(4/8) Come Forward

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Hooghly District, preaching programme,
21 February 2019, evening, part 4
Translated from Bengali

You have *** Prabhu here who always comes to the temple at every festival, and whenever we are at the Tarakeswar or at the Nabadwip temple, he comes there. He is the only breadwinner in his family (in Krishna's family), but he always tries to come and tries to bring you all to the Mission as well. But, as I keep telling you, you, too, must want to come. You can complain or make some excuses that 'Oh, he does not take me with him!' but you must come and show some initiative yourself, 'Prabhu, please take me to the Math with you. Can I come with you for gurudev's festival?' You must want to come. If you make one step forward, the Lord will make ten steps towards you. So, you must want it and you must also make some effort; otherwise, if you have no desire, you will have no mercy.

How long will we stay in this world? You are very busy with your material life, but you still have some time – why are you wasting it? Why are you spending time on nonsense, on gossiping, telling each other stories. Instead of sitting around and talking in the evening, take kartals and chant some kirtans (or just clap your hands and chant) – chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Buy a couple of books about the Lord and read them at home. You spend so much money every day on yourself, but devotees are making books for you. There are many beautiful things in these books – you can get Upadesh, volumes one, two and three; there is also a book about Siksastakam also. I wrote books in simple language for you – if you can get these books and read them, you will be able to understand what is necessary for you, what is the meaning of a human birth. We have got this human birth, but what is our duty? If we do not know about it, we will have to go down again – we will have to again be born as sheep, cats and pigs. I was reading today about hell. There is so much suffering in it. We had a house programme earlier today, and I was reading and speaking about it. If you hear about the kind of suffering one experiences in hell, you will become scared. But if we are surrendered to the Lord – if we have our guru, Vaishnavs and God over our heads – then we will not have to go through such suffering. As long as we have no shelter, enemies and fears will keep on attacking us – lust (kama), anger (krodha), greed (lobha), illusion (moha), envy (matsarya); rupa (eye-enjoyment), rasa (tongue-enjoyemnt), gandha (nose-enjoyment), sabda (ear-enjoyment), sparsa (tactile enjoyment); money (kanak), women (kamini) and prestige (pratistha) will keep us pinned down and force us to do all kinds of bad things. This is what senses do to us. But if we keep good association – if we come to learn from good persons, from sadhus – then our minds and thoughts will never go in the direction of bad things.

You must always remember about this. I am praying to you all: please practise Krishna consciousness. If you do it, you will see that you will get the highest benefit. I keep telling and explaining so many things in this world. Think about it yourself. People worship Durga, Kali, Laksmi, Ganesh and so many other gods and goddesses, but these very gods and goddesses worship the Lord in heaven, waiting, 'O Lord! When will I leave this heaven and again get a human body to chant Your Holy Names and go to Your eternal holy abode?' Even they think like that, and you sit here and worship these gods, but what you are all doing is not even worship. If you worshipped them, it would be good, but the problem is that nobody worships them. When people come to do Durga puja or Laksmi puja, they pray, 'Make me rich (dhanam dehi)', 'Give me knowledge (vidyam dehi)', 'Make me beautiful (rupam dehi)', 'Give me a good wife (bharyam dehi)', 'Make me a great poet (kavitam sundarim dehi).' What is this? You come to the Lord and ask Him for wealth, children, wives – you always want something from the Lord, so the Lord is like your menial servant. You turn the Lord into your menial servant. People come to Durga, Laksmi, Ganesh (many also come to Krishna) and ask them for something – they think about the interest of their own senses. Is it true or not? In lieu of worshipping the Lord, you want something from the Lord – that means that you turn the Lord into your servant.

Moreover, when people come to ask the Lord for something, they give the Lord some bribe: some money, bananas, fruit, etc. People bring and offer things to the Lord, but in their minds they have some desire to get something in return. In other words, they bribe the Lord and think about their own happiness, about their own sense-gratification, about the happiness of their own bodies. This is how we turn the Lord, who is to be worshipped, into a bribe-taker and a servant.

We must not actually do that.

— : • : —

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Length: 43 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Your Necessity and Interest
2) My Mission
3) Hari-Kirtan Comes from Heart
4) Come Forward
5) Do Not Cheat Yourself
6) Soul's Shelter
7) Genuine Devotion Comes from Genuine Devotees
8) Leashed and Lashed Life