(7/8) Worshipping Prasad

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Basirhat, 17 December 2020, noon, part 7
Translated from Bengali

তোমার কিঙ্কর আপনে জানিব
'গুরু'-অভিমান ত্যজি' ।
তোমার উচ্ছিষ্ট পদজলরেণু
সদা নিষ্কপটে ভজি ॥৩॥

tomara kinkara apane janiba
'guru'-abhimana tyaji'
tomara uchchhista pada-jala-renu
sada niskapate bhaji [3]

'I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru. I will always earnestly worship the remnants of Your food, Your foot dust and the water that has washed Your feet.'

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Do you know that Mahaprabhu never allowed anyone to touch His feet? We also tell everyone not to touch our feet – this is what Mahaprabhu taught. But Mahaprabhu gave one person the right to touch His feet: to Kalidas. Everybody told Kalidas, 'Do not touch Prabhu's feet! Do not touch!' but Mahaprabhu said, 'Do not stop him.' In Puri, at the gate called Simha-dvara (near the temple of Lord Jagannath), there is a tap where you wash your feet before entering the temple. Mahaprabhu also washed His feet there.

[A devotee is trying to come close to offer his obeisance.] Offer obeisances from far, it is OK. You must learn to offer obeisances – touch your head to the floor properly. Do not pay obeisances only with two hands and two legs; do not do it artificially. All right? Learn this.

So, it is said in the kirtan we are singing, 'I will consider myself Your servant and give up the ego of a guru.' We are servants, we must not have an ego of a guru. 'I will always earnestly worship the remnants of Your food.' Why did Mahaprabhu prohibit everyone to touch His feet but allowed Kalidas to do it? There is a reason. When there was vaishnav-seva in some place, he never sat together with all the Vaishnavs. He thought, 'I come from a low caste, I am extremely tiny. I have no right to sit among Vaishnavs. I will keep away.' He always stayed afar. And when Vaishnavs threw their plates away, he picked those plated and licked them. This is how, taking Vaishnavs' food remnants, Kalidas had become a 'jhanu-vaishnav' ('a seasoned, or crafty, Vaishnav'). This is the word Mahaprabhu used for Kalidas. For this reason He did not prohibit him to touch his feet: 'He has the right to do it.' We, too, must earn this right. Instead, when there is somebody's prasad left somewhere, we say, 'No, no, no! I do not even want to touch it!'

One time, Nityananda Prabhu and Advaita Prabhu had a fight over prasad. Showing His pastime, Nityananda Prabhu said, 'Why have you invited Me if you cannot feed Me? You are giving Me so little! How can that ever fill My belly?' Advaita Prabhu gave more, and Nityananda Prabhu ate it; Advaita Prabhu gave more again, and Nityananda Prabhu again ate everything.

'Why have you invited Me if you cannot feed Me??' Nityananda Prabhu said.

'Prabhu, I am a poor brahman, I cannot feed a glutton like You!' Advaita Prabhu replied.

Then, Nityananda Prabhu took a handful of food and threw it at Advaita Prabhu!

'Hey, my clothes are messed now!'

'You are an offender! You call prasad a mess!'

They had a fight like that.

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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