(1/8) Steer Clear of Offences

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Hooghly district,
28 February 2019, evening, part 1
Translated from Bengali

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the reddish soles of the lotus feet of my Divine Master, Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy and aspiring to serve him. After that, I am offering my full obeisance to all guru-varga, all my godbrothers, to all the motherly lady devotees, to all listeners and all the devotees. I am offering my obeisance at your holy feet praying for your mercy to this low soul.

I told this noon that a bad day is not a cloudy day. What is a bad day? For devotees, a bad day is the day when we cannot listen or speak about the Lord, the day when we cannot think about the Lord. One must feel sad and dejected on such days. Any day you cannot remember your gurudev, any day you cannot remember Vaishnavs, Gauranga Mahaprabhu, Nityananda Prabhu, the Supreme Lord, such a day is very bad in our lives. We must always remember this. If we can remember this, we will be benefitted – we can get the highest spiritual benefit.

Sadhus go house to house, approaching people, only to bring benefit to all living entities. Not all sadhus do this. Some 'sadhus' go house to house because they want money. You can see people walking house to house playing kartals and taking money from people. Such people do not sing kirtan for people's benefit – they make business out of it (because if you go house to house chanting kirtan, people will give you more money than if you just go begging like that).

We must not make offences to the Holy Name – we must chant the Holy Name genuinely, sincerely.

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.'

'Even if you listen about the Lord and chant the Lord's Name for millions of lives, you will not come to the Lord because you are making many offences.' Only if you give up offences to the Holy Name can you chant the Holy Name.

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)

অপরাধশূন্য হয়ে লহ কৃষ্ণ-নাম ।
অচিরাৎ তুমি পাবে কৃষ্ণ-প্রেম-ধন ॥

aparadha-sunya haye laha krsna-nama
achirat tumi pabe krsna-prema-dhana

'Chant the Holy Name of Krishna without offence and you will quickly get the treasure of divine love to Krishna.'

We must chant the Holy Name of Lord Krishna without offences. There are offences to service, offences to holy places, offences to the Holy Name, offences to Vaishnavs. We must always try to leave all offences and keep far away from them. We will not make any offences at the holy lotus feet of holy abodes; we will not make any offences to the Holy Name; we will not make any offences in our attempts to do service; we will not make any offences to the Lord's devotees. We must live always remembering this. If you commit any offence to a Vaishnav, this offence goes to your guru, and if you end up renouncing your guru, you will have to undergo so much suffering and trouble in your life.

You have heard about Ramachandra Puri who stayed in Sri Dham Puri. Srila Madhavendra Puri had two disciples, Sri Ishwar Puri and Ramachandra Puri. Sri Ishwar Puri gave initiation to Mahaprabhu, so his name is famous, but hardly anybody knows anything about Ramachandra Puri. What do we know about him? All we know about him is that he committed offences to Vaishnavs, his guru and the Supreme Lord.

Srila Madhavendra Puripad would always cry for Krishna. He would always recite this sloka and cry,

অয়ি দীনদয়ার্দ্র নাথ হে
মথুরানাথ কদাবলোক্যসে ।
হৃদয়ং ত্বদলোককাতরং
দয়িত ভ্রাম্যতি কিং করোম্যহম্ ॥

ayi dina-dayardra natha he
mathura-natha kadavalokyase
hrdayam tvad-aloka-kataram
dayita bhramyati kim karomy aham

'O gentle-hearted Lord, ever-gracious upon the destitute, O Lord of Mathura! When shall I see You again? In Your absence, my broken heart trembles. Beloved! What shall I do now?'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.4.197)

'When will I get to see Mathuranath? My heart is broken.' He would shed incessant tears thinking about it... His whole face would be drenched in water coming from his eyes and nose... And his disciple Ramachandra Puri came to him and tried to teach him, 'O Gurudev! Why are you crying? You are brahmavit (you possess knowledge about the Supreme Personality of Godhead). Remember Brahma and all your unhappiness will go away!' Madhavendra Puripad shouted in reply, 'Get out, sinner! I do not want to see your face! Get out! My devotion is completely destroyed just by seeing your face!' This is what his guru told him. He threw him away.

