Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math:
Gate to Bhakti-Jagat

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

The day after tomorrow is the disappearance festival of our Param Gurudev Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. What did he make Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math for? What kind of simple and sweet things did he give us for our spiritual life? It is necessary for everybody to understand this.

We all actually always think about ourselves, even when we renounce something, we also do it for ourselves, but both this bhog (exploitation) and tyag (renunciation) are very dangerous. Somebody is enjoying their life, doing bhog, somebody is renouncing something, but both are dangerous. What did Vedavyas say? What do the Vedas say? Everything in this life is sacrifice, and everything should be surrender, should be for the Lord.

Once in Prabhupad Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur's time, devotees joined the Gaura Purnima festival and after the festival everybody came to Prabhupad because they were going back to their houses. They told Prabhupad, "We are going back home," but Prabhupad Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur asked them, "Are you not cheating me?" Srila Sridhar Maharaj heard this and wondered, "What has happened? Why is Prabhupad saying this? Everybody came for the festival and when the festival finished they are going back to their homes, why is it cheating?" Srila Prabhupad explained, "You have promised me that you would worship Lord Krishna, you would do Hari-bhajan and because of that I have entered into a relationship with you, but now you are going back to your home and will forget everything, you will not practise properly. This is what I call cheating."

Srila Sridhar Maharaj said also: you say, "We are going back home, but we will come back!" but I say, "You do not know if you can come back or not. You leave your service and think you can return to it later, but it is not sure." Even if you say your house is burning and you are going home to put the fire out and then will come back, still I will say, "It is not necessary." Even if your house is destroyed, you will never be destroyed. You are jivatma, a jiva soul, and you can never be destroyed or burnt.

So, when you have got this kind of opportunity you must not lose it.

This teaching is very important for us in our life. It is very important to understand what Srila Sridhar Maharaj writes in his books, what he wants to say to us, but for that you must read the books.

Gurudev also said that if you cannot finish your practising life until your death, if you cannot practise as long as you live in this body, then some problem will come to you. This human body is a very rare opportunity. You will always get an opportunity to do everything else—whatever enjoyment you have, you had it before too, even more than now (for example, when you were a bird, you had a much better vision than now). You have some property, or wealth—chaksu, karna, nasika, jihva, tvak (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin)—and must use it properly.

If you have eyes, you can see that there is beauty in the world, you can see a world of beauty (rupa-jagat); if you have ears, hearing power, then you can understand that there exists a world of sound (sabda-jagat); and if you have faith (sraddha), then you can feel that there is a world of devotion (bhakti-jagat). On the other hand, if somebody has no power of vision, no eyes, they are blind, all the beauty that exists in the world is nothing for them; if somebody has no power of hearing, then all the sounds that exist in the world are nothing for them; and in the same way if somebody has no devotion (bhakti), no faith (sraddha), then the world of devotion (bhakti-jagat) does not exist for them, it is nothing for them and they cannot understand what it is.

Srila Sridhar Maharaj made this temple Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in 1941, but what did he make it for? He made it for only one purpose: to tell about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's teachings, about Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur's teachings. That is why it is necessary for us to understand what teachings he gave to us. That teaching can create harmony and relates to everyone. We are all searching for beauty—we can find that beauty in this teaching, the beauty when everybody is happy. We all want happiness, we all search for pleasure, ananda, and this teaching can give it to us. If we can practise this teaching properly, then we can get such happiness.

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