. If you make your guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord happy with your actions, that is called seva. Our intention, our strongest desire should be to please our guru, Vaishnavs and Bhagavan (the Supreme Lord) in whichever possible way, then it will be seva. Otherwise, if you do something but it does not please your guru, Vaishnavs and Bhagavan, it is not seva. You must think about it in that way. Whatever you do, you must please your guru, Vaishnavs and Bhagavan with that. You should understand this. It is very important.

You will not believe it, but there is an incredible situation in Vrindavan! The BJP government of UP (Uttar Pradesh, including the areas of Vrindavan and Govardhan) gives special cards to all sadhus who live in temples, and with this card all sadhus can use local trains and buses without any fare, for free. You can also get a local ration with that card – the government gives rice, dal, wheat and other products. And if you have a cow, the government gives nine hundred rupees per month for the maintenance of the cow. This time I saw there were not so many street cows: the government took all cows and made a huge goshala for them. They are giving many jobs to local people, who are looking after the cows nicely. So many auspicious things are going on there now. And both Vrindavan and Govardhan are very clean. They have made big roads. It is very nice. Radha Kunda and other place are maintained very nicely. There are CCTV cameras on all streets in Vrindavan and Govardhan, including all the parikrama paths. Everything is fine and very nice in Vrindavan and Govardhan now. The municipality takes care of so many things. The streets are not dirty anymore. There used to be so much monkey stool everywhere, but now the government cleans the streets regularly.

Question: We hear that we must serve Bhagavatam every day, and Bhagavatam means a devotee-Bhagavatam and the scripture-Bhagavatam. So if we do our daily service and do not have time to study the scriptures, how can we fulfil our commitment to doing both?

If you have permission from your guru, you can read Bhagavatam, but you must first take shelter at the lotus feet of gurudev. ‘Bhagavata pada Vaisnavera sthane, ekanta asraya kara Chaitanya-charane: read Bhagavatam under guidance of a Vaishnav and take exclusive shelter at the lotus feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.’ You must read Bhagavatam under the guidance of a bona fide guru. You must first take Mahaprabhu’s shelter (Mahaprabhu means Mahaprabhu’s devotee). Mahaprabhu comes to this world along with His associates and His holy abode (‘svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatara’).

tava nija-jana, kona mahajane,
pathaiya dile tumi

daya kari’ more, patita dekhiya,
kahila amare giya

‘You have sent a great soul, Your associate, to me. Seeing me so fallen, he took pity on me and came to me, saying…’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Mahaprabhu Himself sends His associate, His own person, to this world as a guru, and you must take shelter of that guru, then you can understand everything. First saranagati is necessary.

Srimad Bhagavatam says that you must read Srimad Bhagavatam, Srimad Bhagavad-gita says that you must read Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita says that you must read Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata says that you must read Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata. Yes, Srimad Bhagavatam is the main scripture, but if you read it, you will not be able to understand everything. Our guru-varga have written many books extracting the main slokas of Srimad Bhagavatam, Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. You can get those books and read them, then you can easily understand everything. If you start from Srimad Bhagavatam, you will not understand anything because when you come to study, you must start from the primary level, then proceed on to the secondary, higher secondary, then college, and then university level. Srimad Bhagavatam is the university level. First learn from the primary level. Read Srimad Bhagavad-gita. You can read it, you can learn from there, then gradually you will understand everything easily.

Another thing is that the main purport of Srimad Bhagavatam is ‘Jive daya, Name ruchi, Vaisnava seva.’ You should engage yourself in preaching. ‘Kiniba, lutiba – I will take it, and I will then give it to others.’ It means you must take shelter of a bona fide guru, receive the seed of the Holy Name from your guru, then you must chant the Holy Name and distribute this Holy Name to others. You must do service yourself, and you must engage others in service, too. That is called jive daya. You are serving gurudev, you are serving the Lord, and you must also engage others in the service to your gurudev and the Lord. You are chanting the Holy Name, and you must also engage others in chanting the Holy Name, engage others in the Lord’s service. This should be your main vision. Name ruchi means you will chant, chant, chant, and then, when your offences are removed through continuous chanting, you will get a real taste (ruchi). If you chant one–two times, you may not get any taste, you may think it is bitter, but it is necessary to chant, chant, and chant without offence, then taste will come. Vaishnav-seva means bhagavat-seva. Vaishnavs are non-different from the Bhagavatam scripture (from the Lord).

So, do you understand what I am saying? First it is necessary to surrender (saranagati), you must take shelter of a bona fide guru, it is necessary to have the strongest faith in your guru; after that you must practise with strongest faith, and not just for one day – we must practise every day. We must offer bhoga every day. We always sing:

prasada-seva karite haya,

sakala prapancha jaya

‘The entire material world can be conquered by honouring the Lord’s prasad.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Prasad-seva means you must take prasadam; otherwise, you eat something, go to the toilet, and everything is finished at that. But if you take prasadam, it removes all prapancha, all diseases. We have five kinds of diseases: avidya (ignorance), asmita (false identification), raga (misdirected love), dvesa (aversion to anything that goes against one’s enjoyment) and abhinivesa (being unable to give up unfavourable habits). How can you remove all these diseases? By taking prasadam.

(4/5) Cannot Practise or Do Not Want to Practise?

Question: We hear that it is important to be tolerant, it is important to be humble, but in our material life we cannot manage if we are always humble; the material world is very different, so if we are always in a humble mood, we cannot maintain our life properly…

It is necessary to practise it. You are not humble, but you have to be humble. We are trying, trying, trying, trying and trying to be humble. We are trying to be honest. Tolerance is also necessary. You can all see my own example: you can see how much I am tolerating and learn something from my example. Sometimes, when I cannot tolerate something anymore, I start biting my own arms. I know that I cannot slap anyone, so I do not bite anybody – I bite my own arms.

Actually, sometimes we do so many wrong things, so many nonsense things, commit so many offences, thinking that our guru does not know about it, that he cannot see or understand it. We think that gurudev is like any other material person, but this is an offence against the Holy Name to consider your guru a mere mortal (gurute martya-buddhi). We think our guru has an ordinary human body, so when he is not near, he cannot see what we are doing: he is living now in India, and I am living far away in South America or America. This is nonsense. Gurudev can see everything. Why does he not say anything then? Because everything runs its own course – when you make offences again and again, eventually the burden of your offences will become so great that you will sink under its weight on your own. When this burden is too much, you will sink yourself. Wait and see. First it is offences to devotees, then offences go to Vaishnavs, then to gurudev, and, finally, to the Lord. You can remember Ramachandra Puri. He made offences to Vaishnavs, then to his gurudev, and finally his offences went to Mahaprabhu – after that he disappeared from Puri. This is how it happens. Only wait and see.

(5/5) Vaishnavs’ Signature Qualities

[A devotee expresses concern about His Divine Grace taking a long train journey to Vrindavan.]

The train journey is not a problem. When travelling by train, you feel a little bored because you have no job, no service, you are only sitting on the train without doing anything. There is no austerity in it. In Mahaprabhu’s time, Mahaprabhu, Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Sanatan Goswami walked to Vrindavan. And how much they suffered when they lived in Vrindavan or Puri! They would sit under a tree doing their bhajan and vaishnav-seva. When we go to Vrindavan, we get an A/C room, but in those days there was no A/C, no electricity. When it gets very hot outside and electricity is gone for even one hour, we lose our minds, but I am thinking how much Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Sanatan Goswami, Srila Jiva Goswami, Sri Madhu Pandit, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami, Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami tolerated when they stayed in Vrindavan (it is very cold in winter and very hot in summer there). I have seen in Vrindavan that people who have no house live in the street, under some tree or in a shed without any doors, all open – they have no fans or anything. So, when I think how much those great devotees from Mahaprabhu’s times worshipped the Lord and how much austerity they tolerated here, I feel I have no problem.

Are there any questions from anybody?

Question: I have never seen anyone commit offences and I have never been offended by anyone, so I was wondering if I should still say ‘please forgive my offences’ just in case I commit offences without knowing it?

You think that you are not making any offences, but this is not so. Actually, we are making so many offences all the time. Real Vaishnavs will not see others’ faults – real Vaishnavs will see their own faults. This is the quality of a real Vaishnav. A Vaishnav must be ‘adosa-darasi’ (must not see anyone’s faults). We always make so many offences: even when we are walking or breathing, so many elements get killed; even when we are drinking some water, we consume so many bacteria. Who said we do not make any offences? We always make so many offences…

In another way, whether you are making an offence or not, you do not have to think about it – every time you pay an obeisance to a Vaishnav, you must always ask, ‘Please forgive my offences’; when you come in front of the Deities and pay a dandavat before Them, you must ask, ‘Please forgive my offences.’ It is necessary to express this from your heart. Whether you are conscious of your offences or not, you must always ask forgiveness of your offences.

I can give you one example of a brahmachari who made an offence yesterday. It was necessary to buy something, and one brahmachari went to the market to buy some vegetables or something. When he came back, he was all wet with sweat because it was very hot outside now. Another brahmachari saw him and started laughing, teasing him, ‘Oh, very nice! You are sweating now!’ The first brahmachari said to me, ‘Maharaj, do you see? I went to the market and came back all sweating, and he is teasing me! I did not do any particular service before, but now you have given me this service, and I am always busy supervising the construction, going to the market, seeing what is necessary to get for the construction, and so on. I have just been to the market to get some bhoga, some vegetables, and that brahmachari does not go out, he stays at the temple, and he is laughing at me!’ That was an offence. I told him, ‘Do not worry that he is laughing or teasing you. It is not necessary to think about this. Do your service and do not mind him.’

You know, even Srila Sanatan Goswami once had a problem. There was a devotee who had some physical deformity as a the of which he walked in a crooked way. One day, Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu invited him to come for vaishnav-seva that Srila Sanatan Goswami was arranging, but he did not come because he was angry with Srila Sanatan Goswami. Srila Sanatan Goswami asked Srila Rupa Goswami, ‘What has happened? Why did he not come?’ Srila Rupa Goswami replied, ‘I have invited him. I do not know why he did not come.’ Then, Srila Sanatan Goswami personally went to that devotee. He paid an obeisance to him and asked him, ‘Prabhu, please forgive my offences. I do not know what I have done wrong that you did not come…’ That devotee was angry, ‘You have made an offence! Do you remember the rasa-purnima day? That day you came here, and seeing me walk in a crooked way, you laughed at me! Do you remember that?! You mocked me because of my body.’ Srila Sanatan Goswami Prabhu replied, ‘Yes, Prabhu, I remember that day. I laughed that day, but I did not laugh because of you. That day, when I was doing Govardhan parikrama, I saw some very amusing pastimes of Radha and Krishna, and seeing those pastimes I became overwhelmed with joy and began to laugh. This is why I laughed – I did not laugh because I saw you.’ After that, Srila Sanatan Goswami apologised to that devotee and took him to his place – he gave him prasadam and served him.

So, what is the problem if you ask forgiveness for your offences? Gurudev also taught me something once. One day, I came to Gurudev and said, ‘Gurudev, when I pay dandavat to **, he does nothing in response – he turns his back and walks away.’ Do you know what Gurudev replied? He said, ‘It is all right. Every time you see him, still pay him obeisance.’ And I did that. Then, a few months later, one day Gurudev was sitting at his veranda (in the Acharya Bhavan building). At that time, I was downstairs in front of his house. I saw ** coming and paid obeisance to him – he again turned his back and walked away, as he did every day. Gurudev saw it and called me to his room. He asked me, ‘Are you still paying obeisances to him?!’ I replied, ‘Yes, Gurudev, you told me to pay obeisances to him, and I have been doing it.’ Then Gurudev said, ‘From today, you are to never pay obeisance to him again.’ And I did that. My point is that when Gurudev told me to pay obeisance to him, I did that, what is the problem? I did not give any objection to Gurudev. And every time I paid obeisance to him, he would turn his back to me and run away.

Anyway, I am finishing here for today.

One last thing I would like to tell everybody is that you must make Gurudev’s disappearance festival. Gurudev’s, or any Vaishnav’s, appearance and disappearance days are non-different from each other, so you must make a festival in your countries on this day. Make this festival according to your capacity, as grand as you can, and Gurudev will be happy with your service. Chant the glorification of Gurudev on this day and try to observe it as much as you can according to the connection you have with Gurudev. Whatever we see in this world, whatever good association, whatever we have got – we have got everything only by the mercy of Gurudev. Everything we have is by his mercy. So, you must make a festival on Gurudev’s disappearance day. It will be a dvadasi day. Fast on the ekadasi (Friday), and the next day you can make a festival. This is my advice to everybody. Please take care of yourself.

* * *

￼Line Line21 April 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Siliguri

Appearance Day of Lord Ramachandra

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/4) Beauty of Lord’s Incarnation

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Sri Krsna Chaitanya prabhu daya kara more’, ‘Ohe vaisnava thakura dayara’, ‘Parama karuna pahu dui jana’, ‘Emana durmati samsara bhitare’, ‘Dasavatara Stotram’, ‘(Jaya) Radha-Madhava (jaya) Kunja-Bihari’ and the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.]

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim

yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

‘The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill – all it takes is mercy from gurudev.’

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy and aspiring to serve him; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all the assembled guru-varga, all my godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees and all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet, praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Today is Sri Rama Navami (the holy appearance day of Lord Ramachandra). It is a very good day. When we chanted the ‘Dasa Avatara’ kirtan just now, we sang that Lord Sri Krishna incarnates in ten forms (dasa-avatara). He has already come in nine forms, and only one, Kalki’s incarnation, is left (Kalki will come later in this Age of Kali). So, assuming various forms, the Lord appears in this world to protect His devotees, and it is also said in the scriptures that when the Lord cannot come personally, He sends somebody else instead of Him.

yada yada hi dharmasya, glanir bhavati bharata

abhyutthanam adharmasya, tadatmanam srjamy aham

‘O Bharata, whenever there is a decline of religion and an uprising of irreligion, I personally make My advent.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.7)

When religion diminishes and irreligion comes into prominence, the Lord personally comes to this world, and when He cannot come, He sends somebody else. When the Lord comes, He assumes different forms, such as fish (Minasarira, Matsya-avatar), tortoise (Kurma-avatar), boar (Varahadev-avatar), half-man half-lion (Nrisinghadev), dwarf (Vaman-avatar), Bhrigupati (Lord Parasurama), Buddha, Haladhar (Baladev; He is non-different from Krishna: They are one but manifest Themselves in two forms to perform one pastime), Rama (His appearance is today) and Kalki (He will come in Kali-yuga). You must remember all incarnations by heart.

Lord Rama appeared in Ayodhya, on the bank of the Sarayu River. He is Lila-Purusottam, or Maryada-Purushottam. ‘Maryada-purusottam’ means that He follows rules and regulations – He does not do anything that is not sanctioned by moral obligations. Like His father, He ruled the kingdom following all rules of proper conduct. But we worship Sarveshwar Krishna:

isvarah paramah krsnah sach-chid-ananda-vigrahah

anadir adir govindah sarva-karana-karanam

‘Krishna, who is known as Govinda, is the supreme controller. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no origin, for He is the prime cause of all causes.’

(Sri Brahma-samhita, 5.1)

In His pastimes, Lord Ramachandra had to take very difficult decisions just to follow moral rules. But for Krishna, moral rules and obligations have no value. It is said in the scriptures that Srimati Radharani has twenty-five more qualities than Krishna. Krishna can captivate the whole world, but who did Krishna see and become captured by? Srimati Radharani. She is sarva-aradhya: She worships Krishna most of all.

On the other hand, there is also Laksman. He appears in Treta-yuga, Dvapar-yuga and Kali-yuga. In Treta-yuga, He was born as Laksman, Lord Rama’s younger brother. In Dvapar-yuga, He came as Baladev, Krishna’s elder brother. And in Kali-yuga, He came as Nityananda Prabhu.

It is said in the scriptures:

ye yatha mam prapadyante, tams tathaiva bhajamy aham

mama vartmanuvartante, manusyah partha sarvasah

‘Howsoever people surrender to Me, I accordingly reward them. Being the ultimate goal of all paths, I am the objective to be attained by all. O Partha, all men follow My various paths.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.11)

There are five spiritual relationships one can have with the Lord: santa-rasa (neutrality), dasya-rasa (servitude), sakhya-rasa (friendship), vatsalya-rasa (parenthood) and madhura-rasa (consorthood). Our Gurudev always kept in his room a murti (picture) of Hanuman soaring up in the sky (Hanuman is the son of Pavandev, Son of Wind, so he could fly). Why did Gurudev keep his picture? Hanuman represents dasya-rasa, and even more than just dasya-rasa. Whatever service Hanuman wanted to do, he did it, and Gurudev wanted to have this kind of service mood, too. He thought, ‘I am my Guru Maharaj’s Hanuman!’ When Ramachandra sent Hanuman to a forest hill to bring a medicinal herb called visalyakarani, Hanuman came to the hill, but he did not know what that herb looked like, so he took the whole mountain with him. This is how he served. He could not come back without making sure that he had got what the Lord wanted – he could not but please his master. The word ‘cannot’ was missing in his vocabulary; he only knew, ‘I have to do it!’ One time, somebody gave a necklace to Hanuman, and Hanuman asked, ‘Is there Rama’s Name written on it?’ ‘No. Do you have Rama’s Name written anywhere?’ In reply to that, Hanuman tore open his chest and showed that there was Lord Rama’s and Sita Devi’s Names written inside it. This is dasya-rasa. I was going to tell you about Lord Ramachandra but ended up speaking about Hanuman. Anyhow, it is necessary to say these things, too.

(2/4) Sevya and Sevak

Why is Lord Krishna called sampurna-bhagavan (complete form of the Lord, or Supreme Personality of Godhead)? Because all five spiritual relationships are found in His pastimes: santa-rasa (neutrality), dasya-rasa (servitude), sakhya-rasa (friendship), vatsalya-rasa (parenthood) and madhura-rasa (consorthood). Somebody can say, ‘Oh, I am a devotee of Rama, I am not a devotee of Krishna.’ This is not correct. Those who worship Lord Ramachandra worship Him in the mood of servitude (dasya-rasa), but those who worship Lord Krishna do worship Him only in servitude – they worship Him in any of the five moods. Somebody sees Krishna as their husband (madhura-rasa) and prays, ‘May Krishna become my husband in my next life.’ Somebody prays to get Krishna as their son (vatsalya-rasa). Somebody can see Krishna in the mood of a servant, ‘Krishna is my Master, and I am His menial servant.’ Somebody may also worship Krishna in the neutral mood (santa-rasa). Prahlad Maharaj is an example of this mood. He always kept quiet and worshipped his Lord internally. Sachi Mata, Jagannath Misra, Yasoda Mayi and Nanda Maharaj are vatsalya-rasa devotees. Vraja-gopis are madhura-rasa devotees. So, all five moods can be found in the pastimes of Krishna, but you will not find this in the pastimes of Lord Rama.

