(8/8) Take Service Seriously

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Uluberia, noon programme, 30 January 2020, part 8
Translated from Bengali

We have come here in this Age of Kali, having got a human birth after many lives. We only dance and chant, "Hari bol! Hari bol!" but we have not learnt the meaning of what we are doing. Once, I asked somebody, "You chant 'Bhaja bhakata vatsala' every day, and it says there, 'Yasomati ajna peye Dhanistha anita', can you tell me what 'Dhanistha anita' means?" The person said, "After the meal, Mother Yasoda is telling to bring some 'dhane' (coriander)." They do not know the meaning! "Yasomati ajna peye Dhanistha anita" means Mother Yasoda tells a gopi called Dhanistha to take Gopal's prasad to Radharani. So, Dhanistha is not some snack—it is the name of a gopi. It is necessary to understand the meaning of what we sing and practise. We say that Gauranga Mahaprabhu is the combined form of Sri Sri Radha-Krishna, then how is it possible that Gadadhar Pandit is the incarnation of Srimati Radharani? This question can come. Krishna takes the heart and halo of Srimati Radharani and becomes Gauranga, and the body of Srimati Radharani comes as Gadadhar. You must remember this.

We have got this human birth as a result of great fortune, so it is necessary to be serious about Krishna consciousness and about the Lord. You ring the bell, offer some worship and flowers, but this is not all that there is to it. You can find many gurus in this world who will take your money (pranami) and obeisances (pranam). When any money or obeisance comes to us, we must send everything to our Gurudev. At the same time, although you can find a guru in this world, you will not find a proper disciple. A disciple is a person who can take the order and chastisement of Sri Guru on their head and mould their life accordingly. Such a disciple can become a genuine guru...

Always chant the Holy Name. Take service to the Lord seriously—serve the Lord with love. You can take some books also and read about what I have told you. Yesterday, somebody asked me, "Can everybody be called a paramahamsa?" As the saying goes, "Taka mati, mati taka (টাকা মাটি মাটি টাকা). Money has no value (lit. 'Money is mud, mud is money')." People want to serve poor people considering poor people "poor Narayans". What is the meaning of a "paramahamsa"? A hamsa means a swan. If you mix milk with water, a paramahama will take only milk from it, leaving the water. This is who a paramahamsa is. People call some scholars and erudite persons paramahamsa, but paramahamsas are actually genuine pure Vaishnavs, devotees of Krishna. The idea of "Taka mati, mati taka" is at the level of knowledge—jnanis (those who seek and cultivate knowledge) think that sandalwood and stool are the same, that a prostitute and a chaste wife are the same, that mud and money are the same. You must offer to the Lord that which the Lord likes. There is everything available in this world, but you must accept that which is required for the service of the Lord—it is not necessary to accept anything else beyond that. For example, tambula (paan) is offered to the Lord, but we do not take it because we do not have the right to take it. Even though it comes as prasad, we have no right to take it. Remember this.

Always serve the Lord, Sri Guru and Vaishnavs. If you serve Vaishnavs, you will feel the highest happiness, but if you think, "I have become a devotee of Krishna!" then it is a big problem. When I first came to the temple, they asked me, "Where are you from? Why have you come here at such an early age? Why will you not get married? Why wear saffron?" How wrong this is! Vaishnavs' mood should be:

নাহং বিপ্রো ন চ নরপতির্নাপি বৈশ্যো ন শূদ্রো
নাহং বর্ণী ন চ গৃহপতির্নো বনস্থো যতির্বা ।
কিন্তু প্রোদ্যন্নিখিলপরমানন্দপূর্ণামৃতাব্ধে-
র্গোপীভর্ত্তুঃ পদকমলয়োর্দাসদাসানুদাসঃ ॥

naham vipro na cha nara-patir napi vaisyo na sudro
naham varni na cha grha-patir no vanastho yatir va
kintu prodyan-nikhila-paramananda-purnamrtabdher
gopi-bhartuh pada-kamalayor dasa-dasanudasah

"I am not a brahman, not a ksatriya, not a vaisya, not a sudra; neither am I a brahmachari, a householder, a vanaprastha or a sannyasi. I identify Myself as a servant of the servant of the servant of the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krishna (the beloved of the gopis), who is an ocean of nectar, eternally self-effulgent (self-manifest) and filled with the entire scope of all possible highest ecstasy."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.13.80)

This is our identity: a servant of a servant of a servant. You think that your identity is Indian, another person's identity is Bengali, Bangladeshi, Russian, English, American and so on. Is this your identity? It is not! People ask, "Where is your house?", "Where do you stay?", "What do you do?" All answers are there in this sloka—we are servants of servants of servants. We are eternal servants of Krishna—that is our identity. Our identity is not related to this body. Am I the same as the body? Because outside people think so, we are busy worrying about this body. We only know our body, and we think that I and this body are the same. Tell me, can you practise Krishna consciousness with this kind of conception? Never...

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

Prabhu, please sing 'Bhaja bhakata vatsala' now.

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Length: 53 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Repeated Prayer, Repeated Plight
2) Watch What You Wish For
3) Lord's Mercy
4) Pure Ego
5) Beautiful Pastimes (1)
6) Beautiful Pastimes (2)
7) Beautiful Pastimes (3)
8) Take Service Serious