(5/5) Patience, Faith and Affection

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Nrisingha Palli, 2 November 2020, part 5
Translated from Bengali

We always look for excuses ('Oh, I cannot do it' and so on). We must serve our guru. Until the guru is satisfied, you must carry on doing and doing your service. Do not lose patience. The problem is that we lose patience easily. We lack patience. Our patience will be tested many times, so we must have a lot of patience. If we are not patient, we will never be able to progress on this path. Always serve the guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord, and you will get supreme benefit; otherwise, you will never get it.

Guru Maharaj wrote a very nice book (In Search of the Original Source). I have translated it recently into Bengali. I am trying to get it printed quickly.

[His Divine Grace is reading excerpts from the book, commenting along the way.]

ব্রহ্মাণ্ড ভ্রমিতে কোন ভাগ্যবান্ জীব ।
গুরু-কৃষ্ণ-প্রসাদে পায় ভক্তিলতা-বীজ ॥
মালী হঞা করে সেই বীজ আরোপণ ।
শ্রবণ-কীর্ত্তন-জলে করয়ে সেচন ॥

brahmanda bhramite kona bhagyavan jiva
guru-krsna-prasade paya bhakti-lata-bija
mali hana kare sei bija aropana
sravana-kirtana-jale karaye sechana

'Having travelled throughout the universe, some fortunate souls receive the seed of the devotional creeper by the mercy of Sri Guru, who is non-different from Krishna. Becoming gardeners, they plant that seed and nurture it with the water of hearing and chanting.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.19.151–152)

What do we want? 'We want eternity, we want love, we want affection, we want mercy and ecstasy. We want to stay – we do not want to keep on leaving, going place to place. Death will not give any notice to us, "Today is your dying day", or "Today is your birth day". Birth and death are actually beyond our control.'

Question: You mentioned earlier that we must be good 'anvesi'. What does 'anvesi' mean?

It means 'a searcher'. We must become good searchers – it means that we must search for the Lord, search for the real substance.

'Birth and death are actually beyond our control. Maybe we can extend some time or reduce some time, but when we have been born, we must die.... We are eating rice powder mixed with water and thinking we are drinking milk.' If you mix rice powder with milk, it will look like milk, but will it taste like milk?

I saw a pujari drink a litre of milk a day, and once he drank five litres! He must have spent the whole next day in the bathroom! [His Divine Grace laughs] He was given five litres of milk, and he always kept thinking about that milk. In the end, the Lord is not satisfied, and you are always thinking about milk...

In this world, 'all are only a shadow or reflection of the transcendental world.' Living as shadows, we cannot understand what is real. 'As such, here we are playing only within the shadow. All that we are getting is in the form of shadow, and the substance is missing. Everywhere bad situation will come to be, as it is written in the scriptures. It is the Age of Kali. Kali means quarrel. We cannot avoid it. I may be a very good man, but without cause I may be attacked by violence. Many things happen, and many good men have been killed. So death and birth is beyond our control. I may be protected by so many bodyguards, like John Kennedy, like Martin Luther King Jr, like Indira Gandhi, like so many who were protected by many bodyguards but could not avoid death.

'One kind of Play of Sri Krishna is on the bank of the Yamuna, or the bank of the Ganges, chanting and dancing with his girlfriends and boyfriends. His eternal Play is going on with His father and mother. There everything is beautiful and eternal. Some description of Vrindavan has been given in Sri Brahma-samhita (5.56):

sriyah kantah kantah parama-purusah kalpa-taravo
druma bhumis chintamani-gana-mayi toyam amrtam
katha ganam natyam gamanam api vamsi priya-sakhi
chid anandam jyotih param api tad asvadyam api cha

'That place where the divine Goddesses of Fortune are the beloved, and Krishna, the Supreme Male, is the only lover; all the trees are divine wish-fulfilling trees; the soil is made of transcendental gems and the water is nectar; where every word is a song, every movement is dancing, the flute is the dearmost companion, sunlight and moonlight are divine ecstasy, and all that be is divine and enjoyable.'

'Why is it not possible to connect with the transcendental world through sound?' For example, you have mobile phones, and you can receive phone calls from America or London. How is it possible? Through the medium of sound. The signal comes through sound. Then why cannot we reach the Lord through the medium of sound? The Lord has given us the sound – the gayatri mantra and the Holy Name. In his commentary to the gayatri mantra, Srila Sridhar Maharaj wrote, 'Gayatri muralista-kirtana-dhanam Radha-padam dhimahi (গায়ত্রী-মুরলীষ্ট-কীর্ত্তনধনং রাধাপদং ধীমহি): Krishna's flute does not make any other tune except the glorification of Srimati Radharani, and that is the real meaning and gist of the Gayatri mantra.'