You can see in the pastimes of Lord Rama that Laksman had to suffer very much. He actually cried. When Ramachandra told Him, ‘You must take Sita Devi to the forest, to Valmiki’s ashram!’ Laksman had to cross His own heart. He could not disobey His elder brother because if He did, it would be disrespectful. So, Laksman said to His brother, ‘You can tell Me to cross My heart, I can take this pain, but why are You telling Sita Devi to go to live in the forest? I have to do it because I cannot disobey Your order, but I have never felt greater pain that this.’ As the result, He became Balaram (Krishna’s elder brother) in Dvapar-yuga.

Three Lords ride in chariots during the Ratha-yatra festival: Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra. Jagannath says, ‘I will go first,’ but Balaram disagrees, ‘No, I will go first. You are younger, so You will do as I say!’ Why does He do this? Balaram is the object of worship (sevya) and the performer of worship (sevak). Krishna and Balaram are one, but They become two to manifest Their pastimes. So, why does Balaram’s chariot go first? He clears the road and makes sure that no obstacles, no danger comes in the way (‘I will take care of all danger so that My Lord does not have to face any difficulty’).

You know that Krishna plays the flute, but what does Balaram play? A horn. When Krishna plays the flute, it makes all gopis very happy and all cows come to His call, but when Balaram blows His horn, everyone begins to tremble and all demons flee, ‘Oh no! Balaram is coming! Run for your life!’ This is Balaram. He comes first to do service.

(3/4) Dasarath’s Morality

When Dasarath was the king, he had three wives: Kausalya, Kaikeyi and Sumitra. Rama was Kausalya’s son, Bharat was Kaikeyi’s son, and Laksman and Satrughna were Sumitra’s sons. There was a rule that the eldest son must become the next king. At some point, Dasarath was very sick, and at this time his second wife, Kaikeyi, served him very much. Very pleased with her service, Dasarath told her to ask him for some boon. Kaikeyi thought, ‘What will I ask? I do not know…’ but there was one very naughty servant in the king’s family called Manthara. This Manthara advised Kaikeyi, ‘Do not ask the king for any boon now. Wait for the proper time. I will tell you when the time is right, and then you can ask him for something.’ Dasarath was still very sick, he had a bad fever, and because he was also old, he decided to enthrone Ramachandra. When the decision was announced, Manthara came to Kaikeyi and said, ‘This is your time! Ask the king to make your son the next king and to make Ramachandra live in exile in a forest for fourteen years!’ Kaikeyi did that. When Dasarath heard her wish, he did not want to do it because it is did not look good for him (he realised that Ramachandra was fit to be the king – He was the eldest son, and He knew everything about ruling a kingdom), but still, no matter what he felt, he could not change his adherence to moral rules: he had to keep the word he had given to his wife. He was broken-hearted, ‘I have to send my son to the forest! My son will go to live in the forest in front of my eyes!’ When Ramachandra heard about it, He was resolved to fulfil His duty. He did not listen to His father’s lamentation.

Just see this. In Krishna’s pastimes, when Krishna was born in Kamsa’s jail, all the previous children had died when they were born, but Krishna did not want this to happen again – He personally made the jail doors open, and Vasudev took Him to Gokula amidst a severe storm. He left Krishna with Mother Yasoda and, in exchange, took her newborn daughter, Mahamaya, back with him. When Kamsa came to Vasudev to take the child (and kill it), Vasudev told a lie in front of fire: he said that he had had a daughter, not a son. But Dasarath sent his son to live in the forest. Is there any vatsalya-rasa in such pastimes? There are rules and moral obligations: ‘I have promised, so I must keep my word.’ But in Krishna’s pastimes, rules and moral obligations had no value because when you are bound by love to the Lord, you will not see any rules and regulations. The only rule and regulation is the service to the Lord.

I heard one story from Gurudev. One time, the lady who washed the plates had not come, so the offering and prasadam was late. When Srila Sridhar Maharaj heard about it, he came out of his room with a stick. He was very angry. He pushed(!) Sripad Aranya Maharaj who was doing the archan of the Deities and told him, ‘Just take some flowers and put them at the Lordships’ feet, and the archan finished! Now go and offer the bhoga!’ It is not necessary to do elaborate archan; what is necessary is offering bhoga timely. You cannot offer bhoga when you are hungry (and if you are not hungry, you do not offer anything). You must offer bhoga to the Deities five times a day. Whether you eat or do not eat it, you must make offerings timely.

When Dasarath sent his son into exile, he was so distraught that he left his body. He could not tolerate it. But when Kaikeyi made her wish, she asked to exile only Ramachandra, and Rama never told Sita that she had to come with Him. Sita Devi was very sad, ‘If my husband goes to the forest, how shall I stay here and live comfortably? It is not possible. I will go with Him.’ Then Laksman also said, ‘My brother is going away and Sita Ma [Mother Sita] is going with Him, how can I stay here?’ Laksman called Sita Devi (His sister-in-law) ‘Ma’ (‘mother’), and He never looked at her: He had never seen her face. One day, when Ramachandra went hunting, Laksman stayed with Sita Devi to guard her. Sita Devi told Him, ‘How will You guard me? Will You sit here and look at my face? Go and help Your brother!’ Laksman felt pain to hear this. He said, ‘Mother, I have never even seen your face. You are telling me to go, so I will go although I do not want to leave.’ He drew a magic circle around the house so that nobody could enter it and harm Sita Devi. It is said in our scriptures that nobody actually stole Sita Devi – Ravan kidnapped Maya-Sita (an illusory image of Sita Devi).

(4/4) Love and Rupture

You can see what kind of vatsalya-rasa there is in Rama-lila: the father sent his son to live in the forest. What madhura-rasa is there? Rama has a wife, Sita Devi, but He threw her into fire to test her chastity. She was innocent, but people said, ‘She lived with Ravan, so she has become impure!’ That is why she had to go through the test of fire. Then, even though she had passed the test, people were still not satisfied. They demanded that she should be exiled, and Lord Rama sent her to Valmiki’s ashram. That is all there is to ‘madhura-rasa’. But in Krishna-lila, when there was a solar eclipse and everyone went to Kuruksetra to bath, the gopis came there, but when they saw Krishna seated kingly on His chariot, surrounded by His soldiers, they said, ‘This is not our Krishna. Our Krishna is a cowherd boy who wears a peacock feather in His hair – He never wears any jewels on His head.’ Becoming overwhelmed, they started pulling Krishna back to Vrindavan because they wanted to mix with Krishna when He was one of them (not with Krishna as a king). When they cried for Krishna in their divine separation, even all trees and plants in Vrindavan became grief-stricken – everybody suffered so much… But in Rama-lila, to upkeep His moral obligation, to save His kingdom and to please His subjects, Ramachandra sent Sita to the forest. Is there any love there? These are the peculiarities of Krishna’s and Ramachandra’s pastimes. That is why there is an avatara (incarnation) and an avatari (the source of incarnations). Gauranga Mahaprabhu and Krishna are avatari, but Lord Rama is an avatara. I have written about all this very nicely in the fourth volume of Guidance also. If you read it, it will be good.

Laksman said, ‘I am coming in Dvapar! I was Your younger brother in Treta-yuga, so I could not disobey Your rules and regulations. But in Dvapar, I will come as Your elder brother!’ In the world of service, rules and regulations are obstructions. Sometimes, morality disrupts one’s service life. Morality belongs to a much lower plane. What is the value of ethical principles or morality when there is love? If there is loving service, moral principles have no value. Why did then Sita Devi have to go to the forest following Rama’s order? She had to do it to show support to ethical principles. Ramachandra called His younger brother and said, ‘You know why I have appeared, so You must take Sita Devi to the forest.’ This extremely difficult order of His elder brother broke Laksman’s heart. A flood of tears fell from His eyes. Still, He carried out His elder brother’s order – He took Sita Devi to Tapovan, Valmiki’s ashram.

The secret purpose of Rama-lila is to set an example of these moral principles. Wherever Sri Ramachandra performed His pastimes – be it in Ayodhya, Lanka, Dandakaranya or when slaying the demoness Tadaka – He never broke the moral etiquette. He descended to this world to establish the necessity to follow moral rules: it is necessary to follow them for the benefit of the jiva souls. To nourish these pastimes, Laksman also had to yield to the moral principles. But in Krishna’s pastimes, rules and regulations have no value; this is the peculiarity of His pastimes.

Three Lords ride in chariots: Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra. But Balaram says, ‘I will go first, You two wait.’ What kind of service is this? Why must the servant go first, and why must the master go behind him? ‘Because if there are any thorns on the way, if any danger comes in the way, I will take care of it.’ That is why Baladev always goes first at Ratha-yatra time. In this way, Balaram becomes elder and gives orders to Krishna. ‘I will go before You. Whether You like it or not, You have to obey Me.’ Balaram is elder, so even if Krishna gives Him an order, He does not listen to Him.

You must remember these things about the pastimes of Lord Rama. Today is His appearance day…

Suffering unbearable pangs of separation, Sita lost all her beauty – her golden form dried out. The sight of the soiled face of Sita Devi suffering from separation from her beloved causes a deep pain. However, the Vraja-gopis of Vrindavan became mad from love for Krishna. Sita Devi’s pangs of separation from her Lord did not drive her crazy. All servants, all Vraja-gopis, Nanda Maharaj and Mother Yasoda – everyone went mad because of Krishna; they lost themselves in anguish. The dust of Vrindavan became flooded with the tears of love. Krishna-prema of Sri Radhika exceeds the love of Hanuman to Sri Rama. This is so not only in the case of conjugal relationship; such intense love for Krishna is also seen in the devotees serving Krishna in the relationship of neutrality, servitude, friendship and parenthood.

[I have written everything nicely here. I wrote it with much love. If you read it, you can understand it.]

Vasudev said, ‘Do not kill Devaki now. I am giving you my word that as soon as I get a son, I will hand him over to you. I am a religious person, I never tell a lie, so please believe me.’ But did he do it? He had given all his children to Kamsa, but when his last son appeared, he did not keep his word – all rules and regulations were gone. Vasudev told a lie for the Lord. Even when devotees steal, they do it for Krishna – Krishna’s devotees do anything for the service to Krishna.

If you read this book (Guidance 4), you will learn many things. I wrote about the relationship between the guru and the disciple and about what kind of relationship should be there between you and Krishna.

diksa-kale bhakta kare atma-samarpana

sei-kale krsna tare kare atma-sama

‘Devotees submit their entire being when they take initiation. At this time, Krishna accepts them as His very own.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.4.192)

Initiation (diksa) means divine knowledge (divya-jnana). When we surrender ourselves to the Lord and take initiation, we must keep everything (our mind, heart, ego, everything) at the lotus feet of gurudev. If there is some problem with our surrender, we will not get the proper result. After that, even if you take initiation, this is not all. It is necessary to serve the Lord. Do you know why we chant the Holy Name? To get service to the Lord (to get the right to serve the Lord). But we forget everything, along with the service to the Lord. This is not what our relationship with the guru and the Lord must be like.

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara

sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

‘May I have the same love and attraction to Your holy feet that I now have for material things.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We think, ‘Everything is fine as long as I am alive. If the Lord dies, if my guru dies, it does not matter, as long as I am alive’…

* * *

￼Line Line24 April 2021, noon

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Siliguri

Noon Festival Programme: Holy Disappearance Day of Om Vishnupad Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/8) Gurudev’s Disappearance

Today is the holy disappearance day of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj. Today, Sri Gurupadpadma left his body… It is a very painful separation day, but we are peacefully observing this day today. Vaishnavs’ disappearance and appearance are the same, non-different from each other – Vaishnavs are the Lord’s very own, and gurudev is the Lord’s very own associate.

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 so by pious souls, but who is also no doubt the Lord’s dear associate.’

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur)

Today is the disappearance day of Sri Gurupadpadma… He chose this day and left this world, left our sight on this day, at 4:20–30 in the morning. He is present now in his samadhi form, bestowing his mercy upon us from there. He always stays within his eternal pastimes: the Lord and gurudev always stay within their eternal pastimes. So, Gurudev gave us all charge and is now giving his mercy from there. Without his mercy, we would not have been able to live to this day, we would not have been able to practise Krishna consciousness to this day. If gurudev does not bestow his mercy on us, we will be removed from service and Krishna consciousness. Without the mercy of gurudev we cannot think about Harinam, Hari-seva, about worshipping the Lord or practising Krishna consciousness. Without his mercy, we cannot know, we cannot understand anything about what is service, what is the worship of the Lord or what is Krishna consciousness.

This day is very pathetic for me, and for everybody also. This day is intolerable for me. I can tolerate so many things, but this day, when Gurudev left, is unbearable.

The day before Gurudev left this world, I had come from Nabadwip to see him in Kolkata. I had met with him, spoken with him, and I could not even imagine that he would leave me the next day… The day when I came to see Gurudev was ekadasi, you all know it (it was ekadasi yesterday, too). I had to go back to Nabadwip the same day because I was supposed to go for a preaching programme in Midnapore, but the next day, in the morning, when I heard the news at 4:45 or 4:30, I could not understand what I had to do. Somebody told me I had to go to Kolkata, so I went to Kolkata to Gurudev.

So, I came to Kolkata again… Then, an ambulance was arranged. Everyone was there – Gurudev’s daughter and his grandson were also there, some devotees were also there. I took Gurudev to Nabadwip in the ambulance. We arrived in Nabadwip in the afternoon. I gave the news to television, radio, newspapers, etc. I also sent a message to all Gaudiya Maths’ acharyas in Mayapur Vaishnav Association (hearing the news, they sent their representatives to see Gurudev)…

Actually, the place where Gurudev’s samadhi-mandir is now was chosen by Gurudev himself. Initially, I prepared a place near the main gate, near Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s bhajan-kutir, but Gurudev said that he preferred to stay near his Guru Maharaj’s samadhi-mandir. First, he said he wanted me to tell everyone to burn his body and throw the ashes into the Ganges, but I said that it was impossible because his followers all over the world would not accept it. Then, Gurudev said, ‘OK, if they do not accept it, then I would rather you kept me near my Guru Maharaj’s samadhi-mandir.’

There was a mango tree in that place. It was almost dead, and slowly, slowly it died (there was only a small stump left). We took out that stump and started digging the ground for Gurudev’s samadhi… When we brought Gurudev to Nabadwip, we bathed his body with ghee, Ganges water, etc. It was almost five o’clock in the afternoon, but I remember Gurudev’s body was just like before. Gurudev’s transcendental body remained just the way it was when his soul had left it. There was no change in the colour or anything else. It was very soft and beautiful – his body was as soft as cotton… I was surprised to see that. Such is the body of a transcendental devotee.

After Gurudev’s body was bathed on top of Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s samadhi-mandir, he was then seated in his samadhi… Somehow everyone told me that I had to go down inside the hole to write the Brahma gayatri with some tilak clay on his body and to put the tilaks also. I could not control myself that day – I did not understand anything, I could not think straight. I do not know how, but somehow I went down, did what they told me to do, and then they started putting the soil… When the soil was up to Gurudev’s head, I could not stay there anymore. I went far away as I could not bear to see that sight. After that, I did not stay there. When everything was finished, they offered bhoga to Gurudev, did the arati and placed a Tulasi tree on top. I had also got some new corrugated iron and arranged a fence on the four sides of the samadhi and covered it with a roof. Fourteen days later I started making Gurudev’s samadhi-mandir. This is the rule – it is possible to start making a samadhi temple after fourteen days have passed. Many told me to wait for one year, but I said, ‘What if I am not alive in one year, who will make Gurudev’s samadhi then?’ So, I started Gurudev’s samadhi-mandir in fourteen days after his disappearance. After that, you all know what happened….

(2/8) ‘Everything Plunged into Darkness’

It is impossible for me, a fallen soul, to glorify Srila Gurudev. I have no quality, no qualification to glorify him. Ten million mouths, ten million tongues are not sufficient to chant Gurudev’s glorification, then how is it possible for somebody like me, a mere fallen soul, to glorify him?

Gurudev is always with us. I see all the time that Gurudev always takes care of us, Gurudev always protects me. In danger or at any other times, whatever the situation may be, I always take shelter in Gurudev and Gurudev keeps and sustains me with his mercy.

I could not understand it before, but when Gurudev left this world, I felt I had an umbrella over my head and now that umbrella was gone… A banyan tree gives shade to everybody, and Gurudev is like a banyan tree – he sheltered me from everything. In the shade of his lotus feet, you do not feel any pain or disturbance. Those who have a little relationship with Gurudev can feel what is called separation – only they can understand what the agonising pain of separation is, how painful it is. Only those who feel that separation can understand it…

I came to Gurudev’s lotus feet in 1991–1992, and since that time I have only been trying to fulfil his order, to serve him. I tried to follow Gurudev’s instruction as much as it is within my capacity. I do not know to what extent I fulfilled his desire, but Gurudev tolerated me so much. Many times I did something that was not to his liking, and Gurudev would chastise me a lot – I liked his chastisement very much. Gurudev always said, ‘If I chastise anybody else, they will run away from me. There is only one person who I can chastise,’ and he mentioned my name. He said, ‘I can chastise only Acharya Maharaj because I know he will always stay with me, he will never leave me.’ Gurudev always said that.

