Janmastami: Making the Lord Happy

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Evening class at Nrisingha Palli
1 September 2018, part 6

Sri Krishna Janmastami is coming soon. What is Janmastami? What service can we do? Devotees are coming for the festival—how can I serve them? How can I make them happy? We are coming here to celebrate Janmastami, but what is our duty? If we can make devotees happy, if we can serve devotees, then Krishna will be happy. That is called Janmastami. That is the main thing. We are going to celebrate the appearance day of Lord Sri Krishna, Janmastami—is it only about putting some water and milk on the Gopal, showing something externally? How can we actually make the Lord happy? Srimad Bhagavatam tells how you can serve Lord Krishna.

One time, when Krishna, Balaram, Subal, Sridham and other cowherd friends went to graze the cows, they came to a brahman village. That day, the brahmins were making a big fire sacrifice, yajna. In the meantime, Balaram told Krishna, "We are very hungry. What kind of village have You brought us to? There is a jungle forest, but there is no fruit here." Krishna replied, "It is not a problem. You can go to the village—there are many brahmans there, they are doing puja and a big fire sacrifice today, so they are offering so much fruit, so many sweets, etc. You can go to them and ask them for something."

When Balaram came to the brahmans, He saw twenty-four brahmans sitting and chanting at the sacrifice, "Om svaha, om svaha, om svaha... " Hungry, Balaram waited for them to finish the yajna, and as soon as they stopped chanting, "Om svaha" He asked the brahmans, "Please can you give us some sweets? Krishna has sent us to take some sweets and fruit from you." Hearing this, the brahmans became angry, "The puja has not finished yet! You are ignorant cowherds! Get out of here!" Balaram became very sad. He came to Krishna and told Him what had happened.

[Do you see? Those for whom they do their puja came Themselves and asked them for some fruit, sweets, but they could not recognise Them; instead, they told Them to get out.]

Krishna said then, "They told You to get out? No problem! You went to a wrong place. These brahmans have wives—while the brahmans are doing their yajna, their wives are at home cooking so many things. Go to them."

Then, Baladev, Subal, Sudam, Sridham, Madhumangal, and others went to the brahmans' wives. They asked, "We are very hungry. Krishna has sent us to you—do you have anything in your house?" The brahmans' wives got excited, "Oh, Krishna has sent you?!" They left their cooking and went to the room to give curd, butter, yoghurt, etc. to the cowherd boys. Not only that—when they heard that Krishna had sent them, they decided to go with them, so taking whatever they had at home, they came to Krishna. All the ladies distributed food and fed Krishna.

Very happy, with His stomach full, Krishna said, "We are very full and happy now. We are going to take rest—you can go back to your homes." The brahmans' wives were dismayed, "What is this? We did not come here to go back again! We will not go. Besides, our husbands saw us coming here, they will not take us back." Krishna told them, "How can you stay? I am Yadav [ksatriya] by caste, and you are brahmins—if you stay here, what will people say? Go!" They said, "We will not go." What did Krishna do then? He knew the brahmans were angry thinking, "Oh, they are going to Krishna! We will not take them back!" but Krishna created some illusory environment and the brahmans' mood changed—they thought now, "When will our wives come back? Why are they not coming back?" The ladies' mind also changed—they thought, "We need to go back home now, our husbands will be at home any time."

In the end, the brahmans' wives told Krishna, "We know that we can never serve You directly because Your mind, Your heart, everything is always with the Vraja gopis, but if You allow us to serve the Vraja gopis, we will be happy." Pleased to hear this, Krishna said, "You do not have to stay with Me personally. You can stay at your house and make My vigraha (Deity, like Gopal). If you serve Gopal in your house, offering bhog, bathing Him, etc. every day, then it is actually more than the direct service to Me. It is not necessary to serve Me directly. You can serve Gopal at your home, that will be your service to Me."

What Krishna says is very nice. We must serve under the guidance of the Vraja gopis, following their footsteps—that is, if you can serve Gurudev, serve the Lord under the guidance of great Vaishnavs, then you will be successful in your spiritual life. We must always engage ourselves in service. "Sevaya karma, sevaya dharma, sevaya chatur-vargera phala pabe: through service you will get the result of any effort, of any religion, and whatever result of following the fourfold social division."

Our mind alway goes to different places and we are not able to do service, but we must have attachment to service, then it will be service, otherwise not. We must understand and always remember this, otherwise we will not be able to understand anything. Spend your life in the service of the Guru and Vaishnavs. If you can serve your Gurudev under the guidance of Gurudev and Vaishnavs, it is very nice for you.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay. Harinam sankirtan ki jay. Nitai Gaura premanande haribol.

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