(8/11) Step Forward

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sundarpur, 18 January 2019, noon, part 8
Translated from Bengali

Always keep in touch. Always take guidance, listen to Hari-katha. That is our duty. If you listen, listen and listen and one day feel love and attachment for Krishna consciousness, then you can understand that you have got something; otherwise, you will not be able to understand anything in this line. Anyhow, I have spoken a lot today. You have heard how you must practise spiritual life – does anybody have any questions?

Change the name of your place. Step down. Call it Sri Sri Guru Gaura Nityananda Ashram. If you want to climb a ladder, you must start from the bottom. If you go directly to university without studying first at primary school, will you understand anything there? It is necessary to study gradually. First, primary school, then high school, then college, then university.

Question: You said that we must always keep in touch, but you do not come here all the time. How can we do it?

You can call me sometimes. You can read our books. How can I come here all the time? I have to go to so many places all the time. It is not necessary for you to always have my physical presence (saksad-darshan). How can you get association? If you listen to your Gurupadpadma's Hari-katha, you will get his association.

Question: If we change the name here, will others understand it?

They must understand it. Why not? If they get devotion, they will understand it. You can see ISKCON's temple in Mayapur: at first, they had the asta-sakhis' Deities and Radha-Krishna's Deities installed there, but after Gaudiya Math preached and preached to them, they finally installed Mahaprabhu's Deity there. Now they have Pancha Tattva's Deities there as well. They installed them much later.

Question: You said that ISKCON preaches that we must become devotees of Krishna, but is it not what Srila Prabhupad preached?

No. Srila Prabhupad (Srila Swami Maharaj) did not preach this. They started preaching this later, after him. Srila Swami Maharaj said to foreign devotees, 'If you want to hear Hari-katha, I have my friend and my siksa-guru, Srila Sridhar Maharaj – you can come to him.' That is why foreign devotees started coming to Srila Sridhar Maharaj. You can see here a devotee who is selling books – he is a disciple of Srila Swami Maharaj, you can ask him. He is serving now as the Math's gate-keeper.

Question: They come from abroad to practise, but why is it that we are born here, but we cannot understand many things?

It is a very good question. I will tell you. Who took initiation from Krishna? Brahma.

কৃষ্ণ হৈতে চতুর্ম্মুখ, হন কৃষ্ণসেবোন্মুখ,
ব্রহ্মা হৈতে নারদের মতি ।

krsna haite chatur-mukha, hana krsna-sevonmukha,
brahma haite naradera mati

'Through Krishna, Lord Brahma became devoted to Krishna's service. Through Lord Brahma, Sri Narad Goswami developed devotional mood.'

Initially, Brahma listened directly from Krishna, but when Krishna spoke, Brahma heard some things differently. Gurudev has many disciples – some of them hear what Gurudev says in one way, and some hear it in another way. If everybody heard things the same way, then everybody would be practising the same way, but it does not work like that – everybody hears things in their own way. So, when Krishna spoke, Brahma heard something in a wrong way. For example, when Krishna spoke to Arjuna, Arjuna listened to Krishna properly. He said, 'I am Your disciple, please instruct me,' then Krishna said, 'Yes, I will tell you.' So, when Brahma created this world, there appeared many kinds of people – somebody worships Ganesh, somebody worships Kali, somebody worships Durga, somebody worships, somebody worships many other gods and goddesses. Because we are mixed up with this hodgepodge, we cannot come to the right path. You can see that in Islam, they worship only one God, Allah; in Buddhism also, they worship only Buddha. Everybody's level is different, so everybody worships God according to their level. There is nothing to fight over.

All religions are not the same. If you go everywhere and just offer some flowers or tie a rakhi on somebody's wrist, thinking that this is spiritual life, is that so? Does such 'practise' remove the dirt from your heart? A Muslim man ties a rakhi on a girl's wrist (or gives her a flower) and says, 'You are my sister now.' It is necessary to see the person's level. What is their level with such practices and where is our level with our Krishna consciousness practice? There are also good things in other religions. For example, in Islam, they do namaz five times a day (panch oyakta namaj, পাঁচ ওয়াক্ত নামাজ) – this is something we can learn from them. In our line, people cannot pray to the Lord properly (do kirtan, etc.) even three times a day, but Muslims do it five times a day. You must learn whenever you see something learnable. That is why we start practising many different things... But foreign devotees come to Krishna consciousness and practise properly because they have sukriti. You can be born anywhere. If you are born in America, it does not mean you are American. If we are born in India, it does not mean we are Indian. We forget who we are. Our identity is that we are souls.

'কৃষ্ণ-নিত্যদাস'—জীব তাহা ভুলি' গেল ।
এই দোষে মায়া তার গলায় বান্ধিল ॥

'krsna-nitya-dasa'—jiva taha bhuli' gela
ei dose maya tara galaya bandhila

'The jiva soul forgot that it is an eternal servant of Krishna. Because of this mistake, illusion threw its ropes around the soul's neck.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.24)

We say that we are Indian and they are Mexican, Malaysian, American, Venezuelan, Colombian, but this is not our identity.

'কৃষ্ণ-নিত্যদাস'—জীব তাহা ভুলি' গেল ।
এই দোষে মায়া তার গলায় বান্ধিল ॥

'krsna-nitya-dasa'—jiva taha bhuli' gela
ei dose maya tara galaya bandhila

'The jiva soul forgot that it is an eternal servant of Krishna. Because of this mistake, illusion threw its ropes around the soul's neck.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.24)

What we forget is that we are all eternal servants of Krishna. That is why our situation is like this now. Those who learn about their identity can slowly join this path. It is necessary to understand who you are, then you can understand everything; otherwise you will not understand anything. That is why we go to so many places to tell people about who they are. It is necessary to listen to Hari-katha, it is necessary to know things, and most important, it is necessary to have desire. You must not wait when gurudev comes – you must come to gurudev yourself. You must search, 'Where is gurudev now?' and try to find him. 'Where is Krishna?' You must search for Him. If you sit idle hoping that Krishna will come to you, this is not how it works. You must make the first step, then Krishna will make ten steps towards you. But if you think, 'Krishna will come to me, Krishna will give me everything, I will get everything,' this is not how it works. You cannot make Krishna your menial servant. I have told you about it today.

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Size: 24.1 Mb
Length: 67 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Basis of Mahaprabhu's Conception
2) Learn the Ropes
3) Watered Down Conception
4) Become a Good Practitioner
5) Spiritual Selfishness
6) Do Not Overstep
7) Internal and External Devotion
8) Step Forward
9) We Are Servants, Not Devotees
10) Learn Proper Meaning
11) Come to Nirguna Plane