I always spoke to Gurudev about all happy and all sad things. I would come to him at 2–3 o’clock in the morning. Sometimes he would call me at night, at 2:30–3 o’clock, and I would immediately run to him. Even if I was sleeping in a gumcha, if Gurudev called me, I would immediately come to him. I never thought to take time to put on a dhoti and a shirt – I rushed to go as I was, wearing a simple gumcha. And Gurudev took me for his own… ‘Janakadhika-vatsala-snigdha-padam’: I have got so much affection from Gurudev, I never go that kind of affection even from my father or mother… When Gurudev left this world, I thought, ‘Now there is no one left in this world who will chastise me.’ I always spoke to Gurudev heart to heart, I told him about all happy and unhappy things, and when Gurudev left this world, I could not understand anything – what was going on, what was going to happen, everything plunged into darkness for me… I thought, ‘I am alone!’ I became alone, but then so many foreign devotees came to me and always stayed with me, and I gradually thought, ‘I am not alone anymore. I will carry on and spend my happy and unhappy days with them…’

Gurudev gave me many tasks, he gave me many service responsibilities, and he gave me many very difficult services, but I never said no to Gurudev, and I was successful in every single task by his mercy. Gurudev sent me for preaching in India, Gurudev also sent me abroad many times – I went together with him and alone also. Gurudev tested me if I would be able to go on my own or not, and it would be impossible to accomplish all this without his mercy. I succeeded only by the mercy of my Gurudev. Gurudev sent me to preach in Bengal, Gurudev sent me for rice collection, potato collection, and I succeeded everywhere by his mercy. Gurudev gave me very difficult services, I had to take so many hard decisions. Many years ago Gurudev gave me the responsibility of arranging Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama (our main festival), and I also arranged big festivals on Gurudev’s appearance day, appearance and disappearance festivals of Param Guru Maharaj Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. Gurudev gave me this responsibility and told me to take care of devotees. This is how I made so many guesthouses, Govinda Kunda and so many branches of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. Gurudev gave all these tasks to me, and he was happy to watch me do it. I never shied away from any job.

Sometimes, Gurudev would get angry and tell me, ‘Get out of here!’ I would get out, but in half an hour I could come back and say, ‘I need two lakhs rupees.’ Gurudev said, ‘I told you to get out!’ and I said, ‘Yes, you have told me to get out, but you did not tell me not to come again.’ I always came back to Gurudev. I would always sit by Gurudev’s side just like a baby calf sits by the side of its mother. When there was service, I would do it, and at all other times when Gurudev was in Nabadwip, I would sit quietly like a baby calf with its mother. I did not say anything or ask any questions – I always sat and waited for his order or instruction like a chatak bird that always waits for a drop of rainwater…

(3/8) Service Alertness

Every time Gurudev started out from Kolkata to Nabadwip, he would call me – he did not tell anyone that he was coming to Nabadwip, but he would call me and say that he was coming. He would instruct me, ‘I am coming to Nabadwip, do not tell anybody,’ and I told only one–two persons secretly so that they cleaned Gurudev’s room a little bit. Then, when Gurudev was in Krishnanagar (he always used that road because there was no road through Kalna at that time), he would call me again and say, ‘I am in Krishnanagar.’ Then we would be ready to start kirtan and give Gurudev a welcome, do some sankirtan. When Gurudev arrived, we would go up to Gurudev’s room, do the arati, etc.

I knew what Gurudev liked to eat, and I would go to the market the day before his arrival, buy everything and keep it in his kitchen. I knew that when Gurudev came, his servant would start cooking for Gurudev. Gurudev always left Kolkata early in the morning and arrive in Nabadwip at about nine o’clock (in the morning). So, I would go to the market the day before and keep everything ready in Gurudev’s room.

Gurudev liked chamarmani rice. It is a very nice kind of rice. He could not eat atop chal rice because it caused problem in his stomach, but he liked chamarmani parboiled rice. He also ate begun bhaja (fried aubergine, but aubergine had to be without seeds). He also liked very hot aloo siddho (mashed potato with two–four fried chillis and salt). Sometimes, he also took split chickpea dal or moong dal and some subji. He did not like to have many items at a time. You know that he had high blood sugar, but he would still sometimes ask for some ice-cream. He liked ThumbsUp, and he also liked mango. Mango has a lot of sugar, but he did not care – even if his sugar was high, he still ate mango. Later, he stopped eating potato so much, but he liked aloo posto [potato subji with ground white poppy seeds] a lot.

I was always alert towards Gurudev – I know everything, what he likes, what he eats, etc.

You can see the Deities here in Siliguri. These Deities were chosen by Gurudev himself. One day, Gurudev told me, ‘Come, we will go out.’ We went to the man who makes Deities, and Gurudev showed me these Deities saying he had them made a long time ago. There was a flood in 2000, but the Deities were not damaged, so Gurudev said they were of a very good quality. Gurudev asked me, ‘Do you like these Deities?’ I said, ‘I do.’ And Gurudev told me to take Them. We fixed the order (the Deities only had to be painted), and the man who made the Deities said that he would send Them to the temple in a few days. Initially, Gurudev said he wanted to send them to Malaysia, but it did not happen, and then a temple was made here in Siliguri, and I installed these Deities here. So, Gurudev himself liked and chose these Deities of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govindasundar. Gurudev himself gave this name.

This temple here in Siliguri was started when Gurudev was abroad, in America. I came here for a festival arranged by Devananda Gaudiya Math, and the devotees liked me a lot, so I called Gurudev and asked if I could make a temple here. Gurudev said that he was very sick and was going for an operation, but if I wanted to make a temple in Siliguri, I could do it. He gave me permission. Later, he saw the domes of the temple. Gurudev asked me at that time if the foundation of the building was strong enough, and by the mercy of the Lord there has been no problem to this day. Gurudev could not come here himself because of one man, you know it. He wanted to come here when it was very hot in Kolkata, but one man, although he was Gurudev’s disciple, betrayed Gurudev. Gurudev was very upset. He said, ‘If somebody takes initiation from me and behaves likes this after that, I will not go there.’ He was angry and did not come. How is it possible for a disciple to cheat his guru like this? It is unimaginable. That is why Gurudev called him a blood-sucking mosquito. Gurudev said, ‘My disciple sucks my blood just the way a mosquito sucks human blood.’ I often remember these hard words of Gurudev. When somebody loses gurudev’s mercy, they become great offenders. You have heard Ramachandra Puri’s story – he first made an offence to Vaishnavs, then he made an offence to his guru, and in the end, he made an offence to the lotus feet of Mahaprabhu; after that, he was forced to leave Jagannath Puri, and nobody knows where he went or what happened to him.

Gurudev always liked trees and cows. He never allowed to cut any trees. One time, some worker lady gathered dry leaves and was burning them at the bottom of a tree. Gurudev saw it and said to her, ‘What are you doing? The tree feels pain from the heat! You are making the tree suffer so much, and the Lord will give you the same suffering for this.’ He also never allowed to sell a single cow from the goshala. Gurudev said, ‘If you sell a cow, some Muslim man will buy and eat it, and you will suffer the reaction for this. Do not do this.’ He also did not allow to sell fish from the pond. Now that we had to leave Nabadwip, they have sold all cows, they have sold all fish, they have cut so many trees and sold them. This is all offensive. When I made the construction, I made it very well, so you cannot take a single brick out of the walls – otherwise, they would take bricks out and sell them, too. They sold fans, fridges, they sold Gurudev’s television. This is what is going on there. And this is all not my problem – they are doing this, and they are the ones who are plunging into trouble for this…

(4/8) Service Milestones

Gurudev brought me up, he taught me everything. Just like a blacksmith burns a piece of iron and then makes a hammer or a pair of scissors out of it, in the same way Gurudev moulded me from my young age. I came to the temple before I was thirty. Before I came to the temple, I had a job, and Gurudev told me one word (he told me to leave it), and I at once gave it up and stayed at the temple. It was a very profitable job – I used to teach at a college and got a very good salary, about 170–200,000 rupees – but I left it without thinking, following Gurudev’s word. Gurudev said that if you want to get great things, you must give up small things, and I always remember it.

I also remember what Gurudev told about vaishnav-seva – how one must serve Vaishnavs, how one must serve devotees, how to manage the temple, how to discipline others. I have learnt everything from Gurudev. Gurudev taught me the power of tolerance, and you can see how much I am tolerating now, following what Gurudev has taught me.

I looked after the cows at the temple, I took care of the construction works. Gurudev told me, ‘How will you do it? If you can, you can do it.’ All this is possible only by Gurudev’s mercy. I also cultivated the temple’s fifty-bigha land (31 acres, or 12.5 hectare) – I cultivated wheat, mustard and a few other things. After that, I made many branches of the Mission. I made a temple in Bamunpara and Siliguri in Gurudev’s time, the temple in Ekachakra was also half-completed in Gurudev’s time. All the other temples were made after Gurudev left. Gurudev heard about the temples in Ganga Sagar and Bankura, but he did not see them in his lifetime. Anyhow, wherever he is now, he can see everything from there, and he is giving his mercy from there. He can see everything from his samadhi.

You think this is just a Deity here, but it is actually not so. Gurudev himself is sitting here. He can hear everything, he can see everything, but he is staying in his samadhi form now, so he is not saying anything. This feeling must come to us: we must realise that the guru never leaves this world; he exists eternally, he is present wherever there is regular service going on.

Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj had many disciples – he had many renounced disciples, many brahmachari and sannyasi disciples. He had many thousands of disciples, but he chose Gurudev. Although Gurudev was a householder at that time, Srila Sridhar Maharaj forcefully took him out of his householder life, gave him sannyas and made him the acharya. At first, Gurudev lived as a brahmachari, then he went to householder life and followed the religion of family life. After that, Srila Sridhar Maharaj brought him back and gave him sannyas – he seated him firmly at his feet at the end of 1985. Two years later, in August 1988, Srila Sridhar Maharaj left this world.

It is very hard to tolerate separation from one’s gurudev. In my life, I suffered so much, and I never cried, even at the hardest times, but I cried when Gurudev left this world, and every year when Gurudev’s disappearance day comes, I cannot check myself… I have tolerated so many austerities and pain, my godbrothers have given me so many austerities. They even threw me into prison, but even then I did not feel any struggle – I chanted the Holy Name, took prasad; I sat in jail and read scriptures. They filed a false case against me and got me thrown into jail, but I never suffered there. No matter what pain I got, I always stayed with Gurudev. The only real pain I have got was the pain when Gurudev left.

I always did whatever Gurudev told me. I remember one day Gurudev told me one afternoon, ‘I want a samosa. Go to the shop and bring me some samosas.’ I went to a shop and brought him some samosas. Another time he told me, ‘Bel fruit is overripe on the trees, and they are falling on the ground. Why are you not giving me any? Make me some bel sherbet.’ He told me, and I made it.

One time, when Gurudev was in Australia (at that time I had not taken sannyas yet, I was a brahmachari, my name was Vinod Ranjan), I knew that the plaster in Gurudev’s bathroom had started to peel off the walls, so I wanted to repair his bathroom. I took the key and had it repaired. When it was being repaired, I thought that Gurudev’s room was very small, so I expanded it a little. In the meantime, somebody complained to Gurudev that I had broken his house. Gurudev was very upset to hear it and did not talk to me after that. Even when he came back to Nabadwip, he did not speak to me. At that time, he stayed at Sevak Kunja Bhavan, the Centenary Building, and at some point he decided to go to see his previous house. When he came and saw his previous house, he was very surprised, ‘Oh, he has done a very nice job! I will move back to this building tomorrow.’ I had also spend some extra money at that time, and when Gurudev went to see the goshala, he saw that I had made a big extension at the back of it. Gurudev was surprised and pleased, ‘Oh, this is what the money was spent on. Now I understand. I did not know you had made this big goshala!’

Another time, one of Gurudev’s godbrothers complained to Gurudev, ‘Acharya Maharaj is stealing your money!’ Gurudev asked him, ‘Yes, I know he is “stealing” money, but can you tell me where he is keeping that money?’ Then, the next day some devotee from Australia went with me to Bamunpara and secretly took a picture of the temple construction in Bamunpara. When that devotee was showing pictures to Gurudev, Gurudev asked him, ‘What is this? Where was this picture taken?’ The devotee told Gurudev that it was in Bamunpara, and Gurudev was very surprised, ‘In Bamunpara?! Is he making a temple there?! I thought he was making a guesthouse there! I did not know Acharya Maharaj was making a temple there!’ After that, Gurudev called the person who had complained about me and said, pointing at that photograph in his computer, ‘Do you see this photo? Do you see what is in this photo?’ They said they did not know what it was. Gurudev said, ‘Oh, you are staying in Nabadwip, but you do not know anything? This is Bamunpara! He is making a temple there. You said yesterday that he was stealing money, but this is what he has been “stealing” the money for.’ Gurudev was pleased.

(5/8) Service Challenges

Gurudev guided me in so many ways.

When Gurudev was making the Vrindavan temple and was going to buy the land there, he sent me to Vrindavan for the first time. At that time I was a new person and did not know anything. Gurudev told me, ‘Can you take this attaché case (a small briefcase) to Vrindavan?’ I said, ‘Yes, I can.’ I had never been to Vrindavan in my life, I had never even been to the Howrah station in my life, and I had no idea how I would go there – there were no mobile phones at that time, and I did not even have a ticket. Anyway, Gurudev gave me the briefcase and told me to take good care of it. He did not say what was inside, and I did not ask because it was not my business. So, I came to the Howrah station. I saw it was a very big station, and the crowd was overwhelming. I asked somebody which train was going to Vrindavan and got on the train I was shown. I had bought an express train ticket but did not have a booked seat, so I sat near the bathroom on the floor with the briefcase by my side. I sat there until Mughalsarai station (it is half way to Delhi; because it was a Muslim name, this station has been renamed since then by the BJP government: it is called Deen Dayal Upadhyaya now). After Mughalsarai, I asked someone to give me their seat for fifty rupees, the person agreed, and I sat nicely the rest of the way. In this way I came to Vrindavan and gave the briefcase to the man who was selling the land. At that time there were no mobile phones, and the man called Gurudev using a landline phone. He told Gurudev that he had got the briefcase, and after that I went back to the station the same day. I came to the station in the afternoon and caught a train back to Kolkata the same evening. I did not have any business to stay there, and I never even thought of going around and seeing any places in Vrindavan. Gurudev told me to go and give the briefcase, so I went there, gave the briefcase and returned the same time. When I returned, Gurudev said, ‘You did a great job! Do you know what was inside the briefcase? There was seventy lakh of rupees [seven million rupees]. If anybody had known there was so much money inside, they would have killed you and taken the money.’ Hearing this, I was happy I had not asked what was inside; otherwise, I would have been shivering with fear all the way.

Several years later, when I took sannyas, Gurudev phoned me early in the morning from Kolkata, saying, ‘Oh, I could not sleep the whole night today! Looks like that our Puri Math has been occupied.’ I was surprised, ‘How can that be? How can our Puri Math be occupied?’ Gurudev said that somebody from Puri had called him and told the news. This is what is called ‘jumping over the goda [a raised and sloped place for cows to stand and eat hay on] to eat grass.’ The man should have let me know first, but instead he told Gurudev and disturbed him. What an offender. I was in charge of the management, and I had sent him to Puri, but he went and told Gurudev directly without telling anything to me first. The thing was that somebody had forcefully occupied some land behind the temple, and Gurudev told me he could not sleep the whole night when he heard about it and that I had to go to Puri. I said I would go. I took a shower, went to the Howrah station, and from the Howrah station took a taxi to Dum Dum Park. I thought I would go by bus, but Gurudev told me not to worry about money and not to waste any time. So, I came to the Kolkata temple by taxi, came to Gurudev, and Gurudev told me to go to Puri the same day. I did not have any ticket at that time, but I managed to get a general ticket (I gave some money to somebody on the train and got a seat). I took the Name of Lord Jagannath, praying, ‘O Jagannath, please be merciful to me,’ and Lord Jagannath arranged everything: when I came to Puri, the man who had broken the fence of our temple came to me and offered me a full obeisance. I was surprised, ‘This man is my enemy, but he is paying me a full obeisance!’ I came there very angry, ready to fight, but when I saw him paying obeisance to me, I spoke to him calmly. I told him, ‘Brother, you are from Odisha, you are a devotee, why are you hijacking the Lord’s place? You have made an offence.’ He said that he had done it out of anger. I asked him what he was angry about. Somebody told him not to interfere with the temple management (removed him from his service), so he got angry and did what he did. He was doing some carpenter job and wanted to stay on his own land. I told him not to worry and to leave the land. He did not want to leave. I asked him how much money he wanted. He asked for 50,000 rupees. I asked him, ‘Why must I give you 50,000 rupees?’ He said that he had been looking after the temple, that he had done this, this, that. Then he said, ‘OK, give me 20,000 rupees.’ I told him I did not have 20,000. I offered him 8,000 rupees. In this way, we bargained down to 15,000 rupees. In the end, I gave him 8,000 rupees (that was all I had with me) and asked another person to give the remaining 7,000 and told that man to go away. After that, I stayed in Puri for three more days (I fixed the wall, made it higher, and made a gate) and then left.

So, in my life I have had to do all these hard, hard, very difficult jobs, and I was always successful. By hook or by crook but I did it. Whether it was getting building plans approved, whether it was any other job, everything was unhampered in the end. You know, when Gurudev was very sick, he could not walk or go upstairs to the second floor, and his servitors used to carry him upstairs, but it was very dangerous (what if they dropped him?), so I wanted to make a lift in the building. Formally, it is not allowed to make a lift in a building without government permission. I knew Subhas Chakraborty (the leader of CPM at that time), so I went to speak to him. He promised to write to the chairman of the party and get it resolved. There are different groups within a party, so in the end the chairman wrote to me back saying that no permission had been granted. I went to Subhas Chakraborty again and told him that they had ignored his letter. He told me, ‘Go ahead and make the lift. Who will stop you? You do not need anyone’s permission.’ And I did that. Gurudev said then to everyone, ‘So, you see? You said it was impossible to make a lift, but he has made it!’

There were so many very, very hard jobs like this. I had to deal with the most difficult jobs, with all kinds of fighting and conflicts. At some point I had to even take a rifle in my hands. After that, Gurudev told me not to touch a gun again – he told me to never get a gun license. He said, ‘You have a very sharp hand, and you get angry easily, so if you take a gun, you will kill somebody!’ One time, I took a mock gun used for shooting birds and shot into a monkey that was spoiling the temple’s mangoes – I did not think it would actually hit the monkey. After that Gurudev told me to never take a gun in my hands again. Gurudev told me two things – to never drive a motorcycle and to never get a gun license. Gurudev gave me all these instructions, and I followed his word.

(6/8) Gurudev’s Insight

I have heard and learned a lot from Gurudev. Gurudev gave me so many instructions how to maintain the temple, and Gurudev is dura-darasi – he has a great foresight, he can foresee everything.

