(1/10) Oblivious Existence

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Hooghly District, preaching programme,
23 February 2019, evening, part 1
Translated from Bengali

We have forgotten the Lord. In this world, we worship gods and goddesses to get some material happiness – when we come to worship them, we always think only about our bodies and our senses: 'Make me rich (dhanam dehi)', 'Make me clever (vidyam dehi)', 'Make me beautiful (rupam dehi)', 'Give me a good wife (bharyam dehi)', 'Make me a great poet (kavitam sundarim dehi)'. We always pray for all these things, but we forget the Supreme Lord. That is why, following Mahaprabhu's order, sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs go house to house to remind us about it. On the order of their Gurupadpadma, they approach everyone and urge: 'Krishna bolo, sange chala, ei matra bhiksa chai (কৃষ্ণ বল, সঙ্গে চল, এই মাত্র ভিক্ষা চাই). I am begging you for one thing only: come with us and chant the Holy Name of Krishna! Please come to your own home!' Come to your home! If you come to your home, you will have to never come back from there. Even gods and goddess in heaven are not eternal – they, too, have to return from heaven and be born again.

If you behave well (if you do not do wrong things and live in an honest and clean way), you will earn some pious merit (punya) and go to heaven. But once that pious merit is exhausted, you will have to come back from there. You must know about it. If you read Srimad Bhagavad-gita or Srimad Bhagavatam, you will find there the slokas explaining it. If you read these scriptures and the holy books explaining their meaning, you will understand this.

You must understand what is what and where your priority must be. You must think about the benefit of your souls. I told in the morning today also that you will not get a letter from the Lord. How can you hear from the Lord? Through the Lord's associates, from the Lord's near and dear. The Lord personally comes in the form of a guru to teach us – He comes to show the example of how one must practise and He comes to preach. If you approach such representatives, you can get the news about the Lord from them.

In this world, there are many people roaming around who give everybody initiations and say crooked things (গোঁজামিল, gojamil; lit. 'cooking up accounts, balancing up an account by undue insertions'). They say, 'Eat whatever your soul wants.' A good doctor never tells the patient to do or eat wrong things – a good doctor will never say, 'Oh, you can drink milk and smoke tobacco.' There are certain things that are favourable to devotion, and if you accept these things, it is called faith (sraddha). We always speak about the six kinds of surrender:

দৈন্য, আত্মনিবেদন, গোপ্তৃত্বে বরণ ।
'অবশ্য রক্ষিবে কৃষ্ণ'—বিশ্বাস পালন ॥
ভক্তি-অনুকূল মাত্র কার্য্যের স্বীকার ।
ভক্তি-প্রতিকূল ভব—বর্জ্জনাঙ্গীকার ॥

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
'avasya raksibe krsna'—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

'(1) Humility, (2) self-submission, (3) accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, (4) keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect”, (5) engaging only in what is favourable to devotion, (6) rejecting what is unfavourable to devotion.'

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

It is necessary to be humble, to surrender yourself to Krishna, to have faith that Krishna is our maintainer, Krishna is our protector, and we must accept what is favourable and reject what is unfavourable to devotion. If you drink milk, you get nourishment and vitamins, but if you also chew tobacco, it will destroy all vitamins and benefits of drinking milk. You cannot both drink milk and chew tobacco. For example, if you have diabetes and your blood sugar is high, the doctor will tell you, 'Do not eat sweets,' but you take the medicine the doctor prescribes and continue eating sweets – you will not get cured like that (if you keep eating sweet things, it will gradually destroy your eyes and other organs). This is common knowledge.

We have fallen into material bondage: a hundred out of a hundred people in this world live in ignorance, under the influence of Maya, serving illusory environment. Getting her power from the Lord, Maya Devi takes all jiva souls in this world away from the Lord and turns them into her own servants and maidservants. Therefore, becoming her servants, we live in this world serving her. All wives, sons, daughters, friends, grandchildren live in this world only serving Maya...

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Length: 82 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Oblivious Existence
2) Practise Hari-Kirtan
3) Your Deepest Need
4) Engage Yourself in Sankirtan
5) Bhakta-Abhiman and Bhakta-Bhav
6) Deadly Dearth
7) Surrender Comes First
8) Wasted Time, Wasted Life
9) Managers' Mania
10) Remember, Love and Serve the Lord