Householders' Hypocrisy

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Ekachakra Dham, morning class
15 February 2019, part 6

There is no difference whether one is a householder, a sannyasi, or a vanaprastha—if one practises properly, with heart and soul, with the Holy Name of Krishna, with the Holy Name of Nityananda Prabhu, with a clean heart, then there is no difference whether it is a householder or a sannyasi.

Sometimes people say, "Gauranga Mahaprabhu's parents Sachi Mata and Jagannath Misra or Nityananda Prabhu's parents Hadai Pandit and Padmavati Devi, or Lord Krishna's parents Mother Yasoda and Nanda Maharaj were grihasthas and maintained their family life, why will I be a sannyasi or a brahmachari? Family life is better!" But is their family life the same as our family life? It is not. They may stay in the householder life, but their mind, body, everything stays in the house of the Lord, in the temple of the Lord. They cook and do everything always thinking about the Lord, serving the Lord. And some householder people say, "Oh, if they maintain their family life, why will we not do that?" Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur told about that.

Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur says,

“শিখা-সূত্র ঘুচাইলেই সে কৃষ্ণ পাই ।
গৃহস্থ তোমার মতে বৈষ্ণব কি নাই ?”

“sikha-sutra ghuchaile-i se krsna pai
grhastha tomara mate vaisnava ki nai?”

[Gadadhar Pandit to Mahaprabhu:] “You say one gets Krishna by keeping a sikha and having a sacred brahman thread, but is a householder like You not a Vaisnav?”

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.26.172)

Jagadananda Pandit told

“গৃহী হউক, ত্যাগী হউক, ভক্তে ভেদ নাই ।
ভক্তে ভেদ হইলে কুম্ভীপাক নরকেতে যাই ॥

grhi hauka, tyagi hauka, bhakte bheda nai
bhakte bheda haile kumbhipaka narakete yai

“There is no difference between devotees—be they householders or renunciants. If someone makes distinctions between them, they go to the hell of boiling oil.”

(Sri Prema-vivarta, 17.22)

We always fight, "We are householders! We are brahmacharis!" but there is no difference.

A grihastha Vaishnav always avoids offences to the Holy Name—he always accepts what is favourable to devotion and always rejects what is unfavourable to devotion. That is the main thing. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur told one more thing—suppose you start a fire sacrifice (a yajna), and one time you put a spoon of ghee and another time you put a spoon of water and then again you put a spoon of ghee—will it work like that? It will not. You must always put ghee otherwise there will be no fire. So, we must accept what is in favour of devotion, and we must reject what is not in favour of devotion. Both cannot run together.

Another thing Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said is that sometimes people think, "If I become a sannyasi, I may fall down later, so better I become a householder, then there is no risk of falling down!" Sometimes also we stay in our house and on pretext of making Krishna's family we create so many servants and maidservants of Krishna—this is called sahajiya (imitation). Those who are interested in spiritual life do not live like that. One can never prosper or develop their spiritual life by such hypocrisy.

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