I remember how Gurudev managed ** Prabhu once. ** Prabhu had been living at the bottom of Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s bhajan-kutir, and the problem was that he was staying at the front of the temple and he would stand and pass urine in front of everybody. It does not look good. Gurudev told me, ‘You must remove him from there!’ But how? I knew he would not leave his room because he had lived in that room for more than fifty years. So, Gurudev said, ‘Tell him you want to repair and make his room nice, then he will agree to move out.’ I did that, and started the repairs. Then, while I was repairing that room and putting marble on the floors, Gurudev called me from abroad saying, ‘You must close the bathroom in that room.’ How clever Gurudev is! I blocked the bathroom and made an office in that room. When the repairs were over, ** Prabhu wanted to come back to that room again, and I told him, ‘But how will you stay there? There is no bathroom in the room!’ He did not come back to that room. That was the instruction of Gurudev. Gurudev always managed in this way – very tactfully.

Gurudev told me that after Srila Sridhar Maharaj disappeared, there were only two–three people in the temple who supported him – the others were all unhappy that Srila Sridhar Maharaj had made Gurudev the sevaite (the president) of the Mission. So, to manage the situation at the temple, Gurudev made one of the men who was against him the temple manager. As the result, that man got very happy and never again openly said or did anything against Gurudev (he may have been doing something behind Gurudev’s back, but he never openly protested against Gurudev after that). The man is against Gurudev, but Gurudev made him the manager – you can see how Gurudev managed it!

Gurudev told me many things about the devotees, what relation they had with Srila Sridhar Maharaj, and so on, and Gurudev taught me so many things – how to be humble, how to be tolerant, how to give honour to others. He taught me this in so many ways.

One time, I had arranged for nine or ten buses to go somewhere, but not all buses had come that morning, so everyone was waiting. I called the bus service, but they did not answer my calls. Then, I told one devotee from Venezuela who could drive a big bullet motorcycle to take me to the bus stand. On the way, that devotee ran over a goat with the motorcycle! The local people got very angry and started fighting. I ran away not to get involved. Later, the man who was the temple manager at that time came to Gurudev and complained about this. Gurudev said, ‘No, problem. How much do they want for the goat?’ The man said, ‘They are asking for 250 rupees.’ And Gurudev said, ‘OK, here, take 250 rupees.’

Another time, some woman came to Gurudev. She started shouting at Gurudev and chastising him so much. I could not stand hearing it – I took up a bamboo stick and hit the woman to make her stop, as the result of which her hand got broken. Gurudev sent her to hospital. You can see how he managed it. That woman wanted to go to the police station to complain about Gurudev, but Gurudev arranged a car with a security guard and ordered to take her to Kolkata, leave her there and tell her to never come to the temple again. I sometimes see that lady in Vrindavan now – she has paralyses now. I saw her this time when I went to Vrindavan too – she was begging.

There are so many pastimes that happened with Gurudev and me, so many things happened…

One time ** came to Gurudev. Gurudev was not happy with his mood, so when ** came to say something, Gurudev (I was sitting in front of him) quickly took up a newspaper, lifted it high to cover his face and pretended he was busy reading it. Later, Gurudev told me, ‘Do you know why I did that? I know what he was coming to say – he was going to say something that I cannot tolerate hearing, so I better cover my face and not hear it at all.’

Another time, Damodar Maharaj came to see Gurudev. When some brahmachari at Kaikhali temple served prasadam, he gave Damodar Maharaj some patol (it was chaturmasya time, when patol, a type of vegetable, should not be taken according to the strict rules). Damodar Maharaj got very upset. He declared a hunger strike and came to Gurudev. When he came, Gurudev was resting, so Damodar Maharaj waited, waited and waited. At 2:30 p.m. Gurudev woke up, and somebody informed him that Damodar Maharaj had been there, waiting for him for more than two hours. Gurudev was surprised, ‘Two hours? Some problem must have happened.’ Then, Damodar Maharaj came in, and Gurudev asked him calmly, ‘What has happened, Maharaj?’ Damodar Maharaj said, ‘Kick out that boy otherwise I will not return to the temple in Kaikhali!’ Gurudev asked again, ‘What happened, Maharaj?’ Damodar Maharaj explained, ‘He gave me patol!’ Gurudev said, ‘What is the problem, Maharaj? You offer bhoga, prasadam comes, and he gave you patol. Do you eat patol?’ Damodar Maharaj said, ‘No, no, I am not eating patol!’ Gurudev said, ‘I also do not eat patol – I eat prasadam.’ Damodar Maharaj insisted, ‘No, you must kick him out!’ Then, Gurudev explained to him, ‘Maharaj, there is only one brahmachari with you. Nobody can stay with you. I sent this one brahmachari to you, and even if he tortures you, even if he beats you, you must be tolerant. Nobody wants to stay with you, but that boy is still there. You know that if he leaves, you will have to cook, do puja and everything else yourself. Can you do that? I do not have a helicopter to come to Kaikhali, do puja and come back here! Can you do puja and cook? If you can, then I can tell that boy to come here and stay with me. Do you want that?’ Then Damodar Maharaj calmed down and said, ‘No, I cannot…’ And Gurudev concluded, ‘So, you must tell me that he can stay there.’ After that, Gurudev gave Damodar Maharaj some good nourishment – he gave him some sweets, some biscuits, a chocolate – and Damodar Maharaj left peacefully. This is how Gurudev managed him.

So many things happened. Gurudev could always understand who could stay at the temple and who could not. One time I brought somebody to Gurudev for taking initiation, but the boy left later. Gurudev asked me, ‘Where is that new boy?’ I told Gurudev that he had left. Then Gurudev said, ‘You always like to make luchi fried in kerosine. I knew this boy would not stay at the temple, but you brought him to me for initiation, and now he has left. I know who can stay here and who cannot…’

I have also seen how much attachment Gurudev had to his Guru Maharaj and to the Deities. Some devotees gave money to Gurudev, and one time Gurudev got to know that his mother was buying keo-karpin oil, which is a little expensive oil. Gurudev chastised Dhananjay, his brother, very much. He swore him, ‘Your mother used to be a beggar working in other people’s houses, but now she has become a queen – she has come to the temple, stays in a good house, has two–three servants, and now she is using keo-karpin oil?! What is this?! This oil costs two hundred rupees! This is the Deities’ money, this is Guru Maharaj’s money! If she does this again, she will have to go out of the temple!’ Gurudev was very heavy about this.

Another time, one of Gurudev’s nieces had been always disturbing me very much in my brahmachari days. Gurudev knew about it. One day, Gurudev told his brother, ‘If you come here, you can come, but I will not allow your daughter to come here. She must never come to the temple again.’ She left at that time and never came back for maybe ten years; only when Gurudev got very sick, in 2008–2009, she came again, otherwise she never showed her face at that temple. Gurudev was very heavy about this.

(7/8) Gurudev’s Loving Affection

One day, on the poila baisakh (Bengali New Year), Gurudev told me, ‘Come, let’s go swimming in the Ganges today!’ I went with Gurudev and a few other devotees. Coming to the Ganges, Gurudev took off his uttariya and went into the Ganges. He liked swimming in the Ganges and could swim very well. We also went swimming. Gurudev had a diamond on his arm – some foreign devotee had given it to him, and he always wore it (it must have been worth two–four lakhs of rupees, a very expensive stone). When Gurudev went swimming, that diamond got lost in the river. Gurudev told me, ‘Ganga Devi has taken my diamond! Well, what to do.’ Then, as Gurudev was coming out of the Ganges, he paid obeisance to the Ganges and suddenly he felt something had hit his leg – he bent to see what it was and saw that it was that diamond. He said then, ‘See? Ganga Devi has returned it now.’ So many miraculous things like this happened to Gurudev.

Gurudev never liked misconception, and he never tolerated misconception. He was also always very frugal – he did not like to waste money, but he would spend money whenever it was necessary. One time, Gurudev told me, ‘Today I will go to my temple in Hapaniya!’ We went to Hapaniya, and on the way, he stopped the car, gave me one hundred rupees and told me to buy some sweets and yoghurt. I got a little late, and when I got back, Gurudev asked me, ‘Why are you late? You must have been bargaining! Do not bargain, it is not good – when you are buying something for the Deities, do not bargain.’

Gurudev also taught me how to distribute prasadam. Gurudev said that when you give prasadam to others, you must look at the face of the person whom you are giving and then judge how much and what to give. Does it mean that you will give more paneer, sweets, etc. to the person who is closed to you? No. If somebody has diabetes, do not give sweet dishes to them, and if somebody likes sweets, give them some extra sweets. Also, you must see who you are giving because a child does not eat as much as an adult person, so if you see a child sitting with his or her mother and give everyone the same amount, the child will waste prasadam. This is what Gurudev told me. He gave a lot of different advice like that.

Gurudev possessed a lot of supernatural power from above. He could understand what was happening and what was going to happen. He knows everything.

Gurudev loved to eat, and he loved to feed others. He also loved taking prasadam together with all the Vaishnavs. I saw when he was making Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s disappearance or appearance festivals in the early days, he always liked to take prasadam with all the devotees. At that time, the big prasadam hall had not been made, and Gurudev always took prasadam with the devotees – with the other sannyasis and brahmacharis. When Gurudev went to Puri, he did vaishnav-seva inviting Vaishnavs from all temples and giving prasadam to everyone.

Gurudev could tolerate so many things, but the only thing he could never tolerate was any disrespect towards his Guru Maharaj. He has zero tolerance when it came to any abuse or disrespect towards his Guru Maharaj. He did not tolerate it when anyone said anything untoward about his Guru Maharaj. Such was his love for his gurudev.

During various festivals, when I invited Vaishnavs from other Gaudiya Maths, Gurudev would always take very good care of them. He would always ask what was being cooked, how much prasadam was being distributed, if everybody was happy with their prasadam or not. He would ask about everything. Not only that, he would also send his servitor to see if the Vaishnavs were getting nice prasadam or not, to see what was going on in the prasadam hall, if everyone was taking prasadam properly or not. Gurudev’s servitor would go there, check and then come back and report everything to Gurudev. Gurudev always took great care of that. Gurudev managed and took care of everything. He would also tell me to buy chaunsa mango for Srila Guru Maharaj’s disappearance festival and distribute it to everyone…

One time, Gurudev told me, ‘Can you come with me?’ I foolishly asked Gurudev, ‘Where?’ And Gurudev told me, ‘This is not 100% surrender.’ I remember all these things Gurudev told me… Gurudev also said that when your guru chastises you, that is his blessing, his mercy. I realised and understood it gradually, too. I could understand how much I loved and cherished Gurudev’s chastisement. If somebody asks me what is necessary for us in our spiritual life, I will say that the only thing that is necessary is your guru’s chastisement. Sri Sivananda Sen understood it, Sri Jagadananda Pandit understood it, and Srila Sanatan Goswami also realised what is called guru’s and Vaishnavs’ blessing in the world of devotion. It is a blessing when your guru chastises you. We always pray that gurudev may teach us how to live and serve properly. My Gurudev’s chastisement used to be there in my life, but now I do not have such fortune – who will chastise me now? Gurudev’s chastisement was always very loving and affectionate…

I remember also another thing. I do not know how Gurudev knew it, but somehow he knew that I never drink milk. I always fed the cows, took care of the cows and served the cows at the goshala, but I could never drink milk. So, Gurudev allowed me to take chhana (curd) – he asked a servitor to give me curd in the evening. I was junior at that time (I had come to the temple maybe one–two months before that), so all the senior devotees were very surprised, ‘He has not been here for even two months and he is getting curd?! We have been at the temple for ten–thirty years, but we never get any curd!’ The person who was distributing prasadam said, ‘Do not ask me, this is an order from above – this is High Commander’s order.’ Everybody kept quiet then – it was Gurudev’s order, so they had no say in the matter.

I remember I had to go for an operation in 2005. I had a stone in my gall bladder, and having tolerated, tolerated and tolerated painfor a long time, I finally thought it was not good and sought medical help. I took some money some devotees had given me and went to Chennai for the operation. It turned out that I needed 50,000 rupees, but I only had 15,000 with me. Gurudev ordered his secretary to immediately arrange for the money and send it to me. He said, ‘I do not know how you will do it, but you must arrange and send the money to him.’ The money he sent was also not sufficient, and then he sent more money through Sripad Puri Maharaj from Puri (he already expired now). Gurudev told me, ‘Do not worry how much money it takes, as much as it is necessary; you must stay there, do not come back – once your operation has finished, then you can come back.’ Then, the operation took place, and the next day I immediately took a train and came back to the temple. Gurudev was astounded, ‘What is this?! What a foolish boy you are! You had an operation just yesterday – you should have come back by flight! Why did you have to take a train? And why did you come back so soon? They have not even taken out the bandages after the operation!’ I told Gurudev, ‘It is OK, I will take them out myself.’ (And that was true – when it began to itch, I took all the bandages myself.) Gurudev said, ‘What a strange, astonishing man you are!’ I said, ‘Gurudev, what will I do there? I do not like to stay outside the temple.’ Gurudev said, ‘All right, but you had an operation only yesterday. Why was it necessary to come back today? And you came by train, in the sleeper class! What is this?!’ I said, ‘Why is it necessary to spend more money? Aeroplane, A/C ticket – it is not necessary. I came in the sleeper class happily.’ Then Gurudev said, ‘Oh, happily?!’ This is the kind of affection, this is the kind of love I received from Gurudev. Who can understand his love and affection? One cannot understand it just by taking initiation…

(8/8) Nurturing Gurudev’s Mission

You cannot become a disciple just by taking a mantra from a guru. It is necessary to have and show your love, affection for your guru, to take him as your own…

You can see a lady sitting here. She is an old lady, she must be over sixty years old, but she gives whatever pension she gets to the Math. Even now when we came to Siliguri, she gave money for Gurudev’s festival. When there was a lockdown, she also gave money every month to help the mission. She also collects outside – she phones some devotees abroad and collects in this way for the temple. They are serving Gurudev with their heart and soul. You can see how beautifully they have also dressed the Deities here. We have brought this dress, crowns and other paraphernalia from Vrindavan. There is a small boy also who saves money from his tiffin box money (pocket money for buying some food at school) – he saves little by little and says, ‘I will buy something for my gurudev with this money.’ The other day he sent me some money and asked the devotees, ‘Buy Gurudev a watch, buy him a gold one!’ I told them that I would not wear a gold watch. (Actually, I do not wear a watch so much, only when I go out I use it to see the time – I forget that there is a clock in the mobile phone.) But can you imagine it? A little boy saves money for his guru from his pocket money. Their love comes from their hearts.

When I was in Vrindavan, I thought I would go to Siliguri, so I bought the outfits, crowns and a peacock fan for the Deities, and also some clothes for Gurudev. This is what is called ‘I will never think about my own maintenance, and I will always remain in the shelter of loving attachment to You (nijera posana, kabhu na bhaviba, rahiba bhavera bhare)’ (Saranagati). We must not think about ourselves. If you care for and think about your guru and Vaishnavs, then your guru and Vaishnavs will care for and think about you…

I called Sripad Niriha Maharaj and Sripad Vishnu Maharaj and told them to wake up early in the morning yesterday, go temple to temple in Mayapur, invite all the Vaishnavs to the temple and give prasadam to everyone today. I told Tarok Prabhu to cook nicely today – some chilli paneer, vegetable pulao, paneer rasa, patoler rasa, sukta, sak, chutney; he also said he would get a curd cake (they ordered it from a sweet shop)…

The construction of the Prasadam Hall in Nrisingha Palli is now complete; only marble is left to put. The new Prasadam Hall will accommodate up to five hundred people. We have made a very big Prasadam Hall behind the temple. Everything is Gurudev’s mercy. I did not have a single rupee – I left the temple in Nabadwip empty-handed, but so many branches have appeared since then. I go for preaching and gradually everything comes. There is a temple completed in Uluberia also. The Deities installation will be after Nrisingha-chaturdasi. All the painting works are now completed, and only the marble must be polished. One devotee gave ten-eleven-katha land (0.16–0.18 acres; 670–735 sq.m.), and I have made a temple there. Gurudev gives his mercy, then it is all possible. I do not do any business, I do not smuggle anything – if the Lord gives, if devotees give something, then I spend it. Devotees have given some money for this festival, but it was more than necessary, so I will spend the rest of it on other things: I was thinking yesterday where to use that money, and I thought that the floor here in the nat-mandir has become bad, so I will marble or tile it. Gurudev arranges everything. A new four-storey guesthouse building is now also almost complete in Nrisingha Palli – there are seventy-six rooms there, and if ten people stay in one room, it can easily accommodate seven hundred and sixty people, and there is a bathroom in every room, so the accommodation is not a problem now. By Gurudev’s mercy, everything is arranged. When they gave the land in Uluberia, I thought that I could sometimes go there during the hot season and bath in the Ganges sometimes. They will keep a room for me, and I can go and stay there sometimes. Gurudev has arranged everything, and I have no problem – I did not have to sell any cows, fish or trees to manage. The main thing is gurudev’s mercy. If you have gurudev’s mercy, you have everything. Those who have no mercy have nothing. Empty vessels make the most noise, so it is necessary not to just dress as a sadhu, it is necessary to actually become a sadhu.

