Pious Practice

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

"Pasu pakhi jhure pasana vidare" means that even birds and beasts cry when they hear the Holy Name, when they hear the glorification of Nityananda Prabhu, but our hearts are as hard as stones—such feeling does not come to us, we cannot feel anything. That is why we must always keep good association. We have many material desires in our hearts and we must remove them otherwise suddha-bhakti bij (the seed of pure devotion) will not sprout. It is necessary to clean our hearts—Bhakti Devi will not come to a dirty place.

Who will give you devotion? Every day we do Tulasi parikrama and we ask Tulasi in the pranam mantra, "Please give me some devotion!" Tulasi Devi has so much devotion and every day we pray to her—to Bhakti Devi, Tulasi Devi—only for devotion.

In every house, we must keep Tulasi. She is the proprietor of your house. When you go to work, first ask her for some mercy, ask her for the permission to go, "Please, allow me to go to work"; when you come back, again pay dandavat to her, give some bhog, and take rest.

Tulasi Devi is the proprietor of Vrindavan. In Vrindavan, it is not necessary to work—if you simply ask anyone, at any time, "Jaya Radhe!" food will come. It is like this even now too. Also, Tulasi is always installed—it is not necessary to install Tulasi. When you buy a Deity, you must install the Deity, but it is not necessary to make the installation of Tulasi—if you see a Tulasi tree in the street even, you can pay dandavat to her.

"Tulasi dekhi' judaya prana madhava-tosani jani': seeing Tulasi Devi soothes my soul, for I know she pleases Madhava." In which song is it written? "Suddha-bhakata-charana-renu bhajana-anukula." ("The dust of pure devotees' feet is favourable to devotion.") "Tulasi dekhi' judaya prana madhava-tosani jani'": Tulasi always makes Lord Krishna happy, so if we can make her happy, Krishna will be happy. We also sing every day, "Chhappanna bhoga, chhatrisa vyanjana...": even if we cook fifty-six kinds of preparations but do not keep a Tulasi leaf there, Krishna will not eat it. "Yako darase parase agha-nasa hoi": seeing her always removes all sins.

You may not be able to go for the Vrindavan parikrama, but if you do Tulasi parikrama in your own house four times in the morning and four times in the evening, you will get the same result as when doing the Vrindavan parikrama, Nabadwip Dham parikrama.

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