(3/10) Your Deepest Need

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Hooghly District, preaching programme,
23 February 2019, evening, part 3
Translated from Bengali

If you hire for two–five thousand rupees an outside party to chant asta-prahar kirtan at your house, the people will come and chant, but what benefit will you get from that? If you do not chant kirtan yourself – if you do not come to the spiritual path yourself – all such arrangements and programmes are of no use.

There are many programmes arranged all through the year – devotees chant kirtans every day during the niyom-seva month, they give classes and do kirtan on each ekadasi; but you stay outside and waste your time on playing dice and cards. We waste so much time on talking all kinds of nonsense. Try to think what you actually need – how you are supposed to live. Think about how you can set your soul free.

Your souls live in material bondage, but once you surrender to Lord Krishna, to Lord Krishna's devotees, you will see that Maya will gradually go away from you – then you will be able to understand what your soul actually needs.

There are many things that are to be said – we can chant some kirtans now, and I will continue after that. Please chant the kirtans together with me. It is not necessary to think about the tune. Just repeat after me. And it is not necessary to chant loudly – you can just repeat what we sing softly. Do not think about the tune – think about kirtan.

You should chant kirtans every morning and evening. Also, if you do Tulasi parikrama, you get the result of circumambulating Vrindavan. So, plant a Tulasi tree at home and do Tulasi parikrama. You will get the result of doing Vrindavan parikrama. This is what is called practising Krishna consciousness. Do not practise Maya consciousness, do not worship Maya.

In this world, we are all – a hundred out of a hundred people – are worshipping Maya. There are so many living entities in this world, and the number of humans among them is very small. You can understand it yourself. You worship various gods and goddesses, but are you really worshipping them? Do people really worship gods in this world? You may think, 'Yes, why not? People spend much money on worshipping Durga, Kali, Laksmi and others.' But this is not worship. This is not devotion. Why? Because we come to them with folded palms, pay our obeisances to them, and what do we say at that time? 'Please help my son find a job', 'Please help my daughter find a good husband', 'Please help me find money', 'Please help me get my health back', 'Please send me some money.' We turn God into our servant. God must give us something, God must make arrangements for us, God must serve us. Genuine devotees do not do that. Genuine devotees serve God, and they know that God may or may not take their service, but their mood is to serve – they do not want anything in return. But we come and turn God into a bribe-taker. How? We come to the worshippable deities of Gods (Durga, Kali, Laksmi, even Krishna) and pray, 'O Lord, I have brought You some rice, bananas and other fruit, please grant me my wish.' We give a bribe and ask God for a return favour. This is how we turn the Supreme Lord and all other worshippable gods and goddesses into bribe-takers. Is this what is called devotion? Devotion means having the mood that 'I have got this human birth, so I must serve Lord Krishna, and I do not want to get anything in return for that.'

You must always remember this.

You can see that we have made some books. You can find everything I am saying today in these books. The books are not expensive, so please buy and read them. You can read them at home – you will see that if you read them, you will feel happy. When you have free time, you watch TV, series, soap operas, etc., you spend so much time worrying about your material life and family. You do not think about the Lord... You do not understand now what will become of you later as the result. Terrible time will come when you will have to leave. You have got a human birth now, but we have been sheep, cows, goats, cats, frogs, snakes before. We are fortunate to have got a human birth now – the Lord has sent us into this human birth, but if we cannot live as human beings, the Lord will again send us into various species of frogs, snakes, cats, pigs, etc. You are eating rice now, but when you were pigs, you ate stool. Pigs eat what humans discard (stool, urine, etc.), so when you are born as a pig, you will again eat all that.

Sadhus feel for you – they always think about you – that is why they go house to house to try to bring at least one or two people to this spiritual line to practise Krishna consciousness, so that you can start thinking about the Lord, develop devotion to the Lord and get benefit.

Please always think about this. Let us chant kirtans now. First, we will offer vandana (prayers) to Sri Gurupadpadma.

[His Divine Grace chants 'Sri guru-charana-padma', 'Sri Krsna-chaitanya prabhu daya kare more', 'Ohe vaisnava thakura', 'Nitai-pada-kamala', 'Emana durmati', 'Jaya Radha Madhava' and the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.]

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Size: 40 Mb
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