Gurudev left this world and kept this fallen soul here. I gave my word to Gurudev, ‘Whatever difficulty, whatever pain or obstacle comes, I will not leave you.’ That is why, I have never left you. I am still looking after Gurudev’s devotees and temples. I did not leave Nabadwip out of my own accord. Devotees said that those people would kill me and begged me to leave, then I agreed. Now they are calling me to come back, but as long as there is all this fighting, as long as they have not left, I will not go there. Gurudev kept this fallen soul here and left this world, and if the Lord always keeps me engaged in the service of Gurudev and his devotees, that is sufficient for me. Vaishnavs are the Lord’s very own: they come on the oder of the Lord, and they leave on the order of the Lord…

You know, when I saw Gurudev for the last time, I could not understand it at that time. Two days before that, Gurudev called me and said, ‘Come to Kolkata immediately.’ I went to Kolkata, spent there a night, and the next day I was supposed to go to Midnapore for preaching (on the dvadasi day) – I thought I would take paran early in the morning and then go. The next day after I came to Kolkata, I took prasad in the afternoon and came to see Gurudev again. Gurudev asked me, ‘Have you taken prasad?’ I said, ‘Yes, I have.’ Then I told Gurudev, ‘I am leaving now, I have to go back to Nabadwip.’ Gurudev said, ‘Nabadwip? Will you not take me with you?’ I said, ‘Gurudev, you are not well now. You will come later.’ Then Gurudev said to me, ‘Oh, but you will come tomorrow…’ I did not know that this was my last meeting with Gurudev… I could never in my life imagine it. I left Kolkata, reached Nabadwip in the evening, took some rest and in the morning woke up quickly to get ready to leave. Suddenly my phone rang and they told me to come to Kolkata immediately because Gurudev’s health was bad. They did not tell me that Gurudev had left, they just told me to come. I took the driver and told him to start out as soon as possible. When I came to Kolkata, then I saw what had happened… After that, we called an A/C ambulance and brought Gurudev to Nabadwip. In the ambulance, there was only I and Gurudev’s two servitors from Brazil, Deva Bandhu Prabhu and Nanda Priya Didi. After we had arrived in Nabadwip, I called television, radio and sent the news to different temples. Because Gurudev left me as the acharya, I had to bath Gurudev and apply tilaks on his body. Then, Gurudev was placed in the pit – he had told me before where his body should be kept (he had chosen a place near Param Guru Maharaj). Everybody told me that I had to go down into the pit because I was the acharya, and I had to write the brahma-gayatri mantra on his chest. I did not even know if I was dead or alive, but they forced me to go down and write the gayatri mantra. Gurudev left his body at 4:20 in the morning, but by the time this happened it was already evening (by that time, the devotees came from Delhi and Singapore – as soon as they got the news, they took a plane and came to Nabadwip), but his body was just as it was, very soft and beautiful. Then, they started covering the samadhi with soil, and when the soil was up to Gurudev’s head I said that I could not stay there anymore and somebody took me out away from there, made me sit afar. Then everything finished, they offered bhoga to the Deities and Gurudev. A Tulasi tree was placed on top of the samadhi. I had asked somebody to buy sheets of corrugated iron, and Santosh Prabhu, who was the manager at that time, brought the iron. We made a fence around the samadhi and some roof on top. Fourteen days later, I started building the samadhi-mandir…

Now Gurudev will never call me again – nobody will call me at two o’clock at night, nobody will call me and say, ‘I am coming from Kolkata’, ‘I am in Krishnanagar’, ‘I am coming.’ I still keep Gurudev’s phone number in my phone in his memory…

You must know that Gurudev loved Siliguri, and he wanted to come here, but because of one person he changed his mind in the end. He said, ‘If somebody takes initiation from me and then sells my house – if somebody becomes my disciples and then betrays me – I will not go to Siliguri.’ He was very pained by that, and he did not come because of that, but he gave me permission to make the domes and saw the photographs of the domes. He said the domes looked very nice. But feeling much pain, he did not want to come here in the end. Gurudev said, ‘How can I go there if the person has given me so much pain?’ That is why he never came to Siliguri, but initially he thought he would come and stay here after Gaura Purnima, during the hot season, because it is a little cooler here. Gurudev could not take heat, so if he had come here, he would have got some relief from heat. In his last days, he could not stay without the A/C on. The current in Nabadwip always goes out, and we often have to run the generator, it makes much noise. Here, you can live comfortably without an A/C because it is not so hot. That is why he liked this place very much, but finally he had to refuse to come.

Anyhow, Gurudev has told me so many things, there are so many memories… Here you can see the Deities that Gurudev himself chose and liked; here is also Gurudev’s Deity installed. You are fortunate that you can serve Gurudev here every day: somebody makes garlands, somebody washes the dishes, somebody cleans the temple, and so on. It is your fortune to have this service. Gurudev is present here eternally, and you are engaged in his eternal service. Never leave this service. Always continue your service. If you cannot come, help the temple with one–two rupees. Those who have no money can come and do some service bodily; those who have no money can serve with their hearts and minds. Try to serve the Lord and Gurudev with whatever capacity you have. My greatest happiness is if you serve the Deities, serve Gurudev here. So many obstacles and difficulties will come – they will criticise you, they will say bad things about you if you come to the temple (especially when young girls come to the temple, people start saying all kinds of nonsense), but you must tolerate everything. You know, there are now two new girls in our temple in Nrisingha Palli. One is unmarried, and the other one has had the marriage ceremony, but because of the problems in the house of her husband, she left that place and came to the temple. Both have passed B.A. The unmarried girl used to work very hard at home – she would sew and get an income of about fifteen thousand rupees. She left it and came to me. They are both very strong and strict girls – no brahmachari will be able to disturb them. Despite their young age, they are both serving now in Nrisingha Palli. I have placed them in charge of the temple (‘in charge’ means they look after the storeroom, kitchen, they make sure everyone takes prasadam, etc.). The temple is very big there, and they look after everything. They are serving very nicely there. I had arranged for a husband for the girl who is unmarried, the boy is my disciple, so it would be a good marriage, but she did not want to get married. I told her that she was a grown up (she is twenty-four), that she was not below eighteen, so it was ultimately her decision. Her parents could not persuade her to agree, and I did not force her either. She said to me, ‘Gurudev, will you kick me out? Will you throw me into fire? If you want to make a marriage fire and throw me into that fire, OK, then I agree.’ What was I to say? I told her, ‘OK, leave it. I will not ask you again.’ Her father called me and complained, ‘She is not listening to me, please speak to her, she must get married.’ I told him that I could not tell her anything – if I said anything to her, she would start arguing again. If she wants to serve, let her serve. And she follows the rules. These girls tell everyone, ‘If anyone does not wake up for the mangal-arati, they will not get anything to eat!’ Now everyone is afraid and everyone comes for the mangal-arati and sits for the kirtans. Before, they did not – only the pujari came to do the arati, and everybody else slept. Now they have set the rule, and everybody comes.

Anyhow, so much has been said today. I am finishing here now.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Hairnam-sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

* * *

￼Line Line24 April 2021, p.m.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Siliguri

Evening Class: Holy Disappearance Day of Om Vishnupad Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj

(Translated from Bengali)￼Line Line

(1/5) Sri Guru Is All-in-All

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the holy lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy. After that, I am offering my obeisance to all guru-varga, to all my godbrothers and godsisters, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all devotees. I am praying to you all for your mercy to this lowly soul.

Today is the disappearance (tirobhav-tithi) of my Gurupadpadma Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj. To observe this day, we have made today a festival here in Siliguri – devotees came, took maha-prasadam. I told you this morning that there is no difference between Gurudev’s appearance and disappearance. Vaishnavs come to this world on the order of the Lord, they preach the Lord’s message in this world. You have heard in one of the kirtans:

vaisnavera avedane krsna dayamaya
e hena pamara prati habena sadaya

‘Lord Krishna is merciful – hearing the Vaishnav’s appeal, He will take pity on this wretched sinner.’

gala-vastra krtanjali vaisnava-nikate

dante trna kari’ dandaiba niskapate

‘I will stand before a Vaishnav sincerely, with a cloth around my neck and joined palms, holding a straw between my teeth.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

So, if you pray to Vaishnavs, Krishna becomes very merciful. If we keep anything at gurudev’s feet (if we submit at his feet an appeal about anything related to the Lord), he will send our prayer to the Lord. We cannot appeal to the Lord directly – if we go to the Lord directly, the Lord will not hear our prayer. If we want to reach the Lord, we have to go through the medium of a guru.

The scriptures say, ‘Guru bada diye Gauranga bhaje, sei papi raurave padi maje: the sinner who worships Gauranga bypassing the guru will fall into a terrible hell.’ If somebody wants to worship Gauranga bypassing the guru, such a sinner will go to hell. Therefore, if you want to go to Srimati Radharani, you must first get permission from Lalita and Visakha, then they will take you to Srimati Radharani. If you cannot get to Srimati Radharani, you will not be able to get to Krishna. Gurudev is said to be an incarnation of Srimati Radharani. Gurudev is Srimati Radharani Herself, be it in vatsalya-rasa, sakhya-rasa or any other mood.

Sriman Nityananda Prabhu represents sakhya-rasa, and we also say that gurudev is non-different from Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. ‘Nitaiyer karuna habe Vraje Radha-Krsna pabe: without Nityananda Prabhu we cannot get the mercy of Radha-Krishna.’ Srila Raghunath Das Goswami had tried to come to Mahaprabhu many times, Sivananda Sen had also tried, but only when they had got Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy could they come to Mahaprabhu.

Srila Raghunath Das Goswami got Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy by making a chida-dahi festival in Panihati and serving all the Vaishnavs. Nitai gave him service – He told him to arrange for some chida (flat rice) and dahi (yoghurt) and feed all the Vaishnavs. Before that, Srila Raghunath Das Goswami had tired to come to Mahaprabhu many times, but Mahaprabhu did not allow him to stay (every time Srila Raghunath Das Goswami came to Mahaprabhu, Mahaprabhu told him to go back home). But when Nityananda Prabhu kept His lotus feet on his head and said, ‘Now you can go. You are free now: all your material bondage has been undone, and all obstacles are removed. Now you can get Mahaprabhu’s mercy,’ he could come and stay with Mahaprabhu.

If we do not hanker for Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy, if we do not obtain Sriman Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy, we will not be able to come to the Lord. If we do not get Srimati Radharani’s mercy, we will not be able to come to the Lord. And to come to Srimati Radharani, you must first go to Lalita and Visakha, take their permission, then you can come to Srimati Radharani. When we get permission from Radharani, when we get the visa from Radharani, then we can get the darshan of Sri Krishna in Vrindavan. Therefore, we must first approach Vaishnavs.

First, it is necessary to take shelter at the holy lotus feet of the guru (guru-padasraya), then you must take initiation. When you take initiation, it does not end there. You do not pass the exams just by getting admitted into a school – once you are admitted into a school, you must study. In the same way, you have got admitted into this spiritual school (we can say, this transcendental university), and if you want to pass the exam, you must study your whole life. This studying is sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). These devotional practices are called nava-vidha bhakti (nine kinds of devotion). You have heard about these practices in the kirtan ‘Bhajahu re mana’.

sravana, kirtana, smarana, vandana,
pada-sevana, dasya re
pujana, sakhi-jana, atma-nivedana,
govinda-dasa-abhila sare

‘Govinda Das desires to engage in the nine practices of devotion: hearing about the Lord, chanting the Lord’s Names, remembering the Lord, praying to the Lord, serving the Lord’s feet, serving the Lord as a servant, worshipping the Lord, serving the Lord as a friend and submitting yourself to the Lord.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

(2/5) Escaping Ocean of Suffering

‘Adau sraddha, tatah sadhu-sanga. First comes faith, then good, saintly association.’ Actually, first sukriti must come – it is necessary to have sukriti from previous lives, otherwise you cannot serve the Lord. After sukriti, there must be faith. There are four types of faith – kamala-sraddha (soft, fragile faith), taranga-sraddha (flickering faith), drdha-sraddha (strong faith), sudrdha-sraddha (the strongest faith). The more faith one has, the more devotion one has. ‘Sraddha-anusari bhakti-adhikari: the quality of devotion depends upon faith’ (Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.64). The type of devotion you get depends on the degree of your faith. You cannot get the Lord without devotion – you cannot get the Lord through any material activities (karma), through any knowledge (jnana) or mystic practices (yoga). Only if you want devotion, only if you have devotion, can you get the Lord. How will devotion come? ‘Bhaktis tu bhagavad-bhakta-sangena parijayate: You can get devotion through the association of devotees’ (Brihan-naradiya Purana). If you associate with devotees, you will get devotion. Sadhu-sanga (saintly devotees’ association) means sravan (hearing about the Lord) and kirtan (practising; chanting the glory of the Lord).

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting and waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Days are passing, and we do not know when death will come to us. We do not know when this life will pass away from us, and there is also no way to avoid it – one way or another, we all must leave. Once born, everyone has to die, and once dead, everyone has to be born again. But if you want to leave this world of janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi (birth, death, old age and disease; Bhagavad-gita, 13.9), there is a solution. ‘Bhagavata pada Vaisnavera sthane, ekanta asraya kara Chaitanya-charane: read Bhagavatam under guidance of a Vaishnav and take exclusive shelter of the lotus feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.’ We must hear Bhagavatam (hear the holy narratives about the Lord) from Vaishnavs, and we must take shelter at the lotus feet of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So, if we do not want to suffer this birth, death, old age and disease, then we must take shelter at the lotus feet of Vaishnavs and Gauranga.

Gauranga Mahaprabhu is a combined form of Radha and Krishna. Taking the heart and halo of Radharani, Krishna personally appeared in this Kali-yuga. Who has got what remained of Her? Srila Gadadhar Pandit Goswami. He is the incarnation of Srimati Radharani – whatever remained from Srimati Radharani (after Gauranga had taken Her heart and halo) incarnated as Sri Gadadhar Pandit Goswami.

sri-radhara bhave yini suvarna varana
sangopange navadvipe yanra sankirtana
kalite upasya sei krsna gaura-hari
navadha bhaktite tanre upasana kari

‘I worship with nine kinds of devotion Sri Krishna, who is worshipped in Kali-yuga as Sri Gaura-Hari, garbed into the divine mood and golden complexion of Sri Radha and performing sankirtan pastimes in Sri Nabadwip.’

(Sri Sri Nabadwip-sataka; Bengali translation by Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

The Lord can be easily attained through sankirtan. Kali-yuga’s religion (dharma) is Harinama-sankirtan. If somebody can take the Holy Name genuinely, without offences, they can attain the gift of prema (transcendental love for the Lord). Gauranga Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu went door to door knocking at every jiva soul’s door, distributing this gift of Sri Krishna-prema. Have you heard in one of the kirtans:

are bhai! nitai amara dayara avadhi!
jivere karuna kari’, dese dese phiri’ phiri’,
prema-dhana yache niravadhi

‘Brother! The mercy of my Nitai is boundless! Bestowing His mercy upon all souls, He wanders from place to place, constantly offering everyone the treasure of divine love.’

(Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur)

He quickly takes those who are fortunate, who have faith. The position of those who have no faith is pathetic and deplorable. This Kali-yuga is an ocean of faults, but at the same there is one great good quality in this age: it is easy to get the Lord through sankirtan.

Therefore, take shelter of a bona fide guru and practise Krishna consciousness. It is necessary to take shelter at the lotus feet of a guru (guru-padasraya). You cannot practise Krishna consciousness without the shelter of the lotus feet of a guru. Mahaprabhu Himself took initiation from Ishwar Puri in Gaya. When He went to Gaya to perform the last rites for His departed father, He got the darshan of His guru. As soon as Mahaprabhu saw Ishwar Puri, He said:

‘samsara-samudra haite uddharaha more
ei ami deha samarpilana tomare’

‘Please rescue Me from this ocean of material existence! I am surrendering Myself to you.’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.17.54)

‘Prabhu! Save Me from this ocean of material existence that I keep roaming time and time again!’

kaya bara eli kaya bara geli
tabu tattva na sikhili
nijer matha nije khaili
e dosa dibe kare bhai?

‘Coming and going, coming and going, you never learnt anything! You have been eating your own brain – who will you blame for this, brother?’

Actually, we cannot blame anyone. It is not anyone’s fault – I am my own friend, and I am my own enemy.

kama-krodha-adi chhaya, batapare deya bhaya,
avasana haila asi’ bela

‘I am attacked by the six highway robbers (lust, anger, etc.), and my life is coming to an end.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy), rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (desire for enjoyment through eyes, tongue, nose, ears and skin), kanak, kamini, pratistha (desire for money, women and fame) – we have all these diseases inside, so we are our own friends, and we are our own enemies. You can never get rid of all these disease unless you practise properly and remain conscious of all these diseases. That is why we must always practise Krishna consciousness in strict adherence to the lotus feet of the guru and Vaishnavs. There is no other way. Always practise Krishna consciousness in this way.

(3/5) Gurudev: Surrounded by Affection

Our Gurudev, Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, came to Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj in 1947 and stayed with him as a brahmachari. He came to the temple when he was seventeen years old and stayed at the temple for twenty-four years. After that, he went to live in his family, but even when he left to live at his home, he did not leave the temple – he always took care of the temple and always helped Param Guru Maharaj as the secretary of the Math.

In the early days, Gurudev took Param Guru Maharaj and devotees to different places – he made tours of the chari-dham parikrama (Puri, Vrindavan, Badrinath, South India) and many other holy places. Srila Gurudev loved Param Guru Maharaj so much; within just seven days after he came to stay at the temple, Srila Sridhar Maharaj declared that in the future (after him) this boy would be the next acharya.

After that, much water went under the bridge, down the Ganga… I have spoken about Srila Sridhar Maharaj many times, so you all know his pastimes. After many years, Srila Sridhar Maharaj brought Srila Gurudev back to the temple again and gave him sannyas. For thirty years, Srila Sridhar Maharaj had been waiting for Gurudev to come back from his family life to give him his chair. In the end, Srila Sridhar Maharaj said, ‘If you do not take this chair, I will break the temple and give the Deities to my godbrother!’ When Gurudev still did not agree to take this chair, Srila Sridhar Maharaj said, ‘If you do not take sannyas and take responsibility for Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, I will commit suicide and you will be held responsible for it!’ Then Gurudev had to agree. Srila Sridhar Maharaj had a very close relationship with Gurudev…

When Srila Swami Maharaj, the founder of ISKCON, was going to inaugurate ISKCON in Mayapur in 1973, Srila Sridhar Maharaj came to the inauguration ceremony with Gurudev. And when Gurudev gave a short lecture on behalf of Srila Sridhar Maharaj that day, Srila Swami Maharaj was astonished to hear it, ‘How much this boy knows!’ In that lecture, Gurudev recited a sloka,

kam prati kathayitum ise samprati ko va pratitim ayatu
go-pati-tanaya-kunje gopa-vadhude-vidham brahma

‘To whom can I speak? Who will believe me when I say that Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is hunting gopis in the bushes by the banks of the Yamuna? In this way the Lord demonstrates His pastimes.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.19.98)

A small cowherd boy herds cows on the bank of the Yamuna, and all wives of Vraja’s brahmans are running after Him all over Vrindavan! And who is this small boy? He is not an ordinary boy – He is the Lord Himself, Vrajendra-nandan Sri Krishna (the son of the king of Vraja). He is Nanda-kishor, Sri Nanda-nandan Krishna! Who could have said it? In the same way, who would have thought that Srila Swami Maharaj, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj, who was known as Abhay Babu and who used to run his shop business in Kolkata, would at his old age go abroad, travel all over the world and establish such a great mission of ISKCON! How many foreign devotees he brought to this path! He used to be a simple grihastha, but he established hundreds of temples of ISKCON all over the world. Who would have said that this Abhay Babu who used to sit in his shop would become a jagad-guru? After he took initiation from Srila Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, he got association of many Vaishnavs, especially Srila Sridhar Maharaj, and in the end he took a ship and went abroad – he had been prevented from going three times, but he still went there and preached Hari-katha all over the world.

