(3/15) Remember Your Service

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nrisingha Palli, Sri Jagannath Misra Anandotsav
22 March 2019, morning class, part 3
Translated from Bengali

You have heard us chanting this in one of the kirtans that when we were in our mothers' wombs, we made a promise:

ভজিব বলিয়া এসে সংসার-ভিতরে ।
ভুলিয়া রহিলে তুমি অবিদ্যার ভরে ॥

bhajiba baliya ese samsara-bhitare
bhuliya rahile tumi avidyara bhare

'Forgetting that you came to this world saying, "I will serve You," you remained engulfed in ignorance.'

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This ignorance means Maya, illusion. We promised to the Lord, 'I will see Your Deity with these eyes; I will serve You with these hands; I will circumambulate Your holy abode with these legs; and I will speak about You with this mouth.' If you do this for four or five days, it will not do. You must serve and chant the Holy Name and glories of the Lord eternally, every single day, continuously.

Therefore, we pray to you all that you may not forget that you are all eternal servants of the Lord. Why do you think are you suffering so much?

They are giving me so much pain, but can you understand it if you look at me? They go out of their way to make me suffer – if you have one court case, you feel very disturbed, but they have filed sixty-five(!) cases against me, but if you look at me, do you see that I go to hide somewhere or that I run away? No. I am here with you all. I am doing the parikrama, I am chanting kirtan and dancing happily. Everybody is tired, but I do not even feel any tiredness. I could have chanted kirtan the whole day and night yesterday, but I had to stop kirtan last night because you must take prasad and you are tired – you need to get rest.

[To a cook] They offered bhog last night to the Deities – take that prasad, mix it together and distribute to everybody. All right? This will be paran. You can just add some rice to vegetables and that will do to break the fast. Everybody must take prasad properly.

Actually, you must not think that the festival is over, so I am telling you all to leave now. On the contrary, I always tell you to stay. And if you are thinking of taking shelter at the temple and if you want to stay here permanently to serve, you are welcome. We have temples in many places; there are many service opportunities for everybody. By the mercy of Sri Gurupadpadma, there are many temples now; many have been opened after Gurudev left. For example, we have a big temple and a guesthouse in Ekachakra – there are more than fifty–sixty rooms there. Still, when we came there this time, I saw that many people could not get a room, so they were sleeping in the nat mandir; that is why I have started construction works to make more rooms and bathrooms there so that devotees do not have to struggle when they come there.

You can see that I am not a tyagi (renunciate), neither am I a bhogi (enjoyer). When money comes, it comes for the service to the Lord, so I spend it on that. I do not spend it on my own enjoyment. Gurudev often said, and I also say the same thing, that I do not keep any pocket money – I only keep some money with me to buy fuel for the car. And I do not go for rides in the car – I use the car to go to all the temples to check on some ongoing works or on how the temple is doing. I also go place to place and attend programmes. A car is required for all that, that is why it was purchased. Also, I take devotees with me – sometimes twelve devotees come with me, especially foreigners. Because they serve sincerely.

Some say that I am partial towards Bengalis, that I always speak in Bengali, that I always give class for the Bengali devotees, but I have no other way. You can see that the Bengalis that were staying with Gurudev in his time have all 'sold' him (they cheated him). But foreign devotees stayed with him. You could see yesterday that all foreign sannyasis were here with me at the programme. There is a lack of place for everybody to stay, so they stay outside, but they all came here yesterday (for the main festival). Some foreign devotees cannot walk much, but many also walked with me, they chanted kirtan, played the kartals and the drums. They stayed with me during the whole parikrama, and you can understand how hard it was for them. If I dance, they have to dance with me; if I stand or sit somewhere, they are always with me on standby. They do so much. But how much is the capacity of Bengali devotees? That is why Gurudev loved foreign devotees so much...

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Size: 52 Mb
Length: 108 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Take Prasad
2) Stay Focused
3) Remember Your Service
4) Help Yourself and Others
5) Avoid Offences to Service
6) Avoid Offences to Holy Name
7) Avoid Offences to Vaishnavs
8) Avoid Offences to Holy Dham (Part 1)
9) Avoid Offences to Holy Dham (Part 2)
10) Avoid Kali's Places
11) Devotional Strictures
12) Devotional Strictures
13) Rejoice!
14) Outstanding Happening
15) Wholesome Vision