Sri Guru:
Mercy, Heart, and Service

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Speaking to the Ukrainian devotees,
2 October 2014

[A devotees begins to cry.]

Why is she crying?

—She says she is missing you, Gurudev...

Why? I am always with you, no problem. Do not worry, I am still alive, and I am always with you.

When Chaitanya Mahaprabhu left this world, Svarup Damodar left this world, Raghunath Das Goswami went to Vrindavan. There, he thought, "In the absence of my Guru, after the disappearance of my Guru, I see the Govardhan Hill looks like a tiger coming to eat me!" He thought like that and felt so much separation.

Yes, sometimes separation comes, but you can listen to my lectures... Also, it is necessary to surrender fully to your Guru, because you cannot observe the Guru with your eyes—you must observe your Guru with your heart.

You can understand it from this Pastime. At first, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya said, "Mahaprabhu is not the Lord, He is not an avatar." He could not admit that Mahaprabhu was the Lord, but Gopinath Acharya told him, "You cannot recognise Mahaprabhu with your knowledge and intelligence. You need mercy of Mahaprabhu: if you have got mercy, you can recognise who Mahaprabhu is." Through sastra, through knowledge you can understand many things, but without the mercy of the Guru you cannot observe the Guru—you cannot realise, cannot understand who the Guru is, what the Guru's position is. That is why Gopinath Acharya told Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya, "You have no mercy, that is why you cannot recognise Mahaprabhu—that is your answer; but I have mercy and I can recognise who Mahaprabhu is."

Acharyam mam vijaniyan. Sri Krishna said to Uddhav Maharaj, "The acharya, the Guru, is nondifferent from Me—he is My svarup-sakti. Do not think that the Guru is an ordinary man—you should think he is nondifferent from Me." You must understand this.

The disciples will see their Guru as being nondifferent from Krishna. Godbrothers will think in another way, other devotees will think in some other way, but the disciples will think that the Guru is not just an uttam-bhagavat (a Vaishnav of the highest position) but he is actually nondifferent from Krishna.

Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur also often told this story. A man was born in a very dark place and had never seen the sun. When somebody came to him and asked, "Do you want to see the sun?", he was going to bring a kerosine lamp or some torch with him to see it; but if you want to see the sun, it is not necessary to take any lamp because the sun has its own light. You can see the sun by its own light. Similarly, to recognise the Guru you must have the clear mental eyes in your heart, must have chastity, then if you want to see the Guru, you can easily see him; but you cannot recognise the Guru physically or bodily. Just as when you want to see the sun, it is not necessary to take any lamps, if you want to see the Guru, it is not necessary to have anything to see the Guru.

There is also this story in Mahabharata. One time, Krishna came to the Kauravs and said, "I have some good proposal. I propose peace, it is not necessary for the Pandavs and the Kauravs to fight..." However, Duryodhan wanted to conspire against Krishna. His plan was that if Krishna came to them, they would arrest Him, and then all the Pandavs' would die of heart failure. Duryodhan gave an order to Duhsasan, "When Krishna comes, tie him!" So, when Krishna came with the peace proposal, Duhsasan was going to tie Him. Seeing it, Satyaki came forward with a sword and wanted to kill Duhsasan, but Krishna stopped him and showed His visva-rupa, the universal form. Duhsasan was very surprised, "How many Krishnas are there? I see millions and millions of Krishna! How many Krishnas can I tie?!" Duhsasan saw how Arjun, Baladev, Bisma, Drona, and everybody else were worshipping Krishna. He was perplexed and did not know what to do. In the meantime, blind King Dhritarastra could hear some noise was coming. He wondered, "What is happening?" Somebody told him, "Krishna is showing His visva-rupa!" Dhritarastra also wanted to see that visva-rupa, and he began to pray and cry, "O Lord, please remove my blindness! You can again make me blind later but please remove my blindness so that I could see Your visva-rupa!" Krishna said to him, "It is not necessary to remove your blindness. You can see Me now!" So, even blind King Dhritarastra could see Krishna's visva-rupa.

So understanding this, you may ask, "How will I get that mercy of Gurudev, of Nityananda Prabhu?"

Gurudev said, "If you serve devotees, Krishna will come to serve you." So, if you serve the devotees of Gauranga Mahaprabhu, Nityananda Prabhu will come to serve you—this is how you will get mercy of Nityananda Prabhu.

You may have heard before how once when Mahaprabhu, Sachi Mata, Vishnupriya and many other devotees were in the house of Mahaprabhu's birthplace in Mayapur, suddenly Nityananda Prabhu came in naked. Mahaprabhu at once put some cloth on Him. After that, how did Mahaprabhu save the devotees? He knew that some devotees could make an offence, some may think something bad about Nityananda Prabhu, so He asked Nityananda Prabhu, "Please, can You give Your kaupin (a piece of your clothes)?" Nityananda Prabhu gave Him some cloth, and Mahaprabhu tore it into small pieces and gave each of the devotees a piece. He told them, "Keep this piece of cloth with you and you can conquer all your senses and control all kinds of bad elements."

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