Perverted Tastes and Habits

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Ekachakra Dham, evening class, 26 February 2021
Translated from Bengali, part 6

You are living here, in this holy abode; it is a very beautiful place. Even I have not got such 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 feetdust. Never want to leave this holy feetdust and go anywhere else. We do not want to leave, but we have no way out—we have to go to different temples, we have to go for preaching. I do not stay in one place... Just as 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, so Nityananda Prabhu and Mahaprabhu became Deities and stayed at his house. The temple and those Deities are still there in a very beautiful place in Kalna.

However, if our fortune becomes bad—if we make Vaishnav aparadh, then service will go away from us. It is not necessary to blame anyone for this—always look for faults in yourself. 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 all goes down into a drain. So, if you dig in that drain, you will only get stench. If you always go about saying bad things, then those faults that you speak about will come to you. That is why Gurudev said that we must not look for anyone's faults.

Somebody may have some faults, but there is also something good in them. Suppose you have seen somebody steal prasadam—they did what they did, it is their offence, but if you go about telling others about it, then you are making even more offence. You can talk to the person who stole prasadam 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 my own faults, "What faults do I have?" "Gurudev kicked me out, Gurudev is bad"—no! We will only see that we are guilty, that we have faults, and we will not see faults in anyone else.

What did Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur say?

বৈষ্ণব-চরিত্র, সর্ব্বদা পবিত্র,
যেই নিন্দে হিংসা করি’ ।
ভকতিবিনোদ না সম্ভাষে তাঁ’রে,
থাকে সদা মৌন ধরি’ ॥

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)

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 fault. They only roam around looking for faults in others, criticising others and gossiping about others.

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 tastes 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, etc., 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,

গ্রাম্যকথা না শুনিবে, গ্রাম্যবার্ত্তা না কহিবে ।
ভাল না খাইবে আর ভাল না পরিবে ॥
অমানী মানদ হঞা কৃষ্ণনাম সদা ল'বে ।
ব্রজে রাধাকৃষ্ণ সেবা মানসে করিবে ॥

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 the mundane talks, do not listen to the mundane news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour to yourself, but offer all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krsna, and in your mind serve Radha-Krsna."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya-lila, 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 finish for you. You will be left with nothing. Therefore,

গ্রাম্যকথা না শুনিবে, গ্রাম্যবার্ত্তা না কহিবে ।
ভাল না খাইবে আর ভাল না পরিবে ॥
অমানী মানদ হঞা কৃষ্ণনাম সদা ল'বে ।
ব্রজে রাধাকৃষ্ণ সেবা মানসে করিবে ॥

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 the mundane talks, do not listen to the mundane news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour to yourself, but offer all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krsna, and in your mind serve Radha-Krsna."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya-lila, 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, etc.). Enjoying such talks is only cheating yourself. You may like to hear such things, but it will damage your spiritual life.

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