Headstrong and Prudent

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Speaking online to the devotees in Delhi
16 October 2011, part 2

We must adjust ourselves and do our service properly. First it is necessary to practise sravanam, kirtanam, smaranam, vandanam, dasyam, sakhyam, atma-nivedanam (hearing, chanting, remembering, offering obeisance, rendering service as a servitor, as a friend, and self-submission).

Do not waste your time. When you sit in your office or sit in your bedroom, you must listen to Gurudev's lecture, Guru Maharaj's lecture, to the lectures of great Vaishnavs, read the scriptures—then you will get the association of Gurudev. It is not necessary to stay with Gurudev in the same room. Sometimes we show false renunciation, we show, "Oh, I am so close to Gurudev!" but only our body is with Gurudev—our mind and heart are with some other place. It is false renunciation. That is why it is necessary to practise sravanam, kirtanam, smaranam, vandanam, dasyam, sakhyam, atma-nivedanam (hearing, chanting, remembering, offering obeisance, rendering service as a servitor, as a friend, and self-submission). If we do not practise properly, we will lose our faith.

Why do devotees fall? Why do devotees practise for thirty years and then go another way, go to another line? What is the reason? Because their faith is not so strong—they do some service emotionally, and after that emotion is gone they go another way. Devotion and emotion are very different from one another, you must understand this.

Wherever you live, practise properly. Householder life is good, it is not a problem. You can make you house Krishna's house. You know that even in Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur's time, when many big-big sannyasis, big-big scholars saw Bhaktivinod Thakur, they would give their full obeisance to him. In Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad's time, Kunja Babu (later his name was Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj) was also a householder, but many sannyasis who lived at the main temple Chaitanya Math in Mayapur would always pay their full obeisance to him. So, through practice, continuous practice, you can make yourself a great devotee.

Use your time properly. When I studied at school, I learnt two proverbs, "Time and tide wait for none," and "Time flies like an arrow." Day by day you are losing your time. You think, "Oh, I could not pass the exam this time, I will pass it next time." But you are losing your time! Whatever you do, you must engage yourself in good things. Why must failure come in your life? That is my question. I cannot tolerate it. When you do something, do it properly. Do you understand? Gurudev told me, "When you do something, you must do it with your full heart and soul." We are wasting our time on talking, gossiping, and doing many things not properly. If you read four-five hours every day, you can easily pass the exam. Easily. But if you are sitting in front of the book but thinking about other things in your mind, then how will you learn anything?

One time, Srila Sridhar Maharaj's sister who was chanting on her beads and Gurudev asked her, "Didi, what you are chanting? Neetu, Satu, Neetu, Satu??" I did not understand what Gurudev meant, and Gurudev explained, "Do you not understand? When she was chanting, she was thinking about her sister's sons called Neetu and Satu." So, always chanting with beads in your hand and at the same time always talking nonsense, gossiping—this is not the chanting process. For example, if you are walking in the street, it is not necessary to carry your chanting beads—you can just walk and always chant Hare Krishna with your mouth or in your mind.

Keep proper hours. Go to sleep at 10 o'clock, wake up early in the morning, do mangal arati and start your job. You can study, you can work, you can do anything you want—the whole day is for you—but the day is not for sleeping, the night is for sleeping. Change your lifestyle, you must keep a proper lifestyle. Why did Lord Himself start the day with mangal arati? It is good for health, good for mind, good for everything. Start the day early in the morning and continue until night 10 o'clock, no problem—you can work the whole day. You must maintain your life in this way, properly. Wake up early in the morning, take shower, go to the Deities' room, do some arati, offer something to the Deity according to your capacity, then start your job, your work. What is the problem? We must adjust our life properly in this way. It is necessary to follow viddhi-marga.

Raghunath Das Goswami Prabhu did service for twenty-two and a half hours. He used his life for service and slept only one and a half hours a day. I am not telling you must all serve the whole night, but you can sleep from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.—six-hour's sleep is sufficient for your life—and the rest of the time practise sravanam, kirtanam, smaranam, vandanam, dasyam, sakhyam, atma-nivedanam (hearing, chanting, remembering, offering obeisance, rendering service as a servitor, as a friend, and self-submission). Chant at all times, it is not necessary to show only four rounds. When you are in the metro or at a railway station, you can chant anywhere, it is not a problem. What is the need to show your chanting beads to everybody? It is not necessary to show anything to anybody. For example, when Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur was overseeing the construction, managing the building, he would chant at that time on his beads.

Maintain your life properly in this way, otherwise our life is only a short time, Prabhu. You think each day your lifetime is increasing but it is not increasing—day by day it is only decreasing. Each day we lose a day from our life. Life is very short. Krishna gave us a human body for the service to the Lord. We must be proper humans, we must engage ourselves in proper, good works. It is not a problem to live a householder life. I am not saying everybody must become a sannyasi. Sannyas is only for preaching, but for practising life householder life is good.

When Sivananda Sen asked Mahaprabhu, "Prabhu, we live a householder life, what shall we do at our houses? What is our duty?" Mahaprabhu said, "Bari giye koro Vaishnava-seva, Nama-sankirtan, achirat tumi pabe Krsna-prema-dhan: Go back to your home, chant the Holy Name and serve the Vaishnavs, and you will get the wealth of love for Krishna very soon." This is your duty. You can go to your home, you can go to work—it is also Vaishnav seva. You work, you earn money and you use the money for Vaishnav seva—you buy some fruit, your giving it to the Lord, give it to Gurudev, that is also Vaishnav seva. You can work, do business and use the money you earn for the Guru, for the Deity, etc. Your house is Krishna's house, so when you pay the rent, when you buy something, it is for Krishna's house. And also you take prasadam.

প্রসাদ-সেবা করিতে হয়
সকল প্রপঞ্চ জয়

prasada-seva karite haya,
sakala prapancha-jaya

"By honouring the Lord's prasad I conquer all worldly illusions."

(Saranagati, 31.5, by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

If you take prasadam, all bad elements, all bad things will be removed. You must understand this.

Practise properly in this way and you will easily succeed in your spiritual life, in your practising life. Do what is necessary for practising life, but do not waste time on gramya-katha (gossiping), gramya-varta (listening to news, gossips), do not listen to so many bad things, do not talk so many bad things. This is not our line! You must realise how many hours from early in the morning you spend on the Lord and how many hours you spend on nonsense things. Working is not nonsense things, but gossiping, talking about bad things is wasting your time.

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