(4/13) Beyond Perverted Comfort Zone

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Basirhat, 13 January 2021, part 4
Translated from Bengali

We live in the world of Maya (illusory environment). It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita:

দৈবী হ্যেষা গুণময়ী মম মায়া দুরত্যয়া ।
মামেব যে প্রপদ্যন্তে মায়ামেতাং তরন্তি তে ॥

daivi hy esa gunamayi, mama maya duratyaya
mam eva ye prapadyante, mayam etam taranti te

‘My supramundane trimodal illusory potency (alluring those who are averse to Me) is extremely difficult to overcome. However, this insurmountable potency of Mine can be overcome by those who exclusively surrender to Me.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 7.14)

The Lord Himself says that He has created Maya and it is impossible to overcome her because Maya Devi is very strong – her power comes from the Lord Himself. If you put a piece of iron into fire, it will become hot, and if you heat it a little longer, it will become red. After that, if you touch somebody with that iron, it will burn the person. Iron itself does not burn anybody, but when iron gets some power from fire, it can burn. In the same way, the Lord has empowered Maya Devi: just as iron gets its power to burn from fire, in the same way Maya Devi gets her power from the Lord and becomes invincible – it is impossible to overcome her. What is the solution then? Lord Krishna says that if anybody takes shelter in Him, if anybody surrenders to Him, then He rescues that soul from Maya – Maya Devi runs away from that soul. When you surrender to the Lord, Maya Devi cannot attack you anymore. When such surrender comes, you will feel, ‘This family is not mine – I am only a security guard here.’ Usually, the father says, ‘I am the head (master) of the family’; when the father dies, his son says, ‘Now I am the master of the family’; after that, a grandson takes over, and so on. The truth is that nobody is the master of anything here. Who is the master? The only master is the Lord. Krishna says in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, ‘I existed before, I exist now, and I will always exist in the future.’

The Lord was, is and will always be there, but you will not – you will have to leave this world. As long as we are in this world, we must use our lives wisely. What have we come here for? Have we come here to earn money, to eat and to sleep? Who does not do that? There are so many street dogs – do they get no food? Do they get no place to stay at? You can see so many dogs sleeping in the street – they are all alive somehow, and they also get to eat, sleep and do everything. What is the difference between us and dogs then? You know, you can cook nice things, some nice paneer-rasa, but if you tell a pig to eat it, it will never eat it – on the other hand, if you give a pig a bucket of stool or filth, it will enjoy it so much. You can see elephants: they eat banana trees and live happily. But we struggle so much just to get some nice food. You may have seen camels also. Gurudev said that camels eat certain plants that have thorns – even though their tongues bleed chewing the thorns, they still continue eating, they do not stop. Just like camels, even though we, too, live in this material world and struggle so much, we still do not want to give it up. We cannot leave Maya. No matter how much we suffer, we still think, ‘No, it is OK, I will stay here.’

You think that you will go and come back to this world again and again, but there is no guarantee that you will get human lives again. You can see so many dogs, cats, goats, chickens, cows and other animals roaming the streets. What makes you think that you will be born as humans in your next life? You have already crossed all these species and got these human bodies now through some good intelligence, but if you misuse your lives and become demoted, you will have to go back to all those species again according to your actions (karma).

Lord Krishna says in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, ‘If somebody thinks about Me, if somebody worships Me, I personally take care of them.’ Krishna says, ‘My devotees do not know anyone except Me, and I, too, do not know and do not see anyone except My devotees.’ Therefore, we must become devotees of Lord Krishna. We must want the mercy of Vaishnavs.

We are prepared to do anything for the sake of some trifle gain, for the sake of some trifle interest, but we cannot give up meat, fish and other bad habits. Do you think that people die if they do not eat meat and fish? You are very attached to your food, but, you know, in other countries, people eat cow’s meat, in China they eat snakes, frogs, dogs, and I have also seen some places where people eat raw pork. Raw! In Nagaland, they eat hundreds of kilograms of dog’s meat, and not only that – they have dogs’ corpses lying in the streets, and people eat dogs’ vomit(!!!). There are such people. You feel repulsed, but some people eat dogs’ vomit, and that too here, in this very country. So, if we cannot leave some small trifle things, how will we get great things?

We must return to the Lord – if we can do it, then we will not have to suffer from birth, death, old age and disease, we will not have to keep on coming and going, getting all kinds of bodies (dogs, goats, cats, sheep, etc.). But in order to attain that we must give up small things. Some sacrifice is required…

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Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) An Auspicious Evening
2) An Auspicious Birth
3) Turning Back Home
4) Beyond Perverted Comfort Zone
5) What Are Your Plans?
6) Life In Lord's Family
7) Not So Fast, Not So Cheap
8) Mano-dharma vs. Bhagavat-dharma
9) Eternal Values
10) Ultimate Word of Scripture
11) Guided and Misguided
12) Exclusive Zone
13) Insurmountable Devotion