Surrender: Your Choice, Your Faith

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

Those who came in this world and who can chant in this body, can follow Mahaprabhu's instruction, are very fortunate. We have got this human body, but if this body is not used for the service to the Lord, for the service to Gaura-Nitai, then what is the use of this body? This body is useless then. It is necessary to surrender fully—without surrender your cannot get anything. It is called atma-nivedana. If we surrender to the Lord, we must get proper devotion.

There is one story in Mahabharata. Once, Draupadi asked Lord Krishna, "O Krishna, when Duryodhan and Duhsasan were beating me, why could You not protect me at that time?" But Krishna asked her, "How was I to protect you? Did you remember Me at that time?" ...You know what happened that day:

Yudhisthir, Bhim, Arjun, Nakul, and Sahadev were defeated in a dice game and lost their kingdom. The kingdom belonged now to Duhsasan and Duryodhan, so they came to Kunti Devi and said, "Now we have all kingdom, and Draupadi is ours too. We want to take her with us." Draupadi did not want to go, but they beat her and took her forcefully with them. Draupadi cried, "O, my husbands and all my relatives are not here!" She forgot Krishna at that time, she only remembered her husbands and relatives...

Duhsasan and Duryodhan came back to the raja-sabha, royal assembly, and threw Draupadi in front of everyone. All her husbands were sitting in a lower place as servants, and Duhsasan, Duryodhan sat on the place of the king. Draupadi began to cry in front of everybody, calling out to her husbands, "Yudhisthir, Arjun, please help me! They are beating me, saying all these bad things! Please help me!" Finally, she called out to Bhimsen, "Bhim, please help me! You are the strongest, why are you not protecting me?" Duhsasan said to her, "Why are you saying it to them? Today they are all servants and I am the king. They have no power, so speak to me." Hearing this, Bhim became ashamed and very angry. He said, "If one day I get the kingdom back from him, I will show him! I will kill him and drink his blood!" Duhsasan got insulted, "I am now the king! How dare you say this in front of everybody?" and ordered his men, "Take off Draupadi's clothes!"

Reminding Draupadi of it later, Krishna asked her, "Did you remember Me at that time? You kept holding your clothes, you wanted to protect yourself, you did not call Me at that time. Next, you held your clothes with one hand and called to Me with the other, but even then you still wanted to protect yourself. Only when you saw you could not do anything, when almost all clothes had been taken off, then you called to Me, 'Please help me!' Did I help you at that time or not?"

So, full surrender is necessary. You think you can protect yourself, but "marabi rakhabi yo ichchha tohara" (মারবি রাখবি, যো ইচ্ছা তোহার): He can kill you, He can protect you, He can rescue you, He can do anything—He is the Supreme Personality, He is the cause of all causes! The Lord can do anything, He can save you, He can also kill you, but you cannot protect yourself, so surrender to Him—surrender completely. That is called sraddha, full faith. If somebody is 25% surrendered, they will get 25%; if somebody is 50% surrendered, they will get 50%. Gurudev would also say that there are 1% devotees, 20% devotees, 90% devotees, and so on... It all depends on the surrender and faith.

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