(2/5) Know Thyself

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Betur area,
Evening, 25 January 2021, part 2
Translated from Bengali

Our spiritual practice is different from what is practised by other people in this world. Truly, among millions of selfish people, you will find one wise person; among millions of wise people, you will find one liberated person; and among millions of such liberated people, you will find only one devotee of Krishna. It is very rare to find a devotee of the Lord in the world, but one such devotee can deliver the whole universe.

Outside people worship Deities and say, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, kavitam sundarim dehi. Make me rich, make me clever, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me a poet.’ Do we come to this world only to eat food and wear clothes?

আহার-নিদ্রা-ভয়-মৈথুনং চ
সামান্যম এতৎ পশুভির নরাণাম ।
ধর্ম্মো হি তেষাম অধিকো বিশেষো
ধর্ম্মেণ হীনাঃ পশুভিঃ সমানাঃ ॥

ahara-nidra-bhaya-maithunam cha
samanyam etat pasubhir naranam
dharmo hi tesam adhiko viseso
dharmena hinah pasubhih samanah

‘Eating, sleeping, breeding and defence – these four principles are common to both human beings and animals. The distinction between human life and animal life is that man can search after God but an animal cannot. Therefore, those who do not feel any urge to search for God are no better than animals.’

(Hitopadesh, 25)

When I was a dog, I ate so many things; when I was a cat, I ate so much raw fish; when I was a pig, how many heaps of stool I finished! This is ahara, eating. Nidra means sleeping. Bhaya means fear – we are always afraid of something. Maithunam means breeding, or increasing your posterity. Pigs also do these things, dogs also do these things, goats also do these things, cats also do these things, and humans also do these things, then what is the difference between humans and animals? The difference is actually what we do not do – the difference is spiritual life, service to the Lord, but we do not do it. We do not truly associate with sadhus, but association with sadhus must be genuine. There are rules and regulations for this kind of association, and sadhus always tell us about that. Read scriptures. There is Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Srimad Bhagavatam.

সাধুসঙ্গে কৃষ্ণনামে—এই মাত্র চাই ।
সংসার জিনিতে আর কোন বস্তু নাই ॥

sadhu-sange krsna-nama—ei matra chai
samsara jinite ara kona vastu nai

‘I desire only to chant the Name of Krishna in the association of sadhus. There is no other way to conquer this material world.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

It is necessary to chant the Holy Name in the association of sadhus.

অসাধুসঙ্গে ভাই কৃষ্ণনাম নাহি হয় ।
নামাক্ষর বাহিরায় বটে তবু নাম কভু নয় ॥

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

‘Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it may certainly sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.’

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, Srila Jagadananda Pandit)

It is impossible to chant the Holy Name in bad association, that is why it is necessary to have sadhu-sanga. As you associate with sadhus more and more, all dirt from your hearts will be removed. Otherwise, where will you keep the Lord? Where will He sit? You have many things in your hearts – there is much kanak, kamini, pratistha (desire for money, women and fame), there is much kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya (lust, anger, greed, illusion, madness, envy), there are six urges (the urges of speech, mind, anger, tongue, belly and genitals), there are six faults (excessive eating, materialistic endeavours, useless talks, inability to follow instructions, bad association, fickle-mindedness). We have all this inside us – we are full of rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (desire to enjoy through our eyes, tongues, noses, ears and skin). We are calling out to the Lord, but we say, ‘Dhanam dehi, vidyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, kavitam sundarim dehi. Make me rich, make me clever, make me beautiful, give me a good wife, make me a poet.’

There are three kinds of devotion: karma-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with material pursuits), jnana-misra bhakti (devotion mixed with the pursuit of knowledge) and jnana-sunya suddha bhakti (pure devotion without any pursuit of knowledge). It is said in the scriptures that most people practise karma-misra bhakti. Karma-misra bhakti means we say, ‘O Lord, I am worshipping You, please give me something in return.’ It means turning gods and goddesses into bribe-takers and our menial servants. In exchange of worship, we say, ‘O Lord, may I have good health’, ‘May my children be well’, ‘May my son find a good job’, ‘May my daughter get married into a good family.’ We make the Lord work for us and give Him orders. Listen carefully to what I am saying.

