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The Bond with the Guru
His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
July/August 2014
Those who are surrendered souls always follow their guru: they are not going to think what is right, what is wrong, what is correct or not correct; what their Guru told them to do, they do that—nothing else.
You did not follow that, you always follow your mind. I have told you many times, "Prabhu, this is not right..." and now a problem has come. Param Guru Maharaj, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj said, "I am responsible for my position. I cannot blame others." But if you do not follow that, if you always follow your mind:
দুষ্ঠ মন ! তুমি কিসের বৈষ্ণব ?
dusta mana! tumi kisera vaisnava?
"My dear mind, what kind of Vaishnav are you?"
ঐছন আমার মন ফিরে যেন অন্ধজন
সুপথ বিপথ নাহি জানে
aichhana amara mana phire yena andha jana
supatha vipatha nahi jane
"The mind is blind and naughty. It does not know what is good, and it always takes me in the bad way." You have some intelligence, and you have a direct instruction from your Guru, that is sufficient for your spiritual life.
Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur wrote that we always do parikrama around this material universe. Those who have material attachment, who think, "This is mine, this is yours," always wander throughout the fourteen worlds. How is it then possible to reach our destination? He also gave the answer. It is possible through good association. Atma, the soul, is covered by Maya with the illusory environment, but through good association the soul can become open, can become clean, nirmal.
আসক্তিরহিত সম্বন্ধসহিত
বিষয়সমূহ সকলি মাধব
'asakti-rohita,' 'sambandha-sahita,'
visaya-samuha sakali 'madhava'
'Vaishnav ke?' by Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur
"If you can engage in service without material attachment (keeping disinterested nature), and seeing everything related to the Lord, you can get eternal service to Krishna."If you always hear Hari-katha, then automatically all kinds of sin will leave your heart. If you hear what sadhus tell you, what is expressed and exposed to you, and you start to serve, with love and affection, with priti, with heart and soul, then first faith will come, then attachment, then love, and finally devotion will come. In this way everything will come.
If you are engaged in something that is not related with service, the Lord, Guru, Vaishnavs, it is karma-kanda or jnana-kanda. You will then keep coming and going, coming and going, eating so many bad things. That means you are born, you have got this body for nothing—you will again come and go. Those who think that this material world is nectar, amrita, they will keep on taking birth and death. If you are thirsty for some material attachment, for some material things, you will never get relief from karma.
When you chant the Holy Name, some offence comes, but if you want to get relief from the offence while still doing that offence (even if you chant all the time), you will not become free from it. Making offences to the Holy Name is not chanting the Holy Name; these are different things. When you give up the offences, your relationship with your Guru will become very strong and then no offence can come to you. If you have some anartha, material desire, and give priority to that, you will not be able to get relief from the offences: you cannot remove an anartha by an anartha.
And as I have just said, when there is no relation with the Lord, the Guru, your activities become karma-kanda, jnana-kanda.
Devotee: What is karma-kanda?
Karma-kanda means what the outside people do: what has no relation with the Lord, eating outside, not taking prasadam, working outside for your own enjoyment. And also what some other mayavadi groups do, that is jnana-kanda. Some may have some relation with the demigod, but not the Lord, that is also jnana-kanda. They think it is nectar... I have told many times this: if you give a bucket of stool to a pig, it will be so happy, "Oh, I am taking nectar!"; but if you give some paneer, some good things to a pig, it will not be happy. So, you take this "nectar" and do parikrama, rounding the material worlds, taking birth and death, birth and death, and eating so many bad things... And the life is wasted.
If you have a very strong relationship with the Guru, offences and undesirable things will gradually go away. If you have some material desire and do not want to remove it, and instead you want more and more, you will never get relief from that desire. This is what Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad told. It is very nicely expressed.
If you do not open your door properly, how is it possible to come in? Please open your heart, give some space in your heart for the Lord to come!
Chanting the Holy Name (Harinam) and chanting the Holy Name with offences (Nama-aparadha) are not same thing. If you make some offence and chant the Holy Name, you will not get relief from that offence; but when you chant the Holy Name without offence you can get relief from the offence. There are two ways: you chant the Holy Name and make offences, and you chant the Holy Name and there is no offence. It is not the same. If you chant the Holy Name and have a strong bond with your Guru—then the offences will automatically go away.
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| Stri-Sanga and Jiva-Himsa |
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| Two of the four regulative principles: 'You must avoid stri-sanga and purush-sanga, and from today, do not eat and do not cook any fish, meat, poultry, eggs, onion, garlic, or masoor dal. Take prasad.' |
| Gurudev! krpa-bindu diya |
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| 'Gurudev, give me the strength to tolerate everything, and make me free from any desire for personal honour.' | গুরুদেব! কৃপাবিন্দু দিয়া |
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“Why do we eat? Why is it necessary to eat? Because you are hungry? No. It is necessary to eat for service—for service you need to put something into your stomach, not for hunger.” | |
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