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His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
19 March 2014

There are so many people on this earth, but there are very few who truly engage in the service to the Lord. It is said in the scriptures that those who can help you in Krishna consciousness are your real best friends ("sei pita pita non, sei bandhu bandhu non, sei mata mata non...")...

In his last days Gurudev said he was hopeless about the Indian devotees. Thousands of devotees come for parikrama, but they do not understand anything, do not know anything—instead of doing parikrama they make so many offences to the Dham. How do you do parikrama? You come to the Holy Dham, and you must do parikrama on your head, not on your legs. If you come and make offences, you will eventually go away from this line.

বিষয়ে যে প্রীতি এবে আছয়ে আমার ।
সেই মত প্রীতি হউক চরণে তোমার ॥

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara
sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

"May I have the same affection and attraction to your feet that I now have for material things."

(Gitavali, 4.5, Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

You have love for your house, money, for your own property, your children, and so on, but that kind of love, that kind of feeling must come to your Guru and the Vaishnavs. You have love and affection for your mother, but that kind of feeling must come for your Guru's service. Bengali devotees think that first comes service to the parents, to their wife or husband, then only service to the Guru and Vaishnavs. If we feel like this, then eventually we will lose our service and forget everything. Now you have got consciousness, you have got Krishna consciousness, but it will gradually go away because of other desires in your heart. That is why we must be very careful with our service, careful about our position.

Position is actually nothing. "I am an Acharya," "I am a big Guru," "You must worship me," "You must serve me," "You must pay obeisance to me," "You must do arati for me"—if such feeling comes to your heart then it is easy to fall down from this line.

We are foolish, we do not understand this. We have no good brain or intelligence... What is then the main solution in this age of Kali? The scriptures tell it to us many times. If we do not follow the scriptures properly, if we do not get proper association, we will suffer in our life. It is necessary to understand this.

As Prabhupad Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur said, this feeling must come to us, "No matter what I will never leave the service to the Lord." We must always think about this. There is so much suffering, there are so many problems, but you have heard the story of the Pandavs—the Pandavs suffered so much, but they did not leave Krishna, they always stayed with Him. "মারবি রাখবি—যো ইচ্ছা তোমার, marabi rakhabi, yo ichchha tomara: You can kill me, You can save me—as You wish." You give so many things to Krishna, but you must give yourself to Krishna, to the Lord's lotus feet.

Also do not become envious. If somebody does not want your good, you can ask the Lord for their good. We must have such quality, must learn to be like this. I remember when I was a schoolboy I learned this phrase, "If you are bad, why will I not be good?"

We must understand what is necessary for service.

hari sevaya yaha anukula
visaya baliya tyage haya bhula

"It is wrong to reject something favourable to the service of the Lord, saying, 'It is visaya, material.'"

'asakti-rahita,' 'sambandha-sahita,'
visaya-samuha sakali 'madhava'

When you become free from material attachment and establish relationship with the Lord, you will see that everything around you is Lord Madhav Himself.

(Prabhupad Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur)

We must have no attachment, asakti-rahita, and have disinterested nature, but with the relationship with the Lord—everything must be used for the service to the Lord. In this world everything is created not for you—you are not the enjoyer, Krishna is the only enjoyer. You must remember this always and follow this. You must have not only no attachment to other women and men, but even to your own wife. If you think about it, you can easily understand these things.

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