A Welcome Austerity

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Puri Dham, first evening class
20 June 2017, translated from Bengali, part 1

Om Vishnupad Jaga-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay
Vishvavarenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay
Om Vishnupad Jaga-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay
Jaya sa-parikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda-sundarjiu ki jay
Jay Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Prabhupad ki jay
Rupanuga Guru-varga ki jay
Nama-acharya Haridas Thakur ki jay
Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay
Purushottam-ksetra ki jay
Baladev Subhadra Jagannath jiu ki jay
Akar Chaitanya Math ki jay
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay
Tadiya sakha-math samuha ki jay
Bhakta-raj Prahlad Maharaj Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay
Samagata Sri Gaura-bhakta-vrinda ki jay
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari Hari bol

Devotee: Jay Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Jagad Guru Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj ki jay. Gaura premanande Hari bol

You must keep Gaura in your heart. When you keep Gaura in your heart, you will not feel attracted to anything else. You must give your mind, your heart to Gaura. Jagadananda Pandit said,

আনের মন রাখিতে গিয়া আপনাকে দিবে ফাঁকি ।

মনের কথা জানে গোরা কেমনে হৃদয় ঢাকি ॥

anera mana rakhite giya apanake dibe phanki
manera katha jane gora kemane hrdaya dhaki

If you go to satisfy the minds of others, you will only cheat yourself. Gora knows your thoughts, so how will you hide your heart from Him?

Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.4

Gora knows everything, He knows whether your heart is for Him or for something else. Gora knows where you give your heart. We never feel the kind of love that Gaura felt. We do not want Krishna, we want love for Krishna. Whatever problem, whatever disturbance comes, let it come. We have come here to do the parikrama, to get some sukriti. We have not come here to see monkeys' stool and other dirty things. I know you are getting some austerity with food, clothes, with different facilities—at home, you stay one person per room and each sleeps on their own bed, but here there are ten people in a room, sleeping all on one bed. Some austerity is unavoidable. There are frequent electricity cuts, the generator stops all the time. But those who can tolerate all these austerities can get the Lord...

The Lord is testing us through all this, "If I give you much austerity, will you be able to tolerate it? Will you tolerate this austerity and do the parikrama with My devotees?" There are many big buildings, many big hotels in Puri—there are hotels where you can get a room for 700 rupees, and there are also hotels where you can get a room for 100,000 rupees (with a swimming pool, alcohol, drugs, girls and everything else). But we have not come for all this. We have come here to circumambulate the Holy Dham despite all austerities.

We must do this parikrama enduring all austerities. If you want to come to the Lord, you must make much effort. We are dirty, filthy people—externally, we put tilak on our foreheads, beads on our neck, but I have told you so many times,

“গোরার আমি, গোরার আমি” মুখে বলিলে নাহি চলে ।

গোরার আচার, গোরার বিচার লইলে ফল ফলে ॥

"gorara ami, gorara ami" mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara la-ile phala phale

Just saying, "I am Gora's! I am Gora's!" does not do. Only when you follow Gora's practices and Gora's conception will you get the proper result.

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6)

লোক দেখান গোরা ভজা তিলক মাত্র ধরি ।

গোপনেতে অত্যাচার গোরা ধরে চুরি ॥

loka dekhana gora bhaja tilaka matra dhari'
gopanete atyachara gora dhare churi

You show the world you serve Gora simply by wearing tilak but secretly you misbehave. Gora will catch you, you thief!

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.7)

We are hypocrites. We want to come to the Lord, and for us to do this the Lord gives us many tests—He washes and scrubs us and takes to His abode. So, we must clean, we must scrub ourselves, and it means there are many tests we must undergo. We must pass all sorts of tests, we must follow all the rules and regulations. There must be no anger, no malice, no envy in us.

We must realise that we are jiva souls. We are staying in a room, but frogs, insects, snakes live in jungle. Cows do not have mosquito rackets—when a mosquito bites us at night, we cannot sleep, we need to use mosquito coil, but how many mosquitos bite cows all the time... These souls have got their body and suffer so many austerities, but we have got this human body and cannot tolerate even the slightest disturbance. So, if we want to get the Lord, it is necessary to tolerate all austerities. This is our message today.

Every second our life is diminishing, but we have come today to circumambulate the Holy Dham and if we can remember all this, then it will be the Holy Dham, then it will be the parikrama of the Holy Dham.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay!

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