Srila Sridhar Maharaj was very affectionate to Srila Gurudev from Srila Gurudev’s very young age. Gurudev always said that he was a very naughty, a very bad boy, but Srila Guru Maharaj moulded him very nicely. Srila Sridhar Maharaj sent Gurudev to a school to study Harinama-amrita-vyakaran, he got him admitted into a school to study Sanskrit, and he taught him so many things. Many of Srila Sridhar Maharaj’s godbrothers would always come from various Gaudiya Maths to see Srila Sridhar Maharaj (Srila Keshav Maharaj from Devananda Gaudiya Math, Srila Bhakti Dayita Madhav Goswami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Pramode Puri Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Kamal Madhusudan Goswami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Hriday Bon Maharaj, Srila Bhaktyaloka Paramahamsa Maharaj from Paramahamsa Gaudiya Math, Srila Vaikhanash Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Kumud Shanta Maharaj and many others). Everybody would come to Srila Sridhar Maharaj, and everybody would say, ‘If you want to hear Hari-katha, you must come to Srila Sridhar Maharaj.’ Gurudev was there at that time, and he always served them all (he would arrange for their prasadam, etc.). And they all loved Gurudev. Srila Swami Maharaj also said that although he had many biological sons, he actually had only one real son – Gaurendu Brahmachari (Srila Govinda Maharaj). Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj also loved him very much. All of Param Guru Maharaj’s godbrothers loved him. Even Srila Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj (Kunja Babu) respected and was very affectionate to Gurudev, although he was not on very good terms with Srila Sridhar Maharaj. Srila Sridhar Maharaj trained Gurudev in this way, ‘Even if the relationship with my godbrothers is a little strained, you must still go, give obeisance to them and come back.’ One time, when Gurudev was with Param Guru Maharaj at a train station, they saw Srila Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj, who was the Acharya of Sri Chaitanya Math. Srila Sridhar Maharaj was two train compartments away from him, but he sent our Gurudev to pay dandavat to Srila Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj. He taught him in this way, ‘I may not be able to go and talk to him, he may not respect me, but it is not a problem – you can go and pay dandavat to him.’ I have heard it directly from Srila Gurudev’s mouth.

(4/5) Param Dayal Gurudev

When there was much disturbance in ISKCON and many foreign devotees started coming to Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj said, ‘I will not be able to mix with them so much because I will not be able to understand their behaviour and practice. Govinda Maharaj, you must take the responsibility for the western devotees.’ After that, I can tell you that I have seen so many respectable Vaishnavs, so many scholars who came to Gurudev and who served Gurudev. Gurudev gave love and affection to everybody. Such is his quality. His actual quality was such that he would accept everybody and take everybody on his lap through his smiling face. Gurudev gave respect even to those who were his enemies! Even Gurudev’s enemies cannot forget Gurudev’s affectionate behaviour. Gurudev was extremely merciful (param dayal).

This is how Gurudev served his Guru Maharaj…

You know, in Gurudev’s time everybody ate one-paisa worth of muri (puffed rice) in the morning, but Gurudev knew that I ate more muri, so he would arrange two-paisa worth of muri for me. He was very caring.

In the early day, the situation at the Math was not so good; the situation was actually was quite bad. Here is an example. There was a dumur (fig) tree at the temple, and devotees picked dumur fruits (figs) and cooked them. Srila Sridhar Maharaj gave an order that everybody had to take turns climbing the tree every day – one day one person climbed it, another day another person, and so on. Gurudev said that when it was his day to climb it, he was very afraid because that tree was full of ants. They would make dumurer tarkari (fig subji) at the temple.

Gurudev also told us that before they would use a small bar of Lifebuoy soap that cost three rupees. Now brahmacharis are using Lux and expensive Imperial Leather glycerine soap. Gurudev said that in the early days, he would use mustard oil mixed with salt to brush his teeth, and instead of a toothbrush, he would take a twig from a mango tree and brush his teeth with that )he never used a toothbrush or toothpaste). Now brahmacharis cannot live without a toothbrush or toothpaste. And before they never slept on beds with mattresses, but now brahmacharis and sannyasis do not want to live in the temple unless they have a thick mattress… This is what Gurudev told.

The other day a lady came to me and said that she was inviting everybody to come to her house. She said she would feed everyone khichuri. I thought, ‘If you take khichuri in the evening, your stomach will be hot. Can she not make some rice and dal?’ Even if you make only some tok dal and rice, that is better than giving khichuri! I like tok dal a lot (dal cooked with pieces of green mango), and I can take it every day. I took it this morning and will take it again in the evening. Now that I am in Siliguri I like to eat one–two green mangos every day. Today I cut it myself and took. I take it in Kolkata sometimes, too. I also like kul (jujube) when it is in season. When I go for preaching, I sometimes feel very hot, and when I take kul, it cools my head.

(5/5) Where Will You Run?

kamala-dala-jala, jivana talamala,
(ei achhe ei nai jivana talamala)
bhajahu hari-pada niti re

‘Life is tottering like water on a lotus petal. (It is here now, and the next moment it is gone – life is about to break off at any moment!). O mind, eternally serve the feet of the Lord.’

(Sri Govinda Das)

When water falls on a leaf, it totters on the leaf, ready to fall at any moment. Our life is also like that. We can leave this world at any moment. Money, wealth, cars, houses, family, relatives, friends – every one of us will have to leave everything.

smasane sarira mama padiya rahibe
vihanga patanga taya vihara karibe

‘My body will be left at a crematorium, and birds and insects will heartily enjoy it.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This body will be burnt at the cremation ghat. You know, there was one devotee who died recently. He was sitting, eating and talking to others when suddenly he died. I was in Bardhaman that day, collecting rice at rice mills. Sripad Vishnu Maharaj called me at ten–eleven o’clock and told me the news. I went to a programme at that devotee’s house, took prasadam, and then left… When people get old, they sometimes get so weak that they cannot even eat…

vrddha-kala aola, saba sukha bhagala,
pida-vase hainu katara

‘Old age came, and all happiness finished. Subjugated by disease, I became distressed.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When old age comes, all happiness goes away. We jump around as long as we are young, but our health gradually goes down. We have got this human birth, and if we cannot keep it properly, it is very sad. Those who serve the Lord are very fortunate.

alpa bhagye seva nahi haya
koti janma thakle bhagya
visaya chhede haya vairagya

‘Service does not come by just a little fortune. It takes ten million births of good fortune to become renounced and give up this material world.’

You are getting this opportunity to serve the Lord by great fortune. If somebody does not understand it, it is very sad.

You must all come for Nabadwip Dham parikrama. Some come with a return ticket to immediately go back to their home, and it is very sad… This is like birds who go out in the morning, fly everywhere during the day and in the evening again return to their tree. One devotee came for the festival from so far, but he left the next day. He could have stayed for a few days at least. What is there to be afraid of? If you are to die one day, nobody can prevent that. Where will you run from your death? As the common saying goes, ‘There is no place for you to run to, brother. Yamaraj is always behind you.’ The only way to remove this fear of death is to practise Krishna consciousness, to serve the Lord. (The scriptures say that a guru who cannot save you from the deathly material existence cannot be a guru.) So, what is there to be afraid? You are born, then one day you must die. Everybody’s final date is already written for them, and nobody can prevent that from happening. That is why, always chant the Holy Name of the Lord:

krsna-krsna-krsna-krsna-krsna-nama-kirtanam
rama-rama-gana-ramya-divya chhanda-nartanam
yatra-tatra-krsna-nama-dana-loka-nistaram
prema-dhama-devam eva naumi gaura-sundaram

‘Later, the Supreme Lord travelled to the holy places of pilgrimage in South India with a clever intention of delivering fallen souls. Appearing as a beautiful young renunciate, He distributed the sweet Names of the Lord, singing: ‘Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna he’, as He strolled down different pathways, entered temples and visited homesteads during the sacred pilgrimage. Infused with an inconceivable type of divine inspiration, the Lord freely chanted ‘Rama Rama’ and joyfully danced with the most charming gestures. Irrespective of time or personal qualification, the assembled bystanders were delivered by the Lord, who inspired them to chant Krishna’s Holy Names. I offer my obeisances to that beautiful Golden Lord, Gauranga Sundar, the divine form of Krishna-prema.’

(Prema-dhama-deva Stotram, 22, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

‘Yatra-tatra-krsna-nama-dana-loka-nistaram. Anyone and everybody is liberally delivered by the gift of Krishna’s Holy Name.’

You must all come to the temple. Keep in touch. This is your temple. You can also come to other temples – spend ten days in Nrisingha Palli, ten days in Tarakeshwar, ten days in Ekachakra, ten days in Ganga Sagar. Nobody will mind it. You can spend one–two or four–six months travelling like this. Everybody is so much attached to their houses, children and other things. If you want to leave your house even for a short time time, your children will start crying and will not let you go… In this case, you have a temple here in Siliguri; you can serve here. Stay here, serve at the temple. Nobody forbids it – stay here, do service. I am not saying you must all come to live in Nrisingha Palli. You can stay here and serve here also. As long as you are alive, engage yourself in the service of the Lord. One day everybody has to die. You have pain in your back, legs, etc. This pain will always be there, but it is our mind that is sick, not our bodies. If you keep your mind right, then everything will be all right. ‘Asustha hoya mora mana, asustha nay mora sarira: my mind is sick, my body is not sick.’ The problem is that our mind is sick…

* * *

￼Line Line26 April 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Siliguri

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/4) Preaching Opportunity

Dandavat. Please accept my humble obeisance. I am very happy to see you all. I have just come back from a preaching programme. I am in Siliguri now. There was a good programme here yesterday. Devotees also made festivals at all other temples (in Nrisingha Palli, Uluberia, Tarakeshwar and others). In Nrisingha Palli they invited Mayapur devotees, but many devotees were a little afraid to come because of the pandemic situation, so not so many sannyasis and brahmacharis came – maybe thirty or forty devotees. I made the festival in Siliguri this year, and about four hundred people joined yesterday. Here, too, people are afraid because of the coronavirus and the pandemic situation. Some shops are closed, and there is a partial lockdown sometimes.

Now 350,000 people are affected by coronavirus every day in India, almost 15,000 people in Bengal. Anyhow, I am continuing my preaching. After I came back from Vrindavan, I stayed one day in Kolkata and then came here to Siliguri on Monday. The festival has now finished, so I will go back to Kolkata the day after tomorrow. I came here because I had some service here. I could not come to Siliguri for a long time. Every year I come here after Gaura Purnima, but last year lockdown started soon after Gaura Purnima, so I could not come. The devotees here feel some gap. Many feel disheartened because I had not come, that is why I thought that I would come here now, otherwise when the election results are announced, another lockdown can start and I will not be able to come again. I thought now was a good opportunity to preach here. I am staying here for seven days, giving a class at the temple every day, and a good number of devotees come every day. I am trying to give some nourishment to the devotees.

And I am very happy to see you all now.

Devotee: Can I ask you a question?

Last time you asked me why your name was Bimala.

Devotee: Yes, I wanted to ask if there are any other reasons why you have chosen Bimala Devi as my name?

It is not necessary to always think about your name – you must always think about Lord Krishna and gurudev. It is not necessary to think about your name so much. You must think about the Lord: how you can increase your service, how many rounds you chant, and how you serve your guru. This is what you should be thinking about. It is not necessary to think about your name, about the explanation of its meaning, and so on.

Devotee: I think she is asking if you could tell her something about Bimala Devi.

Oh, Bimala Devi? But why is it necessary?

Bimala Devi is Laksmi Devi. She always serves Lord Narayan, Jagannath. At some point, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur thought that there was so much misconception about Mahaprabhu’s teachings, about Vaishnavishm, that it was necessary for somebody to come and clean Krishna consciousness from all that misconception: Mahaprabhu and Jagannathdev had to send someone who could clean Krishna consciousness, who could distribute pure Krishna consciousness all over the world. That is why Sri Bhagavati Devi, the wife of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, and Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur went together to Jagannathdev’s Temple and prayed to Bimala Devi, ‘Please send someone who can preach Krishna consciousness properly, please send someone who can preach pure Krishna consciousness of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.’ Bimala Devi was pleased with their prayer and gave them a son (Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur’s sixth son). Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur named him Bimala Prasad thinking he had come as prasad (mercy) of Bimala Devi. So, Prabhupad Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s previous name is Bimala Prasad; after taking sannyas his name became Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad.

(2/4) Mercy and Service

Question: How can I place myself on the plane of devotion if I have material desires in my heart?

You should practise properly, chant the Holy Name and always keep good association, then if any material desire comes, it will be removed through good association, through sravanam and kirtanam. Somebody asked Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad this same question, and Srila Prabhupad gave this answer that I have told you just now. Srila Prabhupad says that if you want to overcome material desires, you must practise sravanam (hearing about the Lord) and kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and practising Krishna consciousness) properly.

How do you practise sravanam and kirtanam? You must chant five kirtans every morning and five kirtans every evening. Chant gurudev’s kirtan, Pancha-tattva’s kirtan, Vaishnav Thakur’s kirtan, Nityananda Prabhu’s kirtan, Gaura Hari’s kirtan, Radha-Krishna’s kirtan, and then the maha-mantra. Chant five or six kirtans in this way every morning and evening. You must give time to Deities, to chanting the Holy Name, to sravanam and kirtanam, then you will gradually be able to overcome material desires (material desires will be removed from your heart). This is 100%, 200% sure. There is no doubt about that. If you practise and sing these kirtans properly every day, then you will be all right. I am telling this to everybody, not only for the person who is asking the questions. This answer applies to everybody: those who practise five kirtans in the morning and five kirtans in the evening, who practise every day and chant the Holy Name, can overcome material desires.

Question: We always hear that we must try to get mercy, but who should we really ask for that mercy?

Mercy means your gurudev gives you some service and if you properly attend to that service, that is your mercy. And yes, you must wait for mercy – if you can get some service from your guru, that is his mercy. I have told many times what is mercy. You chant the Holy Name, but what for do you chant the Holy Name? If you get service, that is the result of your chanting. A chatak bird always waits for a drop of rainwater, and in the same way we must always wait when gurudev gives us some service. It can be any service. Sometimes, gurudev will call somebody and say, ‘Oh, send some money for this service’ – that is service, and they do that; somebody else cleans plates, sweeps, cooks, does so many other kinds of service. Everything is service. I am in Siliguri, but if somebody stays in Nrisingha Palli where the construction is going on and sends pictures of the construction, that is also service. Somebody else sends pictures of the preaching in their country, that is also service.

Actually, now I have learned to use my android mobile phone, and from time to time I see the pictures devotees send to me in whatsapp from their countries, and I can see what kind of practising is going on there. I practise seeing these photos now. Sometimes, when I read for a long time and become tired, I take out the phone and browse through the photos, I see what programmes devotees have. I am very happy to see it. I always like to see preaching programmes. I want to see how much preaching is going on in your countries and how you are preaching.

It is necessary to preach. ‘Kiniba, lutiba Harinama-rasa’: when you take the Holy Name from your gurudev, you must distribute it after that to others. There are many devotees all over the world, and if each of you makes at least one devotee during a year, that is sufficient. If there are two hundred devotees this year, then there will be four hundred next year and eight hundred in two years. You must increase your preaching programme and spread Krishna consciousness all over the world. That is my request, and you can say that it is my order for everyone. This is your service (seva)…

vaisnava sangete mana, anandita anuksana,

sada haya krsna para-sanga

‘In the association of Vaishnavs, my heart rejoices and I feel the association of Lord Krishna Himself.’

(Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

When you are getting good association, you are actually getting the association of the Lord Himself.

These Deities here in Siliguri were chosen by Gurudev in 2005. One time, Gurudev took me with him to the man who makes Deities (murti-walla) in Nabadwip. He showed me these Deities and asked, ‘Do you like these Deities?’ I said, ‘I do,’ and Gurudev said, ‘Then you can take Them!’ After a few days, Gurudev brought these Deities to the temple and asked me, ‘Where are you going to install Them?’ We thought They could be, perhaps, installed in Malaysia, but then I bought this house here in Siliguri, and Gurudev told me that I could take these Deities and install Them here. These Deities’ Name is Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda Sundar…

(3/4) Perfect Rules

Question: We had a meeting with the devotees yesterday, and somebody brought a picture of Nabadwip Deities and put it on the altar. Can we keep that photo in our altar?

Yes, it is not a problem. Deities have no fault. Deities did not make any disturbance – why will you not keep Nabadwip Deities? You should always keep Nabadwip Deities on your altar. I have a problem with those who want to hijack the Deities – actually it is they who have a problem, not me…

Are there any other questions?

Devotee: I am sorry. I meant that somebody from another Math brought Gaura-Nitai Deities and kept Them on the altar. Is it OK to keep these Deities from another mission?

Yes, you can serve Them. When a Deity has come, you must serve the Deity properly, with full faith…

[Addressing a devotee who did not go to the temple but made a festival at their home.] Why did you have a home festival? You should have gone to the festival at the temple. If there is a temple in your city or nearby, you must go to the temple. How do you make a festival alone at home? You only cook, offer some bhoga and take prasad – it basically means cooking a lot and eating it yourself… You must always come to the temple. What did Gurudev make the temple for? For preaching, for arranging festivals and for giving you a place where you can gather and take devotees’ association. It is necessary to understand this. Everybody have a right to stay at the temple, everybody has a right to come to the temple, and everybody must follow the rules and regulations of the temple: be humble, tolerant and give honour to others. Follow the rules and regulations that Gurudev has established, that will be perfect. We cannot make our own rules, it is not good. The rules must be always the rules and regulations that Gurudev has set. Always behave very nicely with the devotees: be humble, tolerant and give honour to others. This is what Gurudev teaches us, and these are the main qualities we must have. Be humble, tolerant and give honour to others. And you must also have proper surrender – do not be a hypocrite, do not practise false renunciation. Surrender must be proper.

