(8/9) Service Enthusiasm

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Midnapore, 23 April 2019, evening, part 8
Translated from Bengali

We want to take initiation, but why do we want to take it? So that the guru can serve us? No. So that we can serve the guru. If you approach the guru with this mood, then your initiation will have value. The guru creates our relationship with God, and after that, we can serve God and Vaishnavs through the medium of the guru. We must always remember this. If you want to get something from the Lord, then this is not service – it is karma. The result of karma is material bondage, and the result of material bondage is hellish suffering.

I have written about hell in the third volume of Guidance. When we stayed in our mothers' wombs for ten months and ten days, we underwent so much hellish suffering. Everybody is afraid of death, but birth, which comes before death, is also fearsome. I wrote in the book about this suffering and also mentioned the many kinds of hell that there are. We have the books with us but did not set up the book table today – if you come tomorrow, you can get them.

So, the main thing for us is to serve the Lord and His devotees. If we can serve the Lord's devotees, the Lord will be happy with us. Mahaprabhu personally, with His own hand, served Vaishnavs and devotees, teaching us by His own example how we must serve devotees. If we think that we have become Vaishnavs, that we know and understand everything, then we will not be able to give honour to others: '"Ami ta vaisnava" e buddhi haile amani na ha'ba ami ('আমি ত বৈষ্ণব' এ বুদ্ধি হইলে অমানী না হ'ব আমি).' Even Lord Brahma said, 'If somebody says that they know the Lord, they may know Him, but, as far as I am concerned, I do not know Him.' We must understand that the Lord belongs to His devotees, so if we can somehow, anyhow serve His devotees and make them happy, then they will make it so that we can come to the Lord. 'Krsna se tomara, krsna dite para, tomara sakati achhe (কৃষ্ণ সে তোমার, কৃষ্ণ দিতে পার, তোমার শকতি আছে). Krishna is yours, so you have the power to give Him.' 'Bhaktera hrdaye sada govinda-visrama (ভক্তের হৃদয়ে সদা গোবিন্দ-বিশ্রাম). Govinda always rests in the heart of His devotees.'

We must make place in our hearts for the Lord: we must love God with all our hearts. This is what is called real, transcendental love (prema). That which we call love in this world is only lust (kama). Lust is darkness, love is light. Where there is light, darkness has no right to exist there; similarly, where there is prema, lust has no right to exist there. There is no lust in real love. We must always think about Lord Krishna. How do Vraja gopis serve Lord Krishna? How do Vaishnavs and great souls serve Lord Krishna? How did they serve Mahaprabhu in Vrindavan or Puri?

Mahaprabhu Himself always said, 'I do not have any love for Krishna!' Vraja gopis also said, 'We do not have any love for Krishna! We do not have the kind of devotion that Prahlad Maharaj has!' This is what humility is. We all must have this kind of humility.

তৃণাদপি সুনীচেন তরোরিব সহিষ্ণুনা ।
অমানিনা মানদেন কীর্ত্তনীয়ঃ সদা হরিঃ ॥

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

'One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more forbearing than a tree, who gives due honour to others without desiring it for himself, is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

We must be humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, and we must give honour to others. Who is qualified to chant the Holy Name of the Lord?

তৃণাধিক হীন দীন অকিঞ্চন ছার ।
আপনে মানবি সদা ছাড়ি অহঙ্কার ॥

trnadhika hina, dina, akinchana chhara
apane manabi sada chhadi ahankara

'Give up ego and consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and vile.'

বৃক্ষসম ক্ষমাগুণ করবি সাধন ।
প্রতিহিংসা ত্যজি অন্যে করবি পালন ॥

vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana
pratihimsa tyaji anye karabi palana

'Practise tolerance like that of a tree, stop ill-treating others and nurture everyone.'

(Gitavali, Sri Siksastakam Giti, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

The problem is that we are losing our enthusiasm. We must do service with enthusiasm, with joy and happiness, but we forget about it. We are losing the enthusiasm to serve devotees. That is our problem, a thorn in our devotional lives. We have no enthusiasm – no enthusiasm to serve devotees, no enthusiasm to serve the Lord. There is not a trace of enthusiasm in us; instead, our hearts are full of offences. We cannot do anything because we are always living thinking about ourselves. 'Nija sukha lagi' pape nahi dari (নিজ সুখ লাগি' পাপে নাহি ডরি). We are not afraid to commit sins for our own happiness. Daya-hina svartha-para (দয়াহীন স্বার্থপর). We are merciless and selfish.'

We must be selfish, but what kind of selfishness should it be? We must think about our own interest – that is, the interest of our souls: 'How can my soul get benefit?' If we can always engage ourselves in service (for example, make garlands, serve the Deities, wash the dishes, and so on), then we can come to Lord Govinda's holy abode and get this service there, too. Do you ever think about it? Service must be eternal, it must be done every single day without fail. If you do service only one or two days and then do not do anything for a week, it does not work like this. We must live serving – we must serve every single day. We must search for our eternal benefit, and we must serve eternally, too. We must have such sincerity. We must be sincere seekers, and we must have chastity. We must be always attentive towards our guru, hankering to know how we can make him happy and how we can practise Krishna consciousness.

How can we make the Lord happy? The Lord is pleased if you offer Him a Tulasi leaf and some Ganges water, but can we do that? Why can we not? We can serve the Lord with just Tulasi leaves and Ganges water, but here at the temple there are arrangements and facilities for daily service, and we all can take part in this service. If we give something for the service to the Lord, there will be no loss, no harm for us. Therefore, we must engage ourselves in service every single day, then we can get supreme benefit. This is what I want to tell you all.

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Length: 81 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Whose Servant Are You?
2) Preaching Expansion
3) Our Preaching and Life
4) Genuine Worship
5) Give Your Heart
6) Use Your Time Wisely
7) God Exists for Those Who Have Devotion
8) Service Enthusiasm
9) Awkward Excuses