(6/10) Quitting Maya's Play

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Hooghly District, evening programme,
22 February 2019, part 6
Translated from Bengali

What is Maya's duty? Where does she get her power? There are millions and millions of jiva souls, and they are all thinking only about their own lives because Maya gets her power from the Lord.

Maya is created by the Lord, and Srila Prabhupad explained how she becomes empowered. When a blacksmith taken an iron rod and puts it into fire, the rod becomes red. And if you try to take that iron rod with your hand, you will get burnt – if you touch that iron rod to a cloth, the cloth will catch fire, or if you touch it to your body, you will get a blister. Before, the iron rod did not burn anything, so why does it burn now? Because it gets power from the fire – getting power from fire, it can burn anything it touches. Maya's play is like that, too. Receiving power from the Lord, she takes souls away from the Lord (makes them forget the Lord) and turns them into her own slaves. This is how we become servants and maidservants of Maya and become puppets in her play – we go place to place busying ourselves with so many things, always thinking, 'My', 'My', 'My.' This is Maya's play.

When some fortunate souls can understand Maya's play and learn about their actual identity (when they understand, 'I am not this body. This body is created from earth, water, fire, air, ether, but I am actually a servant of Lord Krishna'), then Maya Devi, who gets her power from Lord Krishna and who also serves Lord Krishna, sees, 'Oh, this person has surrendered to my Master! I will not stay here anymore – I must leave this soul alone.' Maya Devi flees, and then the fortunate soul can serve Lord Govinda and Vaishnavs.

Have you understood what I said? You must always think about it in this way. It is our duty to always think about Lord Govinda. Otherwise, you will have to keep coming to this world again and again, suffering from birth, death, old age and disease; you will have to keep coming to this world – getting born and suffering again and again! That is why we pray to you: please always remember the Lord, do not forget Him even for one moment.

Do not forget the Lord! He is the one who is managing everything in this world (everything in this world is His play) – we must always remember Him. Never forget Him.

The Lord has kept you alive in this world – He is managing everything, so He has allotted various works and duties to all the creatures. But do we do? Instead of serving and worshipping this Lord, we turn the Lord into our menial servant. How so? You can see what people do in this world. They come to God, give Him some rice, dal, money and other things and say, 'O Lord! I need a car', 'O Lord! I want to have a house', 'O Lord! Make me rich', 'O Lord! May my son get a good job!', 'O Lord! May my daughter get married into a good family.' We always ask God for something and expect Him to do it for us. What does it mean? It means that God becomes our servant. 'O Lord, do this for me!' What do people come and say to Saraswati?

ওঁ সরস্বতি মহাভাগে বিদ্যে কমললোচনে ।
বিদ্যারূপে বিশালাক্ষি বিদ্যাং দেহি নমোহস্তু তে ॥

om sarasvati mahabhage vidye kamalalochane
visvarupe visalaksi vidyam dehi namostute

'O great Goddess Saraswati, the personified knowledge possessing large lotus eyes! I offer obeisance to you, please give me knowledge.'

They say, 'O Devi! I am giving these ten rupees, flowers and fruit to you – please give me knowledge.' People make Saraswati a bribe-taker! In this world, you can get a job if you give money to some government official – what do you call such officials? Bribe-takers. In the same way, people turn gods and goddesses into bribe-takers: 'O Devi! I am giving you this money, bananas and rice, and you give me this, this and that.' People turn worshippable Deities into bribe-takers! Devotees never behave like that. Devotees worship the Lord with devotion, love – they feel, 'I am serving the Lord, and He may or may not take my service. It is up to Him. My duty and desire is to serve Him. I am born in this human life only for that.'

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Size: 27 Mb
Length: 56 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Service Greatness Is Not External
2) Srivas Pandit's Ideal
3) Sadhus' Dacoity
4) Short-Sighted Minds
5) Food for Thought
6) Quitting Maya's Play
7) Servants' Service
8) Lord's Arrangement
9) Bali Maharaj's Sacrifice
10) Sacrifice, Surrender and Succeed