(15/15) Way Out

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kolkata, preaching programme,
16 January 2021, part 15
Translated from Bengali

When Mahaprabhu came to Sri Advaita Prabhu’s house on the third day after taking sannyas, He ate for the first time after taking sannyas. Soon, Sachi Mata also came there to see Him, but Vishnupriya Devi did not. You can realise how much she was able to tolerate. She did not come to see Mahaprabhu. On the day of vasanta-panchami, many observe Saraswati Puja, but we observe Sri Vishnupriya Devi’s appearance day. She gave up so much in her life. If she had not given Mahaprabhu to the world, how would we have even known Him? She gave Him to all the jiva souls of this world. After Mahaprabhu left home and took sannyas, she stayed at home chanting Mahaprabhu’s Name, Pancha-tattva’s Name and the maha-mantra, and as she chanted, with every maha-mantra she chanted she would keep a grain of rice aside. In the end, she would cook whatever rice she had kept aside in this way every day and take it with some salt. This is how Sri Vishnupriya Devi lived.

We can also remember Padmavati Devi’s sacrifice. A sannyasi came to her and begged her for some alms: he asked her for her only darling son, Sri Nityananda Prabhu. She asked her husband, Hadai Pandit, and they had to agree to give their son to the sannyasi.

Later, after Mahaprabhu met with Nityananda Prabhu, He sent Nityananda Prabhu and Haridas Thakur for preaching:

শুন শুন নিত্যানন্দ, শুন হরিদাস ।
সর্ব্বত্র আমার আজ্ঞা করহ প্রকাশ ॥
প্রতি ঘরে ঘরে গিয়া কর এই ভিক্ষা ।
‘বল কৃষ্ণ, ভজ কৃষ্ণ, কর কৃষ্ণ শিক্ষা’ ॥

suna suna nityananda, suna haridasa
sarvatra amara ajna karaha prakasa
prati ghare ghare giya kara ei bhiksa
‘bala krsna, bhaja krsna, kara krsna-siksa’

‘Listen, listen, Nityananda! Listen, Haridas! Make My order known everywhere! Go house to house and beg everyone, “Please chant Krishna’s Name, worship Krishna and practise Krishna’s teachings.”’

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 2.13.8–9)

Mahaprabhu ordered them, ‘Preach about Krishna in this world!’ but Nityananda Prabhu thought, ‘Who will understand Krishna in this world? Who will understand the love for Krishna? Who will understand the love of the gopis? This is such a high conception! Instead, I will preach about Gauranga!’ Mahaprabhu revealed the mood of separation in this world. Gopis loved Krishna so much that they even gave their footdust for Him without any second thoughts! What would we do? We worship Krishna, so how would we give our footdust to Him? We would not; but gopis were surrendered to such a great extent that they even gave their footdust, thinking, ‘Let our legs rot, let our legs fall off as long as our Lord is well and happy.’

আত্মেন্দ্রিয়প্রীতি-বাঞ্ছা—তারে বলি ‘কাম’ ।
কষ্ণেন্দ্রিয়প্রীতি-ইচ্ছা ধরে ‘প্রেম’ নাম ॥

atmendriya-priti-vancha—tare bali ‘kama’
krsnendriya-priti-ichchha dhare ‘prema’ nama

‘The desire to gratify one’s own senses is kama (lust), but the desire to please the senses of Lord Krishna is prema (divine love).’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.4.165)

