Come for Nabadwip Dham Parikrama

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Betur area,
Evening, 25 January 2021, part 4
Translated from Bengali

We have come today here as part of our Nabadwip Dham Pracharani Sobha. We have come to call you to Nabadwip Dham parikrama. If you want to get relief from the roaming of this material world (samsara-parikrama), you must circumambulate Sri Nabadwip Dham. You have heard the kirtan:

শ্রীগৌড়মণ্ডলভূমি, যেবা জানে চিন্তামণি,
তার হয় ব্রজভূমি বাস ।

sri-gauda-mandala-bhumi yeba jane chintamani
tara haya vraja-bhume vasa

"Those who always think about Sri Nabadwip Dham, reside in Sri Vrindavan."

The parikrama is five days, so come for seven days. This year, the parikrama duration was increased by one year. Everyone can come with us—somebody comes by rickshaw, somebody by toto, somebody walks. We walk.

People mostly go to Mayapur only, but Nabadwip means nine (nata) islands (dwip): one in the centre (Antardwip, or Mayapur), and eight around it. A particular kind of devotion resides on each of the islands. For example, our temple is in Nrisingha Palli, and it is Godrumdwip, the place of kirtan (where the Lord's glories are chanted). Simantadwip is the island of sravan, where Hari-katha is listened to. Antardwip, the central island, is Mayapur, and it is the place of atma-nivedanam (self-submission). Koladwip, where our old temple is, is the place of pada-sevanam (service to the lotus feet of the Lord). Near Simantadwip is Rudradwip, near Godrumdwip is Madhyadwip, and there are three more islands that are situated in Bardhaman (Ritudwip, Jahnudwip, and Modadrumdwip). We all walk to these places. Prasadam is prepared every day, and every day we sit down at about 1 p.m. to take prasadam, and then continue our way, returning to the temple in the evening. On the way back, we return by buses. About one thousand people come, so we rent 10-15 buses.

We have a book called Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya-mukta-mala. We go to different places during the five days, and everything is written in this book. When we come to all the places, we speak and chant the glories of these places, and based on those talks, this book was written. It is written beautifully. At the beginning, there is some poetry, you may not understand it, but the main book is written very nicely in plain Bengali.

When we go to Ritudwip, we speak about Samudragar. When we come to Jahnudwip, we remember Jahnu Muni—when the Ganges dried up, Jahnu Muni released her from his thigh. It is all written very beautifully about in the book. There is also Ayodhya within Modadrumdwip. We cannot go to Ayodhya (the place of Lord Ramachandra's pastimes), but when we come to Modadrumdwip on the last day, we can get the result of visiting Ayodhya. When Rama and Sita lived in exile, they came to that island of Nabadwip. It is a beautiful pastime. Ritudwip is also a very beautiful island. So, these nine islands form Nabadwip. Nine kinds of devotion reside on these islands, so we if you want to practise the nine kinds of devotion, you should come for Nabadwip Dham parikrama. We circumambulate the nine islands in five days, starting off in the morning and coming back sometimes in the afternoon and sometimes in the evening. We walk during the parikrama; those who have pain in their legs and cannot walk can take some transport, but even some ninety-year-old ladies walk and they have been coming for this parikrama for thirty-forty years already. When I see them, I feel enthusiasm. When you walk chanting the Holy Name, you can walk so far without even looking back. We go on the parikrama with drums and karatals, chanting and walking.

The 'dol' day is Mahaprabhu's appearance day; the day after is a great festival celebrating Mahaprabhu's appearance in the house of Sri Jagannath Misra and Sri Sachi Devi. We celebrate it with great joy, and thousands of people take prasad on this day. For those who stay at the temple, maybe one-two thousand people, prasad is arranged three times a day. When we do parikrama, we stop in some field or some place and prasadam is brought there in trucks. In the morning, we take muri and ghugni (whole pea) with potato, take some rest, and continue walking. Sometimes, we sit down in some places—we do not walk continuously the whole day. It is necessary to talk about the places of all the different places, so we sit down for a while—we live in Kali-yuga, we are conditioned souls, and many of us do not know what Nabadwip is; people come in a bus, do sightseeing and go, but this is eye exercise.

Practice makes perfect. Do we learn to sing in our mothers' wombs? We do not. You can see foreign devotees here, they come from Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico—they come from so far and learn to chant kirtans. Have you not seen them chanting in Bengali? They have books where all kirtans are written in English, and they chant from the books and learn the kirtans by heart in this way. Practice makes perfect. It is necessary to always practise.

Except for fortunate souls, nobody can understand these things. Only fortunate souls can hear about the Lord and can chant the Lord's glory.

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