(5/8) Live as Servant

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Basirhat, 17 December 2020, noon, part 5
Translated from Bengali

We will sing a new kirtan today. You must take your books out. Now all kirtans are there in mobile phones... Not only that, now you can even have all books in your phone.

[His Divine Grace chants 'Krpa kara Vaisnava Thakura'.]

কৃপা কর বৈষ্ণব ঠাকুর ।
সম্বন্ধ জানিয়া ভজিতে ভজিতে
অভিমান হউ দূর ॥

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya bhajite bhajite
abhimana hau dura

'Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.'

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

What does this mean? 'O Vaishnav Thakur, please be merciful to me – I want to worship the Lord knowing the relationship.' What kind of relationship should there be? This is not a relationship between a father and a son, a brother and a sister or other relatives. We must understand what kind of relationship we have with Vaishnavs. 'I am his servant, and he is my Lord.'

There was a brahmachari disciple of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur who stayed at the temple at first but then left and got married. Now he had a problem: how will he get prasad at home? When he lived at the temple, he took prasad, but now he has a wife, and he did not like to take what she cooked. What was he to do? He decided to bring his wife to his gurudev and get her initiated. He took his wife to his gurudev, Srila Prabhupad.

'Prabhupad, I have left the temple and got married. I have come to ask you to give initiation to my wife; otherwise, I cannot take prasad at home...'

'You should have learnt to cook by now and cook for your wife youself.'

'We got married quite a while ago now: three months have passed, so she does the cooking.'

'Well, now is not the time to give initiation...'

Then, Prabhupad said, 'All right, I will give her initiation, but when she takes initiation, you must do the shopping, she will cook, and after you or she offers the bhog, she must take prasad first and you will take her prasad. Then you will not become proud, you will not have the ego of a husband: you will not think that you are earning money for the family and everything must be as you say. Moreover, although you are a husband and a wife, you must offer obeisances to her every day and call her Didi ("sister"). You are both children of the Lord, so you are a brother and a sister. This is your relationship.'

That is what is called knowing the relationship. If we keep this relationship, we will not become proud. 'I received initiation before you!', 'I am your husband!' – this feeling will go away.

কৃপা কর বৈষ্ণব ঠাকুর ।
সম্বন্ধ জানিয়া ভজিতে ভজিতে
অভিমান হউ দূর ॥১॥

krpa kara vaisnava thakura
sambandha janiya bhajite bhajite
abhimana hau dura [1]

'Please be merciful to me, Vaishnav Thakur! I pray that my ego goes away and I may worship the Lord knowing the relationship.'

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

As we practise Krishna consciousness, our ego will go away. That is why it is a rule in our temple that even if two devotees fight and cannot stand seeing each others' faces, they must offer obeisances to each other every day – if they do this, their fighting will go away. Even when you speak to a Vaishnav on the phone, you must say, 'Hare Krishna' and offer your obeisance.

'আমি ত বৈষ্ণব' এ বুদ্ধি হইলে
অমানী না হ'ব আমি ।

'ami ta vaisnava' e buddhi haile
amani na ha'ba ami

'If I think, "I am a Vaishnav", then I will never stop desiring honour.'

You may have seen that sahajiyas never come to offer obeisances, they mostly do hulahuli – they think that they know kirtan (lila-kirtan) themselves, so they have become great Vaishnavs. This asan (the seat of the speaker) is called Vyasa-asan. Vyasa is not an ordinary person. I am an ordinary person, but this seat is the seat of Vyasadev(!). That is why you must offer your obeisance to Vyasa-asan.

It is said in the kirtan that we are singing that if we think that we have become Vaishnavs, we will not be able to offer respect to others – desire for pratistha and ego will come to me.

Do you understand what I am saying? Listen carefully and learn. You must learn to give class. I will leave this world soon, so you must learn to give class.

প্রতিষ্ঠাশা আসি' হৃদয় দূষিবে
হইব নিরয়গামী ॥২॥

pratisthasa asi' hrdaya dusibe
haiba nirayagami [2]

'My heart will become polluted with the desire for prestige, and I will end up in hell.'

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

'Niraya' means 'narak' (hell). If I cannot give honour to somebody, if I consider myself a Vaishnav, then pratishta (desire for name and fame) will come to me – my heart will be spoilt, my whole mood will become dirty, and I will clear the road to hell for myself. Nobody will be able to stop me from going to hell then.

— : • : —

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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