Practise and Believe

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
24 June 2013

It is necessary to think about this. You must be asakti (আসক্তি): have no material attachment. If you remove material desires from your heart, you will get great happiness through that. For this reason I am telling the devotees how to practise the abhideya tattva, the main things.

Sadhu-sanga, sravan, kirtan. Sravan and kirtan are necessary—every morning, every evening, all the time. You can do kirtan during the working time, while eating, sleeping. Always think about Krishna, about the Lord and connect whatever you do with Krishna, with practising Krishna consciousness, then it will become abhideya tattva, practising life.

Whatever you cook, do not cook for yourself. If you cook for Krishna, it will be service and it will be connected with the Lord, then it will be a full practising life. If you follow this, you will be happy all your life and it will be not necessary to go back to your previous karma. Try to understand it.

I always want to engage devotees in service, and always think that they should engage themselves properly. Pariksit Maharaj said, "I have eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and so on, but what shall I do with it? If I use these five senses, pancham indriya (chaksu, karna, nasika, jihva, tvak—eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin), fully for Krishna consciousness; if I use man, buddhi, ahankar (mind, intelligence, ego) for Bhagavatam, for the Lord, then even though I have only seven days left, it will be good for me."

Uddhav Maharaj also asked Krishna in Srimad Bhagavatam, you can read it there, "What is this heavy head on my shoulders for?" You must make it light. If you pay obeisance to the Lord, to Guru, Vaishnav, Bhagavan, your head will become light. You can use everything—your hands, legs, head, nose, mouth—for the service to the Lord. That will be good for you, and it will be proper practising.

I have told it many times: who is your enemy? The mind is your enemy.

ঐছন আমার মন ফিরে যেন অন্ধজন
সুপথ বিপথ নাহি জানে

aichhana amara mana phire yena andha jana
supatha vipatha nahi jane

'Thakura Vaishnava-gana' by Srila Narottam Das Thakur

"The mind is always blind, it does not know which way to go." If you get some intelligence, some good guidance, then you can control the mind and that guidance will take you in the good direction—towards Krishna consciousness.

You think that you will finish this life after death, you postpone, "I will do it later," but you have got time now—a moment after a moment, an hour after an hour, a day after a day, a month after a month, and a whole year passes. We are finishing our time, and the time goes very quickly, so we must realise what is necessary for our spiritual life. Practising is necessary.

Bhakti anukul (ভক্তি-অনুকূল, accepting what is favourable to devotion), enthusiasm, not losing faith and keeping dridha-visvas (দৃঢ়-বিশ্বাস, strongest faith), are necessary for our practising life. It is necessary to reject what is not in favour of devotion. Atyahar, অত্যাহার, eating too much, prajalpa, প্রজল্প, talking so many nonsense things, taking bad association—these are obstacles in our spiritual life. We want to keep so much for our own self and always think, "I want this, I want this, I want this." Be satisfied with what you have got: "It is OK. Everything happens by the will of Krishna." If you think in this way, you will get full relief from that. Do you understand? It is necessary to follow this.

It is the main preaching of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, of Gaudiya Math: simple living, high thinking. Back to God, back to home. We are not Indian, we are not Russian, we are not Pakistani, we are not Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, or Muslim. We are jiva souls, we came from the same place and must go back to our own home.

We go from place to place with our bad karma. If we are a goat, we have a house; if we are a dog we have a house; if we are a human, we have a house—everybody has everything, but where are our own things, our own life, our own home? We must go to the Lord, who controls everything, but we do not see that.

For example, if you are in Kolkata, you cannot see America from there, and you think, "No, there is no such country as the USA," but through Internet, through television you can understand that there is America, and if you go to America, you can see there is a country there. So, we think Krishna does not exist, we cannot see Krishna—where is Krishna? If you practise, if you come to this line, you can see and realise Krishna exists.

Krishna said in Srimad Bhagavatam, "I am alone before pralaya, then I create Brahma and tell him to create the whole world." In this way, this world is running on the order of Lord Krishna, day by day, year by year.

So, suppose you are here and think, "I am here in Kolkata, there are not any other countries," but if you go to another country, you can see that it exists. So, you think there is no other world, but if you go to Siva-loka, Brahma-loka, Tal, Atal, Talatal, and so on, you can see that it all exists. If we practise, we will be able to believe, but our problem is that if we do not see something we do not believe in it.

If you have proper faith, if you practise properly, you can easily understand that many worlds exist in this universe, and you can read in Srimad Bhagavad-gita that our religion is jaiva-dharma (religion of the soul). Krishna creates everything in this world for His own benefit, but we are using it for our own purpose. That is the problem: we use His property, His things for our own purpose, and that is why we scream and suffer. We must serve Krishna, must realise that all property is His property and use it for His benefit. It is very important.

We offer food to Krishna and it is necessary to believe that Krishna takes it and also gives the food for His service—to His devotees and servitors. He always protects His devotees. To believe this is called faith.

'শ্রদ্ধা' শব্দে—বিস্বাস কহে সুদৃঢ় নিশ্চয় ।
কৃষ্ণে ভক্তি কৈলে সর্ব্বকর্ম্ম কৃত হয় ॥

'sraddha'-sabde—visvasa kahe sudrdha nischaya
krsne bhakti kaile sarva-karma krta haya

Sraddha means confident, firm faith that by serving Krishna you automatically perform all other activities.

Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 22.62

If you serve Krishna, you can easily understand it yourself...

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay!

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