Straight Line

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Speaking online to devotees in the Philippines
22 August 2011, part 5

Are there any questions from the devotees?

Question: Maharaj, I have one question—when will you give me mercy, blessings to come to India again?

You are already blessed by Gurudev! You are a good devotee, you have a good heart, you are already blessed by Gurudev.

I am very happy to hear you all. Always engage yourself in sravanam and kirtanam. Always offer the bhog. You may not always be able to read Bhagavatam, but you must always chant kirtans from the Kirtan Guide. Always chant kirtans, you can play kartals and chant. That will be good. Chant any kirtan you like—Nitai's songs, Mahaprabhu's songs, Krishna's songs, Radharani's songs, they are all very nice. Sing them some time, it will be good for you.

Question: Could you explain to the new devotees the practice of chanting on japa-mala?

Yes, I can explain it, no problem.

Actually, there are four ages (yugas)—Satya, Treta, Dvapar, and Kali. In Satya-yuga, people did meditation—at that time their lifespan was 100,000 years, so they did meditation for 60-70,000 of those years. This is how they got the association of God. That was in Satya-yuga. In Treta-yuga, people's lifespan was 10,000 years, and at that time people made fire sacrifices (yajna)—they made horse sacrifice (asvamedha-yajna) and many other kinds of opulent sacrifices. They would use mountains and mountains, millions of millions kg of ghee. In Dvapar-yuga, people's lifespan was 1,000 years. They only engaged in Deity worship (puja), this was their way to worship the Lord. But now, in Kali-yuga, the lifespan is only 120 years. One day in Dvapar-yuga, Krishna was sitting under a tamarind tree and seeing His shadow He thought, "Oh, I am so beautiful! Why does Radharani cry for Me? Why does She chant My Name?" Wondering about this, Krishna made a promise, "I will come to this world in the form of My Name!"

So, Krishna's Name, this Hare Krishna maha-mantra, is nondifferent from the Lord. Actually, Krishna's Name, His beauty, His pastimes, His associates are all non-different from Krishna Himself, and only Krishna Himself or His associates can give Krishna, can give Krishna's Name to others.

This Name comes through a Guru-parampara—from Krishna to Brahma, from Brahma to Narad, from Narad to Vyasadev, and in this way the Name comes to Madhva Acharya and then to Madhavendra Puri who is the main root of our line. Madhavendra Puri then gave initiation into the Name to Iswar Puri, and Ishwar Puri gave initiation to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the Lord Himself, but He shows us, He teaches us that it is necessary to take initiation from a Guru, that is why He Himself also took initiation from Ishwar Puri. After that, the Name came to Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, then Srila Prabhupad Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur and then our Param Guru Maharaj Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj who is the founder-acharya of our society, of our temple. Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj then gave his power to our Gurudev, Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, who gave me an order in his lifetime, "You can give beads (japa-mala) to those who are sincere seekers, to those who want to chant the Holy Name..."

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