Outdoors Preaching Campaign

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh
5 January 2020, part 6

"Common people will criticise you saying that they are donors and you are beggars, i.e. they hold a higher position than you, that you are the recipients of their mercy; some will be ready to chastise you—as a result, your tolerance can grow, you will have an opportunity to be humble and give honour to others. Just by seeing your qualities of being humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree and respect to others, common jiva souls will be benefited."

Bhagavan Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur told "You must take a loan to preach Mahaprabhu's teachings, then to pay back that loan you will have to engage yourself in service even more. When you have a pending payment for this loan, you will have to engage yourself in even more collection. At the same time, if your practice is not proper and character is not pure, pious grhasthas will not donate anything to you—then you will have to try hard to lead a pure life of a practitioner. I will not leave you even one cent so that in future you do not become lax and leave sankirtan, service to the Lord, and your proper practice of Krishna consciousness."

Do you have any questions?

Question: You were speaking about the relation between the guru and the disciple. Is it correct that a disciple will not offer any defence?

Yes, a disciple will never try to defend himself—one must always have a humble mood. Actually, it is very rare to find a proper disciple. I have told it many times. We take initiation, but actually we pretend to be disciples—instead of becoming proper disciples we become guru-bhogi (we enjoy the guru); or we become guru-tyagi (we reject the guru). It is very rare to see a guru-sevi (a servant of the guru).

You can take some books, for example Gurudev's book Original Source—you can translate it into Telugu and distribute it here, it will be good. It is a small book, a brochure, but it is a very nice book.

Question: What should we do if we do not feel energy to go outside for preaching?

It is necessary to try. Try and try, and you will be successful. Buy a motorcycle and go with your wife door to door—give people leaflets, brochures, etc., beg them. You do not have to leave your work for this. You can go on Saturday and Sunday, or every day. Try to give more time to service, then you will be successful. I have told you how to do it. Somebody will tell, "Oh you are poor, you are coming to beg!" Say, "Yes, thank you. No problem. Please take this leaflet, come to our programme." If you do in this way, you will be successful.

Do not be shy or anything. Srimati Radharani and all the Vraja gopis left everything—even shame, shyness, etc. They have rejected everything.

You can see also what I do. I have been doing collection for many years. This year too, after Gangasagar programme I will go house to house for potato and rice collection. Some people give one kilogramme, two kilogrammes, I do not have any problem with that. Every year I collect 700 kg. I go to 100-120 houses, walking every day in the hot sun—we drive three-four hours by car, then leave the car and start going house to house, sometimes walking in the fields, etc.

Actually, what does collection mean? We do not go door to door for rice or potato! We do not come to hijack anyone's potato, rice, or money. We want to hijack people! I invite people, they give us some potato, they know our address and can come to our programme—there, they will hear Hari-katha, I will 'wash their brain,' and then give them kanthi-mala and chanting beads. That is it. Hijacking is finished.

I started doing this in my brahmachari days in 1992, and I am still doing it. still go to the market, I buy everything, arrange everything. Sometimes, I hear, "Oh, you are an acharya, you are a big world guru and you are going yourself." People can say many things, it does not matter to me. Our temple also has many paddy (cultivation) fields—I would go there myself and oversee the planting of rice, etc...

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