(9/12) Temple Is Not Made of Bricks

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kadigachha, Festival anniversary,
4 March 2019, evening, part 9
Translated from Bengali

Suppose you tell me, 'Maharaj, please come to my house.' You invite me to come, but the whole place where I am to come and sit is full of sacks with grains – where will you tell me to sit? In the same way, we must create a temple for the Lord in our hearts. It is not about making an external temple of bricks and cement – a temple must be built in our hearts. Give a place for the Lord in your hearts. But if your hearts are not clean, where will you seat the Lord? You have made space here by the temple and everybody can sit nicely, but if there were sacks of rice and dal kept here, where would everybody sit? So, before you seat the Lord in the temple of your hearts, you must clean the space. Do you know what all the dust, thorns and dirt are? It is lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness (ego), envy as well as enjoyment through your eyes, tongue, nose, ears and skin. It is necessary to clear all this. If you hear Hari-katha from the holy mouths of sadhus (if you always keep sadhu-sanga), then all these things will gradually go away from your hearts and your hearts will become clean.

People think that they can bath in the Ganges and all their sins will be removed. Such physical bathing removes bodily impurity, but does it remove the dirt from their hearts? No matter how many times you immerse yourself into the Ganges, it will not remove the dirt from your hearts. How can that dirt be removed? By constantly listening to sadhus' Hari-katha. Then our hearts will become clean, and then the Lord will come and sit in our hearts. We must create a temple in our hearts. If you just build a temple in this world, what is the use? The main thing is that each and every one of us must build a temple in our hearts.

Each and every one of us must chant the Holy Name. You will say, 'Oh, I do not have time.' I do not want to hear this. You do have time. For example, you go to work in the field and cut the paddy, plough the land, or you cook at home, cut the vegetables, and so on – whatever you are doing, you can chant, 'Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare' at this time. Is it not possible? It is possible. But not everybody can do that because instead they choose to speak gramya-katha.

How can the Holy Name come to our mouths? Suppose you have a fever. Your mother or your brother or sister cook something nice for you, but will you get any good taste? Everything will taste bitter. When you have a fever, you will not have any appetite. So, why does the Holy Name not come to our mouths? Because we are sick. We are sick with avidya (ignorance), asmita (false identification), raga (misdirected love), dvesa (aversion to anything that goes against one's enjoyment) and abhinivesa (being unable to give up unfavourable habits). It is necessary to remove these diseases first.

There are many gurus roaming this world. They come and tell you, 'Eat whatever your soul pleases!' But the soul does not want all these things. We have five karmendriya (instruments of action: feet, hands, rectum, genitals, mouth) and five jnanindriya (senses of perception to collect knowledge: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin), and there is also mind, intelligence and ego. When you see something nice and feel like eating it, this is what your mind and tongue want, and it is this greed of the tongue that we cannot give up...

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CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE LECTURE

Size: 27 Mb
Length: 56 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Pure Hearts' Kirtan
2) Worship of Lord Siva
3) Proper Worship Comes from Proper Identification
4) Know Thyself
5) Pivoted Life
6) Short-Lived and Short-Sighted
7) Do Not Cheat Yourself
8) Devotional Service
9) Temple Is Not Made of Bricks
10) Spiritual Foundation
11) Stray Souls
12) Embrace Sheltered Life