Fighting Against Misconception

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
20 February 2018, Kolkata, part 4

Foreign devotees can easily understand Krishna consciousness because, as Gurudev said, they do not have so much attachment to the family life, they can even easily leave their wife, but it is very difficult to preach in India.

I go there so many times, tell them so much, give so many classes, saying so many heavy things, but it is still very difficult for them to understand it because they are worshipping 33 crores of demigods. You know that 1 crore is 10 lakhs, and 1 lakh equals to 100,000. So, 10 lakhs (1 crore) is 1 million. They worship 33 crores (330 million demigods)... They have too many material desires, and they pray for the fulfilment of their desires, they ask so many things, that is why they cannot understand pure conception. Even if they read Srimad Bhagavad-gita or Srimad Bhagavatam, they still do not understand clearly what is said in it.

If I tell people, "Do what you like," "Eat what you like", I can make millions of disciples in one day, but what benefit will it be for them? They do not practise perfectly, properly, they do not do perfect bhajan, kirtan—they do not do anything...

There were three people—Shyamananda Prabhu, Narottam Das Thakur, and Acharya Srinivas. Acharya Srinivas, and Shyamananda Prabhu to some extent, took care of books, and Narottam Das Thakur preached in East Bengal and some parts of West Bengal. Narottam Das Thakur said, "You are not chanting the Holy Name at all, you are not doing what Mahaprabhu told, but at least you can chant the Holy Name once a year during one day, for twenty-four hours." He started kirtans in this way, but people took it wrong way. Twenty-four-hour kirtans are still going on in Bengal, both West and East, but they have become sahajiya.

Narottam Das Thakur told it one way, and people are using it in another way. He thought, "People do not chant even one time during 365 days a year, so if they chant Hare Krishna maha-mantra at least during one full day (for twenty-four hours), then some devotion will come to them," but what people are doing now is Nama-aparadh. It is called "Nama-bale papachar." It means thinking, "I do so many material things, so many bad things, so much nonsense the whole day, but I will chant four rounds in the evening and all my sins will be removed." What Narottam Das Thakur wanted is going in the opposite direction now.

I go village to village telling them about it, but they cannot stop it. So, this year my preaching was actually against what Narottam Das Thakur told because Narottam Das Thakur told in one way and people use it in another way, they do Nama-aparadh. My preaching was mainly like that—when I gave class, I mostly spoke about that. I tell them, "You must stop this astaprahar (twenty-four hours, one day), twenty-four prahar, sixteen prahar, etc.

One time, a king arranged in Kasim Bazar (Murshidabad) a fifty-six prahar kirtan (seven-day kirtan), hiring rented kirtaniya (people who take money and do kirtan with many ornaments, playing harmonium, flute, violin, etc.), and he invited Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. When Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur came there, he spoke against such kirtans, and everybody began to shout, "Stop it! Stop it! Sit down! Sit down! We do not want to hear from you!" Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur sat down and went back to the house the king provided for him. He stayed here for three days, and after three days he said to his servitor, "Please call to the king. I have to go to Mayapur, so I cannot stay here any longer, you must tell him." When the king came, he was surprised,

"Prabhupad, why are you leaving? My festival has not finished—only three days have passes, there are four more days. Why are you leaving?"

"I have some job in Mayapur—I have not come to your house to waste your rice," replied Prabhupad.

"What? Three days have passes, have you not taken prasadam? I have sent much opulence prasadam on a silver plate for you—have you not taken it?"

"No, he did not," answered the disciple of Prabhupad. Neither Prabhupad, no his disciple had taken anything except the Tulasi leaves...

When I went for preaching this time also, I did not take prasadam in the evening for two days, I only took the Tulasi leaves. There were brahmans at both houses, but I did not take any food there because I thought if I could not give any benefit to them, why would I take anything from them? So, I only took Tulasi leaves at night time at those two houses...

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