At Lord's Home

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Vyasa Puja of Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj
Sri Nrisingha Palli, evening class
1 January 2021, part 3, translated from Bengali

It is said that every country has big rivers, but there is no other country that would have a river that could compare to the Ganges, Yamuna, Saraswati, Godavari. Srila Bon Maharaj (from Mayapur) mentioned this today, you heard him say it. There is no other place where Ganges, Yamuna, Saraswati, and Godavari would flow. There is land everywhere, but the Lord appeared in this Bharata-bhumi (India). He did not appear in any other place and will not appear in any other place. In India, people are religious, and the Lord comes here time after time. Moreover, in the age of Kali, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared in Mayapur, Nabadwip in Nadia, West Bengal, Bharata-bhumi. This is such a great fortune! You are so fortunate! Who will you tell this too? Who will be able to see it and who will be able to understand it?

You only go to Mayapur for some sightseeing, to buy souvenirs for your grandchildren and see some great buildings, but what else do you see? Srila Sridhar Maharaj said that such 'excursions' are eye-exercise. If you come to look at things like this, what will you understand? Can you understand something by seeing it? You cannot understand a sadhu with your eyes; you must see the sadhu with your ears. You cannot see a sadhu with your eyes. Likewise, when you come to a holy place, you must come with a parikrama—not with your legs, you must do parikrama with your head. You must take the dust of the holy place on your head.

We are present here in Nrisingha Palli, it is also called Deva Palli ('a village of demigods'). 330,000,000 demigods reside here. You know that every temple comes here during the parikrama. When we were at our old 'Jal Mandir' Nabadwip temple, we used to come here on the third day of the parikrama. Yet now, by the mercy and a great fortune, Gurudev has given us a place in Godrumdwip. This is how this place here has appeared for you all, so that you can sit and stay here. When there were difficulties, you struggled and stayed in the nat mandir, but now you can see that everything has appeared. Everything is not built suddenly at once: as they say, Rome was not built in a day. Rome is a very beautiful city, but even that city was not built in a day. It was built gradually, slowly. Here too, everything is appearing gradually.

When I first came to our Jal Mandir, I did not see any great buildings there or anything like that. There was only Param Guru Maharaj's house, Gurudev's house, two-storey Bengali building, and the Western brahmachari building. At Govinda Kunda, where you can see the five-storey guesthouse buildings, people would come to pass stool, and in the place where the four-storey building (where I used to stay) is, people used to plant and grow roses. The goshala also gradually increased, but at first it did not even have a boundary wall.

When one makes a house, the husband, wife, and children stay there peacefully, then you can call it a home, or a family. Yet if there is no happiness or peace in the family, then can you call this place a home? You cannot. The place can have cement and bricks, but if there is no peace there—if you do not get peace even when you sleep, then it is not a home. Here, you can get this happiness here. Nobody will come to arrest you, nobody will come to beat you, nobody will come to swear you, nobody will come to complain to you here. The environment is beautiful here. You can see people coming from the day before yesterday, and Hari-katha is going on all the time here. Today, some fat lady asked me, "Why are all these classes, kirtans, etc.? Is this your home?" But this is a temple! Class and kirtan are going on here every day, every morning, noon, and evening. Just as you do arati and kirtan at home, the same is done here, the only difference is that there are few people at your home and there are many people here. There is eternal, daily service here, nothing stops—all temples run in the same manner. There are classes, kirtans, bhoga offering, arati, etc. at each temple, every day.

Householders' houses are not temples, so they can wake up at 8 a.m. and then go to wake up the Lord. It is not like this here, we do not live like householders who are attached to their material life: waking up at ten and when you fancy or have time, then you go with a plate of some food to the Deities. There are rules here. You must wake up at 4 a.m., wake up the Deities, give balya-bhoga to the Deities, do arati, archan, offer bhoga, then take prasadam in the morning. After taking prasadam, everyone does whatever service they have at the temple, and at noon again offer bhoga, do arati, close the temple, put the Deities to rest, take prasadam, and you can also go to rest. In the afternoon, you wake up and wake the Deities up, offer some bhoga, then again do arati, parikrama, etc. in the evening, sit at the class, chant kirtans, and offer bhoga in the evening, and then put the Deities to rest again, take prasadam, and go to rest. This is the rule.

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