Ludicrous Laziness

By His Divine Grace
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham
1 June 2013, part 4

Prabhupad Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur always taught about brahmacharis. Sometimes he would say that four kinds of people live in the temple—arthah, artha-arthi, jijnasuh, jnani (those who are suffering, who seek happiness, the inquisitive, and the self-realized). So, he told these two stories "Pi pu, Phi sho" ('পি পু', 'ফি শো') and "Gomph-khejure" (গোঁফ খেজুরে) about lazy, idle people.

'Gomp' means moustache and 'khejure' means dates. (In May-June we always get dates—we also have a dates tree at the Govinda Kunda, behind the Sevak Ashram building.) The story was in a village in old days when there was no electricity: people would always sit, rest or sleep under a tree in the afternoon on a straw mat. Some people however can be very lazy. One time, a date fell on the moustache of one man lying under the tree. Somebody said to him, "Hey, look! The date got ripe and has fallen on your moustache!" but the man replied, "Oh, I cannot move my hand to put it into my mouth... Can you put it into my mouth, please?"

That is "gomph-khejure"—the date is already there on his moustache, so near his mouth, but still he does not eat it—how lazy the man is! That is called a lazy person.

And another story Srila Prabhupad told is "Pi-pu, Phi-sho". Two brahmacharis shared one of the rooms in a house. One night, they were sleeping under a mosquito net in their beds when suddenly there started a fire in the house. It was winter, so it was very cold, and when the house started burning, the two brahmacharis thought, "Oh, how nice and warm!" They continued sleeping. The fire spread further—now their bed was on fire and the mosquito net was burning. One of them wanted to say to the other one, "My back is burning!" but instead of saying "pith purche" (পিঠ্ পুড়্ছে, back burning) he could only say, "Pi pu" [Ba' bu']. The other one, hearing his friend, wanted to answer, "OK, turn over..." but instead of saying "phire sho" (ফিরে শো, turn over), all he could say was, "Phi sho" [Tu' o']. How lazy they are—their back is burning but still they do not want to wake up or move in the bed or even say anything!

In this way, Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur told us that in the same way people often come to the temple and become lazy—they do not do any service, but only eat and sleep all the time...

· · • • • · ·

{ 2001  |   2002  |   2003  |   2005  |   2009  |   2010  |   2011  |   2012 }
{ 2013  |   2014  |   2015  |   2016  |   2017  |   2018  |   2019  |   2020  |   2021 }

• Download (1.1 Mb)