Service Is Disciple's Heartbeat

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Speaking online to devotees in Salt Lake City, USA
10 October 2019, part 3

We sometimes lose our faith... We are always busy with gramya-katha, para-charcha, para-ninda, talking nonsense, discussing others, criticising others, etc. You have your service—do not waste time on "nidralasya hata sukarye virata" (being wasted by laziness and sleep, having no desire to do anything good). Do not waste your time on sleeping, eating, and enjoying—do not use this life for your own enjoyment. You must always think how to serve your Guru, and service means you must serve without own interest, without any desires, without thinking about yourself. You know that Bali Maharaj gave everything to the Lord, but then Vindhyavali, his wife, told him, "You have given everything for the service of the Lord, but you have not given your own self!" Then, this is the main thing in our life—the quality of a disciple depends on the extent to which he can give himself for the service of the Lord, for service of the Guru.

I have already told you that there are so many gurus in this world, but the number of disciples is very small. It is not so easy to find a disciple—you can find many gurus, but not so many disciples. We must be proper disciples. This is our vision, and this should be everyone's vision. We must be proper disciples of our Gurudev. That is the main thing in our spiritual life.

The Guru is the center of the disciple's heart. You must use your whole life for service (bhajan). For devotees, even sleeping is a kind of service, taking rest is also a kind of service, taking maha-prasad is also service, sravan (hearing Hari-katha) and kirtan (practising Krishna consciousness and chanting the Holy Name) are services—even going to the bathroom, toilet is service. Do understand it?

You must take prasadam, and you must take it properly. If you are not conscious that what you are taking is prasad, if you simply eat what is given to you or think, "Oh, he is distributing prasadam, but he is not giving me paneer!"—then this is not taking prasadam, this is eating. What is called kirtan? What is called bhajan? It means giving happiness to the Guru and Vaishnavs. Happiness of the Guru and Vaishnav—that kind of kirtan is necessary in our spiritual life.

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