Beyond "I" and "Mine"

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
8 February 2017, Sri Ekachakra Dham
Translated from Bengali

ধন জন আর কবিতা সুন্দরী
বলিব না চাহি দেহ-সুখকরী ।
জন্মে জন্মে দাও ওহে গৌরহরি
অহৈতুকী ভক্তি চরণে তোমার ॥

dhana jana ara, kavita-sundari,
baliba na chahi deha-sukha-kari
janme janme dao, ohe gaurahari!
ahaituki bhakti charane tomara

"When will I declare that I do not desire wealth, followers, erudition, beautiful women, or any other bodily pleasure? O Gaurahari! Birth after birth, please give me unconditional devotion to Your feet."

("Kabe habe bolo se dina amar" by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

Non-devotees say, "Dhanam dehi, vidhyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi—make me rich, make me clever, make me beautiful, give me a nice wife"; and Mahaprabhu taught,

ন ধনং ন জনং ন সুন্দরীং কবিতাং বা জগদীশ কাময়ে ।
মম জন্মনি জন্মনীশ্বরে ভবতাদ্ভক্তিরহৈতুকী ত্বয়ি ॥

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

"I do not want wealth, I do not want followers, I do not want beautiful women, I do not want to be a poet. I only want causeless devotion to Your lotus feet. Give me that kind of devotion to Your lotus feet so that I could do Your service life after life."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya-lila, 20.29)

"I do not want anything—not money, not knowledge, not anything else; I only wish for to have causeless devotion to Your feet (ahaituki bhakti charane tomara)."

There are selfish devotees (sakam bhakta) and there are selfless bhaktas (niskam bhakta). There is karma-misra bhakti (devotion driven by the desire of material gain), jnana-misra bhakti (devotion driven by the desire to gain knowledge), and jnana-sunya bhakti (devotion devoid of any desire to gain knowledge). Among millions of fruitive workers there is only one wise person; among millions of such wise people there is one liberated soul; and among millions of such liberated souls there is only one devotee of Krishna. Even though such a devotee is so rare, he can rescue the entire universe.

It is necessary to always remember about this.

Even Lord Indra himself had to be born as a pig. The guru of the demigods, Brihaspati, cursed him to be born as a pig—twelve years later Brahma came to him to teach him and take him back. You can even get a body of a crocodile—in Kali-yuga there was a Pastime at Gora-daha when a child demigod got a body of a crocodile but in the end as a result of chanting the Holy Name he again got his demigod body. There is Kaliya-daha lila in Vrindavan and there is Gora-daha lila in Nabadwip.

We must live always remembering this, always thinking about this. What have we got this human birth for?

To cross this material world we must worship the lotus feet of Nitai, but we go home and forget everything—we do not practise, we do not follow the rules and regulations, nothing. I spoke yesterday about the glories of Ekadasi, and I told you what happens if one does not observe Ekadasi, what happens if you eat rice on Ekadasi, I told you everything. But it does not hit home—we think, "Whatever."

জিহ্বার লালসে যেই ইতি-উতি ধায় ।
শিশ্নোদরপরায়ণ সে কৃষ্ণ নাহি পায় ॥

jihvara lalase yei iti-uti dhaya
sisnodara-parayana se krsna nahi paya

"One who is subservient to the tongue and who thus goes here and there, devoted to the genitals and the belly, cannot attain Krishna."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya-lila, 6.227)

We are slaves of our tongues, but look at the examples of the Vaishnavs. There were so many Vaishnavs in Puri, and Raghunath Das Goswami would pay a full obeisance to each and every of them whenever he met them. There was Vasudev Vipra also, his body had such a disease that pus would ooze from his body and there were worms in his sores—when the worms fell out of his sores, he would pick them up and put them back into the sores, thinking, "If they are happy living in these sores, then let them be. I will go and leave this body soon, I will not take anything with me, nothing is mine." Yet we always think "my" and "I". "Asatyera satya kari mani": we always take untruth as truth. We always believe that His things are ours and we cannot control our anger and the other urges...

Always remember about this.

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