(4/8) External and Internal Culture

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nandotsav Festival, Tarakeswar
24 August 2019, morning, part 4
Translated from Bengali

First, gurudev must appear in your hearts. It is necessary to have faith in this. You take beads from gurudev, but you do not have faith. I told you yesterday during the class about the saying, 'You have zero tied in your sari knot: sunya granthi anchale bandhan (শূন্য গ্রন্থি অঞ্চলে বন্ধন; originally found in Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur's Kalyan-kalpataru). 'Anchal' means the end of the cloth – you think that you have a hundred thousand rupees tied in your cloth, but when you open it, you find that there is nothing there. Similarly, if you have no money in your bank account but rent a bank safe, what will you find there? Nothing. Such a bank account is of no use. So, you take chanting beads from gurudev, you take initiation from gurudev, but if you have no devotion to or faith in your guru, it means that gurudev has not appeared in your heart. Always remember this.

[To a devotee] Are you sleepy, Prabhu? Did you eat too much muri in the morning? I went to bed at two o'clock at night, too. When I saw that it was already two, I went to my room and took a shower. By that time, I could not speak – my voice was gone. I gargled with some salt water and now I am able to speak. I can chant kirtan for ten–fifteen hours at a time, but once I stop, I lose my voice. That is my problem. It is a problem, a fault of mine, because the Lord says, 'If you do not chant My Name, I will take your voice away. But when you chant My kirtan, then everything will be all right with your voice.'

[Noticing that some devotees are sitting with their backs to the Deities] You have been to South India with me: where is there a Deity that stays with His back turned to everyone? Yes, in Kurmaksetra. You must not sit with your back to the Deities! Suppose a guest comes to your house, will you sit with your back to them? You know, when we study at school or college, we always sit facing the teacher, but I have seen what a foolish rule they have in Japan – there, students actually sit with their backs to the teacher and they consider it being respectul! How foolish. How can you learn from a teacher sitting with your back to him? But they sit in such a way that they all look in the same direction as their teacher. What kind of idea is that? We always sit with our faces turned to the teacher.

There is another strange custom in New Zealand. Here in India polite people join their palms and offer a kind of obeisance to the person they are greeting, or some people shake hands to greet each other. And when we want to apologise, we touch the person's feet. Do you know what Muslim people do in Pakistan? When Pakistan attacked Bangladesh and started a war, they killed a lot of Hindu people. At that time, when anybody tried to touch soldiers' feet to seek their mercy, they would become afraid and quickly jump away because they thought that the person could touch their feet and secretly attack them. In their country (in Pakistan), the custom is that if you want to apologise to a person, you touch their beards! We did not know it. [His Divine Grace laughs.] You must clasp their beards to apologise, but when we tried to touch their feet, they only beat us or jump away. There is one more funny custom in New Zealand – if you hear it, you will be even more amused. There, all the ladies stand in front of you and then one of them comes right up to you. I went there when I was much younger, and I was terrified when a lady started closing in on me. So, the lady comes right up to you and starts rubbing her nose against yours! [Explosive laughter.] When I realised what was going to happen, I backed off at once! But they were upset, 'Oh, Maharaj is a great personality, but he did not let me greet him properly.' This is the custom in New Zealand, among the Maura community. People from such places come to this line and now practise spiritual life properly and chant kirtan.

In this world, there are many kinds of cultures with different kinds of customs. You know, here in India, there is also the Majuli island in the Assam state. I read about what people eat and wear there. They kill birds and other animals and eat their meat raw, without even cooking it. Their favourite vegetable dish is some young vegetable boiled in water without spices. The island is surrounded by water, so it is rare to see any cars or even horses there – mostly people use rafts or come there by ship. Majuli has recently been declared a district of the Assam state, so I was reading about it yesterday...

All right, much has been said. Let us chant some kirtan now.

[His Divine Grace chants a few kirtans and then resumes the class.]

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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