(2/6) Your Faith and Priorities

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Hooghly district,
27 February 2019, afternoon, part 2
Translated from Bengali

When Govinda came to Mahaprabhu's room, he saw Him lying across the room. He could not enter the room without crossing over Mahaprabhu's body. So, he asked,

'Prabhu, please move a little.'

'I am too tired to move. I cannot.'

'But I come to serve You every day...'

This is called nistha, sincerity. You do service every day, so you must do it today, tomorrow, every single day without fail. 'Whatever my situation is, whatever danger or obstacle comes, no matter whether I am happy or unhappy, I will never run away and leave my service to the Lord.' You must have that kind of determination and strong faith. 'I will never become removed from the Lord's service.'

'শ্রদ্ধা' শব্দে—বিস্বাস কহে সুদৃঢ় নিশ্চয় ।
কৃষ্ণে ভক্তি কৈলে সর্ব্বকর্ম্ম কৃত হয় ॥

‘sraddha’-sabde visvasa kahe sudrdha nischaya
krsne bhakti kaile sarva-karma krta haya

‘Sraddha is a firm, determined faith that by serving Krishna all actions are accomplished.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.62)

To serve Mahaprabhu, Govinda crossed over His body! Later, in the middle of the night, Mahaprabhu woke up and saw Govinda sitting in His room.

'Govinda, what has happened? Why are you sleeping here? Why did you not leave?' Mahaprabhu asked him, surprised.

'How will I leave? You are lying in the doorway.'

'How did you come then?'

'I crossed over You to serve You, but I cannot cross over Your body for my own food or rest. To serve You, I am ready to do even much worse things, but not for myself.'

This is service mood. We must always give priority to the service of the Lord and Vaishnavs. ‘Chhadiya vaisnava-seva nistara payechhe keba (ছাড়িয়া বৈষ্ণব-সেবা নিস্তার পায়েছে কেবা). You cannot get relief without service to Vaishnavs’ (Srila Narottam Das Thakur). We must always think about this; if we do not think about this, if we have no faith, then we will not be able to come to the Lord. These things should always stay in our hearts. We must keep these things within our hearts, and not only say it.

“গোরার আমি, গোরার আমি” মুখে বলিলে নাহি চলে ।
গোরার আচার, গোরার বিচার লইলে ফল ফলে ॥

‘gorara ami, gorara ami’ mukhe balile nahi chale
gorara achara, gorara vichara laile phala phale

‘Just saying, “I am Gora’s! I am Gora’s!” will not do. Only when you follow Gora’s practice and Gora’s conception will you get the proper result.’

লোক দেখান গোরা ভজা তিলক মাত্র ধরি ।
গোপনেতে অত্যাচার গোরা ধরে চুরি ॥

loka dekhana gora bhaja tilaka matra dhari’
gopanete atyachara gora dhare churi

‘You put on tilaks and show the whole world that you serve Gora, but secretly you do outrageous things. Gora will catch you out, thief (hypocrite)!’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6–7, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

In this world, one hundred out of one hundred people will not want to chant the Holy Name – one hundred out of one hundred people only think about their bodies. What will they eat? What will they wear? Where will they sleep? What will they do? Everybody is only worrying about this. But why? Why cannot they worship the Lord? Why cannot they practise Krishna consciousness? Because they do not know themselves: they do not understand who they are themselves.

[His Divine Grace remarks] The rain has stopped, has it not? Call out to the Lord and pray, 'Please no more rain!' If it rains too much, all your potato will be destroyed. Call out to the Lord and pray that no damage is caused...

So, people do not know who they are. If you check your blood and your parents' blood, you will see that it is the same blood. Then, you can understand that your parents created your body. But who created you? When your soul leaves your body, everybody will grab your body and cry over it. This body is created by your parents, but that which you are is created by the Lord. People say, 'Eat whatever your soul wants.' What is the relationship between the mind and the soul? The mind lives in the external world, but the soul is a part of Paramatma and it lives in the internal world. People think that your mind and your soul is the same thing, so they say, 'Eat whatever your soul wants.' The soul is related to Paramatma, and the soul knows what Paramatma wants. The soul has no relationship with this body. If you fast on ekadasi, you can see that you lose one kilogram of weight. The food affects only the body.

We explain it to the scientists also. On other one hand, you think that you are your body, that there is no difference between you and your body. On the other hand, you say that when you eat something, it becomes absorbed by the body. For example, if you drink milk, potato or rice, it is all absorbed into the body. So, if you and your body are one and the same, when you eat potato, you become a potato yourself?! They are silenced.

When somebody asks you, 'Who are you?' you tell your name, but this is only a name. When you leave this world, nobody will call you by that name anymore. When we teach children, we ask them, 'What is this?' and they say, 'This is my head.' 'What is this?' 'This is my hand', 'This is my ear', 'This is my eye', 'This is my leg', 'This is my tummy', and so on. You have all these things, but who are you? This is what you must first know.

You are a soul (jivatma). The soul is present within every single living entity. Even mosquitoes, flies, bugs, cows, goats have souls. Just as we change our clothes every day, our souls also change bodies every time. This is how, depending on our karma, we become born as goats, cows, sheep, and so on. We get all these kinds of bodies, but it has to stop one day. We have to get a chance to put a stop to such a life. So, having struggled and suffered so much, we have eventually got a very rare human birth. Having gone through so many species, so many wombs, so many bodies, we have finally got this human birth.

দুর্ল্লভ মানব জন্ম লভিয়া সংসারে ।
কৃষ্ণ না ভজিনু দুঃখ কহিব কাহারে ॥

durlabha manava janma labhiya samsare
krsna na bhajinu duhkha kahiba kahare?

‘I have got a rare human life in this world, but I have not worshipped Lord Krishna. Who shall I tell about my misery now?’

সংসার সংসার করি মিছে গেল কাল ।
লাভ না হইল কিছু ঘটিল জঞ্জাল ॥

samsara samsara kari michhe gela kala
labha na haila kichhu ghatila janjala

‘I have wasted all my time on material life and family and have got nothing but garbage as the result.’

কিসের সংসার এই, ছায়াবাজী প্রায় ।
ইহাতে মমতা করি বৃথা দিন যায় ॥

kisera samsara ei, chhayabaji praya
ihate mamata kari vrtha dina yaya

‘What kind of life is this? It is only a trick, a show. I have wasted time taking this world and the people around me in it as my own.’

দিন যায় মিছা কাজে নিশা নিদ্রাবশে ।
নাহি ভাবি মরণ নিকটে আছে বসে ॥

dina yaya michha kaje nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

‘My days pass in useless work and nights are wasted on sleep. It never occurs to me that death is there, waiting right next to me.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

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Length: 31 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Beyond Superficial Reverence
2) Your Faith and Priorities
3) Burning Your Boats
4) Coming Unstuck
5) Beware Imitation
6) Daily Grind or Daily Gain?