(1/8) Glorious Service Festival

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nandotsav Festival, Tarakeswar
24 August 2019, morning, part 1
Translated from Bengali

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.
Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa-kula-churamani Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda Sundarjiu ki jay.
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Madan-mohan jiu ki jay.
Jay Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay.
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay.
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay.
Vrinda Devi, Tulasi Devi, Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay.
Sri Shyama Kunda, Radha Kunda, Sri Giri Govardhan ki jay.
Sri Mayapur Dham, Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Vrindavan, Mathura ki jay.
Sri Purusottam Ksetra ki jay.
Baladev Subhadra Jagannathjiu ki jay.
Akar Math-raj Sri Chaitanya Math ki jay.
Mayapur Yogapith ki jay.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay.
Tandiya sakha-math-samuha ki jay.
Tarakeswar samasta-bhakta-vrinda ki jay.
Jay Sri Sri Krishna Janmastami vrater upavas maha-mahotsav ki jay.
Jay Nanda Maharajer ananda-maha-mahotsav ki jay.
Harinam sankirtan ki jay.
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol

Today, the festival in honour of Sri Krishna's birth is celebrated at the house of Nanda Maharaj. On this day, Nanda Maharaj made a great joyous festival (ananda maha-mahotsav) for his son. This day is commonly called a 'big birthday celebration' (janma maha-mahotsav), but we call it a 'big joyous festival' (ananda maha-mahotsav). So, we will speak about the glories of this festival today. I also spoke about it yesterday.

The main thing we must understand is the importance of Nanda Maharaj's and Mother Yasoda's mercy. You know that if you invite Krishna, He will not be able to come on His own, will He? But if you invite Mother Yasoda, she will bring Krishna to you in Her arms. So, if you serve Mother Yasoda, you can have Krishna – in other words, if you serve the Lord's devotees, you can come to the Lord. That is why if we can serve Nanda Maharaj, we can get the Lord – Mother Yasoda will bring Krishna in her arms. Invite Mother Yasoda and Nanda Maharaj first, then Krishna will automatically come.

You can come to the Lord if you serve His devotees. The Lord Himself says, 'Those who say that they are My devotees are not My devotees. My devotees are the devotees of My devotees.' One time, Parvati Devi also asked her husband, Sivji Maharaj, 'Of all types of worship, whose worship is the highest? Whom should I worship?' Sivji Maharaj replied to that, 'If you want to worship, then worship Lord Vishnu. Lord Vishnu's worship is the highest.' Hearing this, Parvati Devi became upset because she thought, 'But I always worship Lord Siva...' Understanding her mind and wishing to comfort her, Sivji Maharaj continued, 'Have no fear. Of all kinds of worship, the worship of Lord Vishnu is the highest, but higher still than that is the worship of Lord Vishnu's devotee.' And Lord Siva is a devotee of Lord Vishnu – He sings the glories of the Lord with his five mouths.

Did you know that Lord Siva has five mouths? If you go to Nepal to have the darshan of Pashupatinath, you can see there that Lord Siva has five faces. There, Lord Siva is called Pashupatinath because he is the master of the pashupat weapon that he received from Lord Krishna. Later, Lord Siva was defeated in a battle and had to go away to Bhuvaneshwar.

If you worship Lord Siva, you automatically worship Lord Vishnu, or Lord Krishna. Therefore, we must always worship Lord Siva, but what must we worship him for? To get devotion to Lord Krishna. This is the way how you can get devotion. Otherwise, if you come to Lord Siva and ask, 'Please look after my parents', 'Please help me get well', 'Please help my relatives', and so on, this is wrong. In this world, people come here walking from far away barefoot, carrying water in pots. Just yesterday I heard the news that somebody was walking like and then suddenly slipped, fell down and died... So, whether you live in a house, in a forest or in a jungle, the Lord is the one who will take care of you and protect you. You think that you can go to a jungle and stay there safely, but you are not the master – the Lord is the master, so He will protect you. If He wants to kill you, He will kill you; and if He wants to keep you alive, He will keep you alive.

Those who think and talk all these other things are wrong. This is a misconception. I heard yesterday also that some men who had been drinking and smoking ganja went to the marketplace and started inviting everybody to join their group. Is this devotee behaviour? Devotees are peaceful and gentle! Those rowdy people stay up all night. When somebody is very sick and have to take an ambulance, a five-minute journey to the hospital takes two hours because those people go out in the street and walk leisurely blocking the streets and drinking. This is the situation these days.

Several years ago, Rajasekhara Reddy, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, decided to give half of the Tirupati temple's land to the Christians. The day when they had to come to register the land, Reddy set off from Hyderabad in a helicopter (the temple is situated on top of a mountain), but before they could reach the temple, the helicopter crashed, and he died on the spot. Does he think that he can easily give the Lord's land to Christians? The Lord could not tolerate it. Quite a few years have passed, and now his son has recently become the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.

So, we must understand these things. When we come to the Lord, we must come to worship Him, to serve Him. When we come to this festival, we must come to serve Nanda Maharaj. Many people are coming today – some are busy cooking now, and some will be busy distributing prasad to everybody. Do not run ahead of everybody to eat first. Help the devotees and distribute prasad. Everybody can land a hand. If you have ten people living at your house, you make sure they all eat first, then you sit down and eat yourselves. It is the same here. Everybody should help. No matter how small service you do, it is all recorded – everything is kept in the bank. Just as you save money in a bank, when you do some service to the Lord, it is also credited to your spiritual account — even if you do service for only ten or fifteen minutes, it all counts. Even if you just plant a flower tree at home and make a garland from the flowers or pick the flowers and offer them at the holy feet of Lord Govinda, you can please the Lord with that, and the Lord will take care of you. The Lord comes all the way from Goloka Vrindavan specially to accept service...

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CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE LECTURE

Size: 44 Mb
Length: 91 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Glorious Service Festival
2) Internal Appearance of Lord Krishna
3) Pure Eyes of Pure Hearts
4) External and Internal Culture
5) Lord of Lords, God of Gods
6) Kamsa's Crippled Ploy
7) At Nanda Maharaj's Palace
8) Nanda Maharaj Meets Vasudev