Undaunted Devotion

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Morning class, Sri Nrisingha Palli
2 March 2020, part 6

When the Kuruksetra war was over, Krishna decided to test Kunti Devi. He told her, "O pishima (aunt)! Your sons have got the kingdom, you should be happy. Now My job has finished, I must go back to Dvaraka." What did Kunti Devi tell at that time? She said, "O Krishna, You are testing me. You know that without You this kingdom is nothing for me. You are with us, then we have everything. We do not need this kingdom. We can live in a forest, it is not a problem, but without You, this kingdom, my sons, etc. it is all nothing." This is what Kunti Devi said.

When we have some material desires, we cannot understand Krishna consciousness because when your material desires are very strong (you want a house, a car, this, this, this), then you cannot hear properly. This is what happened once to Chitraketu.

One day, Angira Rishi came to Chitraketu. Chitraketu prayed to the sage, "Please give me a son who will run my kingdom. I need a son, I have married so many wives, but I have no heir." Angira Rishi thought, "If I give him any advice, he will not listen to it because his desires are so strong."

In one of the holy books, Srila Gurudev wrote about surrender and how to harmonise between different types of surrender. One type of surrender is when a cat picks its baby with its mouth and carries it. Another type is that of a monkey—the baby monkey holds onto its mother and the mother carries it in this way. What will you do? Everybody thinks, "We will do what the baby monkey does because we must hold onto Krishna—Krishna will not catch me, I must catch Him." However, Gurudev says we must have neither cats', not monkeys' type of surrender. What is the proper way? The proper way is the way of Mother Yasoda. What did Mother Yasoda do? When Mother Yasoda wanted to tie Krishna, she laboured so much, she tried so hard ("I will try, and try, and try!")—she was sweating, her hair became unkempt, etc. She went as if crazy trying to tie Krishna always thinking, "How will I tie Him?" We must also become like Mother Yasoda—we must become crazy trying anyhow, by hook or by crook, to tie Krishna. We do not tie Him with a rope, but with our hearts, with our devotion. This is what Gurudev says. This is the main thing. We do not want to be like cats or monkeys, we want to be like Mother Yasoda. We will try, try, try and one day, seeing that we do not leave our attempts, Krishna will come and happily surrender, "OK, please tie Me."

So, Chitraketu asked Angira Rishi for a son. This was his material desire, and because of that material desire he forgot everything. Angira Rishi taught him a good lesson then—he knew Chitraketu would not listen to him because he badly wanted a son. So, Angira Rishi told Chitraketu, "OK, you will get a son, but this son will bring you both happiness and sadness. One day, you will get much unhappiness because of him." Chitraketu forgot about unhappiness, sadness, he was very excited, "I will have a son! I have so much property, so much wealth, what sadness can there be? No, no!" (That is why Srila Guru Maharaj and Srila Gurudev say that if you have much opulence, much property, you will also have many enemies, there will be people who will envy you, and you will be always thinking how to protect your property and wealth.)

Always be careful. We need a boundary wall, we need many things so that we can happily practise Krishna consciousness, worship the Lord, but our main focus will not be all these things. I wrote about this in Guidance, Volume 4. It is coming soon. Our focus will not be making buildings, making boundary walls, etc.—our main focus is how to make the Lord and our Gurudev happy, how to please them. This is the main thing for us. This must be our focus.

So, Chitraketu did not think about the sadness that will come along with his son. After several years, when his son was born and grew up a little, all the wives of Chitraketu became jealous and envious thinking, "Oh, Chitraketu always gives love and affection to his first wife who has given him the son, he does not look after us!" So, one day they decided to make some conspiracy—they thought their problem was because of this son, so they decided to kill him.

I remember also one thing. Aftr Gurudev declared my name on 4 December 2009, I went to Australia together with Srila Ashram Maharaj. One day, Gurudev called me and said, "Come back immediately." When I came back, Gurudev showed me one letter—those who wrote it were saying, "You can give him the chair, it is not a problem, but later you will see or maybe you will not see how much trouble we will give him. We will not leave him alone until his death." I am thinking this is nothing for me. In Chitraketu's time also, when Chitraketu became a devotee, Parvati cursed him to go to hell, but for devotees whether it is hell, heaven, liberation, or whatever, it is sama-darshan (they see it as equal). You know, when I went to jail in Krishna Nagar, I did not have any problem with that. Even there, I chanted, I gave a class, etc. Gradually, I changed the atmosphere there. Krishna also sent one devotee to me (he also got into jail because of some false accusations), he cooked for me. So, there was no problem. Whether I live in Nrisingha Palli, Mayapur, Nabadwip, Tarakeshwar, Ganga Sagar, even in jail, or anywhere else, it is the same for me.

So, when Parvati cursed Chitraketu and saw that Chitraketu does not care, she asked Lord Siva, "Who is this man? I have cursed him, but he is not unhappy, he does not show anything. Who is he?" Lord Siva said, "He is a great devotee! This is Chitraketu, he because a great devotee by the mercy of Narad Goswami and Angira Rishi."

Chitraketu had some material desire before, but then he ended up leaving his kingdom—he took a puspa-ratha (a flower chariot) and would travel all over India preaching Krishna consciousness. He became a great devotee.

Krishna's devotees are not ordinary persons. And there will always be those who are envious. All great personalities have so many problems, but it is nothing for them—they ignore it! Whatever comes, it is not our problem—it is the problem of those who cause the problem. If somebody swears you, it is that person's problem, not yours. In this way, we must forget about material desires. We must understand this, we must understand what is devotional practice. It is very important.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay
Harinam sankirtan ki jay

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