(4/8) Five Diseases

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Basirhat, 17 December 2020, noon, part 4
Translated from Bengali

The five diseases (pancha-roga) are the following:

(1) Avidya (ignorance) means not knowing or understanding anything, like small children who do not know what is right and what is wrong; ignorance means having no knowledge about Krishna consciousness. Overcome by ignorance, we fall into illusory bondage and keep floundering in material life now.

(2) Asmita (identifying yourself with your body). If I ask you, 'Who are you?' what will you say? 'My name is so-and-so.' First of all, you think of your name. This name is the identity of the body. You are known by some particular name, and if I call somebody else by your name, they will not answer my call; but this name is not your identity. What is your identity? Your identity is a soul. 'I am a soul, and this is a body.'

'কৃষ্ণ-নিত্যদাস'—জীব তাহা ভুলি' গেল ।
এই দোষে মায়া তার গলায় বান্ধিল ॥

'krsna-nitya-dasa'—jiva taha bhuli' gela
ei dose maya tara galaya bandhila

'The jiva soul forgot that it is an eternal servant of Krishna. Because of this mistake, illusion threw its ropes around the soul's neck.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.24)

We forget that we are eternal servants of Krishna; as the result of this mistake, Maya throws her noose on our necks. We think that we are these bodies. I and my body are not one and the same. I am a soul, and the body is made of earth, water, fire, air, ether. So asmita means identifying yourself with the gross body. Your wife, son, daughter are perishable (they will be destroyed), but you feel deep affinity towards them – this deep affinity is deep illusion. This is what asmita is. When you are very much attached and something happens, you will start crying, but nobody ever cries for the Lord, 'The Lord is so far, when will I be able to come to His holy feet?' Does anybody drop a single tear for the Lord? If somebody sheds a single tear for the Lord, they become liberated – they will not like anything in this world anymore; they will only always think, 'This body fall off and I will be able to come to the Lord – when will this happen?!' We cannot shed even one drop of water from our eyes for the Lord, but we shed pots and pots of tears for perishable bodies. This is what bodily identification is. It is said in the scriptures:

বিষয়ে যে প্রীতি এবে আছয়ে আমার ।
সেই মত প্রীতি হউক চরণে তোমার ॥

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara
sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

'May I have the same love and attraction to Your holy feet that I now have for material things.'

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

'I am attached to material life, but I pray that this kind of attachment comes to Your feet.' We love our wives, sons, grandchildren, but this kind of love must come for the Lord's holy feet. You must remember this.

(3) Raga (misdirected love) means deep attachment to whatever is favourable for your body: 'I cannot sleep without an A/C', 'I cannot sleep without a heater', 'I cannot do without lipstick', 'I cannot do without using some cream for my face', 'I cannot do without toenail polish', 'I cannot do without a gold chain'. This is all attachment to your body. All these things are favourable for the body, and deep attachment to such things is called raga. This 'raga' is not 'anger' (also 'raga').

What I am explaining now is the pancha-roga, the five material diseases. How does one remove these five diseases?

প্রসাদ-সেবা করিতে হয়
সকল প্রপঞ্চ জয়

prasada-seva karite haya,
sakala prapancha-jaya

'By honouring the Lord's prasad I conquer all worldly illusions.'

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If you honour prasad (the Lord's food remnants), all material diseases will go away from you.

What else is favourable to the body? All doctors will tell you about it. They say, 'Oh, you are vegetarian, that is why your health is poor.' Illnesses come on their own, it does not matter whether you are a vegetarian or not. If you get admitted to hospital, they tell you, 'Oh, you must eat eggs and meat of freshly killed chicken!' All such advice breeds deep attachment to the body.

