Be Wise

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham
28 March 2016

Householder people, working people earn money to maintain their family life and they keep some money aside in case they cannot work tomorrow or maybe they get sick. In service also, you must also save some time for the Lord. You cannot use all your time to maintain the family—just as you save some money for your family, you must also save some time for the Lord. These are the main things.

You are born, then you spend childhood studying, then you get married, have children, have grandchildren, grandsons, granddaughters, in this way your whole life you waste time. When will you get time for the service to the Lord? If somebody cannot serve the Lord from the beginning, then they should serve the Lord after retirement, after sixty years old, otherwise what answer will they give when they leave their body?

We have got everything from the Lord—we got money, we got property, we got honour, we got sons, daughters, we got a wife—but after getting it, we forget who we have got it from, then what is the purpose of us getting all this? This is our main mistake.

Fortunately, our Guru-varga, great Vaishnavs always remind us about these things: "Do not forget Krishna," "Do not forget your Guru," "Always serve your Guru," and so on—they are very merciful to us. Guru and Vaishnavs always want to engage us in service, but still we do not do our service properly...

Actually, my Gurudev was very kind to us.. I remember before I took sannyas, my family did not know where I was, they thought I had died, but after I took sannyas they got the message that I was there. They thought, "Oh, he has already taken sannyas, so he will not come back," so they sent a message to me saying, "You are our brother and you can get some property from your family. Come take it, you can sell the property and take the money."

I went to take permission from Gurudev,

"Gurudev, can I go there to sell the land?"

"How much money is that land worth?" Gurudev asked me.

I told that its value was 60,000 dollars at that time, and then Gurudev asked,

"How many days are necessary?"

"Minimum seven days, maximum ten-twelve days."

"It is too much time to get that money. If I give you that money tomorrow, is it then necessary to go to that place?"

I got shy and did not give any answer...

I thought that Gurudev saved me—he did not allow me to go to maya (to my previous parents, family). Can you see how merciful he is?

When I came here and joined the temple, I had 250 students, and in the morning they came to my class, but they saw the door was locked. They began to search for me, but could not find me—I was here. I left everything at that time.

After that, devotees gave me some advice and maya also gave me some advice, but I did not accept maya's advice. The real sadhu gave me some advice, some inspiration to stay here although Gurudev was not here at that time. Actually what you do—what you accept and what you reject—depends upon you. You have some intelligence, and that intelligence comes through association: if you keep good association you will have good intelligence, if you keep bad association you will get bad intelligence. It is said in the scriptures that you must accept what is favourable and reject what is unfavourable, but you cannot do what is favourable and also do what is unfavourable—you cannot take both milk and tobacco.

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