One time, Gurudev told me, ‘Come with me.’ I was very busy at that time and asked without thinking, ‘Where to?’ That was my mistake. Later, when I was in the car with Gurudev, he told me, ‘You are foolish. This is not 100% surrender. Your gurudev is calling you to come with him, and you are asking where to. You should have said, “Yes, I am ready to go,” and go.’ Gurudev taught me in this way. Gurudev told me much about what is called tolerance and how we should behave. He also told me that one time, when Srila Sridhar Maharaj was beating him, instead of running away Gurudev came closer to Srila Sridhar Maharaj so that he could beat him better. Srila Sridhar Maharaj asked him, ‘What is this? I am beating you, but why are you not running away – why are you coming closer to me?’ Gurudev explained, ‘You do not know how to beat, that is why I am coming closer.’ Such was Gurudev’s relationship with his gurudev. But now, if I tell any follower that I am going to beat them, they will run away…

(4/4) Amidst Blazing Fire

Question: In Bhagavad-gita (7.16) Krishna says that there are four kinds of people who are fortunate to worship Him – the afflicted, the seekers of knowledge, the seekers of happiness and the self-realised. Could you tell a little more about the nature of those who come to seek happiness?

Yes, four types of people come to the Lord – arta (the distressed), artharthi (the poor), jijnasu (the curious) and jnani (knowledge-seekers). Somebody comes to the Lord and asks Him to fulfil their material desire, somebody comes to ask Him for money, somebody comes to know many things, and somebody comes because they want to know who they are and ask many questions (such people are jnanis, knowledge-seekers). But Srimad Bhagavad-gita says:

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant enquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

When you come to ask, you must ask honest questions – your enquiry must be honest.

Many people who come to the Lord, and they come for so many reasons and with many goals. Krishna says,

krsna kahe,—“ama bhaje, mage visaya-sukha
amrta chhadi’ visa mage,—ei bada murkha
ami—vijna, ei murkhe ‘visaya’ kene diba?
sva-charanamrta diya ‘visaya’ bhulaiba”

‘Krishna says, “They worship Me desiring material happiness – leaving aside nectar, they ask Me for poison. They are big fools, but I am intelligent: Why will I give these fools material things? Instead, I will give them the nectar of My lotus feet and make them forget the material world.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.38–39)

Krishna says, ‘They worship Me harbouring some material desire inside them, but I will not fulfil their material desire – in lieu of that I will give them My lotus feet and they will become very happy.’

So, many types of people come to Krishna consciousness, but if they practise properly, then even those who do not know much (kanistha-adhikari) and who have very weak faith (kamala-sraddha) can gradually advance and become devotees. Conditioned souls’ nature is to ask for something material, but the more they ask, the more pain they feel (‘visaya anale jvalichhe hrdaya, anale badaye anala’): fallen souls burn in the ever-increasing fire of mundanity. If there is a fire and you blow air onto it, the fire will blaze more and more, but if you put water, it will be put out.

visaya anale, jvalichhe hrdaya,

anale badaye anala
aparadha chhadi, laya krsna-nama,

anale padiye jala

‘My heart is burning in the fire of mundanity, and this fire is growing more and more. Avoiding offences, chant Krishna’s Name, and it will pour water on this fire.’

(From Jaiva-dharma, Ch.7, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When you chant the Holy Name without offences, this is like water coming to put out that blazing fire of material life. This is the effect of pure chanting of the Holy Name. So, we must chant the Holy Name without offence. This is very important.

We all have to leave this world in one way or another, but at present we have got this opportunity to chant the Holy Name and practise Krishna consciousness, so we must try to do that. We must practise ourselves and we must try to engage others in the service of the Lord. Please be careful in the present situation and chant the Holy Name. This is the main thing in our life.

Jay Srila Gurudev.
Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.

* * *

￼Line Line1 May 2021

Kolkata (speaking online to devotees in Singapore)

(English)￼Line Line

(1/8) Perfect Mood Comes From Perfect Practice

Hari bol. Dandavat.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev Subhadra Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Sri Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math Singapore Devotees ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
All the Singapore devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Devotee: Jay Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Sri Srimad Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj ki jay. Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol

Dandavat. I am very happy to see you all today at this programme. In particular, I am happy to see you all because, by the mercy of Gurudev, you are all our family members, you are connected to the Rupanuga guru-varga line, and you practise Krishna consciousness under guidance of Srila Guru Maharaj, Srila Gurudev and Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu. You follow all the rules and regulations very strictly – I know that and I am very happy to see this mood. I know that because I see you are chanting and dancing with very much enthusiasm, and if you did not practise properly, then Krishna-nam, the Holy Name of Lord Krishna, would not come to your mouths or tongues.

‘krsna-nama’ kare aparadhera vichara
krsna balile aparadhira na haya vikara

‘The Holy Name of Krishna considers offences: when one who commits ten offences of the Holy Name takes the Name of Krishna, it produces no transformation in them.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.24)

The Holy Name of Krishna always judges and considers whether the person who is chanting is an offender of the Holy Name (Nama-aparadhi) or not. If the person is an offender, the Holy Name will not come to their tongue. Therefore, those who are offenders do not have any devotional symptoms. But you are all very perfect devotees, you follow all rules and regulations, and I am very happy with that because that is the line of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. Following ekadasi, following all rules and regulations – these are the main things in our spiritual life. ‘Achara-prachara Namera adhikarya: one earns the right to chant the Holy Name by practising and preaching.’ It means that you must both follow Krishna consciousness and preach. ‘Kinibo-lutibo’: we will ‘buy’ and we will distribute what we have got. This is what ‘achar-prachar’ means. We will follow rules and regulations ourselves, and then we can preach these things to others also.

So, I am very happy to see you all. I am very happy to see that all the devotees are there and that there is a very large group of young devotees, young boys, coming to this line of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. Problems will always come in preaching. I know that Singapore is a strict country and you cannot go out to the street, cannot make programmes outside; there are so many rules and regulations and also this covid situation now. We must always be careful in this situation, then, by the mercy of Gurudev, we will conquer and overcome everything, all kinds of bondage, all kinds of problems.

tomara sevaya, duhkha haya yata,
seo ta’ parama sukha

‘Even whatever unhappiness I feel when serving You is a source of great happiness for me.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You are doing so much service, and in the course of service so much sadness, so many things can come, but ‘sukhe duhkhe bhule nako vadane Harinama kara re: in happiness or sadness, never forget it, always chant the Holy Name.’ Sometimes happiness comes, sometimes sadness comes, but we will overcome all this. The most important thing above all is that we must follow rules and regulation and we must want to be devotees. We must be humble, tolerant and give honour to others. These are the main things in Mahaprabhu’s teachings, and Gurudev taught also the same thing all over the world. Gurudev went to Singapore many times, and I have also been to Singapore many times. When I get a chance again, I will come to Singapore and preach to you all, I will meet with you all. I am very eager to come there because my heart is always with you. My body may be here, but my heart is always with you. In my life, you are my best friends. Do not worry about anything.

Here in India the pandemic situation is very bad, but we always depend on the Lord. Something always comes up, so many problems come by the will of the Lord, but you will see that first something bad comes very forcefully, but after that it will stop.

(2/8) Greatest Sadness

Nitai Charan Prabhu (a Mexican devotee and a saffron brahmachari – a very nice and very humble devotee) left his body the day before yesterday. It happened in the evening. He went for the arati in Ekachakra – when the arati finished and everybody gave ‘jay’, he paid dandavat and did not wake up… He left his body there. His cremation happened yesterday in the morning. Some local dham-basis took his body and burnt it on a wooden pyre in Ekachakra, on the bank of the Yamuna River (you know that there is Yamuna River in Ekachakra). Everything was done very nicely and properly for him, but I feel a little sad… When Ray Ramananda and Mahaprabhu were talking to each other, when Mahaprabhu was asking questions and Ray Ramananda was giving answers, one of the questions was, ‘What is the biggest sadness?’

‘duhkha-madhye kona duhkha haya gurutara?’
‘krsna-bhakta-viraha bina duhkha nahi dekhi para’

’Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu asked: “Of all kinds of unhappiness, what unhappiness is the heaviest?” Sri Ramananda Ray replied: “I do not see any other unhappiness except for separation from the devotee of Krishna.”’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrta, 2.8.247)

Do you think that the biggest sadness in life is when your father dies, your mother dies, your wife dies, your husband dies, or your son or daughter dies? No, it is not. Separation from a devotee (bhakta-viraha) is the greatest sadness in our life. We have lost so many devotees in our life, we have lost so many great personalities… A few days ago, we also made a festival in Siliguri in honour of Srila Gurudev’s disappearance. I was there. Every year when this day comes it is intolerable for me. I can tolerate everything, but when this day comes, it is intolerable. I feel very emotional and cannot control myself…

When Krishna left Vrindavan, the same thing happened to all the Vraja gopis, especially Srimati Radharani, Mother Yasoda and Nanda Maharaj. They also cannot tolerate separation from the Lord. This kind of feeling of separation must come to us, too…

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara
sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

‘May I have the same love and attraction to Your holy feet that I now have for material things.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We are very attached to our material things, but this kind of attachment must come to spirituality (to spiritual values). We have some relationship with our husband, wife, son, father, etc., but this kind of relation must come to us towards the Lord and gurudev.

Srila Sridhar Maharaj writes about Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur:

krpaya hari-kirtana-murti-dharam

dharani-bhara-haraka-gaura-janam

janakadhika-vatsala-snigdha-padam

pranamami sada prabhupada-padam

‘Bestowing his mercy upon jiva souls, he is manifest as a worshippable deity of Hari-kirtan. He is an associate of Sri Gaura who removes the burden of offences from Mother Earth. I offer obeisance to this very gentle fountainhead of greater parental affection towards jiva souls than even that of a father. I eternally offer obeisance to the radiance emanating from the toenails of my master.’

(Sri Sri Prabhupada-padma Stavakah, Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj)

‘Krpaya hari-kirtan’ – he is the worshippable Deity embodiment of Hari-kirtan. His entire being was only Hari-kirtan…

(3/8) Brahman Threads

Do you have any spiritual questions, please?

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

‘You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant enquiry and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

Question: What is the number of threads that brahmacharis should have in their brahman threads? I sometimes hear from devotees that we are using six threads…

No, nine threads, not six. If any of you do not have a nine-thread brahman thread and you cannot make it there, then I can send you some brahman threads because if your brahman thread is broken, the scriptures say that you cannot talk until you have worn a new thread. So, everybody who has taken the second initiation must always keep an extra thread with them. If your brahman thread breaks, you cannot speak – you can talk only after you remove the old brahman thread, wear another one (take the old one off through your legs and put on a new thread) and recite the gayatri. First you must recite the gayatri, then only can you talk to anyone else. This is the rule set by the scriptures. Hari-bhakti-vilas says this. If your brahman thread is broken, you cannot talk – first wear a new one, then recite the gayatri, and only after that you can talk. That is the rule. So, if you need, I can send you some brahman threads.

The brahman threads we use are hand-made because what they sell at the market is not made well. Our sannyasis and some devotees know how to make them. I myself do not know how to make them, I have never done it in my life, but they know it, they make threads and practise all this. I have never made a brahman thread because my brahman thread has never broken. Everybody’s brahman thread breaks after a few months, but mine has never broken in my life. I never take it out and always use soap when taking bath, etc., but it has never broken, it is still the same as it was…

(4/8) Me-Eating

[Addressing a new devotee] I am very happy to see you. It is very nice that you are joining good association; some sukriti will come to you through that. Because you have faith (sraddha), you are joining this programme, and that is very good for you. Later, you must take shelter of a bona fide guru (guru-padasraya). If you continue practising in the shelter of a bona fide guru, you can come to your real home. Our real home is in Goloka Vrindavan. We are all children of nectar (amritasya-putra): we come from nectar (amrita), and we must go back to that nectar. This is what the scriptures, Srimad Bhagavad-gita in particular, say. We all must go to the place where we come from.

Do you have any questions? Is there anything you want to know?

Question [from another devotee]: We have one question. Some new devotees are coming to the programmes, but they eat meat. We tell them to give up meat, but how can we explain it to them better?

Yes, it is necessary to give up meat, fish, etc. If you eat any meat, it means you are a sinner: you are committing the same sin as when killing your own mother, father, killing brahmans, etc. In another way, if you eat meat, it means you take your own flesh. Do you understand what I am saying? You must avoid fish, meat, etc.; otherwise, when you eat meat, fish, mutton, etc., it means that you are taking your own meat because when you leave this body, you will take a body of a chicken or sheep. Eating meat means eating your own body. This is what the scriptures say.

mam sa bhaksayitamutra
yasya mamsam ihadmy aham
etan mamsasya mamsatvam
pravadanti manisinah

‘That creature whose flesh I am eating here now will consume me in the next life. Thus, meat is called “mamsa”: “mam” means “me”, “sa” means “he” (I am eating him, he will eat me). This is stated by learned authorities.’

(Manu Samhita)

Very big Puranas say this. If you eat meat, chicken, mutton or any other kind of flesh, you are taking your own flesh, your own meat, because when your body rots or is burnt, it will be mixed with soil and another body of a chicken, a dog, a cat or some other animal will be produced from that soil. So, if you eat meat, you eat your own flesh and also commit the sin of killing brahmans, killing your mother, father, etc. It is the same as when you eat grains on ekadasi – when you eat grains on ekadasi, you also commit a sin equal to the sin of killing your own mother and father.

(5/8) Unswerving Vision

**, how are you?

Devotee: I am entering the Singapore Military service next week…

Is it for two years?

Devotee: Yes.

How will you maintain your life? Will you not be able to come home for two years?

Devotee: No, I can. I will be at home every Saturday and Sunday.

OK, good. They are going to give you some training, aren’t they?

Devotee: Yes…

And how will you maintain your food there?

Devotee: They are giving vegetarian food, but not prasadam.

That is not a problem because what can you do? That is the rule of every Singapore citizen that you have to join military service, then what can you do? And will you get any salary for that?

Devotee: Yes, they are giving a salary.

Good. You must use that salary for preaching programmes. Pay with it for any expenditure of the preaching programmes. If you can use that money for the Lord, it will reduce whatever karma-phal you will get by doing that military service. Even if you have to kill some birds or animals during the training and they give you salary for that, you must use that salary for the purpose of the Lord. You can use that money for preaching, for programmes or any expenses related to that, that will be good. Try to serve the Lord anyhow, then whatever reaction will come, it will not affect you; otherwise, that reaction will come to you. Do you understand?

Another devotee introduces one of the present devotees: Here is a devotee, she was asking about the meaning of her name the other day…

OK, thank you. ‘Bimala’ means one who has no dirt in their heart – one who has no dirtiness, no bad things, one who always thinks good. ‘Mala’ means dirt, stool, and ‘bi-mala’ means no dirt, no stool. This is the meaning of the word. I also told you last time that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s previous name was Bimala Prasad because Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur and his wife Sri Bhagavati Devi went to Bimala Devi (Laksmi Devi) in Jagannath Puri and prayed to her to give them a good son. Following that, Krishna sent them a good, devotional son who was able to preach Krishna consciousness all over the world. He preached pure consciousness (suddha prachar) – pure devotion of the Rupanuga line. Such was the preaching of Sri Bimala Prasad. Later, when he took sannyas, he became known as Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur.

(6/8) Highest Life

Question: Is there any service I can do?

Prabhu, if you come here every day, if you join the programmes and help the devotees, that is seva (service). This time now is a very good time to join Krishna consciousness full-time as a brahmachari. If you can do that, it will be better, this will be the highest service. But you cannot come right now because you have many responsibilities – your mother has died, and your father is still working, your sister is very young, etc. You are only sixteen years old now, but if think that you want to practise Krishna consciousness full-time and live a brahmachari life, that is the highest service. If you can do that, it will be good. If you do not have desire to do that, then you can study, find a job, and you can also do much service, but along with that you will have many responsibilities – you will spend much time and energy taking care of your family, which is necessary to do in your life when you become a householder or live outside the temple.

Our Gurudev and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur both joined at a very early age, from the beginning of their lives. Gurudev was about your age when he joined Krishna consciousness (he was seventeen), and he later studied Sanskrit, Harinam-amrita-vyakaran and many other things. So, this is the highest time, the best time to join Krishna consciousness. If somebody wants to be a proper preacher, a proper brahmachari or sannyasi, I am giving much enthusiasm, support and instruction to such devotees.

You joined Krishna consciousness at sixteen, and this is your great fortune. There are many children in Singapore who were born in devotees’ families, and they are also very fortunate. I myself was not born in a devotees’ family, but, by the mercy of Gurudev, Krishna sent me to the lotus feet of Gurudev and I have never left his lotus feet in my life – I always keep myself very tightly tied to his lotus feet.

So, if somebody wants to live a brahmachari life, it is the highest life because when you start a family life, so much burden and so many problems come – you have to work, you have to earn money to maintain your family and do so many other things. A householder cannot give their full-time to Krishna consciousness. For instance, you make programmes every Saturday, but brahmacharis stay at the temple every day, they join the programmes every day, they serve every day, they think about the Lord every day, and so on. Do you understand what I am saying? So, if somebody wants to live such a life of a brahmachari, if somebody is thinking about these things in their heart and life, that is very nice.

I am also telling to everybody who is thinking of becoming a brahmachari or a sannyasi: the scriptures say that if a son in some family becomes a sannyasi, then through that boy his twenty-one generations of forefathers (like, his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, etc.) become rescued from all material bondage. Whatever position they may be in, whatever planet they may live on, they are suffering so much, but owing to that son who becomes a sannyasi, they all come to Goloka Vrindavan.

So, this is my advice for everyone who is thinking of joining full-time and also for those family members who are worried about the young age of their sons joining Krishna consciousness full-time. When I joined, all my family, all my relatives said that I had become crazy because I had left everything, including my big job, and became a brahmachari surrendering at my gurudev’s lotus feet. They worried who will take care of their mother, who will take care of their father, etc. but my mother died in a very good way, she had no problem, whereas the parents of those who criticised me suffered very much in their lives )they did not have any money, they could not even buy medicine). There were many problems. But my mother died suddenly and without a problem. Now my brother and everybody else are very happy because they now understand that what I did is good for them also. Before they used to think, ‘Oh, my son has left, my brother has left, who will take care of this family?’ I was the eldest son in the family, so all responsibility was expected to be on me. But now they understand it. I think about Krishna, I think about my gurudev, and Krishna takes care of my previous family and everybody else…

It is very important to understand these things.

