(1/4) Awaken!

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Hooghly District
Translated into English from Bengali
23 February 2020, part 1

I tell everyone that if you do not have eagerness, if you do not have desire – if you do not show desire – you will not be able to do anything. If you think, 'I will chant the Holy Name' and you want it, then you can chant many rounds, even the whole day. You can see devotees cooking over there. If they wanted, they could sit and chant the Holy Name instead of talking. 'Bring the vegetables', 'Bring some salt', 'Bring the spices' – that is not a problem to say this one or two times, but you must not sit and tell each other stories the rest of the time; instead, we can chant the Holy Name. But not everyone does that. If we do not do that, then we will have to reap the result.

[Much clamour in the background] Hare Krishna! I have just told you not to talk! What has happened now? I am talking now, have I not told you not to speak? You will speak your whole life, can you not keep quiet for one hour without disturbing Hari-katha and without making offence at the holy feet of the Lord? When somebody is talking about the Lord, the Lord Himself comes there. When there is devotional service at the house, this house becomes Goloka – when devotees serve the Lord, the Lord Himself comes there at that time. But if you disturb Hari-katha, you will be making an offence. We have come here to speak about the Lord, about Krishna. We have not come here only to enjoy some food and to enjoy. Neither have we come only to collect potato. We have come to talk about the Lord, so please give us an opportunity to do so.

If we hear about the Lord, we can get real benefit.

জীবন হইল শেষ, না ভজিলে হৃষীকেশ ।
ভক্তিবিনোদ-উপদেশ, একবার নামরসে মাত রে

jivana haila sesa, na bhajile hrsikesa
bhaktivinod-upadesa, ekabara nama-rase mata re

'Your life is finished, but you have not served Lord Hrishikesh (the Lord of the senses). Bhaktivinod instructs: Become mad with the Name's nectar just once.'

(Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We have not served Hrisikesh (the Lord, Govinda)! But Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur told us: tell 'Hare Krishna' at least once! Say with me:

হরে কৃষ্ণ হরে কৃষ্ণ কৃষ্ণ কৃষ্ণ হরে হরে ।
হরে রাম হরে রাম রাম রাম হরে হরে ॥

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

দিন যায় মিছা কাজে নিশা নিদ্রাবশে ।
নাহি ভাবি মরণ নিকটে আছে বসে ॥

dina yaya michha kaje nisa nidra-base
nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

'My days are passed in useless work and nights are wasted on sleeping. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting next to me.'

(Sri Kalyan-Kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Every day, our days are passing – our life is passing as we spend it always thinking about our body, food, clothes, sleep and so on. We never think that even right now when I am speaking, I can be taken to hospital and from there to the cremation ghat.

ভাল মন্দ খাই, হেরি, পরি, চিন্তাহীন ।
নাহি ভাবি এ দেহ ছাড়িব কোনদিন ॥

bhala manda khai, heri, pari, chinta-hina
nahi bhavi, e deha chhadiba kona dina

'I eat, see and wear whatever I fancy without any thinking and never think that one day I will leave this body.'

(Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

[Clamour] Listen carefully! Listen to what I am saying carefully! Do not chatter!

We never think that we will ever leave this body. You eat nicely anything you fancy, live enjoying yourself, and if you are asked to practise Krishna consciousness, you say, 'Oh, I will practise spiritual life when I retire.' But when you reach your old age, you will be full of diseases! I will need to hold somebody's hand to even to go from one place to another! At this time, you will be worrying about your health.

When your blood is hot, you say, 'There is no God!' But when you grow old, get into hospital and suffer there from all kinds of pains (in your stomach, back, chest and so on), then you will cry, 'O Lord, please save me!' Then something will stir in you – you will realise that there is God and think, 'O Lord, what have I done that I have to suffer so much?' Then you will feel that there is somebody within you.

For example, you can hear me talking now, but it is not my body that is speaking – it is the soul that is within this body that is speaking. Once my soul leaves this body – once it comes out – do you think this body will be able to say anything? It will not. Then, you can understand what our identity is. You must understand it from now on. We say, 'This is my father', but after a while you will take him to the cremation ghat and after that you will not call anyone 'father', then who did you call 'father' before? You must understand this. This is only a relationship between bodies. You called a body 'father'. Our parents give us this body, but they do not give us that which we are. If you study science, you can see also that they call parents 'boilogical parents'. In my documents, my father's name is my Gurudev's name. When they put me into jail, I wrote in the documents, 'Guru Pita' ['My Guru is my father'], and they asked me, 'Who is your biological father?' Then I had to give the name of my previous father. When there are court cases and they ask this, then I have to tell his name, but in all other cases, I always say my Gurudev's name. Even my name in the documents is not the name that my biological parents gave me. Gurudev changed it when I came to him, and when I later took sannyas, he changed my name again. You can see the boys here – their names are all changed too

ওঁ অজ্ঞানতিমিরান্ধস্য জ্ঞানাঞ্জনশলাকয়া ।
চক্ষুরুন্মিলিতং যেন তস্মৈ শ্রীগুরবে নমঃ ॥

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

'I offer my obeisance unto Sri Gurudev, who has opened my eyes, which were blinded by the darkness of ignorance, applying divine knowledge on my eyes.'

We were ignorant, but Gurudev has given us knowledge, applying it on our eyes with a salak. You can see that girls apply kajal with a special stick (salak). Before, everyone used kajal like that but now not so much. Or do they? I do not actually know it – I do not look at it. Before, ladies would wear thick kajal all around their eyes... Our ignorance made us blind, but Gurudev gave us eyes by giving us knowledge – he awakened our consciousness.

— : • : —

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Length: 21 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Awaken!
2) Think About Yourself
3) Walk the Walk
4) Are You on the Right Path?