(6/10) Misdirected Love

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Hooghly district,
26 February 2019, evening, part 6
Translated from Bengali

হায় হায় নাহি ভাবি’ অনিত্য এ সব ।
জীবন বিগতে কোথা রহিবে বৈভব ॥

haya haya nahi bhavi’ anitya e saba
jivana vigate kotha rahibe vaibhava

'Alas! It has never occurred to me that all this is temporary. When life is gone, where will all this wealth be?'

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We never think that whatever we do is all temporary – one day we will have to leave everything behind and go away. We are building big houses, doing this, that, that, but where will all that be after we leave? What are all these efforts for?

শ্মশানে শরীর মম পড়িয়া রহিবে ।
বিহঙ্গ পতঙ্গ তায় বিহার করিবে ॥

smasane sarira mama padiya rahibe
bihanga patanga taya bihara karibe

'My body will be dropped at a crematorium, and birds and insects will heartily enjoy it.'

কুক্কুর শৃগাল সব আনন্দিত হ’য়ে ।
মহোৎসব করিবে আমার দেহ ল’য়ে ॥

kukkura srgala saba anandita ha'ye
mahotsava karibe amara deha la'ye

'All the dogs and jackals will rejoice – they will find my body and happily feast on it..'

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We are worrying so much about these bodies – we rub them with oil, we always fend off mosquitoes to make sure they do not bite us; but in the end, these bodies will be thrown away at the crematorium. I am not saying that you must not kill mosquitoes now. Somebody has asked me recently in Tarakeshwar, 'When we grow potato and rice paddy, we use insecticides – is it a sin that we kill so many insects?' I explained that if you use this potato for the service of the Lord, then it is not a sin for you to use insecticides; but if you use this potato for your own self, then you will incur sin. In other words, if you do farming thinking, 'I am growing it, so I will eat it,' then it is a sin; but if you think, 'This rice paddy belongs to the Lord. If the insects die, then the paddy harvest will be good and I will be able to offer nice rice to Lord Govinda,' then there is no sin in using insecticides. It is a clear, straightforward answer.

So, here in this song it says that all those insects that we take great care to kill to protect our bodies will in the end enter our ears, nose and eyes. If somebody dies in some odd place, the body starts to decay and so many insects infest it. And then, dogs and jackals will come to feast on it. If some people are destined to die in a flood or an earthquake, their bodies get scattered everywhere, and dogs and jackals come and fight over them. Just as we make feasts to celebrate the Lord's days, they, too, feast on our dead bodies...

যে দেহের এই গতি তার অনুগত ।
সংসার বৈভব আর বন্ধুজন যত ॥

ye dehera ei gati tara anugata
samsara vaibhava ara bandhu-jana yata

'The same fate befalls all extensions and paraphernalia of this body – whatever family, wealth and friends there may be.'

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This is what happens to our bodies in the end, but we live in servile submission to these bodies – we only listen to what our bodies want and do whatever they tell us to do: my body wants to sleep, so I go to sleep; my body wants to relax, so I go and relax. We do everything for our bodies; we do not have the intelligence to serve the Lord. To wake up early in the morning and offer arati to the Lord? It does not cross our minds – we carry on sleeping. Surrounded with the extensions and paraphernalia of our material lives, we cherish our friends and all the near and dear ones. What is the use of such friends? You have many friends as long as you have money, and when you have no money, all your friends will disperse. Who is the supreme friend in this world?

সেই সে পরম বন্ধু, সেই পিতামাতা ।
শ্রীকৃষ্ণচরণে যেই প্রেমভক্তিদাতা ॥
সকল জন্মে পিতামাতা সবে পায় ।
কৃষ্ণ গুরু নাহি মিলে, ভজহ হিয়ায় ॥

sei se parama bandhu, sei pita-mata
sri-krsna-charane yei prema-bhakti-data
sakala janme pita-mata sabe paya
krsna guru nahi mile, bhajaha hiyaya

‘Those who give divine love for the holy lotus feet of Sri Krishna are my greatest friends – they are my father and my mother. Everybody gets a father and a mother in all births, but it is not in every birth that you can worship Sri Krishna and Sri Guru with all your heart.’

(Sri Chaitanya-mangala, Madhya-khanda)

Your father, your mother, your friend and your anything is the person who can bring you to Lord Krishna. Your real friend is the person who wants you to attain genuine benefit.

We must die to live. Will you live to eat or will you live to serve the Lord? We must live to serve the Lord, not to eat. Always remember this. Tie these things tightly in your hearts and always remember them. You must practise Krishna consciousness in the shelter of a bona fide guru.

— : • : —

{ 2001  |   2002  |   2003  |   2005  |   2009  |   2010  |   2011  |   2012 }
{ 2013  |   2014  |   2015  |   2016  |   2017  |   2018  |   2019  |   2020  |   2021 }

CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE LECTURE

Size: 32 Mb
Length: 66 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Our Predicament
2) Life Worth Living?
3) Grow Up
4) Relief from Burden
5) Wrecked Intelligence
6) Misdirected Love
7) Devotion Comes from Devotion
8) Lost and Languid Souls
9) Grasp onto Guru, Not Maya
10) Surrender and Thrive