(8/8) Beg for Spiritual Life

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching in Basirhat, noon programme,
13 December 2020, part 8

Here is the article I wanted to read to you:

One time, there started an annual festival at Sri Gaudiya Math. Many preachers of exclusive genuine religion, exemplary sannyasis and brahmacharis came to the temple from all over India. Many invited respectable gentlemen and ladies also came to the festival, yearning to hear about the nectarean devotion to the Lord. Endlessly jubilant and endowed with sincere service mood, all selfless, pious servitors were ready to enrich everyone – the invited, the uninvited, devotees, non-devotees, materialists and strict renunciates who are averse to service – through Hari-kirtan (glorification of the Lord). There was Krishna-katha heard everywhere, and everyone's hearts rejoiced and soared to hear narratives about Krishna, to hear songs extolling Krishna's qualities resounding all around them. Even surprised passers-by, drawn by the festival, became stunned and forgot where they were going.

At this time, somebody had the guts to come and ask me, 'Hey, listen, when are they going to feed the poor here?'

[Many people say we must serve 'poor Narayan' (a folk belief that the poor beggar class should be perceived as God personified). Can Lord Narayan ever be poor? He is the husband of Laksmi! He is the owner of all wealth in the world, He is the owner of the whole world, of all planets and universes, but people say that they must serve 'poor Narayan'! Does it make any sense? People think, 'I have money, so I will serve "poor Narayan" with that money!' How much ego they have! How proud they are! When people also come begging for money, they ask you to do some service to 'poor Narayan', but do they ask you for money so that they can spend it on the Lord's worship or do they ask you for money to buy themselves a drink?]

What must I reply! Alas, hearing this question, I felt completely at a loss. I looked within my own heart and started to reason with it:

Listen, foolish mind! Let us see the truth: What kind of a beggar are you? What do you lack? What do you want? Alas! You seem to only wish to gratify your material senses [eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, mind, ego, intelligence, feet, hands, rectum, genitals, mouth – the five karmendriya, instruments of action, and the five jnanendriya, instruments of acquiring knowledge]; you feel that you lack the capricious pleasures and happiness that your senses have a wayward, mischievous hunger for, and not being able to attain that sufficiently, you consider yourself a beggar! Is that not the truth? 'When will they feed the poor? When can I enjoy various auspicious paraphernalia and first-class ingredients?' This is all you are looking for! You have come to a tree with very ripe and beautiful juicy fruit, but you are searching for ripe amla [Indian gooseberry, which is very sour]! You know it. Your tongue is drawn to amla's taste. You think that your hankering will be satisfied by that – you think the appetite you have lost because of sickness will come back, and as you eat amla, you will slowly recover, but you are wrong! You are making a great mistake! Do you not think that this unhealthy bitter juice of amla will only erode your teeth and you will become even sicker? You will not be able to get the taste of any other food – you will die! If, overcome by the desire to enjoy, you see maha-prasad as just some food meant to bring you enjoyment or happiness, then you will only get the result of eating! Foolish mind, your search for the end of your poverty is futile here! What you beg for is available even on the street – even animals enjoy that [goats, cows, sheep also have food – there is a lot of food for them out there in the world]. Why do you need to come to the temple for that? [If you give a bucket of paneer to a pig, will it eat your paneer? It will not. A pig will always want to eat stool.] Yes, yes! Do the great servitors surrendered to Krishna call you to this temple, a great place of pilgrimage, invite you to this temple, to satisfy your material senses with material flavours? To feed her child the medicine that will cure the disease, a clever, loving mother will entice the child with a laddu (sweet ball), but is the laddu the point? It is not, it really is not! The main substance is hidden within it! Here too, at this holy abode of the Supreme Lord, at this greatest place of pilgrimage, the very gist of maha-prasad 'food' (bhojan) – the nectar from the holy mouth of Sri Gaura – is actually permeated by service (bhajan) to Mahaprabhu! This is the main thing for the entire world, the main necessity! So, I am telling you: come, dear mind, come! If you want to get benefit, come – come not as a beggar for food (bhojan), but come as a beggar for spiritual life in service to the Lord (bhajan) and roll at the holy feet of the supremely merciful devotees of the Lord, placing on your head their feet dust, the water that has washed their feet and the remnants of their food:

