Step Forward

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Translated into English from Bengali
15 February 2020, part 8

You have heard today beautiful Bhagavat-katha. If we do not try to practise ourselves, if we do not make a step forward, then we will not be able to understand anything. You must be careful in your life.

Accept what is favourable to devotion, and reject what is unfavourable to devotion. If you do a fire sacrifice and give one time a spoon of water, another time a spoon of ghee, then again a spoon of water—you cannot make a fire sacrifice like this. So, if you want to practise Krishna consciousness, you do something good, you do some good service, but in the meantime you also do something wrong too. Both cannot stay together. Reject what is unfavourable.

There are five diseases.

There are six urges.

There are also six faults.

It is necessary to go forward. There are also six types of good association.

If you take good association of devotees, if you hear Hari-katha, then you will be able to progress towards the abode of the Lord. We come to the Lord, and what He gives or does not give is, this is His matter—He will give whatever is necessary for us. We must keep such faith. We must have faith, this is the main thing. We are trying to serve the Lord, we are trying to serve Gurudev, and the Lord will take care of the result that I get. We must think in this way. We sing in one of the kirtans:

"tomara saṁsāre kariba sevana
nahiba phalera bhagi"

"I will serve Your family and will never ta the result."

(Saranagati)

"I will serve Your family, but I will not take any share of the result." Remember this. If you do not get any result, you must not worry. If you follow ekadasi, what result do you get? Do you get any result or not? There is no need to have any result! Whatever mercy Guru and Vaishnavs give me, whatever service Gurudev gives me, I will do that. Nijer maner kheyal khusimata bhajan bole na (নিজের মনের খেয়াল খুশিমতো ভজন বলে না). Satisfying the whims of your mind is not bhajan—following Gurudev, serving the Guru, the Vaishnavs and satisfying them is what is called bhajan.

You have heard all this, but can you remember it all? That is why we have books over there. We have a small kirtan guide book, it is not expensive. You can buy it and chant kirtans every morning and evening. Practise yourself. If you do not practise kirtan of the Lord, if you only blow the conchshell, do huladula, will the Lord come? If you blow the concshell or do hulahula, will your child answer? If you want your child to come, you call him or her by the name, is it not so? So, you must call the Lord by His Name:

sri-krsna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura-bhakta-vrnda

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

This is the Lord's Name. You must call the Lord by this Name, then the Lord will come.

— : • : —

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

• Listen online (Bengali):

• Download (1 Mb)