Our Plight and Path

By His Divine Grace
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham
31 May 2013

We suffer so much to get some happiness—materialistic people get so much austerity just to get a little food. Krishna sent us here and He also kept some food for us, but only for a little enjoyment, for some food we are getting so much austerity...

I can tell you one story. There was an old lady who lived in a broken thatched house. One day she cooked some little rice in her clay and mud pot (she was poor and did not have a good expensive stainless steel pot—her pot, like in old days, was made of clay and mud) and went to bring some water from a pond. In the meantime, a dog came inside her house. When it saw the rice, it became very happy (it was very hungry) and put its mouth into the pot to take the rice. The dog pushed its mouth and pushed, tried and tried, but could not reach the rice with its tongue because the pot was too narrow on the top. Finally, the dog put its entire head into the pot—it still could not reach the rice but now it could not also take its head out of the pot...

In the meantime, the old lady came back, "What has happened?! I collected some rice by begging, cooked it and now a dog has put its mouth inside?!" She became very angry and started beating the dog. She beat the dog so much, but the dog could not move because it could not see which way to go—its eyes and whole head was covered by the pot. (We are also like this—we become blind by getting some material things and cannot see which way is good, which way is bad.) At that time, a sadhu, or a brahmachari, was passing by and saw the old lady beating the dog. He immediately took a stone and threw it at the pot—the pot broke and the dog ran away...

You should understand that we are covered by the illusory environment—we are suffering so much, but if by some sukriti we can find a sadhu, the sadhu can open, can break that bondage of the illusory environment. Once we get out of that bondage of the illusory environment, we can see the real way, the real things. That dog could not see which way it should go, but as soon as the pot was broken, it got relief and ran the right way. We are also like this. We are suffering so much now, but if we get some sukriti and get out of the illusory environment, then we will get the nirmal dham—we will be able to see the real things.

To attain that, it is necessary for us to come to a sadhu who can show us our real way. When we are walking to some destination, we can see milestones on the street that show how many kilometres it is to our destination. For example, if we go to Kolkata from here, we will see a milestone that says it is 100 km to Kolkata; five kilometres later, we will see a 95 km milestone, and so on. So, when we go down the real way, we will see these milestone and see how far it is to our destination, then we can understand that we are going down the real way. It is necessary to watch the milestones.

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