Keep Your Promise, Do Your Duty

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
19 July 2015

In Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Krishna spoke about karmis, jnanis, yogis, but what did He finally say?

সর্ব্বধর্ম্মান্ পরিত্যজ্য মামেকং শরণং ব্রজ ।
অহং ত্বাং সর্ব্বপাপেভ্যো মোক্ষয়িষ্যামি মা শুচঃ ॥

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair.

Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66

You think if you give up everything, you will not be taking care of your mother, you will be neglecting the demigods—you will not be making offerings to Durga, Kali, Laksmi, Ganesh—but Krishna said, "When you worship Me, you automatically do all kinds of other pujas." When you offer something to Krishna, when you worship Krishna, then you automatically do puja for Durga, Kali, Ganesh, Laksmi, etc. Krishna says, "Everything comes to Me."

You must think in this way because you have made a promise: when you were in your mother's womb you promised that you would see the Lord with your eyes, you would listen to the talks about the Lord with your ears, you would chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra with your mouth, you would do the Dham parikrama with your legs. You promised that, but if you do not do it—as you sow so you reap!—you will get your result. Sometimes you will become a demon, sometimes you will become a demigod, another time you will become Ganesh, Kartik, or Mother Kali—remember that even Indra, cursed by his Guru Brihaspati, got a pig's body—but all these lives are temporary. We must use our life for the service to the Lord.

I am not telling you to give up your job, what I am telling you is that you must live for the service to the Lord and take what is necessary to maintain your family. Atyahara, do not eat so much; prayasa, do not think that you need so much money; prajalpa, do not talk, gossip so much, but talk little as it is necessary for your service; janasanga, do not to mix with the bad people in your life. Do not waste your time because your time is for the service to the Lord but maya always takes it. You must be careful. For as long as you have been alive in this world, maya has always been taking your time. You must understand it.

Your duty is to serve the Lord. This is the Age of Kali—it is not Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, or Dvapara-yuga. You cannot do fire sacrifice now: even if you do one crore (ten million) fire sacrifices, it will not be equal to one chanting of the Holy Name. So, always chant the Holy Name. When you work, you work with your hands—you can still always chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. That is your life.

If you follow this in your life, you will get your real home. Our parents—our father, mother—our everything is Krishna. We lost Him, and He lost us. After 8,400,000 births and deaths we have got this human body, and if you do not get Krishna in this birth, you will have to again return to this cyclic order. You may not have to go through all 84 lakhs of births again, it may be less because you are doing some pious activities, like coming for Ratha Yatra, going for pilgrimage, etc. but if you practise properly in this life you will get your real home and you will not have to again come and go to take birth and death. I think you do not want to get a pig's body...

Once I asked Gurudev who the Vrindavan monkeys were in their previous lives. Gurudev said that they were Vrindavan babajis before. Here you can wear your spectacles, but can you wear them in Vrindavan? Never. Monkeys are very greedy. So are the Vrindavan babajis—they show phalgu vairagya (false renunciation). For example, in winter they do not wear any clothes. They go for parikrama, posing as big sadhus, and rich people give them blankets. The babajis take the blankets, sell them, and send the money to their families. Once, a babaji came up to me and I gave him five rupees—the babaji got angry and threw the money away. You can see how greedy they are... They put on tilak and show to the world that they are vairagi (renunciants), but it is false renunciation.

You must understand who a real sadhu is. When you go to a real devotee, you will get real devotion...

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