(7/8) What Is Your Substance?

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme, Basirhat, evening,
14 December 2020, part 7

What other kirtan do we chant?

শ্রীকৃষ্ণচৈতন্য প্রভু দয়া কর মোরে
তোমা বিনা কে দয়ালু জগৎ মাঝরে

sri krsna chaitanya prabhu daya kara more
toma bina ke dayalu jagata majhare

'O Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, please be merciful to me. Other than You, who is merciful in this world?'

'Who else is there in this world except for You?'

পতিত-পাবন-হেতু তব অবতার ।
মো-সম পতিত পরাবহু না পািইবে আর ॥

patita-pavana-hetu tava avatara
mo sama patita prabhu na paibe ara

'Because You are the saviour of the fallen, You have appeared in this world. My Lord, You will not find another soul as fallen as I am.'

What does the author of this kirtan say? 'You have come to this world to rescue extremely fallen souls, but there is nobody lower than me in this world. I am so lowly that you will not find anybody lower than me.' But we do not think like this. We think that we have become great Vaishnavs, that we know and understand so much. We learn a few slokas by heart – like parrots, we can repeat a few slokas from Bhagavatam or Gita – and we think that we have become great Vaishnavs. Lord Brahma said, 'Everybody may say that they know, let them, but I do not know – I have not been able to recognise Krishna and Vaishnavs.' But you think that you can recognise or know a Vaishnav, so you start seeing their faults and criticising them?! What is your capacity? What do you know about who is a Vaishnav and who is not? In the same way, many people ignored Nityananda Prabhu. Do you think such people can chant the Holy Name?

Who has the capacity to chant the Holy Name? If somebody chants the Holy Name with their mouth, they can never say bad things (any criticism, any gossiping) with that same mouth. And if somebody gossips and criticises others, the Holy Name can never come to such a mouth – only letters of the Holy Name come (they can chant, 'Hare Krishna', but it is not the Holy Name).

Moreover, not only those who gossip and criticise are offenders – those who listen to such talks are also offenders. 'When somebody does wrong and somebody overlooks it, Your scorn burns both like straw (anyaya ye kore ar anyaya ye sahya, tava ghrina yena tare trnasama dohe; অন্যায় যে করে আর অন্যায় যে সহে তব ঘৃণা যেন তারে তৃণসম দহে).' You hear something about a girl and come to tell about it to others – it may or may not be the truth, but you gossip about her, and then the other person tells to others, and others continue spreading the rumours; because this ultimately spreads through you, it is your offence. Even if what you say is true, you do not need to speak about it to others. I told you before about it also. Suppose you see somebody steal prasad (you see that somebody steals and eats the Lord's things). You have seen it, that this happened is true – the person who steals commits a sin, yes, but if you tell others about it, you are committing a sin, too. Those who do wrong things can do whatever they like, but you must not talk about such things. 'Others can do anything they like, but I will not go in that direction, I will not live in that.'

— : • : —

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READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Subdue Your Tongue
2) Surrender or Suffer!
3) Eternal Benefit
4) Family Matters
5) Search Beyond Maya
6) Mining Innermost Humility
7) What Is Your Substance?
8) Live and Learn