(4/5) Serve Attentively

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme, Vijay Ekadasi
Translated into English from Bengali
19 February 2020, part 4

Try to practise as far as possible, and you must make it possible. At the same time, we try hard and practise Krishna consciousness very much, but as much as we practise, we keep making offences to the Holy Name, service, holy places, Vaishnavs, then the result of all our service goes out through these holes of offences. That is why we must keep ourselves away from offences to the Holy Name and service.

When we go to serve the Deities, we must be careful and alert to see that our leg has not touched the Lord's plate; when we offer the bhog, we must see if the place has been wiped or not; after the arati, we must see that the plate and all the arati paraphernalia is cleaned and kept nicely. Cooking service is also like that. It is necessary to cook attentively – if your mind is somewhere else, then you can forget to put salt or rice can boil over. If your mind is not focused on the service you are doing, then you can, for example, forget to put salt in the vegetables or put too much salt.

If you give bhog to the Lord on a golden plate and use expensive ingredients, but the Lord cannot even taste it, then there is no value in offering bhog on a golden plate. You can offer bhog on a banana leaf plate, there is nothing wrong with that as long as you cook nicely. You must cook nicely, with sincerity, chanting the Lord's Name and Radharani's Name. In this world, cooks always wait to see when they can run to some other place, or they think about other things and their sweet rice gets burnt. If you do not stir sweet rice, it burns and starts smelling bad. Is that true or not? You may not like to hear it, but this is the truth.

It is necessary to always give your mind, heart, everything to the service of the Lord. You must cook with your heart and soul, very attentively. If you cook attentively, you will have no problem. I have cooked myself also for a long time, and I did not have any problems. If I cook attentively, I can make eleven–twelve preparations in one and a half or two hours. I would use three cookers and stir with both hands. I would have to go out, so I cooked quickly. I would cook on four plates and stir the pots with both hands, but now servants are such that they always say their hands or fingers pain...

You must always have enthusiasm in service – do not be apathetic. Do not cheat. Those who cheat in an exam will fail, and here also, those who cheat in service will fail. We must have attachment and attraction to the service of Krishna and Gurudev.

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Length: 28 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Nature of Niskinchan Vaishnavs
2) Purifying Engagement
3) Be on Guard
4) Serve Attentively
5) Power of Association