Kama (desire, lust) means thinking about your own happiness and enjoyment, but prema (transcendental love) means thinking about the happiness of the Lord, about the happiness of gurudev. The problem is that we never think, ‘What makes gurudev happy?’ We only think about our own happiness. I wrote in Guidance 4 that we always make the Lord our servant, ‘Give me this’, ‘Give me that.’ People pray, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, kavitam dehi, sundarim dehi. Give me wealth, give me knowledge, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me a poet, give me a beautiful girlfriend, and so on.’ We always think, ‘Give me’, ‘Give me’, ‘Give me.’ You must have seen a husband and a wife who came here today – they prayed, ‘May our family live in happiness and peace,’ but they never think about the Lord’s happiness. Thinking about your own happiness is not prema – it is kama. Prema means thinking about the Lord’s happiness. We do something, and it looks like service, but if you do not do it on the order of your gurudev, then it is karma. What is the result of doing karma? If you do karma, you will have to fall into material bondage, and the result of material bondage is suffering in hell. That is why many people come to the temple but then leave – they end up making other arrangements for themselves or think of going abroad. This is how karma leads to material bondage, and the result of material bondage is suffering in hell. Always be careful – always watch out that you do not do karma instead of service. Do not turn the Lord into your servant.

At the time of Durga Puja, you can hear people chanting in the microphones: ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, kavitam dehi, sundarim dehi. Give me wealth, give me knowledge, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me a poet, give me a beautiful girlfriend.’ But Mahaprabhu said:

ন ধনং ন জনং ন সুন্দরীং কবিতাং বা জগদীশ কাময়ে ।
মম জন্মনি জন্মনীশ্বরে ভবতাদ্ভক্তিরহৈতুকী ত্বয়ি ॥

na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagadisa kamaye
mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

‘O Supreme Lord (Master of the Universe, Jagadiswar)! I do not desire any wealth (religion, money or material desires), any followers (wife, sons, servants or maidservants) or material knowledge (beautiful poetry). My only prayer is that I may birth after birth have pure devotion to You, devoid of seeking any result.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.20.29)

‘I do not want money, I do not want a beautiful wife. What do I want? Whatever birth I may get, I only want to have devotion to Your holy feet.’ We must only pray for devotion. People come to Deities, give them a ten-rupee bribe and say, ‘Give me this’ – they turn God into a bribe-taker! Never do this. Always practise Krishna consciousness.

Not only that, we do not even want heaven:

নাহি মাগি দেহ-সুখ, বিদ্যা, ধন, জন ॥
নাহি মাগি স্বর্গ, আর মোক্ষ নাহি মাগি ।
না করি প্রার্থনা কোন বিভূতির লাগি’ ॥

nahi magi deha-sukha, vidya, dhana, jana
nahi magi svarga, ara moksa nahi magi
na kari prarthana kona vibhutira lagi’

‘O Lord! I am submitting this appeal at Your feet: I do not pray for any bodily pleasures, knowledge, wealth or companions. I do not pray for heaven or liberation, neither do I pray for any godly opulence or powers.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We do not want to go to heaven, we do not want to attain liberation. If you go to heaven, you will have to come back from there because you come to heaven when you accumulate punya (pious merit), but when your punya is exhausted, you will have to come back again to the material world. It is the same as imprisonment – the more crimes you commit, the longer your sentence is, and the fewer crimes you commit, the shorter your sentence is, but, anyhow, you will have to come out one day. For example, if you steal, you will get half a year in prison, and if you kill somebody, you can get twelve years in prison. But, in either case, you will have to come back. So, whether you go to hell or to heaven, you still have to come back here one day. Therefore, devotees of the Lord do not want any heaven – they only wish to have devotion.

If you have devotion, you can return to your own home. It is not a happy life to always live in a rented house. Who will like it? You live in one rented house for six months, then some problem happens, you move to another rented house, then again some problem happens, and you again have to move to another rented house, and so on. This is how once we were born in Russia, another time in London, another time in America; sometimes we were born in a brahman’s house, sometimes in a Muslim house, sometimes in a family of ksatriyas, sometimes in a family of vaisyas, and sometimes we were born in Pakistan or Bangladesh in a Muslim family. Who knows where we have been born before! When you keep changing homes like this, even if you have no money, you will think, ‘Better I make some simple hut and live there, but it will be my own home!’ We must go back to our own home. Where is that home? It is in Goloka Vrindavan. Do you understand what I am saying? If you do not understand something, you can ask questions.

