(7) Pathological Forgetfulness

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kadigachha, Lord Siva's Temple inauguration,
5 March 2019, morning, part 7
Translated from Bengali

Falling into this material world, we have forgotten the Lord. Why do we always forget Him? There are only few people in this world who chant the Holy Name of the Lord, who are calling the Lord; most people do not even think about God. Why? Because such is the play of Maya.

If you put an iron rod into fire and keep it there for some time, it will become red. You will not be able to touch it – you will have to take a cloth to be able to hold it; and if you touch the end of the rod to some other cloth, the rod will burn it (or if you touch it to someone's body, it will burn the body). Before that, if you touched the rod, the rod did not burn you, so where does it get this power to burn? From the fire. Maya Devi works in the same way. Maya is created by the Supreme Lord. Getting her power from the Lord, Maya keeps us (all those who live in this world) away from the Lord. She turns us into her servants and maidservants, so we end up serving her.

We live within Maya consciousness. We do not live within God consciousness. We always think, 'My son', 'My wife', 'My family' – how long are they going to be with you? You can live with your family for fifty years, sixty years, seventy years, not more than that. So, this is a relationship only for some sixty years only; after that, you will have to leave all your so-called family. This short period is nothing compared to all the millions and millions of lifetimes that we have already crossed. Some life, we were born as dogs; some life, we were born as some iron ore; some life we were born as goats...

We change our bodies in the same way that we change our clothes. For example, I am wearing these clothes today, or you are wearing your saris today, but tomorrow we will not wear these same clothes – we will wash our clothes and wear something else. We change our bodies in the same way. Life after life we get different bodies. When we 'die', our souls leave our bodies and get new bodies. When the soul dies, it suffers in the body because the body cannot breathe, so it often starts convulsing. This is even more painful than birth.

When we were in our mothers' wombs, we underwent hellish suffering. The mother eats all kinds of things, and the baby in the womb has to suffer so much eating the same things; and there are also worm-like insects inside the womb that bite the baby. Not only that, the baby also has to live with its head down and legs up. Suffering in this way intolerably, the soul starts calling out to the Lord, 'O Lord! I cannot stay here anymore! Let me out!' At that time, we promise God, 'I will see Your Deity with my eyes, I will serve You with my hands,' but once we are born, we become surrounded by our mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles and we forget all about our promise and God. But if, by the mercy of sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs, by the mercy of the Lord, we get some sadhu-sanga (come in connection with a saint), if we can do some service to the Lord, then we will get supreme benefit. So, please do not forget the Lord.

— : • : —

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