(22/22) Pig's Life, God's Life, Devotee's Life

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Bolpur, noon, 20 January 2019, part 22
Translated from Bengali

Do you have any other questions? If not, I will let you go then. If you have any doubts, you can ask questions. I have spoken for a long time today, so you may wonder, 'How can I do this? How can I come to the Lord?' I have told you that if you want to come to Lord Krishna, you must take shelter of a bona fide guru and practise Krishna consciousness.

Please practise Krishna consciousness. Leave small, trifle things.

আসক্তিরহিত সম্বন্ধসহিত ।
বিষয়সমূহ সকলি মাধব ॥

asakti-rahita, sambandha-sahita,
visaya-samuha sakali madhava

'When you are free from material attachment and establish relationship with the Lord, then you will see that everything around you is Lord Madhav Himself.'

('Vaishnav ke?' Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur)

'Sakali Madhava' (the Lord is everywhere) means that the Lord is the master of the whole world. Because we have ego, we think, 'I do farming', 'I work', 'I run a business', 'I trade' – but the actual owner of everything and everyone is the Lord. Because we forget Him, we are suffering from the agony of threefold miseries.

কৃষ্ণ ভুলি' সেই জীব অনাদি-বহির্ম্মুখ ।
অতএব মায়া তারে দেয় সংসারাদি-দুঃখ ॥

krsna bhuli' sei jiva anadi-bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsaradi-duhkha

'Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primaeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

We live in the bondage of illusory environment; we keep coming and going, changing families. This is not only human families – dogs live in dog families, goats live in goat families, cows live in cow families, pigs live in pig families. You think you will go to heaven and live happily, but even Lord Indra, the king of heaven, had to once be born as a pig because he had been cursed by his guru, Brihaspati. Twelve years later, Lord Brahma saved him. When Indra became a pig, he lived happily eating stool. Lord Brahma came to him and said, 'O Indra, what are you doing?! You used to drink nectar in heaven! How can you eat this stool?' Indra was annoyed to hear it.

You know, when you get off at the Howrah station, you see so many people running around. Everybody is rushing to their offices, and when they finish work, they are hurrying to quickly get back home. If you hand a book to them, 'Sir, take this book for ten rupees,' they brush you off, 'I do not have time! No time! I will miss my train!'

Just like those busy people, Indra was very busy eating stool, burying his face into it. Stool and other dirt fell out of him, and he would eat it! When Lord Brahma came to him and tried to bring him to senses, Indra was annoyed, 'Why are you disturbing me? I am hungry, let me eat!' Twelve years passed in this way. When Lord Brahma killed Indra's sons and wife and Indra became helpless, then only did he think, 'This man keeps coming to me, saying that he is Brahma, that I was Indra before. What is he talking about?' He started listening to what Brahma said and eventually he again got his demigod body back.

You worship Kali, Durga, Ganesh and other gods, and some of you will become Kali, Durga or Ganesh in the future. For example, you know Sadhak Ramprasad, a big devotee of Kali – he became Kali now.

The lifetime of gods is one kalpa (4,320,000,000 years). After that, they have to leave their position. For example, here in Bolpur you have elected the minister Chandranath Sinha. If he fails the next election, his position will be gone, or if he does something bad, he can be stripped of his position. In the same way, Kali is the minister of energy, Laksmi is the minister of treasury, Saraswati is the minister of education. We come to these ministers, give them a bribe and ask them for something: 'Give me wealth', 'Give me knowledge', 'Make me beautiful', 'Give me a good wife', 'Please give me happiness', 'Please make my life easy.' They take the Lord's permission and give us something – they give somebody property, somebody money, somebody power, and so on.

Question: Will we get what we want if we ask God for it?

If you sincerely pray to demigods, you will get whatever you want. Everybody gets it. You, too, can get whatever you want from them. But we must not want anything. The path of devotion is for those who have no desires. Prahlad Maharaj's devotion is the example. When the Lord asked Prahlad Maharaj, 'What do you want to get?' Prahlad Maharaj replied, 'O Lord, the boon I want to get is this: please take away from me this desire to ask You for anything.' This is what is called selfless devotion – not desiring anything for your own enjoyment or happiness.

You can see these lady devotees sitting here. Suppose, the husband comes and tells his wife, 'Oh, I have a bad headache, give me your foot dust,' will she give it to them? She will say, 'How can I? I worship you! Have you gone mad? How can I give you my foot dust? I do not want to make this sin!' She thinks about herself, not about her husband's headache. Her husband says, 'Give me your foot dust, and my headache will go away,' but she does not want to give it because if she gives it, it will be a sin – it means that she loves herself more than she loves her husband. Is this so or not? Vraja gopis never think about themselves. When Narad came to them and asked for their foot dust to place on Krishna's head to remove His headache and they were ready to give it, Narad said, 'What are you doing? Are you really going to give your foot dust?' they replied, 'Why not? Our Krishna will recover! Even if we rot or become destroyed as the result, what is the problem? We do not mind anything as long as our Lord is happy.' Their love is for Krishna is sincere – they love Krishna and can do anything for Him. We must love the Lord for who He is, not because of any other reason. When Mother Yasoda gave milk to Krishna, did she do it for her own happiness or for her son's happiness? This is how we must practise spiritual life, then we will get supreme benefit.

Please come to the festival in Sri Ekachakra Dham and for the Nabadwip Dham parikrama. Ekachakra is very near Bolpur – you can take a train to Rampur and then take a bus or a toto to Ekachakra. Please come. I will see you all at the festival. I will be there for a few days. You can come on ekadasi, the next day is Varaha-dvadasi (the appearance day of Lord Varahadev, it is a fasting day – we will fast until midday, then take some anukalpa at midday and in the evening), and the next day is Nityananda-trayodasi, and the festival will also continue on the fourth day. The festival will last three days (dvadasi, trayodasi, chaturdasi). Please come and stay at the temple. You will all get prasad there. You can come and get Nityananda Prabhu's mercy, you can hear Hari-katha there. This year, ekadasi falls on dvadasi, so you do not need to fast on ekadasi – the fast is on dvadasi (Varaha-dvadasi). The next day is Nityananda-trayodasi. The festival is from 16 to 18 February.

Have you ever been to our temple? You know, when I came there for the first time, I bought some black plastic tarpaulin and slept underneath it the first night. After that, I started the construction of the four-storey guesthouse there – I rented a room for fifty rupees a day, and I would come and stay there for one–two days to supervise the construction works. Gurudev left when the guesthouse was completed, and the temple was constructed after him. Everything is actually done by the Lord, by Lord Nityananda – I am only an instrument... After that, many more temples were opened – in Ganga Sagar, Tarakeshwar... People go to Tarakeshwar to see Sivji Maharaj and smoke marijuana, so I thought that if they could have a place where they could come and chant the Lord's Name, take prasad, then they would get some benefit. Many mayavadi-sannyasis come to Ganga Sagar, so I thought to make a temple there as well for the benefit of people.

Oh, I see that everybody has come for prasad now. Let us finish then and come to the arati. Oh, it is very late already! Please stand up for the arati.

[His Divine Grace finishes an over-two-hour-long noon class and joins the devotees at the arati.]

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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