(7/8) Honest Life

How are you, ** Prabhu? Are you studying now or working?

Devotee: Working and studying.

Oh, both… Are you helping your parents? Do you give money to your mother? What you are doing? Are you drinking Thumbs Up and 7Up and eating chocolate with your money? You must give money to your mother. All right? Your parents are struggling so much in their lives, I do not even know if they have their own house. Do they have their own house?

Devotee (the father): The house where we are studying now will actually belong to us, and he is staying with all of us.

Yes, of course. Your children must stay with you, it is very important. Why should they leave you? They will stay with you. It it good because they were not born in the western culture where a sixteen-year-old boy leaves his parents and goes to stay with his girlfriend, separately. This is a very bad situation. It is not like that here in India, and I think that it is not like that in Singapore also. Your children must stay with you, that is good. If somebody wants to get married and if they have their own house, then they can get married and stay separately, that is all right, but to take a girlfriend and live with her illegally, separately from the parents, that is not good. Your parents have been taking care of you since you were a baby, they have been doing everything for you, taking care of you, suffering for you, and now that you turn sixteen you leave your parents and go to live a life of enjoyment? I do not support such things. I am dead against that. Do you understand what I am saying? If a boy leaves his family and goes to stay at the ashram, taking brahmacharya, that is another thing, but if you leave your father and mother to stay in your own house with a girlfriend, it makes me and everybody else very sad. Think about it. Your father and mother have been taking care of you since you were a baby, they suffered and struggled so much to give birth to you, to make sure you can study, to make sure you have everything, and now you leave them and go to live a life of enjoyment. This is a completely bogus life. It is an abominable life. If you want to join the mission full-time, I will be very happy. If you say that you want to serve me, you can come to me, and I will make you a sannyasi. I will send you back to Singapore sometimes for preaching, it is not a problem, but you will stay in the house of other devotees, not in your parents’ house, (your parents can come and meet with you, it is not a problem).

You can see the example here in India. There are two sannyasis, one is twenty-six years old [Sripad Bhakti Tilak Niriha Maharaj] and the other one is twenty-eight years old [Sripad Bhakti Chandan Vishnu Maharaj]. I made one of them a sannyasi when he was a twenty-year-old brahmachari [Sripad Bhakti Tilak Niriha Maharaj]. Now he is twenty-six years old, and he is taking care of my temple, a big temple.

You cannot imagine what kind of chastisement I give him [Sripad Bhakti Tilak Niriha Maharaj]. When my gurudev, Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, came to the Mission, Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj told him, ‘You must follow me. Do not follow your mind.’ Srila Sridhar Maharaj told him only that. And Srila Sridhar Maharaj also beat my gurudev. I do not beat anyone, but I think that what I did to him [Sripad Bhakti Tilak Niriha Maharaj] was actually more than beating. One time, I was there [Sri Nrisingha Palli] at Gaura Purnima, and he made some mistake after Gaura Purnima (I told him to do something in one way, and he did more than that, following his mind). After Gaura Purnima, I told him to hold his ears and squat ten times in front of everybody. He is a sannyasi, but he did that happily in front of everybody without any shyness or anything. This is the kind of chastisement I gave him.

His father also gives him respect addressing him ‘Maharaj’ and paying dandavat to him. He also always addresses his father ‘Prabhu’ – he does not say ‘dad’ or ‘papa.’ I told his father that I would make a great preacher from this boy. From the beginning I have been teaching him and making him a great sannyasi who can be humble, tolerant and give honour to others. These are his good qualities. Not only that, he is truthful, he can never tell a lie. This is his very important quality. He has never told a lie in his life. It may sometimes be necessary to tell a lie for management, but if I was to tell him, ‘Go there and tell a lie,’ he cannot do that. Such is his quality.

(8/8) ‘What Is My Service?’

Devotee: I have got a question. What is my service?

You are still studying now. Come every day to the class, chant kirtans, practise properly, take part in the preaching programmes. This is your service now because you are studying now and I cannot tell you that you must leave your studies and join Krishna consciousness full-time or come to India. For now you must study. Later, when you get a job and earn money, you can serve your guru, Vaishnavs and Bhagavan with that money. For now you do not have your own money (you are studying and you have to take money from your parents), so I cannot tell you that you should give donation for the temple, for this, for that. So, for now practise properly, keep good association. These are the main things in your life. Practise nava-vidha bhakti, the nine devotional practices: sravanam (hearing about the Lord), kirtanam (chanting the Lord’s Name and glories), smaranam (remembering the Lord), pada-sevanam (serving the Lord’s lotus feet), archanam (worshipping the Lord’s Deity), vandanam (offering obeisances and prayers to the Lord), dasyam (serving the Lord as a servant), sakhyam (serving the Lord as a friend), atma-nivedanam (submitting yourself to the Lord). That is the service you should do.

Devotee: Can I ask what my name means?

Oh, it is a very nice name! Gurudev gave you this name Vijayanti (Vaijayanti). ‘Vaijayanti’ means one who always overcomes any trouble, and you are the proof of that. I saw what kind of disease (a tumour) you had in your brain. Despite so much trouble, you are still alive in this world and talking in front of me. That is a miracle. So, you will always succeed everywhere in your life, I can tell you that. I am not an astrologer like your father, but I can tell you that you will succeed in your spiritual life – there will be no problem, no bondage. You will always be victorious (‘vaijayanti’ means always ‘jay’, you will be always accompanied by victory). You will always succeed, you will always be able to defeat Maya.

Devotee: I would like to ask you for a blessing…

You are already always doing service. You work and send every month some amount of money, some contribution, to me every month, that is your important service. Try to continue this service, try to always help. You know that whenever devotees send some money, I always buy bricks, cement, rods, iron and pay for labour with that money. Even though I have left Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math (the main temple), devotees have not left me, they are always with me. When they come at Gaura Purnima time or at any other time or festival, they suffer so much having to stay at a hotel or a rented house, but this year devotees were happy because they could get their own room at Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. There are a hundred rooms ready in the new building Sri Bhakti Sundar Angan. So, next year, if the situation is good and the pandemic finishes, devotees will start coming again, and they will be able to stay happily with me in the same building without any problems.

If I go back to the main Math of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, that is OK, and if do not go back, that is also not a problem for me because there is too much trouble there and I do not fight with them. I am fine with it. Krishna has made another arrangement, and I can stay at Sri Nrisingha Palli, I can stay in Dum Dum Park, and I am better here, my health is also good.

So, you already always do your service. You come from a devotees’ family – both your mother and father are good devotees, they are helping the Mission very nicely. I pray to the Lord that your father may again be able to come to India, that is my happiness. He is always very sick because of his old age (he is more than seventy years old) and because he cannot tolerate cold weather (cold weather is very bad for him). So, I pray that he remains in good health, and I also pray to the Lord that you may remain in good health and that everything goes well at your work, then you will be able to continue your service. That is your seva.

Dandavat. Hari bol.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
Harinam-sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol..

* * *

￼Line Line2 May 2021, p.m. (WA)

Sevak Bhavan, Kolkata

Worldwide Address

(English)￼Line Line

(1/3) Take Care of Yourself

Hari bol. Dandavat.

Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev Subhadra Jagannath jiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Sri Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Tadiya sakha math-samuha ki jay.
Sri Mather sevak vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Ananta-koti Vaishnav vrinda ki jay.
Sri Gaudiya Acharya vrinda ki jay.
Tridandi-pad-gan ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Nityananda Prabhu ki jay.
Saparsada Sriman Mahaprabhu ki jay.
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay.
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna vinasa-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay.
Srila Bhakti Pavan Janardan Maharaj ki jay.
Srila Bhakti Kusum Ashram Maharaj ki jay.
All the assembled sannyasi-vrinda ki jay.
Sripad Bhakti Nandan Sadhu Maharaj ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

I can see all the devotees, all the good-hearted devotees. I can see that they are all still continuing the programme, continue practising Krishna consciousness and come to meet with us every week. That is giving me so much pleasure.

Dandavat, Srila Ashram Maharaj, how are you? Please accept my humble obeisance.

Srila Ashram Maharaj: Dandavat. Please accept my humble obeisance at your feet. I am fine, Maharaj. How are you? How is your health?

I am a little tired today, I do not know what has happened.

I could not sleep last night because I was worried about the result of the election in Bengal, and today I have heard the news that the election result is not favourable for the devotees. That is probably why I am a little tired today. Mamata Banerjee has again, for the third time, come to be the chief minister of Bengal for five years, and she is not favourable to devotees. This is why we are a little worried, and this is why I am feeling a little tired today. I was very worried about the election result and could not sleep the whole night, but I took some rest today at noon for one and a half hours…

Devotee: Maharaj, but it is the same – whether this party comes or that party comes, they are all the same…

No… Only those who are suffering can understand it. I have been ousted from Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math only because of them…

Anyhow, I am very eager to meet with the devotees. That is my priority. At present, all the devotees are also afraid – so many devotees in Delhi, Bengal, Gujarat, Bombay and South India are affected by covid. I am praying to the Lord, praying to Gurudev, ‘Please, give some energy to them so that they can fight against this covid.’ I am getting many news from various places that devotees are suffering because of covid. There is already one devotee in Delhi who has passed away recently, and his son (rather young, thirty-eight years old) is in ICU (Intensive Care Unit) at present, fighting against covid, getting oxygen… It is very sad news for us. Moreover, there are many of our devotees who are doctors (Krishna Kanta Prabhu, Rama Sundar Prabhu and many others) who work in hospitals. I am also worried about them. Madhumangal Prabhu is in isolation at his home, he is also covid positive, and his wife, a pregnant lady, is also covid positive. I am praying for them. So, we must all be very careful in this situation. Actually, I have also taken some risk recently. I have been to Vrindavan after Gaura Purnima, I have been to Siliguri, I gave lectures there, I have been to many other places attending preaching programmes. I know hat I have taken very much risk, but now I am in the room, and I have told all the devotees here in Dum Dum Park (Kolkata), ‘Please, control yourself. Do not go out.’ I have told them also that everybody must use sanitisers and a mask. It is a must.

We have a second wave of coronavirus in the country, and it is very dangerous – it is spreading very fast. There are more than four hundred thousand people attacked by covid every day; every day almost four thousand people die every day in India and more than a hundred people die in West Bengal. This is the situation now. We must all be careful. I am also controlling myself, I am not going out so much. I know I also have to be careful… Devotees’ nature is to be very humble, tolerant and to give honour to others, and in this situation we must have tolerance.

I know that there has been a lockdown for one year in many countries, and the financial condition all over the world is very bad, everybody is suffering, but amidst all this devotees are still thinking about me, they are still thinking about Gurudev, and I am not only thanking them for that (to say ‘thank you’ is a very small thing), but I am saying to them: Gurudev’s mercy, the Lord’s mercy is always with them. Devotees always try to help and take care of Gurudev’s Mission as much as it is possible by them, as much as it is within their capacity, and if we all stay together in this way, we can overcome everything.

The problem is that we all have ego. This is the problem in our spiritual life. We cannot stay united because of our ego. We do not give proper attention to devotees, we do not take proper care of devotees. This is the result that must come when there is a lack of preaching. In this Age of Kali, only few persons will join Krishna consciousness, and even when people join, those of them who do not have so much sukriti will not be able to continue their spiritual life and they will leave this path, leave Krishna consciousness. That is why we must chant more and more, we must preach more and more, and we must practise more and more. Always continue following all rules and regulations. We must distribute to others the teachings that we have got from our gurudev.

I know it is very difficult. We say that we must be humble, tolerant and give honour to others, it is very easy to say this, but it is very difficult to apply and produce this in our own selves. Even I myself do not have so much tolerance, I do not have so much humility, and I also cannot give respect to others. That is my very bad quality, but Gurudev has accepted me as his servant, as his dog to protect his devotees and his mission, and I can only try to do that – if I am ever successful, it is possible only by the mercy of devotees and by the mercy of Gurudev because I myself do not have any quality or qualification…

(2/3) Sadhus’ Fight

Everybody is giving money, everybody is helping, but there are only few persons who give their son or daughter to serve the Mission full-time. It is very rare all over the world. Here in India also, people have much hope that their son would become adult, get married and produce babies. Every father and mother want that, but rare are the devotees who would want their children to serve the Lord instead. For example, Srila Narottam Das Thakur’s mother gave her son money to go to Vrindavan. Srila Narottam Das Thakur cried to his mom, ‘Mother, if you do not let me go to Vrindavan, I will commit suicide! I will die!’ She allowed him to leave, and not only that, she also gave him money to go to Vrindavan. This is very rare. Sri Vishnupriya Devi and Sri Sachi Mata also sacrificed so much in their lives; if Sri Vishnupriya Devi had not made this sacrifice, we would not have got Nimai as a sannyasi, as a preacher…

If I cannot keep devotees well, it is a big problem for me – it always gives me much pain. One by one, devotees (some of my godbrothers, some of my friends) are passing away. It is very sad. One by one devotees are now attacked by covid…

Question: With all the recent tragedies happening, with Kali-yuga advancing, I was thinking how to continue my sadhana – no matter how much I try, it is still so difficult…

Yes, it is correct. Sadhana is very difficult. But we must try our best. Keep trying and trying. This is a battlefield. We will not run away from the battlefield – we will always stand and fight against Maya. In every situation and under any condition, Maya Devi always takes the jiva soul to her side. Maya Devi is extremely powerful because she has got her power from the Lord. You know this.

daivi hy esa gunamayi, mama maya duratyaya
mam eva ye prapadyante, mayam etam taranti te

‘My supramundane trimodal illusory potency (alluring those who are averse to Me) is extremely difficult to overcome. However, this insurmountable potency of Mine can be overcome by those who exclusively surrender to Me.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 7.14)

Because Maya Devi has got her power from the Lord, she is very powerful. That is why, if devotees always stay together, if there is sankirtan going on, if there is practising and sadhana going on, then Maya Devi cannot stay here. This is our main hope. In our present situation, we must practise more and more. I have told you – you can send me the photographs of your practising, I am happy to see them. I want to keep myself busy with seeing that, I will also try to compose one more book, Guidance 5. I want to keep myself busy with this kind of service because due to the pandemic situation we cannot go for preaching so much, the government is being strict about it now. So, it is better for everyone to keep yourself busy with service. Please you all take care of yourself. In this situation, everybody should practise on their own, do not be disheartened. You worry because of this pandemic situation, ‘If I do not work, what will I eat? How will I maintain my family?’ I know it is very difficult for the devotees now. Our devotees are mostly not very rich people, they have to depend upon their own work all the time, so they are a little anxious now, but at such times as now you must think about Srivas Pandit. Srivas Pandit had nothing, but Mahaprabhu told him not to go begging, and Srivas Pandit listened to His instruction and did not go begging – after that, Krishna Himself took care of him. The Lord takes care of His devotees. This is always true. You can see Mahabharata, you can see the Kuruksetra war, you can see Ramayana (when Ramachandra fought against Ravana) – you can see everywhere that finally demons are always defeated by the sadhu. Om is always at the side of a sadhu. That is our faith, that is our hope.

(3/3) Be Exclusive, Be One-Pointed

Question: I am very grateful to Your Divine Grace for being always there with me, for protecting me. I have so many things not favourable to devotional life in me, I feel I am incompetent in so many ways. What can I do?

What is unfavourable to devotion is called anaratha. We must be always free from any unwanted material desires,

anyabhilasita sunyam jnana-karmady anavrtam
anukulyena krsnanusilanam bhaktir uttama

‘The highest devotion is that which satisfies Lord Krishna, free from the coverings of any pursuits, such as action or knowledge.’

(Sri Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhuh, 1.1.11)

Always be ‘anyabhilasita sunyam’ – be free from other desires.

anya-abhilasa chhadi’, jnana-karma parihari’,
kaya mane kariba bhajana

sadhu-sange krsna seva, na pujiba devi-deva,
ei bhakti parama karana

‘Serve the Lord with your body and mind, giving up all other desires and the pursuit of material benefit and knowledge. Serve Lord Krishna in the association of sadhus and do not worship any gods or goddesses. Such devotion is the highest process.’

(Sri Sri Prema-bhakti-chandrika, Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

We must be exclusive, one-pointed in our desire (ananya-abhilas), we must have no other desires (anya-abhilas). Only think about Krishna, think about the temple, think about the devotees – that is good. If you think about good things, then all bad things (anarthas) will automatically be removed from you. Do not worry so much about this. When you think some anartha is coming, you must give more and more attention to practising – concentrate your mind on practising.

[Addressing a devotee] When will you start your retired life?

Devotee: Very soon, Gurudev, by your blessing.

Gurudev told me, ‘Leave your job, leave everything and join Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math full-time, I will be very happy,’ and when he told it to me, I agreed and left my job, left everything. Gurudev’s blessing means service. If you follow gurudev’s instruction, that is the blessing – you must have no other intention.

All right, I am offering my obeisance to everyone. I pray to everybody – please take care of your health, and I will also take care of myself.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda Sundar jiu ki jay.
Srila Bhakti Pavan Janardan Maharaj ki jay.
Srila Bhakti Kusum Ashram Maharaj ki jay.
Srila Bhakti Vijay Trivikram Maharaj ki jay.
Sripad Bhakti Bandhav Puri Maharaj ki jay.
Sripad Bhakti Nandan Sadhu Maharaj ki jay.
All the assembled devotees ki jay.
All the worldwide devotees ki ja.
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol.

Please forgive my offence. Dandavat. Thank you very much.

[Addressing a devotee] If you want to preach, you can start preaching. Start preaching as you did before. Some problem will come, you must be ready for that. When Gurudev told me in the early days to start reading Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, I also listened to so much criticism. They said that I was a little boy, I did not know anything about the conception. Later, when Gurudev gave me this position, I also heard so many things – they said that I am not a follower of Gurudev, that I have cut up Srila Rupa Goswami’s line, etc. I have listened to everything and tolerated it. If they criticise you, you too must digest a little. What is the problem? You have not seen how much I am tolerating – you have not seen what kind of a dangerous position I have come out of. If anyone can understand it, they will understand easily what I am saying…

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

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[THE END]

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