(10/22) Misdirected Worship

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Bolpur, noon, 20 January 2019, part 10
Translated from Bengali

We worship many gods and goddesses here. I explained to you the nature of that worship yesterday. When I recently went to Nepal, somebody asked me, 'In Islam, they worship only Allah; in Buddhism, they worship Buddha; in Christianity, they worship only Jesus – but why are there so many different gods in Hinduism? Hindu people worship Ganesh, Kartik, Laksmi and many other gods. Why?' A small boy that studied in the ninth grade asked me this question. They study Sanskrit at school, so when I gave a lecture at their school, he asked me this question. I explained to him what the scriptures say about it. Brahma, who received initiation from Krishna and then created this world, heard Krishna's instruction and took it in a different way. Every disciple hears the guru's instruction in their own way – not everybody can hear it properly. So, Brahma created this world arranging everything according to what he had heard. That is how he created devotees of Ganesh, Kartik, Kali, Durga, Siva, Surya, Parvati, and so on. It is said in the scriptures that there are 330,000,000 demigods. Can we possibly worship all demigods? Can you even tell the names of these 330,000,000 demigods? I cannot. I do not know all their names. Moreover, even Lord Brahma himself, who is a disciple of Krishna, says, 'Somebody says that they know Krishna: they may know Him, but I do not know Him.' This Lord Brahma composed Brahma-samhita, where he says:

ঈশ্বরঃ পরমঃ কৃষ্ণঃ সচ্চিদানন্দবিগ্রহঃ ।
অনাদিরাদির্গোবিন্দঃ সর্ব্বকারণকারণম্ ॥

isvarah paramah krsnah sach-chid-ananda-vigrahah
anadir adir govindah sarva-karana-karanam

'Krishna, who is known as Govinda, is the supreme controller. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin, for He is the prime cause of all causes.'

(Sri Brahma-samhita, 5.1)

'He is the origin of everything (He existed before anybody else) and He is the cause of all causes.' He is known as Govinda as well as Madhav, Yadav, Gopal – whatever Name you call Him.

We cannot worship all 330,000,000 demigods, but:

'শ্রদ্ধা' শব্দে—বিস্বাস কহে সুদৃঢ় নিশ্চয় ।
কৃষ্ণে ভক্তি কৈলে সর্ব্বকর্ম্ম কৃত হয় ॥

'sraddha'-sabde—visvasa kahe sudrdha nischaya
krsne bhakti kaile sarva-karma krta haya

'Sraddha is a firm, determined faith that by serving Krishna all actions are accomplished.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.62)

Your debt to your father, mother, rishis (sages), demigods – all debts are cleared if you serve the Lord, and if you worship Krishna, all demigods are automatically worshipped. That is why we should be worshipping Krishna. And if you are to worship Krishna, you cannot worship Him directly – you must worship Radha-Krishna and Mahaprabhu. Krishna Himself says, 'Those who are say they are My devotees are not My devotees; those who are devotees of My devotees are My true devotees.' Therefore, we must go to Krishna's devotees.

কৃষ্ণ সে তোমার কৃষ্ণ দিতে পার
তোমার শকতি আছে ।
আমি ত কাঙ্গাল 'কৃষ্ণ কৃষ্ণ' বলি
ধাই তব পাছে পাছে ॥

krsna se tomara krsna dite para
tomara sakati achhe
ami ta' kangala 'krsna krsna' bali
dhaitava pachhe pachhe

'Krishna is yours, you can give Krishna – you have such power. I am very poor – calling out, "Krishna! Krishna!" I am running after you.'

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

First it is necessary to have surrender. Be humble (dainya), surrender yourself (atma-nivedan), understand that Krishna maintains and takes care of us (goptritve-varan). Krishna, not our parents, is the one looking after us.

Suppose you have a grandchild. You take the child to an astrologer and ask him, 'Please have a look at my grandchild's hand.' When the astrologer sees the child's hand, he says, 'Oh no! Your grandchild will not live longer than one–two years – the child will be bitten by a venomous snake and die in one and a half or two years.' You think, 'Venomous snake? But we have a good house, where will a snake come there from?' Still, you get scared and make a special box to protect the child at night. Then the Badhra (August/September) month comes; it is the season of fruit, so you get nice kul (jujube) fruit on the trees. One day, your wife picks some kul fruit that fell on the ground and gives it to the child. When the child eats a kul, it suddenly dies, and the postmortem shows that the child has died from snake venom. So, it turns out that a snake had bitten that kul and left its venom inside. Was it possible to protect the child? Can keeping the child in a box prevent death? When the call comes, nobody can save us. Neither a doctor nor a father, mother can save us then.

শ্মশানে শরীর মম পড়িয়া রহিবে ।
বিহঙ্গ পতঙ্গ তায় বিহার করিবে ॥

smasane sarira mama padiya rahibe
bihanga-patanga taya vihara karibe

'My body will be left at a crematorium, and birds and insects will heartily enjoy it.'

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

I do not know if you will believe it or not. When there was a flood in Nabadwip, I would go around in a boat, doing some relief work for the afflicted. The family of Srila Swami Maharaj's granddaughter had a small two-storey house in Mayapur, so when the flood rose to the second floor, they got scared and, taking their child, decided to leave the house in a boat. Near Chaitanya Math, the boat capsized and both parents died. The child was just one and a half years old, but he survived. There was some straw raft floating by in the current, and the child anyhow was able to climb on top of it. When some boat was passing by, the boatmen heard somebody crying and saw the child on the raft. So, who does save one if not God? When there was an earthquake in Nepal, they kept finding so many dead bodies in the debris. All hospitals are full, and there are so many dead bodies, so in the end they declared, 'There are no more survivors.' Seven days later, when they were clearing the debris with a car, they discovered a baby who was alive! When there was a tornado in Odisha, I saw on TV that jackals and dogs were fighting over dead bodies. That is what is said in our scriptures also – when your body drops down dead, jackals and dogs will feast on it. You pamper and massage your body now, you use oils and creams, you grow nice hair, but where will all that go in the end? Everything will be gone. Jackals and dogs will feast on this body. Who are we doing all this for?...

গর্দ্দভের মত আমি করি পরিশ্রম ।
কার লাগি' এত করি না ঘুচিল ভ্রম ॥

gardabhera mata ami kari parisrama
kara lagi' eta kari, na ghuchila bhrama

'I toil laboriously like a donkey. For whom am I doing this? Still my illusion has not been dispelled.'

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

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Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Course of Life
2) Special Arrangement for Kali-Yuga
3) Beyond Religious Bigotry
4) Innermost Desires
5) Fortune, Faith and Frauds
6) Think about Your Real Self
7) Come to Krishna's Family
8) Seek Out Eternal Shelter
9) Proper Surrender
10) Misdirected Worship
11) Deepest Faith
12) Beyond Illusory World
13) Turn Home
14) Gross and Subtle Cheating
15) Watch for Milestones
16) Come Home with Me
17) All That Glitters Is Not Gold
18) Do Not Cheat Yourself
19) Soul's Plight
20) Eternal Transformations
21) Origin of Hinduism
22) Pig's Life, God's Life, Devotee's Life