(7) Material Obstruction

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

After Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatan found Mahaprabhu's holy feet, they were in agony, thinking, 'How can we meet Mahaprabhu again?!' Then, they left Ramkeli and went to Kasi, there they met with Him again.

When Sri Sanatan Goswami wanted to leave his post, the king refused to let him go and threw him into jail instead. When we went to Ramkeli the day before yesterday, we visited the place where that jail was. It is preserved just like that to this day. The king told him, 'You want to leave your post?? No! I will not allow it. I am ready to pay you as much as you want – I can pay you ten times more or a hundred times more, ask any salary you want, but you must continue doing your job!' Sanatan Goswami refused, 'Sir, please find somebody else for this job. I will not work. I want to go to the One whom I have found. All this job, this life is nothing!'

We eat rice, dal, vegetables to nurture the body, but after some time we pass it as stool and urine. If we try to keep it inside our bodies, it will cause us pain and suffering. Try and see – if you do not pass stool, you can see how you will feel. So, if you do not pass (take out) what is inside your body, you will feel sick. In the same way, Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatan had their lucrative jobs and so much money, but they gave everything away and ran to Vrindavan to meet with Mahaprabhu, only taking with them the clothes they were wearing. Just as Srila Raghunath Das Goswami left Bengal and went to Puri, Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatan left Malda and Ramkel (Gaur district) and came to Mahaprabhu.

On 15 June this year they had a big festival in Malda celebrating Mahaprabhu's meeting with Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatan. People come to this festival from thousands of miles. We were travelling back from Siliguri and stopped there. The journey from Siliguri is so hard that one can die on the way... We had to make some stops on the way for one–two days. There is no Gaudiya Math anywhere on the way, only ISKCON has a place arranged there for preaching, and some devotees from other temples come there to preach, too.

Actually, all we need is preaching. When you get a respite from the blazing fire of material life (samsara-anala haite magiya visrama), all you must do after that is preaching, then only there is any sense in making a temple. The problem is that you are entangled in material lives and only think about your wives and children. When will that day come to your life? As you keep worrying about your material lives and material families, sixty years pass – how much longer are you going to be in this world? Twenty years more? Thirty years more? One day you feel hopeless... In your ripe old age you will feel no happiness: ‘Vrddha-kala aola, saba sukha bhagala, pida-base hainu katara (বৃদ্ধকাল আওল, সব সুখ ভাগল, পীড়াবশে হইনু কাতর). Old age came, and all happiness finished. Subjugated by disease, I became distressed’ (Saranagati). You will not be able to take much prasad because you will have acidity and other stomach problems. You will not be able to control your health – your back will pain, your sides will pain, your legs will pain, and so on.

সংসার সংসার করি মিছে গেল কাল ।
লাভ না হইল কিছু ঘটিল জঞ্জাল ॥

samsara samsara kari michhe gela kala
labha na haila kichhu ghatila janjala

‘I have wasted all my time on material life and family and have got nothing but garbage as the result.’

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

This attachment to material life must be given up altogether! You must think, 'I am not here.' What will happen if you are not there? This is how you must live. 'I have taken care of this family for sixty years, now it is your turn – you take care of it.' Explain this to your wife, to your sons and daughters. If you understand the meaning of ashrams, then you can stay in your family life for fifty years, and after fifty years you should become a vanaprastha. It means that you must live in a forest (vana) and visit holy places. This is the life of a vanaprastha. But when you reach sixty years, you still think, 'Oh, I need to take care of this, I need to take care of that.' Why? Why so much illusion? You wait for your children to grow up, then you wait for your grandchildren to be born, then you wait for your grandchildren to get married, and so on. This is how everybody lives. You want to take care of your dear sons-in-law, of your dear grandchildren, but what often happens is that old people end up in hospitals – you think that you will take care of your beloved grandchildren, but your dear daughter-in-law or dear son-in-law can admit you to a hospital and leave you there. I know these things... I may not have had a family of my own, but it does not mean that I do not understand how painful material life is. I see and I understand these things...

Instead of thinking about all this, we must only practise Krishna consciousness. Practise Krishna consciousness, serve the Lord, and the Lord will arrange everything.

— : • : —

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