Poorer Than the Poor, yet
Richer Than the Rich

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
22 February 2018, Kolkata, part 12

I am remembering a boy who was my servitor a few years ago. He used to be very fat—when he was ten-eleven years old, his weight was something like 90 kg. I told him it was not good, that he had to run, walk. He did that and when he came here to serve me the other year, I could not recognise him. He had stayed here with me for six months. I chastised him a lot and he learnt many things during that time. Not so long ago, his parents died, both his mother and father left within one month. He is now around twenty or twenty-one years old. His parents have died and he and his sister are left with nothing—no parents, no house, nothing. You would think, "How will they live?" but Krishna arranges everything.

There is another devotee in that country, and she gave them so much love and affection. She is a god mother. She has herself her seven children (six boys and one girl). She also has a school for forty-fifty small children of 2-1.5 years old. She has not husband, but she runs the temple there, she runs the school and she runs her own house—all three places are rented and she pays all bills. And now she has two more children to take care of. She said to me, "Maharaj, do not worry about them, I am always with them." When the boy's and girl's parents died, she did all arrangements, she paid all expenses and took the children to her house. I am very happy with her. Even their uncle, their own family, do not do anything for them. Their uncle is a business person—he has a temple where he pays salary to the pujari, he maintains that place, but when his own brother and sister-in-law died he did not even go there...

Then you can see—those who have nothing have Krishna. That is saranagata (a surrendered soul). There are six types of saranagati:

দৈন্য, আত্মনিবেদন, গোপ্তৃত্বে বরণ ।
'অবশ্য রক্ষিবে কৃষ্ণ'—বিশ্বাস পালন ॥
ভক্তি-অনুকূল মাত্র কার্য্যের স্বীকার ।
ভক্তি-প্রতিকূল ভব—বর্জ্জনাঙ্গীকার ॥

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
'avasya raksibe krsna'—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

"Humility, self-submission, taking the Lord as your guardian, keeping the faith that 'Krishna will certainly protect me', engaging only in activities that are favourable to devotion, rejecting everything unfavourable to devotion."

You can see Sripad Tyagi Maharaj also—he travels all over the world the whole year, but he does not have even one coin. When he left India, he had only his flight ticket and he took twenty-five rupees for the train fare from Nabadwip to Kolkata. After that he went to the airport and went to America, Russia, London, Italy, Malaysia, Singapore, Mexico, everywhere. How is it possible? There are so many expenses for one man—the airplane fare, food, etc...

This is just like Sanatan Goswami. Sanatan Goswami did not think about himself, but his servitor did. His servitor thought, "Oh, my master is walking in front of me, but he has not taken anything with him... He is going to Vrindavan, but what will he eat on the way? He does not know the area, he does not know where he can get food, he only has one set of clothes and did not take even one coin with him. What will he eat?"

As I have just said, if you have some attachment, if some desire comes to your mind, then more and more attachment will come from that, more problem will come—on the way some dacoits attacked Sanatan Goswami. Sanatan Goswami realised what had happened and asked his servitor, "How many coins do you have?" The servitor told a lie, he said he had seven coins because he understood if he told the truth then Sanatan Goswami would have taken all coins from him. He said he had seven coins and Sanatan Goswami took all those coins and gave it to the dacoits. At first, the dacoits got very happy, but then their mind changed and they wanted to give them back to Sanatan Goswami, but he did not take it—he said, "I do not want this money. It is a big problem for me. I am going to meet with Mahaprabhu and I am thinking about spiritual things. If I take this money, then maybe some other dacoits like you will come to me and will kill me. Just as you said you were going to kill us this night for these coins, but by the Lord's mercy—by the mercy of Krishna, Mahaprabhu—we are still alive. I do not want this money, you keep it. This is a very bad area, then if you can, please help us." The dacoits agreed.

Some time later, Sanatan Goswami again asked his servitor, "Do you have any more coins with you?" The servitor confessed, "Yes, Prabhu, I have one more coin." Then Sanatan Goswami said, "Go back with your coin. Go back to your home, I am going alone."

The servitor's fortune was like that—he could go only up until some point but he could not reach Mahaprabhu properly, only Sanatan Goswami could reach Him.

Then, it is correct...

— : • : —

{ 2001  |   2002  |   2003  |   2005  |   2009  |   2010  |   2011  |   2012 }
{ 2013  |   2014  |   2015  |   2016  |   2017  |   2018  |   2019  |   2020  |   2021 }

• Download (2.1 Mb)