Sadhus do not serve the Lord in this way. Devotees serve the Lord selflessly – they do not want to get anything in return. Rather, they always think, ‘What makes the Lord happy?’, ‘What makes the Lord’s devotees happy?’, ‘What can make Radharani happy?’, ‘What can make my gurudev happy?’ Sri Gurupadpadma is non-different from Srimati Radharani (in madhura-rasa) and Nityananda Prabhu (in sakhya-rasa).

রাধা-ভজনে যদি মতি নাহি ভেলা ।
কৃষ্ণ ভজন তব অকারণে গেলা ॥

radha-bhajane yadi mati nahi bhela
krsna-bhajana tava akarana gela

‘If you did not become devoted to the worship of Srimati Radharani, your worship of Krishna was in vain.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

‘If you did not become devoted to the worship of Srimati Radharani, your worship of Krishna was in vain,’ but most people say, ‘Krishna, Krishna’ – nobody says, ‘Radhe, Radhe.’ Moreover, the wonderful thing is that the combined form of Sri Sri Radha-Krishna appeared right here in this land of India!

ভারত-ভূমিতে হৈল মনুষ্য-জন্ম যার ।
জন্ম সার্থক করি' কর পর-উপকার ॥

bharata-bhumite haila manusya-janma yara
janma sarthaka kari’ kara para-upakara

‘One who has taken birth as a human being in the land of India should take advantage of this birth by bringing benefit to others.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 1.9.41)

What does it mean to ‘bring benefit to others’? Does it mean to give somebody a blanket in the winter? If I give a blanket to somebody, they will throw it away and come to ask me for another one. People’s desires cannot be appeased by that. Some man does not have a house, so he builds a one-storey house, but soon after that, he will want a two-storey house, a three-storey house, and so on. Desires never stop.

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 a devotee aspires for enjoyment or liberation, Krishna hides the knowledge about pure devotion and dismisses them, giving them enjoyment or liberation.’

If you want something from the Lord, the Lord will give it to you, but He will not give you devotion – He will hide it from you (your devotion to the Lord and faith in the Lord will be slowly destroyed). It is necessary to have faith. When you are born, you do not know who your father is, but when your mother tells you, ‘This is your father’, you believe her. In the same way, when our guru and Vaishnavs say something, we must believe it.

দৈন্য, আত্মনিবেদন, গোপ্তৃত্বে বরণ ।
‘অবশ্য রক্ষিবে কৃষ্ণ’—বিশ্বাস পালন ॥

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
‘avasya raksibe krsna’—visvasa palana

[Limbs of surrender] ‘Humility, self-submission, accepting that the Lord is your maintainer, keeping faith that “Krishna will certainly protect.”’

(Saranagati, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

We must be humble, we must submit ourselves to the Lord, we must know that the Lord is our maintainer, and we must have faith that Krishna will certainly protect us. This is also Mahaprabhu’s teachings.

তৃণাদপি সুনীচেন তরোরিব সহিষ্ণুনা ।
অমানিনা মানদেন কীর্ত্তনীয়ঃ সদা হরিঃ ॥

trnad api sunichena taror iva sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

‘Those who are humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, who give honour to others without desiring any honour for themselves can always chant the Holy Name of Krishna.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.239)

তৃণাধিক হীন দীন অকিঞ্চন ছার ।
আপনে মানবি সদা ছাড়ি’ অহঙ্কার ॥
বৃক্ষসম ক্ষমাগুণ করবি সাধন ।
প্রতিহিংসা ত্যজি’ অন্যে করবি পালন ॥

trnadhika hina dina akinchana chhara
apane manabi sada chhadi’ ahankara
vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana
pratihimsa tyaji’ anye karabi palana

‘Give up ego and always consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, poor, destitute and wretched. You must practise tolerance like that of a tree and nurture others giving up vengeance.’

