Pray and Practise

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
19 January 2013

I have told many times that life is very short. We are losing our friends one by one, and we must preach more to increase devotees, to increase our society. More preaching, more sankirtan...

Question: Could you give us some inspiration about vanchha-kalpataru, devotees being like 'wish-fulfilling trees'?

Vaishnav is like a vanchha-kalpataru, a benedictine tree, krpa-sindhu (ocean of mercy). What kind of tree is that? It can give you everything—anything you want. Vaishnav is like that, and Vaishnav, as well as Tulasi, is always installed—it is necessary to install a Deity, but it is not necessary to install a Vaishnav. If you pay obeisance and surrender fully to a Vaishnav, he can give you all mercy, he can give you what you want and even what you do not want. That is vanchha-kalpataru.

Question: How can we get strength and inspiration to chant japa?

If you have material desires, you will not get that strength. First remove offences, remove material desires, and through service, through surrender, you will get the energy to chant. You can look at me. I use myself twenty hours a day—I go to rest only for four hours from twelve to four. Energy will come automatically.

Question: We hear that the Guru does everything and we do not do any service, but we find that some devotee does service better than the others. Why is it that one devotee is successful and another devotee is not?

If that is so, they will fall down. If somebody does something for their own enjoyment, their own self, their own pratistha, then their devotional life will not last.

Question: How can we avoid material desires?

It is very difficult...

কবে নিত্যানন্দ মোরে করি' দয়া ।
ছাড়াইবে মোর বিষয়ের মায়া ॥

kabe nityananda more kari' daya
chhadaibe mora visayera maya

When will Nityananda be compassionate to me and relieve me from the mundane illusion?

("Kabe habe bolo se dina amar" by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

"When will Nityananda Prabhu give me some mercy?" Always cry to Nityananda Prabhu, always pray to Him.

Practise properly and material desires will be removed. If you think that some material desire is coming, you must immediately remove that poisonous root from your heart. You must remove the root, the beginning of it from your heart.

You can see yourself also. When you do something, does your mind go to service or does your mind go to some other job? Do you like doing some good service, or do you like doing other things? You can examine, or test, yourself. If the material desire tree becomes very big, it is very hard to remove that poisonous root, that is why you must think: does your mind go to do some other job or does your mind go to do some service? Are you gradually increasing or decreasing your spiritual life? You can think about it yourself.

Anyhow, you must be always careful and watch when you do not practise properly, when you do not serve properly. You should count how many hours a day you do service and how many hours a day you talk nonsense. There are twenty-four hours in a day—how many hours are you busy eating, sleeping, enjoying, and how many hours are you busy serving? You must give more time to service.

Sometimes devotees go to work and spend eight-ten hours a day outside, but still your mind should always be surrendered to the Lord. You work for some money that is necessary for your maintenance, for the Deity maintenance, but your mind, your heart must think about the Lord, about Gurudev's service. OK? Do like this and you can gradually remove material desires from your heart.

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