Rupa-Siksa:
The Ultimate Gardening Guide

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham, Samadhi-mandir class
14 June 2015

[His Divine Grace is reading from Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, chapter 19:]

The souls come and go, come and go, come and go in this cyclic order, and the fortunate souls get, by the mercy of Guru and Krishna, a seed of devotion—a seed of pure devotional activities, bhakti-lata-bija. Having got that seed, the soul starts taking care of it:

The soul becomes a mali, gardener. When you make a garden and plant some seeds, you must then take care of those seeds. Gurudev puts the seed in your heart, but you are the one who must take care of that seed—Guru will not take care of it for you.

What will you do? Will you go to bad association? Will you do what is favourable to devotion or what is unfavourable to devotion? Will you follow what you mind tells you or will you follow your Gurudev's instruction? It is up to you.

Suppose you are sick. You go to a doctor and the doctor (Gurudev) gives you a prescription, but if you do not follow the prescription, if you do not take the medicine, how will you get relief from the disease? So, Gurudev has given you the seed, but you must take care of it properly.

So, suppose you have a flower garden. If you do not water and give nourishment to the trees, the trees will soon die. Trees need water. What is the water for the jiva soul and the devotional seed? Sravanam and kirtanam—hearing and doing kirtan. That is your water! Just as a tree needs real water, your devotional seed also needs real water—sravan and kirtan are necessary.

Then that bhakti-lata-bij, the seed of devotional creeper, sprouts and eventually becomes a tree that grows very tall.

For example, you can see this jackfruit tree here. For the tree to grow tall you must cut the branches—if you do not trim it, the tree will not grow very tall. In the same way, you have so many bad material desires, they are like the branches that prevent the tree from growing. If you do not cut these branches, they become obstacles in your spiritual life.

What are these branches?

Bhukti (material desires), mukti (desire for liberation), vancha (any other desires), as well as nisiddha achar (unnecessary things), jiva-himsa (killing chickens, goats, cows, eating eggs), kutinati (deceit), labh (always thinking, "I want some gain"), puja (desiring that others worship you), pratistha (you want name and fame, you want to be a very big personality)—these all are unwanted branches, upasakha, the main obstacles in your spiritual life. Because of these bad desires in your heart your devotional activities will not increase.

It says here what happens if you do not get rid of all those material desires. For example, you are hungry today and think, "Oh, I am so hungry but the prasadam is not so good today. I will eat out today—I have some money, I can go to a hotel and get something there." Another day you think, "I want a little more..." another day again, "A little more," and you end up thinking, "What is the big deal? Nobody sees me, I can have some eggs in the hotel!" (But He who has to see it, will see it—He knows you sneak out to a hotel.)

Seka-jala means that if you cut a branch and put some medicine there, another branch will come. I saw in a newspaper once that a hundred kinds of mangoes grew on one tree (they cut a branch and put there a branch from another mango tree, joining it with some medicine). So, if some bad desire comes to your mind, you must finish it there, finish it at the root and throw it away. If, however, you give shelter to that desire, it will grow and grow—the branch will grow bigger and bigger—and one day your devotional activities will be finished.

When some desire just comes to you, you must finish it there. If you finish it at the root, your tree will grow on to Vrindavan.

This is written here, and who is saying it? Mahaprabhu is saying this to Srila Rupa Goswami.

Then the mali, the gardener, gets a benedictine tree!

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Rupa and Sanatan
• First Encounter
• Running Away
• On the way to
Mahaprabhu
• Finishing Visaya

Rupa-siksa:
• Meeting Mahaprabhu
• Empowering Srila Rupa Goswami
• Rare, Rarer, the Rarest
• The Ultimate Gardening Guide
• Pure Devotion

Santan-sikha:
Sambandha:
• Supreme Personality of Godhead
• The Three Worlds
• Brahmas' Realm
• Krishna's Beauty
Abhidheya:
• Maya's Family
• The Cry of a Surrendered Soul
• Breaking Free
• Delusion of Liberation
• Leaving Ulterior Motive
• When Krishna Gives Mercy
• Awakening Taste for Service
• Full Faith
• Power Transmission
• Surrender in Good Association
• Six Limbs of Surrender
• Sixty-Four Devotional Practices
• Spontaneous Loving Devotion
Prayojan:
• The Path to the Supreme Goal
• Hero and Heroine
• "You Are Mine!"
• The All-Attractive Lord