Dirty Plates and Dusty Hearts

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Caracas, Venezuela
19 September 2009

eka bara hariname yata papa hare
patakira sadhya nai tata papa kare

It says, "If you chant the Holy Name one time only, all sins will be removed," but we chant so many times, why do our sins not go away?

koti janma yadi kare sravana kirtana
tabu na paya vrajera nandera nandana

It means, "You can chant for crores and crores, millions and millions, of lives, but still you will not get Krishna." Why?

tabe jani, aparadha tahate prachura
krsna-nama-bija tahe na kare ankura

"As I understand, there are too many offences and the seed of Krishna's Name does not sprout."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 8.30)

because there are so many offences inside us. You are asking Krishna, "Please come to me, come to my heart!" but all your heart is full of dust, how will He come there? At the same time, that offence can also be removed by chanting. That is why you must always chant and try to remove the offences. This is the main point.

Gurudev would often joke about this. One time, maybe seven-eight years ago (2001-2002), we were at the airport in Moscow, Russia, and one Iskcon sannyasi came up to one of our devotees (actually that devotee was Srila Ashram Maharaj) and asked,

"What is your name?"

"Ashram Maharaj."

"What temple are you from"

"Chaitanya Saraswat Math."

"Oh, I heard that your Gurudev tells all devotees to chant only four rounds, but Iskcon tells everyone must chant minimum sixteen rounds. Why do you say only four?"

Srila Ashram Maharaj is a very peaceful and always quiet person, he did not reply anything, but he gave report about this to Gurudev. Gurudev did not give his answer to that sannyasi, but he told us his answer and sent Srutasrava Prabhu to him. Srutasrava Prabhu came up to him and said, "We do not want to make more offences—if you chant sixteen rounds, more offence will come. That is why we chant four rounds so that there are less offences." [His Divine Grace laughs]

Gurudev would always give very nice answers and always with so much affection.

Sometimes Gurudev would say, "I am only a piece of iron, my Guru Maharaj has made me a weapon." Sometimes he would also say that we are like different kitchen utensils and sometimes like Deities' plates—plates get dirty, but you clean them and use again to serve the Deity. Gurudev would say, "I am a dirty plate, but my Guru Maharaj always cleans me and uses for the service of the Lord."

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