(6/6) Adjust Your Faith and Priority

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme, 1 January 2020, part 6
Translated from Bengali

তৃণাদপি সুনীচেন তরোরিব সহিষ্ণুনা ।
অমানিনা মানদেন কীর্ত্তনীয়ঃ সদা হরিঃ ॥

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

'One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more forbearing than a tree, who gives due honour to others without desiring it for himself, is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

We must wear tilaks, neckbeads. Seeing you, somebody will say, 'Just look at him! He is wearing neckbeads now! He has become a devotee!' They will criticise you, they will insult you. Let them – they will say it one day, two days, five days, let them say whatever they want, we do not have any objection. They do not feed us – Tulasi feeds us. Gurudev has given me Tulasi neckbeads and told me to wear them, then I will wear them. If it brings me benefit, I will wear them. Even on the material level, wearing Tulasi neckbeads is beneficial for health. More importantly, if you have Tulasi neckbeads on your neck, Yamaduts (messengers of Lord Yama) cannot touch you.

You have heard Ajamil's story when Yamaduts came to take him. Ajamil was a son of a brahman, but he got mixed up in bad association as the result of which he started drinking together with the hariya people (হাঁড়িয়া; lowly people who drink and sell alcohol). He became a trader of alchocol – he would ferment rice and made wine from it. Eventually, he mixed with some lady whom he married and had children from. He had left all his brahmanism. He became a drunkard. Getting one child after another, he ended up with ten children. When his tenth son was born, some sadhu came to their house, so Ajamil asked him, 'Hey sadhu, why don't you give the name to my son?' A sadhu will never give a bad name, so he gave the boy the Lord's Name – he named him Narayan. As Narayan was the youngest of the children, Ajamil was very affectionate to him and always spend a lot of time with him. He would always call him, 'Narayan this', 'Narayan that' – whether he ate, slept or sat somewhere, he would be always calling his son. As he kept repeating, 'Narayan, Narayan,' he chanted what is called nama-abhasa (because Narayan is the Name of the Lord and he kept repeating it, he got the benefit of shadow-chanting of the Holy Name of the Lord). When it was time for Ajamil to die, he went through some terrible time – the soul does not want to leave this body, but the diseases make you suffer very much. When Ajamil was about to leave his body, Yamaduts came to him and wanted to take him away. Seeing Yamaduts' fearsome appearance (they have horns, big teeth, big eyes, and so on), Ajamil began trembling and calling out to his son Narayan, 'Narayan! Narayan! They are taking me away!' Because he called out the Name of Narayan, Vishnuduts (messengers of Lord Vishnu) came and told Yamaduts, 'Go away from here. You cannot touch his body. You have no power to do that.'

'How so?' Yamaduts were angry.

'Who are you? Who has sent you here?' Vishnuduts asked.

'Lord Yama has sent us!' Yamaduts replied.

'Well, and we were sent by the guru of your guru. Your guru is Lord Yama, and our guru is Lord Vishnu, who is over and above Lord Yama. Go and ask your Lord Yama.'

Unable to argue with Vishnuduts, Yamaduts went to Lord Yama and told him, 'You have sent us to take Ajamil, but they told us that we cannot touch him!' Lord Yama confirmed it, 'Yes, they are right. Because Ajamil took the Name of Lord Narayan at the time of death, you cannot touch him.'

After that, Ajamil started wearing Tulasi neckbeads and chanting the Lord's Name. If you live practising Krishna consciousness like this, nothing bad can happen to you.

The glory of the Lord's Name is so great! You can remember Prahlad Maharaj. What they did not do to him! He was fed poison, he was tied to an elephant's leg, he was thrown from a hill, he was thrown into fire! His father, Hiranyakasipu, asked him, 'Where have you got so much power! I have thrown you into fire, but you merely played in it!' Prahlad Maharaj replied, 'Father, I have taken shelter in the Lord, so when you threw me into fire, I always remembered the Lord, and at that time the Lord had taken away the fire's power to burn. When you threw me into fire, I actually felt very cold!' The Lord gives power to all gods and He can also take that power away from them. For example, a king appoints a prime-minister, and if the prime-minister does not work properly, the king can take this position away from the person (or, if the prime-minister is elected by people, people can remove the prime-minister if they are not satisfied with his or her work). Our position is also like that...

