Step Your Service Up

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kolkata-Worldwide, 2 August 2020, part 1

Dandavat.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay
Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay
Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay
Vrinda Devi Tulasi Devi Sri Bhakti Devi ki jay
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay!
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay
Suddha-bhakti-vighnar vinasankari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay
Jay jay Sri Krishna's jhulan-yatra maha-mahotsav ki jay
All the assembled devotees ki jay
All the worldwide devotees ki jay
Harinam sankirtan ki jay
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol

Please, accept my humble obeisance to you all. Every Sunday we make this programme, and I am very happy to see you all again today.

Tomorrow is also Sri Baladev's avirbhav (appearance). Sri Baladev Prabhu is non-different from Gurudev, non-different from Nityananda Prabhu, non-different from the Lord. We will talk about Baladev Prabhu tomorrow. It is a very auspicious day in our spiritual life. Nityananda Prabhu, Baladev Prabhu and Gurudev are the same—they are friends of the fallen souls like us. Just as Gurudev, Nityananda Prabhu also appears for us—for the fallen souls. Baladev Prabhu is also like that. He always serves the Lord, and you can see how He does that. Anyhow, tomorrow is His appearance day, and we will talk more about Sri Baladev Prabhu tomorrow. Sri Baladev, Sri Balaram, Balabhadra—we will talk about Him, it is very nice.

So, today is our weekly programme. I see everybody's smiling faces, I know everybody waits for this day... You are all connected with Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu's line, you have become devotees of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, but you are not only initiated—you must also gradually become proper disciples of Gurudev. I have told you before that we must be proper disciples of Gurudev. That is the main thing in our spiritual life. "Sisya thakibo sarvada (শিষ্য থাকিব সর্ব্বদা). We will always be disciples." We will always be servants of devotees—our main wish, our main desire is to be able to serve devotees, to be able to do bhakta-seva, Vaishnav-seva. "Chhadiya vaisnava-seva nistara payechhe keba (ছাড়িয়া বৈষ্ণব-সেবা নিস্তার পায়েছে কেবা): Without service to Vaishnavs, you cannot get any relief." We cannot overcome the illusory environment without service to Vaishnavs, without service to great devotees.

Therefore, we need to have good association at all times. We must give all our time to the Lord. We use a lot of our time on our own enjoyment, but we must give our time to the service of the Lord, to the service of our Guru. You must always remember this. Give more and more time to service. We meet here every seven days, every Sunday, and this day comes very quickly—time is passing very fast, so we should not waste our time on our own enjoyment, we must give our time for the enjoyment and happiness of our Lord, our Gurudev.

Tomorrow is Baladev's avirbhav (Baladev's appearance day), I know everybody will be working, it is Monday, the first day of the week days, but we must still do some service for Baladev Prabhu's appearance day. Remember this. If you only fast and give some flower to Gurudev, that is not sufficient. It is necessary to do some more service—do more and more service to our Gurudev. That is the main thing for our spiritual life.

Baladev is Mul-Sankarshan (He controls everything), and he is also ashraya-vigraya (embodiment of shelter), non-different from Nityananda Prabhu and Gurudev. Nityananda Prabhu, Gurudev, and Baladev give us shelter. We always ask for the shelter at the lotus feet of our Gurudev, but the problem is that when we have got this shelter at our Gurudev's lotus feet, we forget to serve after that. We must always do some service to our Gurudev. That is the main thing in our spiritual life. Remember this; do not forget it.

Gurudev always tries to keep us engaged in service, but we sometimes forget our service or run away from it. That is why, we come to these programmes from time to time and we remind you all about it. Sometimes, we do some good service and sometimes we forget our service because Maya always attacks us and takes us away, removes us from the service of the Lord. Maya always engages us in her own service. Maya Devi is very strong—she gets her power from the Lord, and through His power she shows her illusory power and removes us from service. This is how we end up wasting our time on laziness, on doing nonsense things, on doing all sorts of things that we cannot even say out loud.

Then, I am telling you again and again—be a great disciple, be a great servitor. If somebody can be a great servitor, a great disciple of Gurudev—if it is possible—then why cannot we do that? We must try. We will try and try to serve Gurudev and the Lord, and it is their matter whether they will accept our service or not. This is the main thing in our life.

I can see everybody is in a very happy mood today because tomorrow is a great festival. This weekend is also Krishna's jhulan-yatra maha-mahotsav, and tomorrow is a very auspicious day, after that a few days later Lord Krishna's appearance day (Janmastami) is coming, after that Radhastami, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur's appearance day. So many great occasions are coming. Also, two days ago it was Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu's disappearance day. We were remembering this day. Always observe these dates—always remember Guru and Vaishnavs. Wake up early in the morning and always check the calendar: if you see it is some goswami's appearance day or disappearance day, you can remember their pastimes, their glories and activities. It will be good for you.

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