Deeply Anxious to Serve

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Ekachakra Dham, evening class
5 February 2020, part 2
Translated from Bengali

Our Param Gurudev chanted the glory of Nityananda Prabhu very beautifully. In his final days, he did not even take his mala—he did not chant the Holy Name on his beads. Without his beads, he only kept saying, "Doyal Nitai, Doyal Nitai." His last two years, he only chanted "Doyal Nitai." He only chanted Doyal Nitai and cried, praying to Him...

It our great fortune to be present here, in Sri Ekachakra Dham, which is non-different from Sri Vrindavan Dham. We have come to this holy abode of Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. There is Jamuna here. There is Radha Kunda, Shyama Kunda here—it is a little far from here, both ponds have become full, nobody is making any construction. All pastimes are happening here. Vyasadev is also here, he is the great composer of Mahabharata, Srimad Bhagavatam and other scriptures.

[His Divine Grace is distracted by the noise upstairs, in the nat mandir.] Do not talk. This is not a place for idle talks, this is Sri Sri Bhakti-siddhanta Sravan Sadhan, a place where we must talk about devotional teachings (bhakti-siddhanta). I have seen today that many were sitting down during the arati. It is necessary to stand up, it is necessary to do the parikrama of the temple. Yet some sit here the whole day and talk idle talks. Prajalpa is a big offence. If you practise Krishna consciousness, worship the Lord and at the same time gossip, criticise others, talk about material things, then it is the same as when you keep some water in a pot with holes—no matter how much water you pour, if there are holes, all water will come out. So, no matter how much we practise Krishna consciousness, we will not get any result if we continue doing what is unfavourable to devotion. We will be singing today,

শুদ্ধ ভকত-চরণ-রেণু
ভজন-অনুকূল ।
ভকত-সেবা পরম-সিদ্ধি
প্রেমলতিকার মূল ॥

suddha-bhakata-charana-renu
bhajana-anukula
bhakata-seva parama-siddhi
prema-latikara mula

"The dust of pure devotees' feet is favourable to devotion. Serving the devotees is the supreme fulfilment and the root of the creeper of divine love."

প্রসাদ-সেবা করিতে হয়
সকল প্রপঞ্চ জয়

prasada-seva karite haya,
sakala prapancha-jaya

"By honouring the Lord's prasad I conquer all worldly illusions."

(By Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

Many of you are householder devotees, living in your homes—you also offer bhog to the Lord every day and take prasad, but can you say that your material illusion (prapancha) has gone away? Why is it not going away? No matter how much we chant the Holy Name, why does no happiness come from chanting? Why do we become tired when we chant the Holy Name? When transcendental love for the Lord comes, there is no question of being unhappy or tired.

If you like rasagullas or some other sweet, you can tell it yourself—if you like sweets very much, you can eat one sweet, two sweets, five, ten, twenty sweets, but after you eat twenty sweets, you will not like it any more, you will not want to eat any more sweets. This is how this material world is, this is how material things are. However, when transcendental love comes, when service mood awakens within you, then our service drive will grow more and more, you will be even more eager and anxious to do service. We must always remember this. We will be anxious to serve more and more and will not like it any more when we have no service. There should be service mood (seva-pravritti). I saw during the arati that the chamar has gone very dirty. You wash your clothes, and you can also wash the chamar—dunk it into water and clean. Nobody calls me and says that the peacock fan has become bad. When they call, they only talk about themselves. I ask them, "How are you?" And they only talk about their own happiness.

How does one become expert in spiritual life? You do not pay attention to the Lord, you do not see what is lacking for the Lord, do not notice that the chamar or the peacock fan has become soiled—it is all right, you cannot provide new things yourself, but you can let your Guru know about it, "If it is possible to bring a peacock fan, it would be good." There are not many places where you can actually get it. There is one shop in Nabadwip where they bring them directly from Vrindavan. It is necessary to go to Nabadwip or Kolkata to get them. There is also a shop at the New Market in Kolkata: they sell chamars by kilo there and then specially set the fan into a silver handle...

Therefore, we must think where Nityananda Prabhu has any inconvenience. When you do service, it must be flawless, perfect. If you do it anyhow—your leg touches the plate, bhoga was not offered, etc.—this is not service. We do pay attention to these things, but you must serve Deities with faith! If you see the Lord as just some wooden deity, clay deity, brass deity, then you will not get the real darshan of the Lord—you will not only be shown a wooden deity. You think, "I will go to see the Lord," you cannot get the darshan of Nitai Gaura with this mentality. You must come to Nitai Gaura with service mood. Yet here in this world we do not understand anything.

The people of this world understand their own interests very well, but they do not understand the connection of everything with the worship of the Lord (they do not understand that everything in this world is meant for worshipping the Lord). We do not understand what is our relationship with the Lord.

— : • : —

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