Mano-dharma vs. Bhagavat-dharma

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Basirhat, 13 January 2021, part 8
Translated from Bengali

In this world, the number of jiva souls in animal species is very large, but the number of humans is very small. Among people, many say they follow the Vedas (somebody says they follow Rig Veda, somebody says they follow Yajur Veda, somebody says they follow Sama Veda, somebody says they follow Atharva Veda), but while they say that they follow the Vedas, they do what is prohibited by the Vedas. Does any of the Vedas say that you can kill jiva souls? There are four principle acharyas in the this world (Vishnu Swami and others), and people say, "We belong to this movement," "We belong to that movement"—like, there is a group called Haribol who claim that they have conquered everything, but they all eat fish, meat. There is also another group, I have seen them in Mathura, they do not eat meat on Fridays—on Fridays, they offer and take vegetables. What is this? You must chant the Holy Name all the time, constantly, eternally.

'কৃষ্ণ-নিত্যদাস'—জীব তাহা ভুলি' গেল ।
এই দোষে মায়া তার গলায় বান্ধিল ॥

'krsna-nitya-dasa'—jiva taha bhuli' gela
ei dose maya tara galaya bandhila

"When the jiva soul makes the mistake of forgetting that it is an eternal servant of Krishna, Maya captures the soul by its neck."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 22.24)

We are eternal servants of Lord Sri Krishna—not for two days or seven days or one hour!

Some people also say, "As many faiths, so many paths (yata mat tata path, যত মত, তত পথ)" or "Jive prema kare yei jana sei jana sevichhe isvara (জীবে প্রেম করে যেই জন সেই জন সেবিছে ঈশ্বর): love God by loving others." They say "love others" and write it on big sign boards. It is like you make a big sign board saying "Glass Factory" and when you go there you do not get even any glass at all. They are liars. They write "love others" on big boards, and if you come inside and see what is happening, you will see that they eat chicken saying that it is good for health! This is their "love for others." And this "As many faiths, so many paths (yata mat tata path, যত মত, তত পথ)"—what is their idea or belief? They do what they want saying that everybody's belief is different, so there are different paths, but this is all wrong. We must live according to what the scriptures tell. We must hear the siddhanta (conclusion) of the scriptures. We must accept and follow the teachings that are given by the Lord Himself. It is not necessary to create any teaching yourself. If a train goes off the track, it will tip over. So, we must follow the real path.

That is why, it is said that you can find so many gurus in this world. Many say, "Eat whatever your soul wants." Ha! The soul does not want all this. Atma's duty and desire is to serve Paramatma, and all this food is something that the mind, the tongue want! The soul dwells on an internal plane, and the mind dwells in the external world. You are sitting here at the class, but some are sitting and thinking about a movie they have seen, somebody is sitting and thinking about the money they kept in their chest, somebody goes to Vrindavan but in the meantime thinks, "I wonder if a goat has eaten my lau..." Mind goes to all these things, it lives in the external world. The soul dwells in the internal world, it always wants to serve Paramatma, it always hankers to serve the Lord. And here we get people who say, "Eat whatever your soul wants." They teach others wrong things. I have told you many times—if I was to tell everyone, "Come, you can eat meat, fish," there would be a huge crowd of people lining up for initiation; and if I say, "No, you must give all this up," you will see that nobody will come.

When we go to primary school, we study with so many classmates; when you finish primary school and later go to high school, there are less pupils there; when you proceed on to college, there are even less students; and when you reach university, you will see only one-two persons of your classmates there. People fall for the fascinating illusions of the world. It is said, "Out of ten million workers you will get one wise person; out of ten million wise people you will get one liberated soul (who feels no attraction to this world), and out of ten million liberated souls you will get one devotee of Krishna." Such devotees always think about Krishna,

কি শয়নে, কি ভোজনে, কিবা জাগরণে ।
অহর্নিশ চিন্ত কৃষ্ণ, বলহ বদনে ॥

ki sayane, ki bhojane, kiba jagarane
aharnisa chinta krsna, balaha vadane

Whether you are sleeping, eating, or resting, always chant the Name of Krishna.

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavat, Madhya-khanda, 28.28)

The Gaudiya Mission of Mahaprabhu (Gaudiya Math, Chaitanya Math) preaches this pure teaching. To tell you the truth, there are very few people in this world who preach such things. You can easily get laukik gurus (family teachers), kaulik gurus (ancestral teachers), but you will not find a paramarthik guru (a bona fide spiritual teacher)...

— : • : —

{ 2001  |   2002  |   2003  |   2005  |   2009  |   2010  |   2011  |   2012 }
{ 2013  |   2014  |   2015  |   2016  |   2017  |   2018  |   2019  |   2020  |   2021 }

• Listen to the audio or download (2.5 Mb, 6 min)