Traversing Maya-Samudra

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
20 October 2018, Dum Dum Park, part 3

As I have told before, there are many kinds of surrender,

দৈন্য, আত্মনিবেদন, গোপ্তৃত্বে বরণ ॥
'অবশ্য রক্ষিবে কৃষ্ণ'—বিশ্বাস পালন ॥

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
'avasya raksibe krsna'—visvasa palana

"Humility, self-submission, embracing the Lord's guardianship, maintaining the faith that 'Krishna will certainly protect me'."

ভক্তি-অনুকূল মাত্র কার্য্যের স্বীকার ।
ভক্তি-প্রতিকূল ভাব—বর্জ্জনাঙ্গীকার ॥

bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

"Engaging only in activities that are favourable to devotion, rejecting everything unfavourable to devotion."

(Saranagati 1, by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

Be humble. Have faith that Krishna will protect us, that Krishna will look after us. What is atmaniksepa? How can you do it? Sri Yamuna Acharya told,

অপরাধ-সহস্র-ভাজনং পতিতং ভীমভবার্ণবোদরে ।
অগতিং শরণাগতং হরে কৃপয়া কেবলমাত্মসাৎ কুরু ॥

aparadha-sahasra-bhajanam, patitam bhima-bhavarnavodare
agatim saranagatam hare, krpaya kevalam atmasat kuru

"The perpetrator of thousands of offences, fallen into the terrible ocean of material existence, I have no shelter but You. O Lord Hari, please graciously accept this surrendered soul as one of Your own."

(Sri Prapanna-jivanamritam, 7.12)

"O Lord! I am making so many offences—thousands of thousands of offences. I have already fallen into so much maya, so much illusory environment. I do not have any property, I do not have any qualities—and I have no other way, that is why I surrender to You, I am throwing myself at Your feet! Please hijack me!"

We also sing the same thing:

শক্তিবুদ্ধিহীন আমি অতি দীন
কর মোরে আত্মসাথ ॥

sakti-buddhi-hina ami ati dina
kara more atma-satha

"I am devoid of ability and intelligence, and greatly distressed. Please accept me."

"I have no intelligence, I have no strength, please hijack me!" I have explained many times what 'hijack' means. An honest proper guru will never hijack your money or property—Gurudev may come to your house only to rescue you from the mundane world and take you to the spiritual world, where we belong. Gurudev shows you the way. We do not know the road, we do not know which way we must go, that is why we must make a relationship with the Guru. This is sambandha-jnana (knowledge of the relationship).

Suppose you are in Kolkata or any other big city in any other country. Kolkata is a big city: you need to get to some place, but sometimes you may have no address, or even if you have the address, sometimes you have to approach somebody and ask, "O brother/uncle, which way should I go to find this house?" And the person shows you the house. To find the way, we have to establish some relationship with someone.

We do now know who will be our Guru, but Krishna sends His associate, or maybe Krishna Himself comes in front of us, and our chaitya-guru tells us, "He is your Guru"—in this way, somebody comes in front of me, and I can recognise them as my Guru. It happened like this with Mahaprabhu also: when He went to Gaya for his father's ceremony (His father had just expired, and generally, Hindu people always go to Gaya to perform the ceremonies; it is near Benares), and when He saw Ishwar Puri, He immediately understood, "He is My guru!" Mahaprabhu said,

সংসার-সমুদ্র হৈতে উদ্ধারহ মোরে ।
এই আমি দেহ সমর্পিলাঙ তোমারে ॥

"samsara-samudra haite uddharaha more
ei ami deha samarpilana tomare"

"Please rescue Me from this ocean of material existence! I am surrendering Myself to you."

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavat, Adi-khanda, 17.54)

"Please rescue Me from this ocean! I am swimming in it and do not know where the shore is. I cannot find the shore! I am swimming, swimming, and floating, I do not know what will happen to Me later, what will be in future, I do not know anything. I have been making so many offences, but I have no other way—therefore, I have come before you. Please rescue Me from this situation!"

Our situation is the same, actually. We are fallen souls, we are always swimming in the ocean of maya (maya-samudra), in the ocean of material environment, and we do not know anything. We pray to our Guru—please, rescue me from this situation, then I will be the gainer. And we understand that Gurudev has rescued us from that kind of world and is using us now for the service of devotees. This is our activity, this is our main thing.

I have told you just now—it is not necessary to be a servant of Krishna. First, we must be a servant of Radharani, and for that we must first be a servant of Vaishnavs, then we can be a servant of our Guru.

তিনের স্মরণে হয় বিঘ্ন-বিনাশন

tinera smarane haya vighna-vinasana

"By remembering Guru, Vaishnav, Bhagavan, all obstacles are destroyed."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 1.21)

Gurudev, Vaishnav, Bhagavan. Guru and Vaishnavs are first. Our main goal and purpose is be become a servant of Vaishnavs. We pray for this. In our situation, only the Guru can be the authority, and only the Guru can rescue us from this kind of situation. That is why we must take shelter of Nityananda Prabhu and Gurudev (Guru-tattva), who is non-different from Nityananda Prabhu.

— : • : —

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

• Download (1.7 Mb)