(2) Bow Your Head

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Singur,
7 May 2019, noon, part 2
Translated from Bengali

Those who came earlier heard us chant this kirtan:

কবে শ্রীচৈতন্য মোরে করিবেন দয়া ।
কবে আমি পাইব বৈষ্ণব-পদছায়া ॥

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya
kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya (my chaitya-guru) be merciful to me? When will I come in the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

'When will Mahaprabhu bestow His mercy upon me?' We must pray and cry to Him! You sat and chanted kirtan with us today, but you must continue doing it every day – sit and chant these kirtans every day.

কবে শ্রীচৈতন্য মোরে করিবেন দয়া ।
কবে আমি পাইব বৈষ্ণব-পদছায়া ॥

kabe sri chaitanya more karibena daya
kabe ami paiba vaisnava-pada-chhaya

‘When will Sri Chaitanya (my chaitya-guru) be merciful to me? When will I come in the shade of Vaishnavs’ feet?’

কবে আমি ছাড়িব এ বিষয়াভিমান ।
কবে বিষ্ণুজনে আমি করিব সম্মান ॥

kabe ami chhadiba e visayabhimana
kabe visnu-jane ami kariba sammana

‘When will I give up this mundane ego? When will I give honour to the Lord’s devotees?’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When Vaishnavs come, you must greet them, you must offer them obeisances. If you do not offer them obeisances, your head will be severed! It is an offence to Vaishnavs. If a Vaishnav comes and you do not greet them, do not offer your obeisance, your head will be torn off – this is true for every single living entity.

I heard that you had a storm here a few days ago. It started in Puri and spread over two hundred kilometers around. Have you seen what happens during a storm? When a storm comes, it breaks off the heads of coconut palm trees and throws them far away.

We have coconut trees at our Math in Puri and after the storm they are all without crowns, or heads, now. All the heads were 'severed'... The trees themselves are standing, but the storm was so strong that there was a lot of damage. [Devotees ask if the temple is all right.] Yes, the temple and the Deities are all right. Gaura-Nitai are unharmed. You see? There was so much damage all around, but the temple is unharmed. There was an electric pole outside the temple – I thought that it would break and fall on the temple, causing damage, but you can see how the Lord works – the pole broke and fell on the street instead of the temple. Only our coconut palms were damaged...

I told the manager, 'Offer these coconuts to the Lord.' Offering coconuts to the Lord means doing more service, so they did not do it and just let people take those coconut for themselves. In the end, the Lord said, 'Since you are not using them in My service, I will take them away from you!' The trees also thought, 'Oh, we have grown so big! We are taller than everybody else!' So, the Lord severed their heads...

Do you know what the cows did? I bought cows and brought them there many times, and I phoned and told them not to keep the cows tied. So, when the roof in the cows' room fell during the storm, the cows just cried and went to another room. They were all safe. I called them in the morning and later during the day, and they kept saying, 'Everything is all right, nothing will happen.' But I felt that something was going to happen. And it turned out true. Yesterday they called me and told the news, 'Maharaj, you were right. All the asbestos roof behind the temple is gone. The new bathroom roof is also gone.' Also, the wall fell down in the garden that we go through when we go to the temple from the guesthouse. It did not fall on the garden – it fell more towards outside. And another thing is one of the two gate leaves flew away. I told them to always keep it open (to put something and prevent it from closing on its own), but they did not do it. So, the gate said, 'Keep me open now!' In the four-storey guesthouse, only one room suffered a little damage.

These are all the damages – nothing else happened. All the outside hotels suffered, but our temple is unharmed. The road from the ocean to our temple is covered with seven-foot sand! The ocean reached right there. Even cars cannot go there now.

We made the roofs from thick asbestos because of the ocean water getting everywhere. They said that nothing would happen, but can they complete with the Lord? The Lord says, 'Wind, show how much power you have! Go and remove all these sins!' There was such a big storm. I was in Siliguri, and I was just thinking that something was going to happen. Even the Puri train station was all damaged. Just think about it! If the Lord wishes, He can do anything – Varundev (God of Wind) will arrange everything. At least the Odiyan government says that not so many people died in the storm. Also, by the mercy of the Lord, there was not much damage here, in West Bengal. By the time this cyclone Fani reached here, it had already become weak. There was also some damage in Bangladesh, mostly in Chattogram, but they most only had heavy rain.

'Kartavya na akartavya anya ta kartama (কর্ত্তব্য না অকর্ত্তব্য অন্য ত কর্তম).' It means that if something is to happen, it may not happen, and if something is not to happen, it may happen; and at the same time, neither can also happen and something completely different can happen instead. Such is the will of the Lord.

ঈশ্বরঃ পরমঃ কৃষ্ণঃ সচ্চিদানন্দবিগ্রহঃ ।
অনাদিরাদির্গোবিন্দঃ সর্ব্বকারণকারণম্ ॥

isvarah paramah krsnah sach-chid-ananda-vigrahah
anadir adir govindah sarva-karana-karanam

‘Krishna, who is known as Govinda, is the supreme controller. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no origin, for He is the prime cause of all causes.’

(Sri Brahma-samhita, 5.1)

He is the cause of all causes. If the Lord wishes something to happen, everything can happen. Nothing can happen without His wish. We must give up everything to Him and rely only on Him – we must live loving the Lord, serving the Lord. This is the promise we made when we came from our mothers' wombs...

— : • : —

{ 2001  |   2002  |   2003  |   2005  |   2009  |   2010  |   2011  |   2012 }
{ 2013  |   2014  |   2015  |   2016  |   2017  |   2018  |   2019  |   2020  |   2021 }