Exclusive Line—Exclusive Dedication

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham, translated from Bengali
22 March 2016

You must worship and serve the Lord, you must worship and serve your Guru. As long as you are alive you must come for this Nabadwip Dham parikrama. In this way you will get a relationship with the Lord (sambandha), and with this relationship you can come to the Lord and you will never have to come back here again. You must establish such relationship with your Guru (sambandha-jnan). This is said by the scriptures.

So many people do parikrama, but how many people do really come to this line? How many people do really practise and serve properly? In Chaitanya-charitamrita, Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami wrote that there are so many souls in this world—the number of human beings is very small. Many people say they follow the Vedas, but they do what is prohibited by the Vedas, their goal is karma. Among ten million of such karmis, you can get one jnani—they say that jnan (knowledge) is all, knowledge is the ultimate goal. Among ten thousand of jnanis you will get one liberated person. And among ten million liberated souls you will get only one devotee.

At first, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya was interested only in liberation. There are four kinds of liberation: sayujya, sarupya, salokya, samipya. At first, only mukti-katha always came from Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya's mouth, but in the end, after he surrendered to Mahaprabhu, he never once again spoke about mukti—he only spoke about bhakti, devotion. Also, in the beginning Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya did not like Ramananda Ray so much, he thought, "Oh, he is just some crazy Vaishnav," but when he understood prayojan-tattva (what the ultimate goal is) properly, when he heard exclusive topics about transcendental love, then he could understand, "Yes, this is true! Ramananda is the highest devotee!"

Mahaprabhu said that there were three and a half devotees who were most dear to Him. These three and a half devotees were always with Him. They are Swarup Damodar, Ray Ramananda, Sikhi Mahiti, and his younger sister Srimati Madhavi Devi. They were there with Mahaprabhu every day. Who would have known, tell me? Who is able to speak Bhagavatam? It is said, "Aham vedmi, Suka vetti, Vyasa vetti na vetti va!" Not everyone knows the Lord...

One time, there was one big pandit who came with a grand poem about Mahaprabhu. At that time Mahaprabhu had a rule: when somebody came with some writing, first Swarup Damodar would see it, then, if he approved it, it could be presented to Mahaprabhu. Many people were rejected in this way, and people would be afraid, "I cannot go past Swarup Damodar! Maybe you can, but I cannot..." So, this pandit one day decided to go to Swarup Damodar. He said, "I have written a great poem, I have a degree in Bengali language and have written so many poems! I have a great 'Ph.D.' in poetry!" Then he read his poem about Mahaprabhu and Lord Jagannath. Swarup Damodar said, "You are a fool! You have no devotion!" He threw it away and said,

যাহ, ভাগবত পড় বৈষ্ণবের স্থানে ।
একান্ত আশ্রয় কর চৈতন্য-চরণে ॥

yaha, bhagavata pada vaisnavera sthane
ekanta asraya kara chaitanya-charane

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya, 5.130)

"You must read Bhagavatam from a Vaishnav and take exclusive shelter at the lotus feet of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, otherwise you cannot understand anything, you cannot know anything."

So, you must practise, you must serve your Gurudev and be fixed and sincere in your practice and service, then you will be able to see the Lord with your own eyes—you will get service and come to the Lord.

— : • : —

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Other parts:
• My Grief
• Who Will Understand This?
• Adopting the Process
• Exclusive Line—Exclusive Dedication