(4/6) Coming Unstuck

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Hooghly district,
27 February 2019, afternoon, part 4
Translated from Bengali

Srila Prabhupad said that you cannot worship Deities by paying somebody ten rupees to do it. You cannot invite somebody and say, 'I will give you three hundred rupees a month, come and do the puja at my house every day.' They will just take your money, come and say, 'Namah, namah' and go away. Sometimes they also come to some shops, chant, 'Namah, namah', throw some water and go away taking money (shopkeepers pay them fifty rupees a month). So, you cannot worship Deities by paying somebody ten rupees to do it, just as you cannot read Bhagavatam by paying somebody fifty rupees to do it. Many people arrange a seven-day reading of Bhagavatam – they pay somebody a salary and get them to read it. Sahajiyas also go house to house and sing the whole day (8-prahar kirtan), for three days (24-prahar kirtan) or even for the whole week (54-prahar kirtan) – this is not kirtan, this is just some language practice. What they say may be the words Hare Krishna, but this is not the Holy Name.

অসাধুসঙ্গে ভাই কৃষ্ণনাম নাহি হয় ।
নামাক্ষর বাহিরায় বটে তবু নাম কভু নয় ॥

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

'Brother, the Name of Krishna never appears in bad association: the letters of the Name may appear, but the Name never does.'

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 7.1, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Such chanting can never be the Holy Name proper. Srila Prabhupad explained it in so many ways. First you must take all the dirt out of your hearts. It is impossible to chant the Holy Name if you are covered with anarthas (unwanted habits, evils). You can read in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita that the Holy Name always considers whether you chant it with offences or not. The Holy Name never comes to the mouths of those who make offences – even if they try to chant it, it will only be some words.

[It starts raining] Again? Hari bol! Hari bol! Hari bol! Hari bol! Hey, how much more are you going to do it? How long are you going to carry on playing over there?...

‘কৃষ্ণনাম’ করে অপরাধের বিচার ।
কৃষ্ণ বলিলে অপরাধীর না হয় বিকার ॥

'krsna-nama' kare aparadhera vichara
krsna balile aparadhira na haya vikara

'The Holy Name of Krishna considers offences: when one who commits ten offences of the Holy Name takes the Name of Krishna, it produces no transformation in them.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.24)

There is also this consideration of offences in chanting the Holy Name, but if you chant the Holy Names of Nitai-Chaitanya, you can chant them even when you are covered with anarthas. Even if you are covered with anarthas, if you chant Their Names, all anarthas will be removed, and then you will get taste for chanting the Holy Name of Lord Krishna. You must have read the kirtan 'Nitai-Chaitanya bale nachre amara mana': 'Aparadha dure yabe, pabe prema dhan.'

দয়াল-নিতাই চৈতন্য ব’লে নাচ্ রে আমার মন
অপরাধ দূরে যাবে, পাবে প্রম ধন ।

dayal-nitai chaitanya ba’le nachre amar’ man’ aparadha dure yabe, pabe prema dhan’

'Dear mind, dance and chant, "O Merciful Nitai! O Chaitanya!" Dance, my mind! Your offences will go away, and you will get transcendental love for the Lord!'

Is it going to rain long? If it rains, how are we going to have the class? We must call the Lord, 'Please let us have the class. We are talking about You, let the rain come later. Why is Indradev so angry? Why does he not want to hear about Lord Krishna?' He is showing ego...

We must always think about these things, then we can get supreme benefit. We must always chant Nitai-Gaura's Names.

দয়াল-নিতাই চৈতন্য ব’লে নাচ্ রে আমার মন
অপরাধ দূরে যাবে, পাবে প্রম ধন ।

dayal-nitai chaitanya ba’le nachre amar’ man’ aparadha dure yabe, pabe prema dhan’

'Dear mind, dance and chant, "O Merciful Nitai! O Chaitanya!" Dance, my mind! Your offences will go away, and you will get transcendental love for the Lord!'

Singing for one day, for three days, for a week, getting somebody to read Bhagavatam – you will not get anything by doing all this.

কোটি জন্ম যদি করে শ্রবণ কীর্ত্তন ।
তবু না পায় ব্রজেন্দ্রনন্দন ॥

koti janma yadi kare sravana kirtana
tabu na paya vrajendranandan

'Even if you practise hearing and chanting for millions of lives, you will not get Krishna, the Son of King of Vraja.'

হেন কৃষ্ণনাম যদি লয় বহুবার ।
তবু যদি প্রেম নহে, নহে অশ্রুধার ॥
তবে জানি, অপরাধ তাহাতে প্রচুর ।
কৃষ্ণনাম-বীজ তাহে না করে অঙ্কুর ॥

hena krnsa-nama yadi laya bahu-bara
tabu yadi prema nahe, nahe asrudhara
tabe jani, aparadha tahate prachura
krsna-nama-bija tahe na kare ankura

'If you chant this Name of Krishna many times but still there is no love, no tears streaming from your eyes, then you can know that there are too many offences and the seed of Krishna’s Name does not sprout in you.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.29–30)

You must give up offences, then only can you chant the Holy Name proper. Chant without offences. So, if you want to chant this Holy Name, always keep good association:

'সাধুসঙ্গ', 'সাধুসঙ্গ'–সর্ব্বশাস্ত্রে কয় ।
লবমাত্র সাধুসঙ্গে সর্ব্বসিদ্ধি হয় ॥

'sadhu-sanga', 'sadhu-sanga'–sarva sastre kaya
lava-matra sadhu sange sarva siddhi haya

'All scriptures keep saying, "Good association", "Good association". You can attain all perfection even just by a drop of good, saintly association.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.54)

As you get more and more sadhu-sanga (as you associate with pure saints more and more), your hearts will become pure; otherwise, we will not get anywhere. You must remove all dirt from your hearts.

Srila Prabhupad told one very nice story. One time, a groom's party was travelling to the place where the wedding was to take place. In the olden days, there were no buses, so people would mostly travel by boats. The wedding was the next day, and the groom had to travel quite far. There were two sailors in the boat – one of them was rowing, and the other one was steering the boat. The plan was to travel the whole day, night, and the next day they were to reach the place by the evening. In the evening of the first day, the groom and his party had some dinner and went to sleep, and the sailors worked hard rowing and steering the boat the whole night. When everybody woke up in the morning the next day, they saw that the boat was still at the same place where it was the night before. It had not moved an inch from the bank! Everybody was taken aback. Among them, there was one wise old man, and he said, 'Check if the anchor is raised or not.' It turned out that the anchor had not been raised. An anchor has five spikes – rupa (visual enjoyment), rasa (gustatory enjoyment), gandha (olfactory enjoyment), sabda (aural enjoyment), sparsa (tactile enjoyment). If you do not raise the anchor, your boat will never move. So, until and unless you leave the five desires (hankering to enjoy through your eyes, tongue, nose, ears and skin), no matter how much you chant and practise, your boat will never leave the bank – no matter what you do, you will not get anywhere.

— : • : —

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Size: 15 Mb
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?