If your guru does not keep his hand on your head and does not guide you, you are in great trouble. If we have nobody to place our trust in – if we have no blessings on our heads – we will have to live in deep fear because at any moment enemies can pounce at us from any direction. But if we trust in God, then we will have nothing to worry about, to suffer from or to fear. If we think, 'I will do this myself,' then we have to think about all the dangers, about what to do, what not to do, what will happen, how to continue, how to serve our guru, and so on. We must leave everything to gurudev, 'Whatever happens happens, I will rely on my gurudev. If my guru accepts my service, it is well and good. I am only trying.' If we can always remember this, then all our suffering, sadness and miseries will go away.

So, because Ramachandra Puri committed that offence and continued making more offences, he ended up leaving his guru. He went away and came to Puri. There, he would sit and only point at sadhus' faults.

One time, somebody asked Srila Prabhupad, 'Why do we see other people's faults?' Srila Prabhupad replied, 'When we cannot make our minds clean, we start looking for faults in others.' This is very bad. Guru Maharaj also said that if somebody scolds you, the person who does it has some problem, that is why they are doing it – it has nothing to do with you, and them scolding you does not harm you in anyway. If you see it like this, then whatever good qualities that person has will come to you, and whatever bad qualities you have within you will go to that person.

[His Divine Grace remarks about somebody among the listeners] Hey, why are you talking so much? Do you think you are sitting far, so I cannot see you? I can see everything. Come and sit here.

So, Ramachandra Puri stayed in Puri and always looked for faults in everybody. Mahaprabhu used him to teach us something. Whenever Ramachandra Puri came to Him, He would get up to greet him and give him a good seat. Devotees asked Mahaprabhu, 'Prabhu, why do you treat him with so much respect? Why do you allow him to sit on a higher seat? He is only always criticising Vaishnavs, He is even criticising You.' But Mahaprabhu's teaching is that we must be humbler than grass, more tolerant than trees and respectful to everybody, so Mahaprabhu did not care: whatever happens by the will of the Lord, let that happen. One time, Ramachandra Puri crept up to Gambhira at Kashi Misra's house and, entering Mahaprabhu's room, said to Him, 'So, sannyasi, I see You are eating many sweets! Why are there so many ants in Your room?' Mahaprabhu did not say anything at first. Ants go everywhere – even if there is nothing sweet, ants can go anywhere. Then, He said, 'What can I say, Prabhu? My tongue has become so greedy that I cannot control it. My tongue always wants to eat, so I sometimes eat sweets.' Mahaprabhu took a sweet and started sucking it, pretending to savour it. He thought that He would do this and make Ramachandra Puri happy, 'If I tell him that I do not eat sweets, he will not believe Me anyway. Better I tell him that, yes, I eat a lot of sweets. When somebody is happy to look for your faults, it is no use telling them anything because they will not believe you anyway.'

There was also another story. Devotees would often invite Mahaprabhu to their houses and feed Him. They would never invite Ramachandra Puri though. One time, Ramachandra Puri crept up to some house to see what Mahaprabhu was eating. Devotees gave Mahaprabhu many patisapta and so many other preparations (fifty-six grain offerings, and so on). Of course, Mahaprabhu did not eat everything – He would just try this thing or that thing; but seeing what Mahaprabhu was being offered, Ramachandra Puri exclaimed, 'Oh my God! A sannyasi eats so much!' Everybody heard it and scolded him, 'Keep quiet! What are you doing here?! Nobody invited you here.' But Mahaprabhu said, 'What is his fault? He is right. I am a sannyasi, so why must I be so greedy for food? Starting from tomorrow do not invite Me anymore, and if you want to invite Me, then do not cook more than one or two vegetable dishes.' All devotees were very sad – they loved inviting Mahaprabhu over, but now they could not feed Him nicely. Then, they all went to Jagannath and prayed, 'O Lord! Please remove this man from Puri Dham!' After that, Ramachandra Puri was nowhere to be seen. Lord Jagannath heard devotees' prayer, and nobody even knows what happened to Ramachandra Puri after that. Such was his situation because of all the offences he had committed.

So, if you keep committing offences at the holy feet of our guru and Vaishnavs, your offences will eventually reach the Lord, and when that happens, nothing and nobody will save you.

— : • : —

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Size: 25 Mb
Length: 51 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Steer Clear of Offences
2) Disciple's Life
3) Mahaprabhu's Standard of Cleanliness
4) Shift Your Priorities
5) Make No Mistake
6) Non-Negotiable Stance
7) Be Strong and Straight
8) Do Not Run After Knowledge