(5/7) Exemplary Service Mood

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Nrisingha Palli, 26 December 2020, part 5
Translated from Bengali

What did Mahaprabhu say? He told Srila Raghunath Das Goswami Prabhu:

গ্রাম্যকথা না শুনিবে, গ্রাম্যবার্ত্তা না কহিবে ।
ভাল না খাইবে আর ভাল না পরিবে ॥
অমানী মানদ হঞা কৃষ্ণনাম সদা ল'বে ।
ব্রজে রাধাকৃষ্ণ সেবা মানসে করিবে ॥

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe
bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe
amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la'be
vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

'Do not listen to village talks, do not speak about village news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour to yourself and give all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krishna and serve Radha-Krishna in your mind.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.236-237)

Eating well, dressing well – we do not need all this. Do we die to live or do we live to die? Do you live to eat or do you eat to live? We eat to live. It is not necessary to live to eat. We need to eat something to survive, so we will eat what is necessary – we do not want more than that.

বৈরাগীর কৃত্য—সদা নাম-সঙ্কীর্ত্তন ।
শাক-পত্র-ফল-মূলে উদর-ভরণ ॥

vairagira krtya—sada nama-sankirtana
saka-patra-phala-mule udara-bharana

'The duty of a renunciate is to always engage in Nama-sankirtan, and maintain your stomach with vegetables, herbs, fruit and roots.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.226)

These are Mahaprabhu's words. We should fill our stomaches with vegetables, herbs, fruit and roots. Nothing else is required. We do not want anything else. If you give me some spinach, rice and dal, it is sufficient for me. It is not necessary to make anything more than that. You must always remember this. If you do not understand this, what result will you get?

We chant in the kirtan, 'Guru-mukha-padma-vakya, chittete kariya aikya (গুরুমুখ-পদ্মবাক্য চিত্তেতে করিয়া ঐক্য)—make the teachings from Sri Guru's lotus mouth one with your heart.'

...This is how we were in Gurudev's time. I called *** today, but he said, 'I am going to take prasad now, I will take it and then come.' There was no such question for me when it came to my gurudev. Even when I went to the bathroom, I used to keep my mobile phone in the bathroom at the place where soap is kept because I waited, 'When will Gurudev call me?' I always kept the phone with me, even when I went to pass stool because I thought that if Gurudev did not get through to me, he would be unhappy. This was my mood. Learn from me. Learn from how I served Gurudev.

What does Gurudev need? What does Gurudev like? A real disciple should know this. When I got the news that Gurudev was coming back to Nabadwip, I would fill his kitchen (he had a separate kitchen) with all the vegetables (carrots, capsicum, etc.) and the chamarmani rice that he liked (you cannot buy this rice here, only, perhaps, in Nabadwip). I learnt from Gurudev's servitors what Gurudev liked and did not like, and I always filled his kitchen with the things he liked. For example, Gurudev liked chamarmani rice and even took it with him (ten or fifteen kg) when he travelled abroad.

When Gurudev sent me abroad for preaching and I was coming back, he would sit up till two(!) o'clock at night, waiting for me. I thought, 'I do not want to disturb Gurudev, so when I get off the plane, I will go first to my room, take a shower and then go to see him later and tell him about the preaching.' But it was not like that. When I got off the plane and reached the temple, Gurudev's servitor told me, 'Maharaj, Gurudev is waiting for you,' and I would go to see Gurudev immediately. I did not worry that I was coming from outside, wearing dirty clothes, etc. – Gurudev called me, so I went to him at once. When Gurudev was returning to Nabadwip, he would call me when he was near the temple and let me know where he was. Taking the drums and the karatals, we would all stand and wait for his arrival. We would take Gurudev with kirtan up to his room. Foreign devotees would make a garland and offer it to him. I would accompany Gurudev to the temples, where he offered his obeisances, and then to his room. This is how I served Gurudev. He did not like me just like that, without any reason. You must know what your gurudev likes. I would ask Gurudev's servitors and learn from them what he ate, what he did, what he liked or did not like. So, when Gurudev was coming back to Nabadwip, I would go to the market the day before that (not after he came) and bought everything, filling his fridge and kitchen. All money is his. Even if I got ten rupees, it was his ten rupees. And when I returned from preaching abroad, I would give Gurudev everything that I had in my pocket, and if I needed money later, I would ask Gurudev for it. I kept a ledger with all expenses. Even if there was money left during the construction, I could spend something to get vegetables, but I would always keep an account of all expenses and give everything that was remaining to Gurudev.

I always kept Gurudev happy, and he was always pleased with me. There was a lot of problem with the electric current in Nabadwip, so I actually kept a security guard on standby all day and night so that Gurudev would not stay without electricity and would not get disturbed even for one minute (as soon as the current went out, which could sometimes happen twenty times a day, the guard would at once run with a torch to start the generator – I kept an extra generator specially for Gurudev and always kept it filled with petrol and serviced). We all can suffer, it is not a problem, but I always made sure that there would be no disturbance for Gurudev. I would always make sure that Gurudev's sleep would not get interrupted at night.

There was a flood in 2000 in Nabadwip. All our straw had finished at that time. I worried, 'The water is not going down, and this flood can stay for a month. What will we do?' I had to go to the market in Nabadwip in a boat to buy straw. I bought straw, loaded it into a tractor and brought it to the temple. Then, I took all cows to the second floor and kept the straw there, too. Gurudev came back to the temple after the flood, and when he walked around the temple, he said, 'I heard that there was a big flood in Nabadwip and that there was water up to the first floor, but I cannot see any sign of flood!' When the flood finished and the water went away, I cleaned and painted everything in such a way that everything looked as if nothing had happened.

This is how I served Gurudev...

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Size: 22 Mb
Length: 49 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Serve and Study
2) Eagerness to Study
3) Watch Your Activities
4) Serve with Love
5) Exemplary Service Mood
6) Deep Faith and Service
7) Service Acumen