(5) Spiritual Leprosy

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

When Krishna lived in Dvaraka, Narad would come to visit him every day. He would come chanting, 'Krishna, Krishna.' One time, when Narad came, suddenly all the queens (Satyabhama, Rukmini and others) came to him and offered their obeisances. Narad wondered, 'What has happened?? Why are you behaving so strange? What has happened?'

'O Narad Muni,' they explained, 'your Lord is very sick. He has a very bad headache.'

'Oh, then apply some cold water on His forehead, what is the problem?'

'No, it does not work. He is saying that He needs His devotees' foot dust. Narad, can you give your foot dust?'

'What? But you live with Him, you should give your foot dust then! What will I give? You must give your own foot dust!'

'No, no! If we give our foot dust to Him, we will commit a sin! We offer our obeisance to Krishna, and we must put our foot dust on His head – how can we do that?!'

Do you see? Did they think about Krishna? They did not. They thought about themselves. You can understand this yourselves. When we come to do some service, we always think about ourselves. We think, 'Oh, it will be a sin', 'Oh, what will happen to the Deity?' Worrying about all this, we end up getting finished ourselves. 'Oh, what if I have done wrong?', 'Oh, I must have made a mistake!', 'Oh, I have forgotten the mantra!' All this is nothing. When you come to worship the Lord, you must only pray, 'O Lord, I do not know anything, I do not understand anything. I have no quality or qualification. I am offering You this for Your service. You may or may not take it, it is Your matter. I have no say in the matter.' Krishna bestows very much mercy on those who surrender to Him like this. You must always remember this.

So, Narad could not give his foot dust. Brahma could not give his foot dust. Siva could not give his foot dust. Laksmi could not give her foot dust. Nobody could. Where did they finally get foot dust? From Vraja gopis. When they were going to give their foot dust without a word, Narad asked them,

'What are you doing?! Are you not afraid of committing this sin? Are you really going to let your foot dust be placed on Krishna's head?!'

'Sin? Let it be. Even if our legs get stricken with leprosy and rot, what will we do with these legs if our Lord is not well? As long as He is all right, we do not have any problem. Even if our legs rot away, we do not mind it.'

In this way, Krishna let everybody understand that Vraja gopis' devotion is the highest. But these highest Vraja gopis went to Radha Kunda and lamented, 'We do not know anything about service to Krishna. We have not been able to serve Him in any way. We have no devotion!'

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