The Bliss of Solitude

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham, 27 February 2015

I told yesterday this story of Prabhupad Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur. Suppose there is an elephant and an ant. The ant says, "Oh, the elephant eats so much!" and some may think that because the ant eats little it is a sadhu, but the elephant carries Lord Krishna on its back, so while the elephant does some service, the ant only bites.

Eat as much as you can digest—"প্রসাদ আকণ্ঠ করিয়া ভোজন সারা দিন কর নাম-সংকীর্ত্তন, prasad akantha kariya bhojan, sara din koro sankirtan, eat up to your neck and chant the Holy Name the whole day." No problem.

If you go into false renunciation, thinking, "Oh, I should not to stay here, better I go to Hrishikesh, stay there under a tree, and do bhajan," you will become that kind of a sannyasi: a ganja-smoking false renunciate. It is not good. You can stay in a house and live the life of a sannyasi—that is good. You do not have to go away and stay alone in hell. Prabhupad said that if you think you are going to do bhajan alone, it is simply self-deception: নির্জনে থাকিবে প্রতিষ্ঠা মাগিবে, nirjane thakibe pratistha magibe. You think you will go to a secluded place to chant the Holy Name, but you will end up in a "gita samsar". This is another story that Srila Prabhupad told.

One devotee thought, "There are so many people here, I cannot stay in this environment! I must go to a secluded place." He went to some hill and found a quiet place, thinking, "Now I can read Srimad Bhagavad-gita properly."

He read the Gita, but he had some other material desire, so how can he read it? He fell asleep with the book open, and one day a rat came and ate a few pages of the book. He thought, "I must kill this rat!" He brought a cat, but the cat miaowed all the time because it was hungry. He had to get milk for it, so he brought a cow. The cow gave milk, but the cow too always cried because it also needed food and care. So, he got a maidservant to look after the cow. The man stayed with the lady and after a while they got married and had so many children.

One day, his Gurudev decided to go and see how his disciple was doing. He came to that place and saw that his disciple had a big family and had forgotten Krishna consciousness. Where did his Bhagavad-gita go?

Prabhupad Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur called that family "a family of gita," not "a family of Krishna". He gave this example for us.

If you feel even some little material desire is coming to you, you must remove it immediately, otherwise it will increase day by day and demolish, spoil your spiritual life. This is the meaning of this story.

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