(8/9) Do As You Please

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Vasanta Panchami, Tarakeshwar,
10 February 2019, evening, part 8
Translated from Bengali

Do you know who has the right to chant the Holy Name? How can one attain this right? 'If devotees who practise spiritual life at the temple – or if pure, sincere householder devotees who stay at home – use the objects that allow them to serve the Lord and practise Krishna consciousness without material attachment, they can attain the right to chant the Holy Name.' Outside people chant the Holy Name, too, but they sell the Name for ten, fifty or five hundred rupees. This is not the Holy Name. It is only alphabet, only letters of the Holy Name; such 'chanting' only pleases your and others' minds – it has nothing to do with the Holy Name proper. One can say, 'Hare', 'Krishna', 'Hara', but there is no Holy Name in such utterances.

অসাধুসঙ্গে ভাই কৃষ্ণনাম নাহি হয় ।
নামাক্ষর বাহিরায় বটে তবু নাম কভু নয় ॥

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

'Brother, the Name of Krishna never appears in bad association: the letters of the Name may appear, but the Name never does.'

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 7.1, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Remember this. If one chants without good association, it can never be the Holy Name. The Holy Name of Lord Krishna can never come out of an offender's mouth. When you chant the Holy Name, there is consideration of offences.

অপরাধ-ফলে মম, চিত্ত-ভেল বজ্রসম,
তুয়া নামে না লভে বিকার ।

aparadha-phale mama, chitta bhela vajra-sama,
tuya name na labhe vikara

'As the result of my offences, my heart has become as hard as thunderbolt. Your Name does not have any effect on me.'

(Sri Siksastakam Giti, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

So, if offenders of the Holy Name and of Vaishnavs try to chant the Holy Name, the Holy Name can never come to their tongues – the letters can be heard from them, but not the Holy Name. Their chanting is mere enjoyment.

Another important point is who is able to hear these things? If, by great fortune, you are anxious to serve the Lord, then it will enter your ears. If you make a step forward to the Lord, you will be able to hear these things; otherwise, you can hear about these things your whole life, but it will not actually enter your ears. 'Those who are unfortunate may think they heard Hari-katha, but actually they do not – they are simply cheated. The moment we lose our guardian, the enemies surrounding us will attack us.' Our guardian is the Lord. The moment we think, 'I have nobody to look after me, I have nobody to shelter me,' enemies will come to attack us. But if we have faith that 'Krishna is my guardian,' then there will be no danger, no harm. 'The moment we stop listening about Krishna consciousness from a bona fide sadhu, stop serving the sadhu sincerely, Maya will immediately take advantage and seize us.'

How should we spend this human life? 'We have been nourished and brought up with much care and love in a particular society since our childhood, and we have got entangled in this life so much that we do not have even a moment to spare for the discussions of our eternal life. We spend twenty-four hours a day busy with our work, so much so that we do not even try to know what our real position is.' I told you yesterday about it. 'Who am I?' – we think, 'This is my body,' 'This is my name.' This is what we think. But this is not so. It is necessary to know and understand who you are. I told you yesterday that my parents may have given me this body, but they did not create that which I am. If they were my real parents (if they created my soul), then they would be able to protect me, but they cannot. My parents are not the creators of my soul – the Lord is. The Lord can give me life and the Lord can take it away also. Why do we forget this? When this body dies, it will be thrown into fire or buried in a grave, but the soul will be taken away by the Lord – He sends the soul into a body and He takes it away also. Why cannot people understand this?

Many people advocate helping society, humankind, etc. and they fight over who should be helped, how much and who should be benefitted. But devotion to the Lord is different. If you have devotion to the Lord and faith in the Lord, you will go to the Lord; nobody can take this away from you or take a share of your attainment. In this world, if you distribute ten blankets, there will always be unhappy people because they do not get what they wanted. When government builds homes for poor people, somebody gets a place to stay at, but others are unhappy because they do not get anything. This is what happens when you try to 'do social works'. Those who come to extend genuine help – who come to help jiva souls – do not have to worry about all this (their help is universal).

What is enjoyment and what is renunciation? 'Enjoyment is what does not let people see that everything actually belongs to the Lord, inasmuch as renunciation is what does not let people understand that everything is actually ingredients for the service of the Lord.' Enjoyers (bhogi) think, 'I am the master of all I survey (bhoga).' They say, 'I do farming (I go to work, I run a business), so the result of my labour belongs to me.' Forgetting the Lord, enjoyers consider themselves masters. As for renunciates, they think, 'I do not need these things, so I give them up.' But the main point is that we must not forget that everything belongs to the Lord. When you realise that you must use the Lord's things in the Lord's service, then it is service – it is not enjoyment or renunciation. You must remember this. 'The enjoyment or renunciation that brings neglect of things related to the Lord is alien to the soul. The soul's nature is service.'

There is one more important thing you must remember. Many people wonder, 'Is the mind the same as the soul?' I told you yesterday that our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, mind, intelligence and ego comprise our senses. But the soul is a particle of the Lord. The mind and the soul are not one and the same. The mind always judges about the external world. The mind is always fickle – it always goes one side, another side. You think of doing something bad and you do it; you think of watching TV and you watch it. But the mind also can want to do something good – it can want to hear Hari-katha instead. But what is the soul? The soul is an eternal part and parcel of the Supreme Controller. What does the Supreme Lord want? What does He like? Who can tell you these things? Your soul. Suppose your mind wants to kill somebody – you go and kill the person. Does your soul want that? No. But outside people say, 'We should do whatever our souls desire.' When you kill a person, do you do this because your soul has told you to do that? No. Your intelligence derailed, so your mind told you to do this and you did it, but the soul never wants such things. There are such gurus in this world that will tell you that you must do whatever your soul pleases. Only the soul can know what the Lord wants and likes; therefore, the religion of the soul is service to the eternal Paramatma (Supreme Soul).

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Length: 62 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Conquering the Conquerer
2) Two Phenomenal Personalities
3) Srila Raghunath Das Goswami's Pastimes
4) Mukunda's Faith
5) Sri Raghunandan Thakur
6) Remembering Lord's Associates
7) Devotees' Wealth
8) Do As You Please
9) Remember Great Souls