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His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama Adhivas, evening
Sri Nrisingha Palli, 22 March 2021, part 4
Translated from Bengali

You must understand that 'I' and 'my body' is not the same thing. People always say 'my head', 'my eyes', 'my ears', 'my mouth', etc. 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 when a car hits some 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.

Therefore, as I have told you earlier, adhivas means 'Bhagavaner nikate vas' (staying with the Lord). This time 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. Yet 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—it was actually not due to any problem but due to a lack of his sukriti. Anyhow, he too started collecting and collected much potato. The main thing is that I 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 said, "Is it possible to stop him? His health is bad, he has just had an operation, but he came from Chennai the very next day by train! He did not even stay for two days in Chennai. 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 potatoes from somebody's house, do you know how much sukriti these people who give donation get? One handful of rice, one potato or ten potatoes or a sack of potatoes—there are so many plants, and these plants' soul, water, air, soil, and all kinds of other demigods that there are, 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 bhog, do not get prasadam—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. Yet sadhus, gurus, and Vaishnavs do not take anything that has not been offered to the Lord—they do not accept what was not first enjoyed by the Lord. Sadhus take potato, rice, etc. and use for the service of Govinda—only after that they take prasadam of the Lord, and all the devotees also take that prasadam. 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 old Ashok Prabhu. He has had so many operations, but he forcefully took me to rice mills in Bankura area saying, "No, you must stay for four days!" He is very busy, he cannot stay with me for long, 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. So many ladies went on collection and earned sukriti with so much labour. There is Nisikanta Prabhu also, he went collecting one-two rupees from a house—somebody gives one rupee, somebody twenty, somebody fifty. He came with a big bag full of coins and gave it to me. Also, there are the devotees came who 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 from serving Him. We sing in one of the kirtans,

যদি গৌর না হ'ত তবে কি হইত
কেমনে ধরিতাম দে ।
রাধার মহিমা প্রেমরস-সীমা
জগতে জানাত কে ? ॥

yadi gaura na ha'ta tabe ki ha-ita
kemane dharitam de
radhara mahima, prema-rasa-sima
jagate janata ke?

"If Gaura had not come, then what would have happened? How would we have maintained our lives? Who would have revealed to the world Radha's glory and the extremes of Her ecstatic divine love?"

(Srila Vasudev Ghosh Thakur)

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu comes to this Kali-yuga to tell the world about the glories of Srimati Radharani. He went door to door begging, "Krsna bolo, 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. Somebody gives twenty-five kg potato, somebody gives fifty kg potato, somebody gives one sack or two sacks of potato, somebody gives some rice for the service of the Lord.

ভক্তের জিনিষ প্রভু লুটিপুটি খায়
অভক্তের জিনিষ প্রভু উলটি নাহি খায়

bhakter jinish prabhu lutiputi khay
abhakter jinish prabhu ulti nahi khay

"The Lord eats anything and everything when a devotee offers it, but He does not take anything from a non-devotee."

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, cows, etc. next life.

In Hooghly district (Begumpur), they are many lady devotees, I see also many of them are coming here. Many devotees are coming from all over Bengal and they called me saying, "I have collected something for the temple, can I send it there?" Many devotees came also from Bardhaman, Tarakeshwar, some devotees also came from Kalna...

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