Die To Live

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Speaking online to the devotees in Caracas
4 August 2013

Question: Could you please say something about Srila Guru Maharaj's teaching "Die to live"?

Yes, it is easy. If you die to live, you will come to service, to the surrendered mood. "Die to live" means a surrendered mood.

We have joined Krishna consciousness and we will not wait for death—no, we have got this human body and we must finish everything while we are in this body. Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur says that you have a dog's brain. I have told you many times that you will always get everything—sleeping, enjoying, pleasure, you got it all before and you will get it all in the future also. When a bona fide Guru gives you some advice, like Srila Sridhar Maharaj said "die to live," this is a simple matter—it means you had before and you will always have in the future an opportunity to enjoy, but you will not always get an opportunity to practise Krishna consciousness.

What is your life for, then? You have to be like a suicide squat—you must think, "I have joined Krishna consciousness, and it is my life, this is what I am alive for, this is what I got this human body for." But if you think that everything is yours, this is a wrong idea. Everything in this world is for the service to Krishna, and we must do everything for Him.

For example, you plant a coconut or a mango tree at your house. The mango tree will grow and give mangoes, but the tree cannot take its mango itself. The tree lives under the shelter of the person who plants the tree, so the person who plants the mango tree, the proprietor of the tree, enjoys the mangoes. In the same way, we also think that we are not the enjoyers, we cannot take anything—everything exists for Krishna. Those who got a human body and who are intelligent will think, "This human body is not for me, it is for Krishna."

Everybody should understand this. We must surrender to the Lord and do everything for the service to the Lord, for the happiness of the Lord.

Srila Sridhar Maharaj also gave one very nice example. Suppose some government gives money to a policeman and tells him, "You must kill this man." If the policeman does it, he will get a reward because he has done it for the benefit of the government. On the other hand, if that same policeman takes a bribe from somebody and the government finds out about it, he will get punishment. Do you understand what I am saying? When the policeman does something for the government, he gets rewarded, so in the same way if you do something for the Lord, you will get benefitted, you will get a reward, but if you do something for your own self, you will get punishment.

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