(3/13) God Is Great

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Bandipur, 15 November 2019, evening, part 3
Translated from Bengali

I have a question for you all. How are you alive in this world? Whose things are you enjoying in this world? What do I mean by that? For example, you are breathing the air in and out, you are using the sunlight and the wind – whose air, light and wind is it? It all belongs to the Lord. So, you are enjoying that which belongs to God.

You enjoy that which belongs to God and say, 'God has not given me anything!' Not only that, you actually complain that God has not given you anything in this life. Have a look at it. You have this body, and you say, 'They are my parents.' Your parents produce your bodies. When a woman gets pregnant, a body is created from the seed that she has inside her. So, our parents create our bodies, but we ourselves (our souls) are created by God. God gives us life. The bodies our parents give us will die after a few days (they will be buried or burnt), but it is these bodies that we run and jump around for, that we fight for, that we worry so much about making sure we eat, sleep, feel safe and breed – we never think about our souls and our souls' welfare.

What is good for our souls? What can we do for our souls? You may know so many things, but first you must know yourselves. Who are you? What are you? If somebody asks you, 'Are you this body?' You say, 'Yes, I am this body.' When you are in these bodies, people affectionately call you by some names, but when your bodies die, nobody will call you by those names again. That is the point. Our parents give us our bodies, but they did not give us our souls. What does biology say? Whatever you eat gets absorbed by the body. So, you say that you are your body – that means that when you eat potato, you become potato! You eat potato, that potato is absorbed into your body, so it means that you become potato! If scientists come and start saying that the soul and the body are the same, it means that when they eat potato, they become potato. They cannot argue with this.

So, the main point is that we cannot do anything in this world and nothing in this world belongs to us. At the root of everything is God. Because we forget God, we suffer from three-fold miseries (adhibhautik, adhidaivik, adhyatmik, আধিভৌতিক, আধিদৈবিক, আধ্যাত্মিক: miseries caused by one's body, by the nature, and other souls).

People say that if we did not eat meat, we would die; if there were no credits in this world, we would die; if farmers were not given loans, we would all die, and so on. They think that our lives depend on so many things. But you can see the example of California. There was some statistics that the suicide rate in California was the highest in the world. There is no lack of money in this place – everybody there has ten houses, ten cars and fifteen–twenty wives. They have no lack of material enjoyment, then why do they commit suicide? People say that if you are given material enjoyment, then your material desires will be quenched (you will enjoy and feel satisfied). This is a misconception. The more you enjoy, the more you will want to enjoy. You will only want more and more.

আশা-পাশ শত শত, ক্লশ দেয় অবিরত,
প্রবৃত্তি-ঊর্ম্মির তাহে খেলা ।

asa-pasa sata sata, klesa deya avirata,
pravrtti-urmira tahe khela

'I am constantly surrounded with pain and misery on all sides, with waves of impulsive desires playing in it.'

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastakam Giti, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must always think about these things. We cannot do anything – the only master in this world is God.

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CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE LECTURE

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Length: 76 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Appreciate Your Fortune
2) Fossil Hearts
3) God Is Great
4) Getting in Touch With God
5) God's Message
6) Higher Purpose in Life
7) Service Is Not Abstract
8) Choose the Right Path
9) Purity Comes From Practice
10) Embrace Eternal Life
11) Search for the Eternal
12) Service Comes from Heart
13) Educate Yourself