Purity of Preaching

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham
27 November 2010

Devotee: Germany is a very materialistic country, it worse than many other parts of Europe...

But still, if somebody comes to this line, if they know the proper line and get proper guidance, proper association, they can develop their spiritual life. The scriptures, and Chaitanya-charitamrita in particular, said about it many years ago.

It is also said that there are so many beasts, so many birds, so many trees, so many species in this world, but we think that human population is big. It is not so, there are more plants, trees, etc. than humans, human species is actually rare. Among people there are those who follow the karmi conception, who follow some Vedas and Vedanta. There are four Vedas (Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda, Atharva Veda), and some say, "Oh, I am under the guidance of such and such Veda," but there are rules and regulations in the Vedas—some follow them but most do not. It is called nisiddha-achar—there are some things forbidden by the Vedas, but many people who say they are Hindu and follow the Vedas do not follow these rules, they do so many things that are forbidden. Among millions of people there are such karmis; among millions of such karmis there is only one wiser person; among millions of such wiser people there is one liberated soul; and among millions of such liberated souls you will get one Krishna bhakta. The scriptures say that it is very rare to get a devotee of Krishna.

Question: Do you think that preaching outside Bengal will be more effective?

Now there is much preaching in South India—Guntur, Gujrat, Bihar, etc. So many people are calling me to Bihar now. Here, in Bengal, people have so much ego. If you preach to the Nabadwip people, they say, "We know Mahaprabhu! We know everything!" Even Brahma says, "I do not know anything. Somebody says they know something—they can say it, but I know that I do not know anything." That is the problem.

If you want to teach somebody and they are already full of everything, what will they take then? If a glass is full of water and you pour more water into it, the water will spill. If somebody is full of ego, if somebody thinks, "I know everything," then what he or she will learn? Even if you give something to them, what will they take? They are already full—their hearts are full not only of ego, but of other things also (bhukti, mukti, siddhi-adi-vancha, kutinati, nisiddha-achar—desire for enjoyment, liberation, perfections, material desires, deceit, forbidden practices). If somebody is fully surrendered, if they feel, "I want to learn something," they can learn something.

I have told this story before. Somebody comes to a sadhu thinking, "Oh, I know everything, I can challenge him!" The sadhu puts a glass of water in front of the man and starts pouring more water into it. The water falls, and the man cries, "What are you are doing this for? Do you not know what you are doing??" The sadhu replied, "What can I do? You want to learn something from me, but you are already full of knowledge, and your knowledge is all misconception, then how will you learn from me?" That is the difficulty.

First it is necessary to have a strong faith. If you have faith in your Guru, then you can get something from your Guru, otherwise you will not get anything. Gurudev also said that when you throw a net into the water, you cannot catch all fish, some fish will escape the net. He also said that when sometimes one door closes, another door will open...

For example, there is the annual book fair in Kolkata, but who will arrange it? Now we are not taking part in it any more because not so many people come through the book fair. In Gurudev's time, they had tried to preach at the book fairs for many years, a lot of money was spent but people did not come through the book fair. Now people do not read this kind of books. If you print some sexual book, some drama or other nonsense, people will buy it happily, but they will not buy spiritual books even if it is very cheap. So, in the end there was a big loss, and Gurudev said many times that it was not necessary to do these book fairs any more, so the past two years we did not go there.

I have a bus and if some devotee wants to go preaching by bus—going everywhere, going to the street, distributing books, distributing prasadam, selling incense, that is more preaching. You can go sometimes by car or by bus to some market, some shopping area, to Kolkata, and do some sankirtan, that will be a very happy thing.

Almost all village people like this. If I send a sankirtan party to the villages to chant, distribute some small books, distribute prasadam (some laddus, for example), people will buy it easily. Village people are simple-hearted. Gurudev said that in towns and cities everything is made of concrete and the hearts of the people in towns and cities is also concrete, they are pasan, stone-hearted and cruel. But village people are not like that. If you go, for example, to Assam (northeastern India), it is inconceivable and incomparable, they are all devotees there. There, if people see a sadhu wearing tilak, etc. in the street, they will immediately come to him and say, "Come, come, come! Stay here! Come here, take prasadam!" They will wash your feet and do arati every day. They do not know who is pure, who is impure because they do not have so much conception, but they are all like this there—they will always invite you to stay for two-three days, always give arati, prasadam, they will do everything. It is a very good area. I have some connection with them, and if some devotees come and can take my car and go to Siliguri and Assam with books, that will be good. It is necessary to have a good leader who always preaches. I need a good preacher...

I have told ***, "Come here, why do you only preach in schools and colleges?"

—He preaches very scientifically and loses his audience...

Yes. This is not our style. Our style is chanting, dancing, kirtan. We do not study Veda and Vedanta—Mahaprabhu only chanted and danced, and our preaching will also be chanting and dancing. People will be happy and they will get more benefit. I have told it to him many times. If you chant and do Harinam sankritan, people will be more benefitted, and you can see that people like that. If you can do sankirtan, it is good, it is essential for our line.

—But during his programme that was a problem, there was no kirtan, there was no chanting...

No, it is very bad. It means it is like a mayavadi conception going on there. I can say it clearly—if there is any programme without chanting, without kirtan, then it is called a mayavadi conception.

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