(Sri Gitavali, Sri Siksastaka Giti, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If somebody chastises me or speaks bad to me, it means they have a problem, that is why they can do that, but I do not need to say anything in reply, just as a tree says nothing when it is being cut. Moreover, when you cut a branch of a tree, the tree not only does not say anything but it also gives you shelter after that. It is necessary to have this kind of tolerance and patience. We must also be humble (‘I do not know anything, I have no qualification, I do not understand anything’), but you get people in this world who think that they have become great Vaishnavs.

'আমি ত' বৈষ্ণব', এ বুদ্ধি হইলে
অমানী না হ'ব আমি ।

‘ami ta vaisnava’, e buddhi haile,
amani na ha’ba ami

‘If I think, “I am a Vaishnav,” then I will never stop desiring honour.’

(Sri Kalyan-kalpataru, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

If I think that I have become a Vaishnav, I will not be able to give honour to others. We pray to gurudev, ‘Sakale samman karite sakati deha natha yatha-yatha. Please give me strength to give everyone proper honour,’ but when will we understand all this? Actually, we will be able to understand this when we learn our real identity. This is the problem. We do not know who we are.

When somebody asks you who you are, you say, ‘My name and title are so-and-so,’ but these are identities of your bodies. First, you must know what your identity is. Who am I? If I say, ‘I am so-and-so Maharaj’, this is not my identity – this is the identity of my body, this is not who I am. I am a soul.

‘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

‘Jiva souls forgot that they are eternal servants of Krishna. Because of this mistake, illusion threw its ropes around their necks.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.24)

My father and mother did not produce me. They gave me this body, but they did not give me life. One day, life will leave this body, and nobody can tell you when that time will come. Pariksit Maharaj was fortunate – he received a seven days’ notice; but we do not know if we will get even a seven-minute notice. We do not know whether we will die or not in the next seven minutes, but we are very proud of ourselves. We make all kinds of plans, thinking, ‘I will do this’, ‘I will do that’, but the fact is that we can leave our bodies at any minute!

জীবন অনিত্য জানহ সার,
তাহে নানাবিধ বিপদ ভার
নামাশ্রয় করি’ যতনে তুমি,
থাকহ আপন কাজে ॥

jivana anitya janaha sara
tahe nana-vidha vipada-bhara
namasraya kari’ yatane tumi,
thakaha apana kaje

‘You must know the main truth that this life is not eternal and full of various dangers. Carry on your life but try your best to take shelter in the Holy Name.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

When you learn who you are, you will know your proper identity. We identify yourselves with our bodies now (we think that we are these bodies), that is why we say that ‘this is my hand’, ‘this is my head’, ‘these are my ears’, ‘these are my eyes’, ‘these are my legs’, but who am I? The answer is there in the scriptures. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita says:

জীবের 'স্বরূপ' হয়—কৃষ্ণের 'নিত্যদাস' ।
কৃষ্ণের 'তটস্থা-শক্তি', 'ভেদাভেদ-প্রকাশ' ॥

jivera ‘svarupa’ haya—krsnera ‘nitya-dasa’
krsnera ‘tatastha-sakti’ ‘bhedabheda-prakasa’

‘By its intrinsic nature, the soul is an eternal servant of Krishna. Souls come from the marginal energy of Krishna and are simultaneously one with and different from the Lord.’

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.108)

Always remember this.

We will have the evening arati now – everyone must please stand up. Join the arati, do the Tulasi parikrama, after that we will chant some kirtans and I speak again. Please stay, take the darshan of the Lordships’ arati. You can see how the Lord is worshipped. We will offer arati and chant kirtan now…

— : • : —

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READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Religion of This Age
2) Know Thyself
3) Qualification for Chanting Holy Name
4) Come for Nabadwip Dham Parikrama
5) Live Sincere Devotional Life