(1) Course of Life

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Bolpur, evening, 20 January 2019, part 1
Translated from Bengali

মূকং করোতি বাচালং পঙ্গুং লঙ্ঘয়তে গিরিম্ ।
যৎকৃপা তমহং বন্দে শ্রীগুরুং দীনতারণম্ ॥

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim
yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

'The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill—all it takes is mercy from Gurudev."

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad-guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy and aspiring to serve him; after that, I am offering my full obeisance to all the assembled guru-varga, all my godbrothers, to all the listeners, to all the motherly lady devotees and all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet and praying for your mercy to this lowly soul.

We are present here today to speak and hear some Hari-katha, to speak and hear about the Lord. What do the scriptures say? A bad day is not a cloudy day. A bad day for us is the day when we go astray from our service to the Lord and Hari-katha. Whenever we cannot hear the Holy Name of the Lord, that day is a bad day for us. You must remember what I am going to tell you. What I said yesterday was actually only an introduction. Spending ten months and ten days in our mothers' wombs, some fortunate souls get to see the Lord there – not everybody has this kind of fortune, but if somebody is fortunate, the Lord appears to them in their mother's womb. When we live in the womb, we suffer very much, so we begin to call out to the Lord, and the Lord appears to us while we are in the womb and says, 'I can understand that you are in big trouble, that is why you are calling Me. Tell Me what you want from Me.'

'O Lord, I am suffering so much, I cannot take it anymore!'

'If you want to get out of here, I can take you out. I will give you eyes, will you see My Deity with them?'

'Yes, I will.'

'I will give you ears, will you ear about Me with them?'

'Yes, I will.'

'I will give you a mouth, will you speak about Me with it?'

'Yes, I will.'

When we saw the Lord, we could see how beautiful He is – we saw Him holding a conch, disk, club and lotus; but after we had seen this vishva-rupa, we came out of our mothers' wombs and we could not see the Lord anymore. As soon as a child is born, it begins to cry – you must understand why children cry. When the child cries upon its birth, it is crying because it is getting Maya's darshan, and those who do not cry are born stiff (hard-hearted) and cannot cry – they are attacked by Maya even more severely. When the child is hit by Maya very strongly, no tears come to its eyes and it does not cry; otherwise, when the child is struck by Maya, it begins to cry because it had come after seeing the Lord, but now it cannot see Him. After that, the child falls into Maya's bondage and enters material family life – it comes to its mother's lap, auntie's lap, father's lap. In this way, the child spends its childhood travelling from one lap to another. Then, adolescence comes. This is how life goes. We grow up, go to school, go to college, get a job, get married, get old and frail. When we grow old, we reap the result of old age. When we are young, we run around doing so many things, but when we get old, our legs pain, our backs pain and we cannot walk. This is the state of the body we end up with. Our time passes in this way; finally, when the call comes one day, we will have to leave – our family will put our body on a bamboo bed (bamboo sticks tied together, used for carrying dead bodies), come to a cremation ghat and burn it there. This is how our lives go.

I told you yesterday about it, too. Think about it. There are so many living entities in this world. Insects, bugs, pigs, monkeys, cats, dogs, snakes, frogs, etc. They all live in this world eating, sleeping, defending and reproducing. Guru Maharaj told also that if you have lived in this world, for example, for twenty years, it means that you have actually lived only for ten years because you spend half of your life sleeping. And during those ten years when you actually live (when you are awake), you do so many things – you eat, you shower, etc. Amidst all that, how much time do you actually spend on service to the Lord?

— : • : —

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