Guided and Misguided

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Basirhat, 13 January 2021, part 11
Translated from Bengali

There was an old lady who worked as a servant at the house of Srivas Pandit. Although she was a menial servant, there is nobody like her in this world. Her name was Duhkhi. One day, before Mahaprabhu came to Srivas Pandit's house, Srivas Pandit told her, "Duhkhi, fetch some water from the pond—Prabhu is coming today, He will need water to take bath." Duhkhi thought, "My God, I bring water every day, but today the Lord is coming and I will bring some water for His bathing! How wonderful!" Then, Duhkhi went to bring water and as she was carrying it to the house tears were flowing from her eyes. When Mahaprabhu saw her, she paid her obeisances to Him with tears flowing from her eyes, and Mahaprabhu asked, "What is your name? Why are you so unhappy?" She said, "My name is Duhkhi..." Then, Mahaprabhu said, "From today, your name is Sukhi!" What service did she do? She did not go to school, she did not know anything, but she did service. What service was that? She brought some water. She only brought some water for the Lord, but through her service she got the Lord.

So, if you want to get the service of the Lord (it can be any service), you must always be alert and think, "What and when do Guru and Vaishnavs need? What pleases Gurudev? What does my Lord love?" Gurudev is the Lord's close associate. If you write a letter to the Lord, you will not get any reply, but if you send your letter to your Gurudev, then he will deliver that letter to the Lord—he will tell you the news from the Lord, he will tell you where the Lord is staying, what the Lord eats, what the Lord does, etc. If you surrender to Gurudev, you will learn everything about the Lord from your Gurudev. You must go to the person from whom you can hear about the Lord.

Suppose you are walking or driving down the street and you ask somebody on the street how to get to the place you need—the person does not know where it is and tells you to go in a wrong direction. You do not believe the person for some reason and you ask another person, the other person says, "No, go in this direction," and points in the opposite direction. There are such people in the world—they do not know the way but they still give you advice. If you ask a boy from the Lord's house where the Lord stays, what the Lord eats, how the Lord lives, he will tell you everything. You must go to a bona fide person.

Therefore, it is necessary to always have good association.

'সাধুসঙ্গ', 'সাধুসঙ্গ'—সর্ব্বশাস্ত্রে কয় ।
লবমাত্র সাধুসঙ্গে সর্ব্বসিদ্ধি হয় ॥

'sadhu-sanga', 'sadhu-sanga'—sarva sastre kaya
lava-matra sadhu sange sarva siddhi haya

"Good association", "good association," all the scriptures keep saying. Only by good association can you get all perfection.

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.54)

You must listen to what the sadhus say. To eat from the same plate with a sadhu, to sleep on the same bed with a sadhu—this is not sadhu-sanga. Even mosquitos sleep with a sadhu, but do you think they come for association? No, they come to bite and disturb. There are also people who, like mosquitos, come to disturb sadhus, they do not do anything. Those who truly take good association, live following the instruction and advice of the sadhus—they hear from Gurudev and practise what Gurudev tells. It is impossible to practise Krishna consciousness without strict adherence (anugatya) to your Guru. So, sincere practitioners always live in strict adherence to their Guru. Otherwise, without anugatya, no matter what you do,

কৃষ্ণ যদি ছুটে ভক্তে ভুক্তি মুক্তি দিয়া ।
কভু ভক্তি না দেন রাখেন লুকাইয়া ॥

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya
kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

"If you ask Krishna for anything except devotion, He can give you those things—bhukti, mukti, liberation, and so on—but He will hide devotion from you. You will not get devotion."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 8.18)

If instead of devotion you want money, a house, a car, etc. from the Lord, the Lord will give you all this and take devotion away from you—He will hide devotion from you.

Practise Krishna consciousness in this way, remembering all I have told you today.

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