(5) Taste for Prasad-Seva

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Bhanjipur, 2 December 2019, noon, part 5
Translated from Bengali

A tiger or a lion cannot give up eating meat, bones, blood, etc. – they cannot understand anything, so no matter what happens, they will always want to eat such things. Even when you go to the zoo, you can see that they feed them daily with five–ten kg of goat meat or chicken meat. But humans are intelligent, they can understand that they can easily live without meat. Fish, meat, onion, garlic, lentils are prohibited kinds of food. We prohibit everybody to eat this. If you stay away from these foods, the overpowering influence of your senses will go down – lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness and envy will gradually decrease. Food and tongue's greed are interrelated. I told you the other day that when Bhisma was wounded and was lying on a bed of arrows, he told Yudhisthir Maharaj this sloka:

মহাপ্রসাদে গোবিন্দে নাম-ব্রহ্মণি বৈষ্ণবে ।
স্বল্পপুণ্যবতাং রাজন্ বিশ্বাসো নৈব জায়তে ॥

mahaprasade govinde nama-brahmani vaisnave
svalpa-punya-vatam rajan visvaso naiva jayate

‘O King, one whose fortune is meagre never develops strong faith in mahaprasad, Govinda, the Holy Name or Vaishnavs.’

If you honour prasad, your tongue will be less greedy. Those who take prasad (who genuinely take prasad) can understand this. When the tongue becomes less greedy, then all the other bad things (lust, anger, greed, etc.) will gradually go away, too. This is how it works.

প্রসাদ-সেবা, করিতে হয়,
সকল প্রপঞ্চ জয়

prasada-seva, karite haya,
sakala prapancha jaya

‘The entire material world can be conquered by honouring the Lord’s prasad.’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

There are five diseases (pancha-roga): avidya (ignorance), asmita (false identification), raga (misdirected love), dvesa (aversion to anything that is against my enjoyment) and abhinivesa (being unable to give up unfavourable habits). The only way to destroy these diseases is to honour prasad (to practise prasad-seva). If you genuinely offer bhoga to the Lord and genuinely honour His prasad, then all these diseases will gradually be cured. That is why everybody must curb their taste for outside food. Those who have no taste for prasad will not have taste for the Holy Name either. Those who have taste for prasad will also feel taste for chanting the Holy Name. You must have taste for prasad.

Always remember this.

Let us chant Vaishnav Thakur's kirtan now.

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