(5/6) Sadhus' Mercy

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Basirhat, 15 December 2020, noon, part 5
Translated from Bengali

There are many temples and ashrams in this world. People open many places: there are many pranam-taking (obeisance-taking) and pranami-taking (donation-taking) gurus in this world. Somebody came up to me yesterday and asked, 'Please accept my pranam (obeisance).' I replied, 'I cannot! All pranam go to my gurudev, I have no power to take your pranam.'

When sadhus come begging, they ask you for ten or one rupee, and if you do not have any money, you can give simply one flower, but some 'sadhus' will press you to still give them at least two rupees. It is like government office: you have to pay tax to the government, and some temples similarly exhort tax from people. These are Srila Prabhupad's words. The purpose of real sadhus' begging is jive daya (giving mercy to jiva souls), not imposing a tax on jiva souls. There is no question that you must give any amount of money. If you cannot give money, it is fine. If you can just listen to some Hari-katha, that is sufficient.

People from the outside world struggle very much to earn money for their food and clothes. They think that their material happiness comes through their own endeavours. They are ignorant. They do not know anything. They do not know that if you steal the Lord's things, you will be committing sin. Therefore, bestowing mercy on ignorant souls, pure Vaishnavs let them earn some sukriti.

I have told you the story of a sadhu who once went begging to a house. The owner of the three-storey house cried, 'Get out! Get out!' But the young daughter-in-law of that house came from a devotees' family, and when she was small, she saw sadhus and Vaishnavs come to their house, so she learned how to treat them. When she heard her father-in-law cry, 'Get out! Get out!' she looked out of the window and saw that the sadhu was not moving – he kept standing on the same place. The sadhu thought, 'These people are not giving anything, but I want to give some sukriti to them. Even if they do not give me anything, I will take some dry leaves from their garden and go away.' Then, the daughter-in-law came downstairs, picked some flowers from a tree and gave them to the sadhu, saying something quietly to him. Taking the flowers, the sadhu left. When he left, the father-in-law asked the girl, 'I have been telling him to leave for one hour, but he did not budge. What mantra did you say that it made him leave?! I could have given him flowers too...' The girl explained, 'Father, you are eating old rice, you are not touching anything new!' What does it mean? What she meant was, 'You are living now in this three-storey building reaping the result of your previous (old) sukriti, but you do not have such fortune in this lifetime to think of giving some flowers to a sadhu – you do not have this kind of intelligence in you.'

Always remember these things.

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READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Trials and Aspirations
2) Strongest Conviction
3) Everything Is His Will
4) Eternal Path
5) Sadhus' Mercy
6) Jewels of Your Life