Jive Daya, Name Ruchi,
Vaishnava Seva

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
17 May 2015, Sri Nabadwip Dham

Vaishnava seva (বৈষ্ণব সেবা): If you have money, you can do Vaishnav seva; if you have no money, you can talk nicely, humbly with the devotees. If some devotee comes to your house and you have nothing, you can give them a glass water. This is Vaishnav etiquette—if somebody comes to your house, even if it is your enemy, at least you should give them a glass of water. In this way you can increase your service mood properly.

Jive daya (জীবে দয়া): You can give benefit to the jiva souls by using everything for the service to the Lord: you offer a flower, you cook some rice, make chapatis or cut vegetables—it all comes from a tree or a plant, and when you offer everything to the Lord, everybody gets benefit through you. That is called devotion and this is the householder life—to do so that everybody gets benefit from you.

Name ruchi (নামে রুচি): Always chant the Holy Name. It is not necessary to always chant on the mala, but you can always chant without mala—when you are driving your car, etc. You can chant the Holy Name at any time and in any place.

কি শয়নে, কি ভোজনে, কিবা জাগরণে ।
অহর্নিশ চিন্ত কৃষ্ণ, বলহ বদনে ॥

ki sayane, ki bhojane, kiba jagarane
aharnisa chinta krsna, balaha vadane

Whether you are sleeping, eating, or resting, always chant the Name of Krishna.

Sri Chaitanya-bhagavat, Madhya-khanda, 28.28

In this way you can increase your spiritual life. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said, "জীবে দয়া, নামে রুচি, বৈষ্ণব সেবা, jive daya, Name ruchi, Vaishnava seva—this is our only religion, or duty (dharma)."

Who can chant the Holy Name?

দৈন্য, দয়া, অন্যে মান, প্রতিষ্ঠা বর্জ্জন ।
চারিগুণে গুণী হই করহ কীর্ত্তন ॥

dainya, daya, anye mana, pratistha-varjana
chari gune guni hai karaha kirtana

Humility, compassion, honouring others, and giving up prestige—become qualified with these four qualities and chant the Name.

"Humility, kindness, giving honour to others and rejecting, avoiding name and fame." It is not necessary to show others that you are doing some service. If anybody tells me, "You are not doing anything." Yes, I am not doing anything, but I will try to do.

So many gurus eventually fell down because of pratistha—it happened many years ago, at that time you were probably not even born, but you heard about it. They would say, "I am a guru, so every day you must give me arati and wash my feet." They thought they had become big gurus... That is called acharya abhiman. If somebody has acharya abhiman, there is so much danger ahead of them. Maya always surrounds them and any time this kind of problem can come. Bhakti Vinod Thakur compared pratistha to baghini, a tigress: কনক-কামিনী প্রতিষ্ঠা-বাঘিনী, kanak-kamini pratistha-baghini. Pratistha means name and fame: "I have done so much service. I did this, I did that." It means too much ego, abhiman, is coming...

I remember many years ago there was a senior devotee in South America... South American people loved him so much, he had distributed so many books in South and North America, and he was also the first to distribute books there. Gurudev said, "You have so much ego and your ego does not go from there, that is why your future is not good." Now we see that man has no connection with the devotees, and no one knows where he is...

We are actually walking along a sharp knife blade, walking on a rope, and we can fall down any time. If you have guru abhiman, acharya abhiman, your future is very bad.

We are tiny, but our ego is very big. You do some service, but that kind of ego should not come to you. You must think, "I cannot do anything."

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