(3/10) Value of Chastity

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Disappearance festival, Tarakeshwar
16 April 2019, evening, part 3
Translated from Bengali

[The audience is disturbed by a sudden heavy rain] Do not speak! Say with me:

হরে কৃষ্ণ হরে কৃষ্ণ কৃষ্ণ কৃষ্ণ হরে হরে ।
হরে রাম হরে রাম রাম রাম হরে হরে ॥

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

Take the Lord's Name and rely upon the Lord, and the Lord will give mercy, He will protect you from all dangers. Only rely upon the Lord. Whatever danger or problem comes, the Lord will look after everything. Do not take anything on your own shoulders. It is necessary to be a surrendered soul – we must surrender to the Lord. If we surrender to Him, He must take us to the right place. We must have surrender without any duplicity – instead of always thinking, 'This is bad, this is good,' always keep good association.

You saw in Gurudev's time that whenever anybody invited him to some temple, he would not go anywhere. Srila Sridhar Maharaj also did not go to any and every place. Therefore, we must have some chastity. Where shall I go? Where shall I go out to? Where shall I go to hear a class? Who shall I listen to? Somebody can memorise a few verses from Bhagavatam and think that they have become a great lecturer, and everybody will come to listen to them. But Srila Prabhupad said that you cannot worship Deities with a ten-rupee contract and, in the same way, you cannot lecture on Bhagavatam with a fifty-rupee contract. I wrote this in Guidance 3, in the chapter '108 Questions and Answers'. If you read those questions and answers, you can speak Hari-katha after that. You may be asking yourself these questions, too, so if you read that chapter, you will find all answers.

So, do not get involved in any hodgepodge. We must have chastity and sincerity. Gurudev did not go to random places, and he never liked when anybody did that. This is the devotional line of our Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math within the current of Sri Rupa-Saraswati. There can be no spiritual life or devotional service without chastity or submission to the guru (anugatya). If you go to listen to somebody speak, what will that give you? If the speaker does not know what chastity to the guru is, what will you learn from them then? Always remember this. Whatever your situation is, you must learn what chastity is.

You all know very well that I have not become a guru of my own accord. Gurudev made me sit on this chair and announced it in front of everybody, and he explained clearly, 'If somebody cannot accept this, I do not consider them my disciple – such persons can never be disciples of this Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math.' There are people who are doing many things now in the name of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math – that is their matter, they can do whatever they like. If somebody is intelligent, they can never go down that path. But if somebody has no intelligence, they keep bad association and head for trouble in their spiritual lives. Such people are cheated themselves and cheat others also.

Anyway, in this Age of Kali, how many people even come to this line of Brahma-Madhva Gaudiya sampradaya? There are many misconception lines – aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, atibari, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari – they all take people down the wrong path. How many people can actually know Mahaprabhu? How many people know the Lord? How many people know Gurudev? How many people know the glories of our Gurudev and of Srila Sridhar Maharaj? If we cannot hear properly what Srila Gurudev said and what Srila Sridhar Maharaj said, we can never practise Krishna consciousness – we can only practice Maya consciousness like that. No matter how much kirtan we do, no matter how much we listen about the Lord, no matter how much we practise, it will be nothing but Maya consciousness. These are Srila Prabhupad's words. I have this Bhakti-Siddhanta-Vani printed and hung in many of our temples, and I have also printed it in our recently reprinted Gaudiya Gitanjali books.

You must stay in the proper line.

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Length: 96 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Chaste Submission Is Key
2) Busy Yourself with Service
3) Value of Chastity
4) Plan Your Journey
5) Avoid Religious Hypocrisy
6) Fight for Your Aspiration
7) Guru's Care
8) Learning the Ropes
9) Run behind the Lord
10) Gurudev's Abundant Blessing