(10) A Practical Lesson

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kadigachha, Lord Siva's Temple inauguration,
5 March 2019, evening, part 10
Translated from Bengali

I have spoken about the pastimes of the Lord, and now I will tell you about the practical teachings (siddhanta).

কৃষ্ণ যদি ছুটে ভক্তে ভুক্তি মুক্তি দিয়া ।
কভু ভক্তি না দেন রাখেন লুকাইয়া ॥

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya
kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

‘If a devotee aspires for enjoyment or liberation, Krishna hides the knowledge about pure devotion and dismisses them, giving them enjoyment or liberation.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.8.18)

If you come to the Lord desiring liberation or some enjoyment, the Lord will give you all your coveted money, cars, houses – anything you want – and make you forget Him. If you take a child to a fair, the child will cry that he wants a toy, and we are also like such children. If we come and tell the Lord, 'O Lord, give me money!', 'O Lord, give me a car!', 'O Lord, give me a house!' the Lord will give you what you want, but He will take away from you whatever devotion you may have for Him. But if you come and say, 'O Lord, I want You,' then what else will there be to want? If you get the Lord, what else will you need? If you have Him, you will have everything, including money, cars, houses, and so on. But we behave like little children.

When the father leaves home to go to work, his son starts crying, 'I want to come with you!' Can the father take him along? Of course, he cannot, so he will buy the child a chocolate, a lollypop or a toy and make him forget about coming with him. In the same way, the Lord gives us money, cars, houses, wealth and makes us forget Him – He will give us anything we want and take devotion away from us. You must always remember this.

Sadhus, gurus and Vaishnavs are extremely merciful – they come and tell us all these things. They come to hijack us – rescuing us from this illusory environment, they take us away from the service to this material world and send us to Goloka Vrindavan to join the service of Radha-Govinda there. Those who manage to get to Goloka Vrindavan never again have to suffer from birth, death, old age and disease – they do not have to suffer anymore.

I am always thinking about how you will practise Krishna consciousness, about how you can serve the Lord. Outside people cannot understand these things. Intoxicated with this material world, they forgot Krishna. They do not even have any devotion. I will give you one very nice example.

Do you have a barber's salon in your area? There was one barber shop where the barber cut everybody's hair and beards. People came there and while they were waiting for their turn, they sat and read some newspapers or chatted to each other. One Sunday there were a lot of people at the salon (because everybody has to go to work on Monday, they come for a haircut and a shave on Sunday), and that day a sadhu came from the temple to have his head shaved. The people who were reading newspapers saw the sadhu and started saying, 'Oh, there is no God in this world! If God existed, then why would so many people die? Why would so many people die in bus accidents, earthquakes and other disasters? Why would sons kill their fathers? God does not see anything. If there was God, why would He let so many bad things happen in this world?' They said all this nonsense. Hearing it, the sadhu thought, 'If I start arguing with these people, there will be a big fight. I do not want to fight with anybody. Let me go back to the temple now, I will come later.' When he came back to the temple, he suddenly got an idea. 'If I can explain it to the barber, then he will explain it to all those other people who come to him, and then people will stop saying such things.' So, he took a bus and went to the Bardhaman train station. There, he found one crazy man who had very long hair and a beard – he was wearing very dirty clothes and there was foam coming out of his mouth. He was eating filth from a drain; and when somebody spat out some sugarcane pulp, he picked it up and sucked on it. The sadhu took this madman by the hand and asked him to come with him. At first, the man refused. The sadhu took out some food (some biscuit) from his pocket and said, 'Here, have it. If you come with me, I will give you more.' The man agreed, and the sadhu took him to that barber. Coming to the salon, he cried in front of everybody, 'There are no barbers in this world! There are no barbers in this district! No barbers! Barbers do not exist!'

'Hey, you came to me only yesterday,' the barber said. 'There are so many people here getting their hair cut. Why are you saying that there are no barbers? I am a barber!'

'Oh, if you are a barber, then why does this crazy man have such long hair?'

'Has he ever come to my salon? How can I cut his hair if he does not come to me?'

'Oh, so, to have his hair and beard cut, he has to come to you? You all said yesterday that there is no God, but have you ever come to God's temple? Have you ever associated with God's devotees? Then how do you know that there is no God in this world? If you went to a temple and associated with God's devotees, then you would know if there is God or not.'

The barber was startled. 'Actually, it is true. I never go to the temple...' After that, he started coming to the temple every day. He listened about the Lord and became a devotee himself. He continued his trade, but he became a devotee (he wore neckbeads, tilaks, and so on). So, everything depends on 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)

It is necessary to associate with sadhus.

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 cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

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

You must always think and remember about it. Without sadhu-sanga, you will not be able to understand anything.

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