(1/13) Clean Your Heart and Cultivate Devotion

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Ganga Sagar, evening class,
Deity Manifestation Anniversary day
12 January 2019, part 1
Translated from Bengali

When Mahaprabhu travelled around India, He once met a sanodiya brahman who asked Him, 'Prabhu, there are many sannyasis staying in this place, they know Vedas and Vedanta, but why does the Holy Name never come out of their mouths?' Mahaprabhu replied, 'Because they are offenders of the Holy Name. They can talk gramya-katha, they can talk nonsense, but the Holy Name will not come out of their mouths because they are offenders.' Somebody can be chanting the Holy Name so much, but if you hit them in their stomach, they will cry, 'Mother! Father!' – you will not hear them take the Holy Name (they will not think about the Lord).

Everybody must chant the Holy Name loudly, forcefully. Do you know why people do not chant the Holy Name? Because there is a disease. It is not high blood pressure or diabetes; it is another kind of disease. Rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (desire to enjoy through the senses of sight, taste, smell, sound, touch); kama (lust), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), moha (illusion), mada (madness), matsarya (envy); kanak (money), kamini (women) and pratistha (name and fame). As long as these diseases are there, the Holy Name will not come to one's tongue. 'Kanak, kamini, pratistha-baghini chhadiyachhe yare sei ta vaisnava (কনক-কামিনী প্রতিষ্ঠা-বাঘিনী ছাড়িয়াছে যারে সেই ত বৈষ্ণব): Vaishnavs are those who give up money, women and fame the tigress' (Vaisnav Ke? Srila Saraswati Thakur). Now say with me:

হরে কৃষ্ণ হরে কৃষ্ণ কৃষ্ণ কৃষ্ণ হরে হরে ।
হরে রাম হরে রাম রাম রাম হরে হরে ॥

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

If you keep chanting this Holy Name, all dirt will go away from your hearts. Suppose you have some land and want to grow some wheat or potato – if you do not clean the land first but just throw the seeds in the land, nothing will grow like this. You must first cultivate, clean and plough the land. In the same way, you must associate, associate and associate with sadhus and always chant, chant and chant the Holy Name, then your heart will be cleaned (your land will become fertile). Associating with sadhus does not mean sleeping with the sadhu in one bed, eating with the sadhu from one plate. Associating with sadhus means listening to what they say and serving them following their words. It is necessary to have seva-vrtti, service mood. It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita:

তদ্­বিদ্ধি প্রণিপাতেন পরিপ্রশ্নেন সেবয়া ।
উপদেক্ষ্যন্তি তে জ্ঞানং জ্ঞানিনস্তত্ত্বদর্শিনঃ ॥

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

'You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant inquiry, and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.'

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

'Pranipat' means full surrender:

দৈন্য, আত্মনিবেদন, গোপ্তৃত্বে বরণ ।
'অবশ্য রক্ষিবে কৃষ্ণ'—বিশ্বাস পালন ॥
ভক্তি-অনুকূল মাত্র কার্য্যের স্বীকার ।
ভক্তি-প্রতিকূল ভব—বর্জ্জনাঙ্গীকার ॥
ষড়ঙ্গ শরণাগতি হইবে যাঁহার ।
তাঁহার প্রার্থনা শুনে শ্রীনন্দকুমার ॥

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
'avasya raksibe krsna'—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara
sad-anga saranagati ha-ibe yanhara
tanhara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

'(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting the Lord as your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that "Krishna will certainly protect me", (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion. Lord Krishna hears the prayers of those who surrender in these six ways.'

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Who will Krishna hear? He hears only those who are surrendered to Him. There are six kinds (aspects, or limbs) of surrender. (1) Humility, feeling you are lowly and poor. (2) Self-submission, or full submission – you must throw yourself completely at the lotus feet of the Lord, for His service. You have got this body, mind, eyes, nose, ears and everything else from the Lord: He has given these facilities to you, and He can also take them away. The Lord may have given you a wife, a son, some friends, brothers, sisters, a daughter and others – He may or may not give them to you, and even if He gives them to you, He can also take them away from you. If you forget the Lord and always think, 'This is my family', 'They are my friends', 'My', 'My', 'My' ('My house', 'My room', 'My son', 'My family'), your attachment will grow stronger and you will again have to return to a family life in the future: you will leave this body and again enter some material family. (3) Accepting the Lord is your maintainer, you must feel that the Lord is taking care of you. (4) Keeping faith that 'Krishna will certainly protect me' – we must have faith that Krishna is our protector. Nobody can save you, nobody can kill you. When your last hour comes, nobody – not a doctor, not your father, not your son, not your husband, not your wife, not your daughter – can save you, you will have to leave. (5) Accept what is favourable to devotion. (6) Reject what is unfavourable to devotion. And you cannot do both what is favourable and what is unfavourable together. I have told today those who were taking initiation: suppose you are doing a fire sacrifice – if you put a spoon of ghee and then a spoon of water, will the fire burn like that? It will not. You cannot do a fire sacrifice like that. The fire will burn only if you put ghee into it. So, if you do something good and then do something bad, it does not work like that. You do what is favourable to devotion, and then you also do what is unfavourable to devotion, you will not get any result like that.

Devotion comes from practising devotion. 'Bhaktis tu bhagavad-bhakta-sangena parijayate (ভক্তিস্তু ভগবদ্ভক্তসঙ্গেন পরিজায়তে). Devotion comes through the association of devotees' (Brihan-naradiya Purana). When you come to devotees, they will engage you in practising devotion. In their association, you can do Tulasi parikrama, arati, and so on. The problem is that when we do arati in the morning, everybody is sleeping – they cannot wake up. How long are you going to sleep in the lap of Illusion the Witch? You are sleeping in the lap of a witch! The arati of the Lord is going on, but we are sleeping, we do not like to join it. Why do we not like it? If you have a fever, then no matter what nice things your mother cooks for you, you will not feel like eating it. Because we are diseased, we do not like chanting the Holy Name.

— : • : —

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Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Clean Your Heart and Cultivate Devotion
2) Seva-Dharma and Mano-Dharma
3) Strive for Spiritual Subsistence
4) Where There Is a Will There Is a Way
5) Excreting Visaya
6) Live in Domain of Mercy
7) The Side-Tracked and the Drowning
8) Servants' Wealth
9) Live Thinking about Lord
10) Turtle Consciousness
11) Learn and Practise
12) Sadhu's Duty
13) Internal Asuddha