Baladev Purnima: A Special Day

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Speaking to the devotees in South Africa
13 August, 2011

I am very happy to see all the devotees after so many days and to see that you are making a festival. Always make festivals—it helps maintain a good connection with the devotees.

I am giving a full obeisance to my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, Param Gurudev Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, and all the worldwide devotees, especially the South African devotees who are making a programme today. Please forgive my offence.

Today is a very special day for our spiritual life: Lord Baladev'a appearance day. In India, some devotees are worshipping Radha-Krishna's Jhulan Yatra today, but we are making a programme for Baladev, who is nondifferent from Gurudev and Nityananda Prabhu. This is our line, the line of Rupanuga Guru-varga.

We always first offer everything to our Guru. If you do so much for Lord Krishna but have no faith in your Guru, the result will be nothing; if you worship Gauranga Mahaprabhu without worshipping Nityananda Prabhu, the result will be nothing; and if you worship Krishna but do not worship Baladev, the result will be nothing too. Moreover, it says in the scriptures that if you worship Krishna and do not worship your Guru, you are actually a great sinner. So, we must always first offer our full obeisance, full dandavat to our Guru, to Nityananda, Baladev (Guru-Balaram, Guru-Nityananda).

Practising means some process, and Gurudev shows us that process. What is preaching? When Gurudev preaches, he preaches for his Guru; when I preach, I preach for Gurudev. Preaching means preaching about your Guru, that is why also today is a very special day for our spiritual life.

It says in the scriptures: "If you worship Gauranga without worshipping the Guru, you are a great sinner and birth after birth you will stay in hell." That is why we worship Baladev, worship Nityananda Prabhu. "নিতাইয়ের করুণা হবে ব্রজে রাধাকৃষ্ণ পাবে, Nitaiyer karuna habe Vraje Radha Krsna pabe": without Nityananda Prabhu we cannot get mercy of Radha-Krishna, but if you get mercy from Nityananda Prabhu, you will get mercy from Radha-Krishna. That is our line.

Every year when we go for Vrindavan parikrama, we go to the appearance place of Baladev to get His mercy... Gurudev also says that if you do not get mercy from Lalita, you will not get mercy from Radharani, so we must pay obeisance to Lalita Devi, then we will get mercy from Radharani, and then we will get mercy from Krishna. Our line goes in this way.

Today is a very important day in our spiritual life, in our practising life. This is our life: without Gurudev's mercy we have nothing.

Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur gave mercy to Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj gave mercy to our Gurudev—it is called power transmission. Gurudev then bestowed his mercy all over the world, and this is how I now got so many friends like you all—you are all my best friends in spiritual life...

{ 2001  |   2002  |   2003  |   2005  |   2009  |   2010  |   2011  |   2012 }
{ 2013  |   2014  |   2015  |   2016  |   2017  |   2018  |   2019  |   2020  |   2021 }

• Download (3.7 Mb)