Always think about what I have told you. This is the practice of Krishna consciousness. Nobody wants to live in a rented place – everyone wants to live a settled life. You live in this world here as long as you are destined to live, but once you leave this body, your children and their families will quickly get rid of your body before it starts to decay and smell.

শ্মশানে শরীর মম পড়িয়া রহিবে ।
বিহঙ্গ পতঙ্গ তায় বিহার করিবে ॥

smasane sarira mama padiya rahibe
bihanga patanga taya bihara karibe

‘My body will be dropped at a crematorium, and birds and insects will heartily enjoy it.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

Always remember this.

Does anyone have any questions? One lady has asked me recently to tell a story about Indra, but even Indra, the King of Heaven, had to become a pig! He was cursed by his guru. Vaishnav gurus never curse anyone – only the gurus of demigods and demons can curse someone. So, if somebody tells you, ‘I curse you,’ this is not a guru.

One time, Indra was cursed by Brihaspati, the guru of demigods: Indra, the King of Heaven, who lived surrounded by beautiful angels, had to forget everything, including his own guru, and be born as a pig. When Indra heard it, he began to cry, so Brahma promised him that he would help him. He said, ‘When you are born as a pig, I will come to help you, and you must do what I will tell you.’ Indra agreed, ‘Yes, yes, I will do as you say.’ Then, Indra was born as a pig and lived in a heap of stool, enjoying and eating all the time. When Brahma came to him, he was appalled, ‘Indra, what are you eating?! You used to drink nectar, and now you are eating this stool?!’ But this is what pigs eat. If you bring a pig a plate of nice paneer, will the pig eat it? It will not, but if you give it a bucket of stool, it will eat it happily. So, Indra was enjoying and eating, eating and eating stool. Brahma came to him and said, ‘Hey, listen to me!’ but Indra brushed him off, ‘Leave me alone! I am busy!’

You know, when you come to the Howrah station in Kolkata and try to give people a book to read, ‘Here, take this book for ten rupees,’ they brush you off, ‘Oh, I have no time!’, ‘Sorry, no time!’ They are always on the run – they are always running behind money. We are so busy the whole day. We eat and sleep and work, and we always worry, ‘What will I eat?’, ‘What will I wear?’, ‘Where will I sleep?’ The Lord has sent you to this world, and the Lord has no lack of food – He provides for everyone. You must have faith in this. It is necessary to work, but it is also necessary to remember the Lord. But people forget the Lord, who is the creator of everything in this world, and only run behind money!

So, Brahma left Indra alone and came back twelve years later. In the end, only after Brahma had killed all his sons (also pigs) did Indra finally listen to him. Brahma explained everything to him.

‘You were Indra, the King of Heaven, before!’ Brahma said.

‘Oh, what does he look like?’ the pig asked.

Brahma took out his kumandala and poured out some water. In that water, Indra saw his original form and said, ‘Oh, how beautiful! Was I this Indra? I was so beautiful!’

After Indra had heard what Brahma had to say, he remembered everything and got back his form as Indra.

You may have also heard the story of a demigod boy who had cut Durvasa Muni’s dreadlock. He was also cursed and had to take birth as a crocodile. When we do Nabadwip Dham parikrama, we tell this pastime. In the end, when that crocodile heard Mahaprabhu chanting the Holy Name, he again got his demigod’s body back.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

I will chant one more kirtan now and finish.

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and concludes the class.]

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Length: 120 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Where Does the Lord Stay?
2) Mahaprabhu's Advent and Gift
3) Coming Out of Maya
4) Make Yourself Qualified
5) Six Limbs of Surrender
6) Sincere and Deep Prayer
7) Lend Me Your Heart
8) Follow the Footsteps of Great Souls
9) Suspicion Leads to Suspension
10) Only One Question
11) We Are Neither Enjoyers, Nor Renouncers
12) False Ego's Folly
13) Be Sincere and Studious
14) Remembering Mahaprabhu's Sannyas
15) Way Out