হরের্নাম হরের্নাম হরের্নামৈব কেবলম্ ।
কলৌ নাস্ত্যেব নাস্ত্যেব নাস্ত্যেব গতিরন্যথা ॥

harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam
kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha

'Only chanting the Holy Name, chanting the Holy Name, chanting the Holy Name – there is no other way, no other way, no other way.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.7.76)

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. This the sabda-brahma, transcendental sound vibration, that comes from the Lord, and if we can genuinely chant this sound (if this sound appears on our tongues), we can come to the Lord through its medium. Why would it be not possible? If you can receive so many signals (radio, internet, mobile phone calls and so on) through ether, then why cannot we reach the Lord through ether? It is possible to reach the Lord through ether, but we are very unfortunate because we do not believe it.

'শ্রদ্ধা' শব্দে—বিস্বাস কহে সুদৃঢ় নিশ্চয় ।
কৃষ্ণে ভক্তি কৈলে সর্ব্বকর্ম্ম কৃত হয় ॥

'sraddha'-sabde—visvasa kahe sudrdha nischaya
krsne bhakti kaile sarva-karma krta haya

'Sraddha is a firm, determined faith that by serving Krishna all actions are accomplished.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.62)

If Gurudev says, 'You will get the Lord through the Holy Name and ether,' then we must have faith, 'Yes, I will definitely do that! One day or another, I will get to the Lord.'

To advance in this line, you must also have enthusiasm. It means that when you practise something, you must practise it with love and affection. For example, when you take prasad, you must take it with affection, chanting the glories of Lord's food remnants.

It is the niyom-seva month now, so we chant more kirtans. Do you come for the morning kirtans? We chant the Damodarastakam kirtan in the morning,

নমামীশ্বরং সচ্চিদানন্দরূপং
লসৎ-কুণ্ডলং গোকুলে ভ্রাজমানং ।

namamisvaram sach-chid-ananda rupam
lasat-kundalam gokule bhrajamanam

'To the Supreme Lord, whose form is the embodiment of eternal existence, knowledge, and bliss, whose shark-shaped earrings are swinging to and fro, who is beautifully shining in the divine realm of Gokula....'

We also chant, 'Nagare nagare Gora gaya'. You can chant it during a parikrama or when you sit for kirtans at the temple, but if you chant it during a parikrama, it is hard because you cannot walk and read. Then, we also chant Krishna-astaka, Krishna's 100 Names and 'He deva bhavantam vande'.

মন্মানস-মধুকর মর্পয় নিজপদ-পঙ্কজ-মকরন্দে ॥
(হে) দেব ভবন্তং বন্দে ।

man-manasa-madhukaram arpaya nija-pada-pankaja-makarande
(he) deva bhavantam vande

O Lord, I offer my obeisance unto You. Please place the bee of my heart in the honey of Your lotus feet.

You must understand the meaning of this kirtan. It is a very beautiful kirtan. 'Madhukar' means bees: bees go place to place collecting honey and then distributing it to everyone, so may our hearts and minds in the same way collect and distribute the nectar of the holy talks emanating from Your lotus mouth (the nectar of Your holy lotus feet).

I was saying that it is necessary to have patience. It also means that you must not lose heart when you see that you are not attaining your coveted aim. Do not slacken or give up spiritual practise when you see that you are not attaining the goal. You must give up your happiness and enjoyment for the happiness of Lord Sri Krishna. You must also give up material association (anything that goes against religion as well as mixing with women/men). Embrace the pure path that is followed by the saintly persons.

Always practise in this way, and you will get supreme benefit. Reject what is unfavourable to devotion and accept that which is favourable to devotion. The unfavourable things are atyahara (overeating), prayascha (hoarding), prajalpa (talking nonsense; talking about anything else except Krishna—do not speak about anything except the Lord; village talks, village news; gossiping about others, criticising others), niyamagraha (superficial following of the rules), laulancha (being fickle-minded), jana-sanghancha (non-devotee association). Always stop these activities in your life.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay
Visva-varenya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay
Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa-kula-churamani Jagad-Guru Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay
Jay Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govinda Sundarjiu ki jay
Jay saparikara Sri Sri Guru Gaura Nityananda Prabhu ki jay
Laksmi-Nrisinghadev, Sri Prahlad Maharaj ki jay
Jay Sri Nrisingha Palli ki jay
Niyom-seva, Kartik-vrata-palankari-bhakta-vrinda ki jay
Harinam sankirtan ki jay
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol

— : • : —

{ 2001  |   2002  |   2003  |   2005  |   2009  |   2010  |   2011  |   2012 }
{ 2013  |   2014  |   2015  |   2016  |   2017  |   2018  |   2019  |   2020  |   2021 }

CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE LECTURE

Size: 16.1 Mb
Length: 40 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Search Out the Source
2) Unique Gift to the World
3) March On
4) Intense Service Life
5) Patience, Faith and Affection