It Is All About Consciousness

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Speaking to devotees in Salt Lake City, USA
16 October 2011, part 2

I have told many times that we must stay all together—unity is strength. We must preach and continue our movement together, and as much as we have capacity we must preach—preach to the devotees and go door to door looking for anyone who wants Krishna consciousness. "'Gaudiya' pathao ghare ghare: you [Srila Prabhupad] send Gaudiya messengers door to door." We must preach door to door.

We do not think about it, but one day we must die; we are born one day, and one day we will have to die—one day this body will be damaged. Time and tide wait for none. Every day we lose one day from our life, our age is not increasing—on the contrary, day by day we are losing one day of our life. That is why we must use ourselves in a proper way.

If you like family life, it is not a problem, but if you stay in a family life, make your family Krishna's family. You are working, but you must work for the Deities, for the devotees. That is life, and that will be my happiness if you can live in this way. Use everything for service. You may be working in an office, but you must think about Mahaprabhu, "When, how will Mahaprabhu come from Nabadwip?" That is our happiness. You should think, "When is Mahaprabhu coming? When will we have move devotees? I am chanting the Holy Name, but I am not satisfied—I will be happier if I can engage somebody else in chanting." This will give you move sukriti.

When somebody falls down, slips up, or sinks in a pond, when somebody does not follow Gurudev's line, that is our sadness. We must pray to Gurudev for them, "Gurudev, please bring them back. We are one family and we want to stay all together. Please bring them back!" Why be matsarya? Why be jealous or envious of others? Your heart must be nirmatsaranam (free of jealousy). There should be no jealousy in your mood. Try to understand this.

I am very happy that you are preaching and that you continue having programmes every weekend. Once, Sivananda Sen asked Mahaprabhu, "Prabhu, we are going back to our village after the Ratha-yatra, what is our duty there?" Mahaprabhu said, "Bari giye koro Vaisnava-seva, Nama-sankirtana: go back to your home and do Vaishnav-seva and Nama-sankirtan, then you will get the lotus feet of Lord very soon (achirat tumi pabe Krishna-prema-dhan)."

It is necessary to do Vaishnav-seva (serve the Vaishnavs) and Nama-sankirtan (chant the Holy Name, preach). You may be working somewhere outside, but you are doing Vaishnav-seva, you are doing service. That is the main thing. Somebody becomes sad thinking, "Oh, I am working in an office," or thinking, "Oh, I am busy doing business," but this is not a problem—you are working or doing business for the Lord. That is also service. It is necessary to understand this.

This is how you must maintain your family life, and day by day we must also increase our family. We must follow viddhi-marga (we must practise properly following rules and regulations), then our life style will be very nice. Why did Prabhupad and Sriman Mahaprabhu make mangal-arati? Day time is for working, night is for sleeping, and we should always start the day from mangal-arati—we should start the day from service. After that, you have the whole day to work, you can come back at 10 o'clock in the evening and go to sleep. We must continue our life in this way.

Sometimes devotees work outside—it is not a problem. You may work outside but you are thinking about the Lord. Somebody can be staying with Gurudev—only their body is with Gurudev, but their heart and mind are outside, in another place. That is not service, that is called false renunciation. But if somebody works in an office but thinks about Mahaprabhu, about their Guru, that is service.

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