We must serve the Lord sincerely, properly.

ঈশ্বরঃ পরমঃ কৃষ্ণঃ সচ্চিদানন্দবিগ্রহঃ ।
অনাদিরাদির্গোবিন্দঃ সর্ব্বকারণকারণম্ ॥

isvarah paramah krsnah sach-chid-ananda-vigrahah
anadir adir govindah sarva-karana-karanam

'Krishna, who is known as Govinda, is the supreme controller. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin, for He is the prime cause of all causes.'

(Sri Brahma-samhita, 5.1)

The origin is the end point, but the Lord is beyond even that. Sometimes, the Lord is called Madhava, sometimes Yadav, sometimes Gopal, sometimes Gopinath, sometimes Madan-Mohan or Radha-Madhav. There are so many beautiful Names of the Lord... We must worship the Lord. The religion of this Age of Kali is Harinam-sankirtan.

কলিকালে নামরূপ কৃষ্ণ-অবতার ।
নাম হৈতে হয় সর্ব্বজগৎ-নিস্তার ॥

kali-kale nama-rupe krsna-avatara
nama haite haya sarva-jagat-nistara

'In the Kali-yuga, Krishna appears in the form of the Name. The entire world is delivered through that Name.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.17.22)

In this Age of Kali, the Lord appears in the form of the Holy Name through a guru-parampara. I have told you earlier that this line comes from Krishna to Brahma, from Brahma to Narad, from Narad to Vyasadev, from Vyasadev to Madhvacharya, from Madhvacharya gradually to Madhavendra Puri, then to Ishwar Puri. Mahaprabhu took initiation from Ishwar Puri. Why did He take initiation? To teach this world. He preached by His own example.

নিজ আচারি' ধর্ম্ম জীবকে শিখায় ।
আচার না করিলে শিখান না যায় ॥

nija achari' dharma jivake sikhaya
achara na karile sikhana na yaya

'First follow the instruction yourself, then teach others. If you do not practise what you preach, your preaching will not work.'

If you drink alcohol at home yourself, can you tell another person, 'Do not drink alcohol'? First give it up yourself, then you can tell others to give it up. If you do something bad yourself, can you tell others not to do bad things? That is why, to teach the world, Mahaprabhu took initiation Himself and then told everyone that they too had to take initiation.

In this way, the line eventually came to Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, and from him to our Founder Acharya, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, and our gurudev, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj. In his lifetime, Gurudev told me, 'If somebody wants to genuinely chant the Holy Name, you can give them initiation on behalf of me and this guru-parampara.' When Gurudev was present in this world, I also gave initiations on his behalf. He has entered his eternal pastimes now, but you all know that he is still helping me in every way.

You all know that there is a festival in Ganga Sagar soon. It is not far from you all here, so please come. Also, we will have a festival at Sri Ekachakra Dham, please come (we have a temple there) and do parikrama of Sri Ekachakra Dham together with us. After that, there will be Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. We have a temple in Nabadwip and we will be going for the parikrama of the nine islands during four days. There are nine kinds of devotional practices, and each of them resides on a corresponding island of Nabadwip. Antardwip, where Mayapur is, is situated in the centre. Our old temple where we used to stay is in Koladwip. Then, there is also Madhyadwip, Godrumdwip, Godadrumdwip, Jahnudwip, Rtudwip, Rudradwip and Simantadwip. Godrumdwip is the island of kirtan; we have a temple there now. Please come and do the parikrama with us. I am inviting you all. I am finishing at this. Now I will give some initiations and then chant some kirtan...

— : • : —

{ 2001  |   2002  |   2003  |   2005  |   2009  |   2010  |   2011  |   2012 }
{ 2013  |   2014  |   2015  |   2016  |   2017  |   2018  |   2019  |   2020  |   2021 }

CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE LECTURE

Size: 16 Mb
Length: 36 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Krishna-Centred Renunciation
2) Live for Guru
3) His World, His Will
4) Escaping Foreign Land
5) Non-Sectarian and Non-Liberal
6) Adjust Your Faith and Priority