(3) Service Inaptitude

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Srila B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj's tirobhav
Sri Nrisingha Palli, 11 August 2018, morning, part 3
Translated from Bengali

[To a devotee] Have you got through to him? What did he say? Will he bring more garlands? It is necessary to bring more flowers for puspanjali, enough for everybody.

Try to learn from me. I am requesting you humbly – please try to learn. Do you know when puspanjali is offered? At eleven–twelve o'clock. It is necessary to offer a separate arati and offer puspanjali. When the time comes, you must go, offer bhoga to the Deities and chant 'Bhoga Arati' yourself, quietly, without shouting or disturbing anybody. After offering bhoga, everybody will join the arati, then you will offer another arati to Param Guru Maharaj and everybody will offer puspanjali at the end.

You need some flowers for archan, so keep some garlands aside – do not give all garlands away. If you have no garlands, you have separate flowers – there are many ladies here, they can make garlands, so give flowers to them and they will make them. When you offer the special arati, you must use the big lamp. [A devotee says that there are no garlands on the guru-parampara] No garlands on the guru-parampara? Oh, you must see to these things... What will become of such 'disciples' when I am no more?... Go and bring flowers – even if it turns out more than necessary, it is not a problem.

Do you know what Gurudev told me? He taught me even this – I am sharing it with you all from my heart. Gurudev said, 'Do you know what kind of disciples I have? I heard that a dog had given birth to five puppies, so I sent one person to go and take a look – I told him to check how many there were.' The devotee went to check and when he returned, he reported, 'Gurudev, there are five puppies.' Then, Gurudev asked, 'What colour are they?' He did not know. Gurudev sent him back to go and see. He went back, checked and when he came back, he said, 'Three are black, and the other two are brown.' Then, Gurudev asked, 'Have they opened their eyes?' The devotee did not know that, too, so he went and checked the puppies again. This is a servitor for you. You can go there one time and see everything – what colour the puppies are, whether they have opened their eyes or not, and so on. It takes only one time to go and see them and you can find out everything. It is like going to the market – you do not go there and make separate trips to get rice, dal, oil, salt and everything else. You get everything one time. Why waste time?

They have brought garlands, and now you are thinking, 'Oh, we also need flowers for puspanjali and for the parampara.' You must have let them know and they would have brought how much is necessary. Unfortunate souls! They have not been able to learn anything.

Remember this – you offer bhoga arati, then come with all the arati items and offer another arati here. When I give you a sign, then you come and start arati here. When Gurudev made programmes, I always watched him – I would not come right in front of him, but I would stay at the back and watch. He would ask, 'Is prasad ready? Have they finished cooking?' When everything was ready, he would say 'jay' and do arati together with all the Vaishnavs. Even when the cooking was going on, I kept an eye on them and checked if everything was going on well.

Go and tell them to make garlands for the guru-parampara! The garlands should be small (use small flowers). [A devotee remarks that they are bringing the garlands.] Oh, why be like this? Why lie? Did I say anything wrong to you? I only told you that the pictures of the parampara are small, so use small white flowers to make garlands for them. And you said, 'Oh, we do not have them, it is necessary to make them...'

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