(11) Sadhu-Sanga and Chastity

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Uluberia, 1 April 2019, part 11
Translated from Bengali

I told you at Gaura Purnima that this year we are going not only to Puri but also to South India. If you want to come with us, you should let us know because I will not be able to take more than one hundred people with me. Many have already written down their names in the list. Two–three people more can come. This year, our Puri Dham parikrama is one day shorter – it will be seven days instead of eight. The price is a little less, too. If you cannot pay, you can come to Puri yourselves – buy a general train ticket and come to our temple on your own. We have many rooms, and if it is not going to be enough for everybody, you can stay on the veranda. It is not a problem.

I want to build more rooms in Puri. I told the manager, 'I will not give you any money. You must collect it yourself. You are earning an income here, so you can even take a loan at the bank.' Once the money is there, we can start the construction. I do not take money from him, so he can save money from his income and deposit it for the construction works. I want to make more rooms at the temple with that money. Also, I want to make a few A/C rooms for foreign devotees.

As for the Guru-puja festival you wanted to make [Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj's disappearance festival], I will not have time. There are many festivals at different temples. We have not been able to make a festival in Tarakeshwar this year. We installed the Deities there on Lord Siva's chaturdasi, but this year we were inaugurating a new temple of Lord Siva in Bardhaman on this day, so we did not make a festival in Tarakeswar, and the local devotees are sad about it. That is why I told them that I would come there for Guru-puja, and we will make a festival there on that day. We can make two festivals on one day, general people will not understand these things any way. Guru-puja or Deity installation anniversary festival – for them, it is all the same; they only know 'coming to take prasad'.

We have brought some calendars and invitations for Srila Gurudev's [disappearance] festival. This year, the invitation cards were printed very nicely. We will be observing it in Tarakeswar this year. Actually, this year what happened is that there is no fast on the ekadasi day – the fast is on the dvadasi day. Gurudev's day is on dvadasi, so it will be a fasting day. Such a tough situation this year! So, we will observe ekadasi on the dvadasi day and make a nice anukalpa offering, and the next day we will make the festival. What else can we do? So, come and stay for at least two days. We have rooms at the temple, so it is not a problem. It is a little hard because it gets very hot at the temple – when the wind blows from the south, it gets too hot to sleep.

Yesterday there was no current here and I could hardly sleep the whole night. I managed to fall asleep only in the morning, when some cooler breeze came...

Devotee: And there was a microphone working somewhere also...

Yes, that is another story. They are crazy... When they were saying 'jay', they said, 'Radharani ki jay! Jay Sri Krishna ki jay!' Just as everybody says, 'Kali Ma ki jay!' they also said, 'Jay Sri Krishna ki jay!' I heard everything. Do not get involved in this hodgepodge. Do not go to the places of hodgepodge practices, do not listen to what people say there. You must listen only to what Gurudev said. We only listen to what our guru says, we do not need to go anywhere else. When you make festivals, make them with our devotees – come and listen to Hari-katha, speak Hari-katha. I have written many books – my Hari-katha is written there. If you just read them, that is Hari-katha. Read and explain to everybody what is written in them. And when it comes to Sri Ratha-yatra, read from Sri Puri Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala – there is so much written there. We visit many places during the parikrama, and I have written everything nicely in the book. Even when we visit the temple of Lingaraj Sivji Maharaj, we do not get an opportunity to talk much about it, but I wrote about it nicely in the book, explaining why Lord Siva came to Bhuvaneswar from Kasi. We do not get time and also when we go there, I always feel very anxious and fearful because if any foreign devotees enter there, the local priests can catch and beat them. That is why we do not sit and talk there. But I wrote about that temple in the book. Everything is explained nicely in this book.

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