In our temple in Ekachakra, there was one man from Musidabad who did puja. He stayed at the temple and worshipped the Deities, but he was always very attached to his home, and he always spoilt (wasted) all donations that people put in the donation box. One time, a devotee told me that many people were coming to the temple and giving donations, but when they opened the box, there was nothing inside it. I had some doubts, so I told one of the devotees to check the room of that man. It turned out that the man had learned to break the lock of the donation box and would take all the donations and keep them in his room. When the temple devotees saw it, they did not say anything after that. Soon after that, that man told me, 'I want to go home, can you give me some money [his pay]?' I asked him, 'When will you go home?' He said, 'Tomorrow.' I told him, 'OK, wait for me, I am coming one of the days and will give you the money.' Then, I thought: how will I go to his room? I need some excuse. If I gave him the money, he would just leave with all the money. When I came to the temple, I told him, 'OK, I will give it to you a little later, wait.' Then, everybody went to rest in the afternoon, and I came to his room, saying, 'Oh, I have come to give you the money.' When I came inside his room, I saw a big twenty-kg sack filled with coins! He had collected twenty kilograms of coins (must be several thousand rupees)! I asked him, 'Prabhu, where is this money from? People come to take prasad at the temple and leave some donation in the donation box, and you take that money?...' He began to tremble, 'Do not hit me!' I told him, 'Why will I hit you? You are Gurudev's disciple, how can I raise my hand on you? But I am thinking how will you carry this heavy sack with you? Let me give you some banknotes instead.' He was silent. I gave him some money and sent him home. When he was at home, he fell ill. His wife called me and said, 'Maharaj, doctors say that he is very weak, so he must eat fresh chicken meat. Should I give it to him?' I said, 'I cannot give permission to do that. But if he wants to eat it, he can eat it, it is his matter.' Do you see what happens to one who does not practise Krishna consciousness properly? They fall into a hole and end up in foul hell. I came to the temple almost thirty years ago, and I have seen so many things in this time: so many people came and left. I know everything...

(4) Dvesa means attachment and eagerness for enjoyment and material things. And (5) abhinivesa means you cannot bear giving up what is unfavourable to the Lord. You think, 'I cannot do it!', 'I cannot do puja', 'I cannot distribute prasad!' Mayavadis say, 'I will just eat whatever fruit comes to me on its own – the Deity is made of stone, how will He eat anyway?' There is a Deity of Lord Siva in Bhubaneswar, and many mice live at the temple – sometimes they crawl all over the Sivalinga and eat the milk offered to Lord Siva. One mayavadi sannyasi went there and then said, 'Oh, the Siva linga is just stone! If it was the Lord Himself, could He not protect Himself? Why are mice eating His milk then?' This is what people preach in the Internet... This is how people lose faith in God. What will you say to this? If you associate with such people, it brings inauspiciousness.

I am printing the Saranagati books, and I hope they will come out soon. You should read it. There is also commentary in it, so if you do not understand the meaning of what is written in it, you can read the commentary.

So, the five diseases are avidya (ignorance), asmita (false identification), raga (misdirected love), dvesa (aversion to anything that goes against one's enjoyment), and abhinivesa (being unable to give up unfavourable habits).

[His Divine Grace finished the kirtan.]

বার্দ্ধক্যে এখন, পঞ্চরোগে হত,
কেমনে ভজিব বল’ ।
কাঁদিয়া কাঁদিয়া, তোমার চরণে
পড়িয়াছি সুবিহ্বল ॥৪॥

vardhakye ekhana, pancha-roge hata,
kemane bhajiba bala'
kandiya kandiya, tomara charane
padiyachhi suvihvala [4]

Now aged, I am afflicted by five-fold diseases. Tell me, how shall I serve? Crying incessantly, I have fallen at your feet, utterly bewildered.

jaya gurudeva jaya gurudeva
jaya gurudeva jaya gurudeva

— : • : —

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

CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE LECTURE

Size: 31 Mb
Length: 74 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Gurudev's Great Mercy
2) Thwarted At the End
3) Unfavourable Urges and Thorns
4) Five Diseases
5) Live as Servant
6) Pure and Foul Ego
7) Worshipping Prasad
8) Guru-Varga's Hidden Treasure