Mind Matters

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
21 February 2017, Tarakeswar
Bengali evening class, part 5

If you hear the kirtans every morning and evening, you will like it very much and when you learn the kirtans you will see that you will be able to understand everything.

শ্রীকৃষ্ণচৈতন্য প্রভু জীবে দয়া করি' ।
স্বপার্ষদ স্বীয় ধাম সহ অবতরি ॥

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu jive daya kari'
svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatari

"Being merciful to the souls, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu descends with His associates and abode."

"Sri Krishna Chaitanya" means Mahaprabhu—out of compassion to the jiva souls, Krishna Himself appears with His associates in this Kali yuga. He went door to door telling people, "This is not your house! This is not your address! You have lost your address! You have lost your house!" When you are born as a cow, you stay with cows; when you are born as a cat, you stay with cats; when you are born as grass, you live as grass on some road side...

You may have heard the kirtan that is sung during the kartik month, "Namamisvaram sach-chid-ananda rupam lasat-kundalam gokule bhrajamanam..." There, it is said that Manigriva and Nalakuvara were so proud of their wealth and riches that they did not care for anyone in the world. One day, Narad was passing a lake and saw them playing there with two girls—naked. Manigriva and Nalakuvara did not care, but the girls got shy and quickly covered themselves with some clothes. Seeing their vanity, Narad cursed Manigriva and Nalakuvara to be born as trees. You heard what Gopal did later.

One day, Mother Yasoda was churning butter and Gopal got very hungry. He started crying for milk, but Mother Yasoda said, "Wait, let me first finish the butter." Gopal got angry. He broke some pots with butter and started feeding the butter to monkeys. When Mother Yasoda came to see Him, she saw what was going on and got angry, "Oh no, I worked so hard to make this butter and You are feeding it to monkeys!" She decided to tie Krishna, but when she tried to tie Him, the rope was two fingers too short. She took more rope and tried again, but the rope was again two fingers too short. There are 900,000 cows in Vrindavan, and Mother Yasoda asked the gopis, "Please bring all cows' rope!" But no matter how much rope she put together, the rope was too short. How much short? Two fingers too short. [Then, seeing how much trouble Mother Yasoda took trying to tie Him, Krishna took pity on her and let her bind Him. Having tied Gopal, Mother Yasoda left the room and Gopal went outside. With the help of the mortar that He was tied to He broke two trees and in this way liberated these two brothers, Manigriva and Nalakuvara.]

Why was the rope two fingers too short? What does it mean? One finger is desire, and the other finger is mercy. If you make one step towards the Lord, the Lord will make ten steps towards you—but you have to make the first step. If you sit at home, can you hear Hari-katha? You cannot. Some can hear the class from outside because we have loudspeakers, but their mind will be in some other place. One time, somebody asked me, "Maharaj, I went to Puri and saw some pointless pictures on the walls..." I said, "Really? But I have never seen it!"

There was one Maulana, or Maulvi, who used to give lectures. One lady came to his lectures and only cried all the time. One day, Maulvi asked her,

"Every day I give class, what do you understand from my class?"

"I do not understand anything," answered the old lady.

"Then why do you cry?"

"I cry because, you see, I lost a goat many days ago, and that goat had a beard, just like yours. When I see you, when I see how your beard moves when you speak, I remember my goat and how its beard moved when it ate grass..."

So, when that person asked me why they have these pointless cheap pictures in the temple in Puri, I explained to him that only those whose mind does not go out of control or astray are qualified to see Jagannath. We must see good things. We have got these eyes to see the Deity of the Lord. If you look at all those other things, will you see Lord Jagannath? No. So we will not look that side then.

In this way, if we can surrender to the lotus feet of Sri Guru and Vaishnavs, if we can throw ourselves at their feet, we will be able to get supreme benefit. Always think about this, always remember this, it will be very good for you.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay!

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