Association: Root of (Mis?)fortune

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
15 October 2018, Dum Dum Park, part 1

I am first offering my obeisance to my beloved Gurudev, Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, to all of my guru-varga, all of my godbrothers and godsisters, all of my friends and well-wishers.

First, we must understand what is good association, and what is bad association. When somebody is talking to you, what kind of talk are they doing? Is it actually beneficial to your spiritual life or harmful? You must understand this. You can ask your Guru also, and he can explain it to you; you can also read Gurudev's books, Srila Guru Maharaj's books—everything is told there.

If you do not have Gurudev's mercy, then you cannot understand the Guru, you cannot have the mercy of Vaishnavs, you cannot even recognise who is a Vaishnav, and you end up making Vaishnav aparadh and going against your Guru. If you have mercy, then you can understand Gurudev easily—you can understand what he wants to do, what his desire is, and what his mercy is.

Those who are always covered by the illusory environment cannot understand their Gurudev and their Gurudev's mercy, as well as the Lord and the Lord's mercy. Maya will always try to take us away from the service of the Lord, it is her duty to always engage us in her service, but Gurudev always engages us in the service of the Lord and Vaishnavs. If we are covered by illusion, or the illusory environment, we cannot understand what is Gurudev's mercy.

I also read one very nice story in one of Srila Sridhar Maharaj's books. Once, two sadhu sannyasis came to Haridwar and were sitting on the bank of the Ganges. Suddenly, one of the sadhus saw something black floating in the swift current of the Ganges. The sadhu said to the other sadhu, "Please, go to the Ganges. There is not much water here, you can go and take the blanket out. We can dry it and use at night." (You know that it is cold in Haridwar.) The sadhu did that. He jumped into the Ganges and as he was about to catch the blanket, the blanket caught him! It turned out that the blanket was actually not a blanket—it was a bear (bhaluk, ভালুক). The bear got caught in the current of the Ganges and wanted to get out, but he could not because the current was too strong. So, when the sadhu came near, thinking it was a blanket, the bear caught the sadhu and they began to fight. The sadhu wanted to leave the bear (still thinking it was a blanket), but the bear grasped him well and did not let him go because he wanted to get out of the Ganges. Then, the other sadhu shouted from the bank, "Hey, leave the blanket, it is not necessary. Come out!" The sadhu replied, "I want to leave the blanket, but the blanket is not leaving me!"

The moral of the story is that we want to leave maya, but maya always attacks us; we want to leave our mundane condition, but our mundane condition cannot leave us properly. We often say,

মায়ারে করিয়া জয় ছাড়ান না যায় ।
সাধুর-গুরুর কৃপা বিনা না দেখি উপায় ॥

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya,
sadhur-gurur krpa vina na dekhi upaya,

"It is not possible to conquer maya by illusory environment (by engaging in maya), but it is only possible to get relief by the mercy of Guru, Vaishnav."

('Ki rupe paibe seva', Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

You cannot conquer maya without the mercy of the sadhu. Then, you must understand that if we do not take proper guidance from the sadhu—if we do not accept properly what the sadhu is telling us, if we do not realise it properly—then we cannot get the mercy of the sadhu and Vaishnavs, we cannot get the mercy of the Guru also.

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