ভক্তপাদধূলি আর ভক্তপাদ-জল ।
ভক্তভুক্ত-শেষ তিন সাধনের বল ॥

bhakta-pada-dhuli ara bhakta-pada-jala
bhakta-bhukta-sesa—ei tina sadhanera bala

'The dust from devotees' feet, the water that has washed devotees' feet and the remnants of devotees' food – these three are the sole strength of one's spiritual life.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.16.60)

Do you know the name of the greatest Vaishnav? Kalidas. What did he do? He did not sit with everybody to take prasad. He would stay a little far and waited for the sadhus to throw away their plates – later, he would pick those plates up and lick them. But we want a chair and a good place to sit at! When we serve Vaishnavs, we should give them water to wash their feet, and when you pour some water to let them wash their hands, you should also give them a hand towel; it is necessary to offer them some sandalwood paste, some flowers, and after they take prasad, you should give them a garland. This is how you serve Vaishnavs.

So, come as beggars for spiritual life, not as beggars for food. We must tell our minds, 'O mind! You must not go there anymore! Stop going in this bad way. Do not go in the direction of enjoyment!' Our minds should always stay in holy places, where there are talks about the Lord, where there is Hari-katha, where Vaishnavs are. Our minds must be in the kirtan of the guru and Vaishnavs, in the Hari-katha of the guru and Vaishnavs.

What did Prabhupad say? When two devotees would fight and one of them tried to complain to Prabhupad, Prabhupad would stop him and say, 'Stop it, stop. Do not complain to me about anything. Tell me about his good things during ten minutes. Tell me at least ten good qualities he has.' So, the person who could not stand the sight of the other person had to speak about his good qualities! When the person did that, Prabhupad would then ask the other person to do the same (to glorify the first person). [Devotees chuckle.] These are not jokes. It is necessary to learn from this. Prabhupad taught everybody in this way. We must glorify others – discussing others' faults and gossiping about others will not take you anywhere. If you do not follow this, no matter how much you chant the Holy Name, it will not bring you any benefit. I wrote about it in the sraddha book. I also printed there a letter that Srila Prabhupad wrote to the person who was going to have a sraddha ceremony for his father:

'When I received your letter, I had understood everything. I knew your father had passed away. One of the sons who is initiated should give maha-prasad as pindu after ten days (on the eleventh day), and they must serve pure devotee brahmans, brahmans, and Vaishnavs with prasadam. When somebody chants the Holy Name, the scriptures do not say that they should think of their parents as being possessed by ghosts or perform common funeral rites [put the body on some kusha grass, etc.]. Smartavadis arrange all the rites according to their own qualification. [Those who have no right to chant the Holy Name do all these things.] Particularly, if one performs the sraddha rites for their mother or father according to the smarta rules, then the father, the mother, as well as the person who does this sraddha for them, will have to again be born in the womb of a mother. The devotees of the Lord do not accept the rules and teachings of the smarta brahmans. Your eternal well-wisher, Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati.'

When people are afraid of the Holy Name, they make sraddha ceremonies in aversion to the Holy Name. Smarta rites are prohibited because they are offensive to the Holy Name. Those who have taken the Vishnu mantra are Vaishnavs, and they must worship only the guru-parampara – they do not need to do anything else.

[His Divine Grace chants 'Kabe habe bala se dina amara' and the Hare Krishna maha-mantra and concludes the programme.]

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
Jay Om Vishnupad Bhagavan Sri Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad ki jay
Rupanuga-guru-varga ki jay
Namacharya Haridas Thakur ki jay
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math ki jay
Tadiya sakha-math-samuha ki jay
Sri Mather sevak-vrinda, bhakta-vrinda ki jay
Ananta-koti Vaishnav-vrinda ki jay
Bhakta-prabara Prahlad Maharaj ki jay
Suddha-bhaktir-vighna-vinasan-kari Bhagavan Nrisinghadev ki jay
Sri Sada-Siva Gangadhar, Giriraj Govardhan ki jay
Samagata Sri Gaura bhakta-vrinda ki jay
Vraja Gopi Devi Dasi tirobhav tithi-bara maha-mahotsav ki jay
Tad upalakse samasta Vaishnav-vrinda, bhakta-vrinda, ananta-koti Vaishnav-vrinda ki jay
Harinam sankirtan ki jay
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol

— : • : —

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Length: 43 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Spiritual Sincerity and Chastity
2) Half-Hen Ill Logic
3) Purpose of Birth
4) Transform Your Life Inside and Outside
5) Run behind Krishna
6) Power of Kirtan
7) Become a Servant
8) Beg for Spiritual Life