Keep Your Guard Up

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nrisingha Palli, 21 March 2021, part 1

[His Divine Grace recites Jaya Dhvani and Sri Vandana.]

We are going to start Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama in two days, and tomorrow is adhivas (eve, inauguration of the festival). Many devotees have already come, and you all have got an opportunity to hear about the Lord, to chant kirtan, and today I will speak something for you benefit, 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 (শ্রীগুরুচরণপদ্ম কেবল ভকতিসদ্ম বন্দোঁ মুঞি সাবধান মতে): I worship the lotus feet of Sri Gurudev, an abode of pure devotion, with great care." Why must we worship and pay obeisance to Sri 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, etc. It is necessary to worship the lotus feet of Sri 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 prasadam, 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, and 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 across the river, 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, 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, you must not talk.

So, I was saying, "Sri-guru-charana-padma, kevala-bhakati-sadma, vando muni savadhana mate (শ্রীগুরুচরণপদ্ম কেবল ভকতিসদ্ম বন্দোঁ মুঞি সাবধান মতে): I worship the lotus feet of Sri Gurudev, an abode of pure devotion, with great care." We always make offences to the Guru—we do not follow what our Guru tells us, Gurudev tells us to do something or not to do something and we always go against that.

গুরুমুখ-পদ্মবাক্য চিত্তেতে করিয়া ঐক্য
আর না করিহ মনে আশা

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 were singing this just now and I heard you were singing earlier (after the arati),

করুণা না হৈলে কাঁদিয়া কাঁদিয়া
প্রাণ না রাখিব আর ॥

karuna na ha-ile kandiya kandiya
prana na rakhiba ara

"Your mercy is everything. If you are not merciful to me, then, crying, I will no longer maintain my life."

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 water or milk will come out. There are some holes in our service, and all our effort comes out through these holes. No matter how much we try to serve, because we at the same time also do wrong and do other things more (we speak gramya-katha, do what is unfavourable to devotion—bhakti-pratikul), we do not get any result. We are doing everything, but sometimes we also make mistakes—you want to keep water in a pot, but the pot has holes and all the water will come out through the hole, the pot will be 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 (বন্দোঁ মুঞি সাবধান মতে): I worship the lotus feet of Sri Gurudev with great care." We pray, we worship and pay obeisance to Sri Guru's feet with great care. Once we lose our guard—if we do not watch out for any 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 that we do not cheat and 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 (গুরুমুখ-পদ্মবাক্য চিত্তেতে করিয়া ঐক্য আর না করিহ মনে আশা)—make the teachings from Sri 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 heart, and it is not necessary to want or expect anything else. If you can just keep his word in your heart, that is sufficient...

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