(2/4) Think About Yourself

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Hooghly District
Translated into English from Bengali
23 February 2020, part 2

There are five questions. (1) Who am I (ke ami, কে আমি)? (2) Why am I suffering (kene amaya jare tapa-traya, কেনে আমায় জারে তাপত্রয়)? (3) How can I get relief from this suffering and austerity? How can I get benefit? (kise hita haya, কিসে হিত হয়)? (4) What is the eternal goal (sadhya vastu ki, সাধ্য বস্তু কী)? (5) How can I attain this main goal (sadhya vastu ki korle paowa yaya, সাধ্য বস্তু কী করলে পাওয়া য্য়)?

The first question that we must ask ourselves is 'Who am I?' Srila Sanatan Goswami asked Mahaprabhu this question, and Mahaprabhu replied:

জীবের 'স্বরূপ' হয়—কৃষ্ণের 'নিত্যদাস' ।
কৃষ্ণের 'তটস্থা-শক্তি', 'ভেদাভেদ-প্রকাশ' ॥

jivera 'svarupa' haya—krsnera 'nitya-dasa'
krsnera 'tatastha-sakti' 'bhedabheda-prakasa'

"By its intrinsic nature, the soul is an eternal servant of Krishna; souls come from the marginal energy of Krishna and are simultaneously one with and different from the Lord."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.108)

The soul is situated in the middle position because it is both different and non-different from Lord Krishna. For example, because the sun is there in the sky, you can see some sunlight in the room. And if you close the window, you will see rays of sun entering the room through some holes. So, the sun and the rays of sunlight are essentially different, but rays of sunlight come from the sun, and in this way they are not different from each other. There is another example also. You have a powerhouse in the village and many electric lines coming from it to each house. If you cut your house off the powerhouse line, you will not have any electricity in your light bulbs or light tubes. So, like the sun and the sun ray or like the powerhouse and the electric current, the Lord is vibhu-chaitanya (Paramatma), and we (souls) are anu-chaitanya (atma).

So, who am I? What is my identity? I am an eternal servant of Krishna. I am not Pakistani, Russian, English, American or Indian. I may be Indian now, but when I die in a few days, I can be born as a goat in Pakistan or a pigeon in Chile! I am remembering Bharat Maharaj. Have you heard his name? King Bharat always thought about a deer, and he got a deer's birth in his next life. So, depending on what we think about in this life, we will get a corresponding next birth. If I think about the Lord in this lifetime, then I will come to the Lord. If I serve humanity in this birth, then I will be born on a human planet in my next life. There are many people who support 'jiva-seva': they work in hospitals, create medicines and so on. They get some punya and get to be born as a human. But those who practise Krishna consciousness, who serve the Lord sincerely, from their heart, come to the realm of the Lord.

It is necessary to be extremely lowly. How lowly did Uddhav Maharaj become? He prayed, 'I do not want to get the darshan of the gopis' lotus feet because I am not fit for that, but if I am born as a blade of grass, then some dust from their feet will fall on my head!' When you step on them, blades of grass bends very low, and when you lift your foot, they again stand erect.

You must prepare, mould, yourself in this way. Think about these things, about yourself! You always think about your body; nobody thinks about themselves. This body will fall dead in a few days, but you worry so much what you will eat, where you will sleep, where you will stay. Always busy with these worries, you have no time to think about the Lord. As the result, we will have to come to this world again and again.

We came from the Lord – the Lord has let us go, but we are His lost children, struggling to keep afloat in the illusory ocean of material life. This world is a prison-house of Maya. People often ask, 'Why do people suffer in this world?' My God! Of course, somebody is suffering, somebody is happy, somebody feels pain, somebody feels pleasure. If somebody commits a crime (for example, kills somebody), they are put into jail. Is it the fault of the king or the judge that somebody does wrong? It is the fault of those who do wrong that they end up in prison. So, if we do wrong, we have to be punished. As you sow, so you reap. If somebody does something good, they will get a good result, they will not go to prison, they will not be punished. Does that mean that the king of the country is being partial? One person is living at ease, and another person is suffering – whose fault is that? It is the fault of the person who does something wrong. We too chant the Holy Name so much, but why are we not getting the result? Did I not tell you about it yesterday? We are not getting the result because we have some fault. If you pour water into a glass (you chant and chant the Holy Name), but the glass does not become full (you are not getting the result of chanting). Why is it so? Because there are some holes in the glass. So, the fault is ours. We chant the Holy Name, we do this, we do that, we do so many things, but at the same time we also do wrong things, that is why we are not getting the result. We make offences to the Holy Name, we make offences to service, we make offences to holy places, we make offences to Vaishnavs. We speak about the glories of the Holy Name, people say that we are praising the Holy Name too much. Saying such things is also an offence. The Holy Name and the Lord are one and the same, but somebody will hear these glories of the Holy Name and say, 'They are praising it too much!' This is how faults come.

We must always think about these things.

— : • : —

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Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

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