Stri-Sanga and Jiva-Himsa

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
28 October 2015

You should not do para-stri-sanga (do not associate with the opposite sex). There are eight types of stri-sanga. For example, you have a wife, now she is not so beautiful and when you see a beautiful girl on the street, you think, "Oh, she is so beautiful. I'd like to be with her." Or, you just see a girl and some bad desire comes to your mind—this is also stri-sanga, and it is also bad. The same is true for women. You must avoid stri-sanga and purush-sanga (men should not mix with women; women should not mix with men). This is described in the scriptures.

Also, it is said in the scriptures that you must avoid jiva-himsa, violence towards other jiva souls. Do not kill other souls. So, from today, do not eat and do not cook any fish, meat, poultry, eggs, onion, garlic, or masoor dal. Eat vegetarian food.

Actually, vegetarian food is also not the remedy—you must take prasad. Offer what you cook to the Lord with a Tulasi leaf, then take prasad.

Every action has equal and opposite reaction, so if today you kill a chicken, that chicken will eventually get a human birth, and what happens to you? You kill a chicken and will become a chicken in some future birth. So, do not kill other jivas, it is called suna, or jiva-himsa. You may, of course, ask, "Maharaj, but a pumpkin also has life, sak also has life..." The answer is there.

It is true, everything has life, but when you cook, who do you cook for? You do not cook for yourself—you cook for Radha Vallabha. You do not commit the sin for yourself—when you do some sin for Govinda, that is not a sin, it comes within the nirgun plane. Do you understand what I am saying? Will you remember it?

When you walk, so many insects and ants are killed, but you do not kill them for yourself. When you drink water, how many jiva souls die? When you harvest and prepare rice, how many souls die? The difference is we do not do this for ourselves. You harvest, thresh, and cook rice, but you do it for Govinda, not for yourself. At your home too you can cook for Govinda.

The grihastha devotees stay in their houses, maintain a family, but they maintain Krishna's family. Cook something, put a Tulasi leaf, and offer it to the Lord, the Deity, "O Lord, I have cooked this for You, and I am giving it to You." Then, after the Lord takes it, take the plate, put the offered food on your plate, and from your plate you can take that prasad (you give to the Lord on the Lord's plate, and take prasad from your plate).

It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita that you if you take some food without offering it to the Lord, it means you steal it and eat it, then you will enjoy sin. If you eat, if you work or do some karma for your own self, it means you enjoy sin.

প্রসাদ-সেবা করিতে হয়
সকল প্রপঞ্চ জয়

prasada-seva karite haya,
sakala prapancha-jaya

"By honouring the Lord's prasad I conquer all worldly illusions."

(Saranagati, 31.5, by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

Follow all this, and always chant the Holy Name—when you eat, lie down, sit, or even in the bathroom. You come to the bathroom, chant, "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare," you take water from the bucket, you take bath, etc., chant—just chant and nothing else.

Also, do not use bad language, do not talk about bad things. If you talk about bad things with other people (gramya-katha, gramya-varta), you will forget everything. If you hear something, or if somebody tells you something, do not keep it in your mind—it must enter in one ear and come out of the other ear. OK?

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