Lord's Messenger

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Singur (West Bengal), 5 February 2021, part 3
Translated from Bengali

The Lord comes Himself and sometimes sends His associates as the Guru. Krishna told Uddhav Maharaj, "Acharyam mam vijaniyan. Know the Guru (acharya) as being non-different from Me." 'Acharya' is a person who practises (achar) and preaches (prachar); he is non-different from the Lord.

সাক্ষাদ্ধরিত্বেন সমস্ত-শাস্ত্রৈ-
রুক্তস্তথা ভাব্যত এব সদ্ভিঃ ।
কিন্তু প্রভোর্যঃ প্রিয় এব তস্য
বন্দে গুরোঃ শ্রীচরণারবিন্দম্ ॥

saksadd-haritvena samasta-sastrair
uktas tatha bhavyata eva sadbhih
kintu prabhor yah priya eva tasya
vande guroh sri-charanaravindam

"I offer my obeisance unto the lotus feet of Sri Guru, who is said by all the scriptures to be the Lord Himself, and considered to be so by the sadhus, yet is also the Lord's beloved devotee."

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, 7)

We chant this kirtan written by Srila Visvanath Chakravati every morning,

সংসার-দাবানল-লীঢ়-লোক-
ত্রাণায় কারুণ্য-ঘনাঘনত্বম্ ।
প্রাপ্তস্য কল্যাণ-গুণার্ণবস্য
বন্দে গুরোঃ শ্রীচরণারবিন্দম্

samsara-davanala-lidha-loka
tranaya karunya-ghanaghanatvam
praptasya kalyana-gunarnavasya
vande guroh sri-charanaravindam

"I offer my obeisance unto the lotus feet of Sri Guru, the ocean of goodness who assumes the form of a cloud of mercy to deliver the souls burning in the blazing fire of material existence."

(Sri Sri Gurvastakam, 1)

The only way to save yourself from this material existence is to take shelter at the holy lotus feet of Sri Guru. Only if he saves and engages us in the service of the Lord, can it be possible for us to find relief. At the same time, we too must make an effort—we must try. You cannot do nothing and think that the Guru will do everything for you. That is why, we must always be alert and careful that we may not be removed from Krishna consciousness at any time.

We must serve Sri Hari, Guru, and Vaishnavs. The true religion consists of three aspects: jive daya, Name ruchi, Vaishnava seva. Jive daya means we must be kind to the jiva souls; it means that we must bring the souls who are averse to Lord Sri Krishna to this path. Such souls have forgotten the Supreme Lord, they have forgotten their own father, their own address and have fallen into illusory bondage.

We come to this world again and again—life after life we stay in some hired place, and life after life we are forced to leave one hired place and go to some other hired place. Somebody hires a place for fifty years, somebody thirty years, somebody eighty years, but for as long as you stay in a hired place, you will not know any peace or happiness. What happiness is there? If you have no place of your own, if you keep on hiring some place to stay in—if you stay in some place six months, one year, or two years, and keep on moving from place to place, one day you will think that it is better to buy your own land and leave in a thatched hut rather than keep on moving like that. We too, every single one of us, are staying in this hired place here, but we must try to reach our own home. Our home is in Goloka Vrindavan, where the Lord resides, where we all come from. We left our home and have wandered throughout 8,400,000 species, or even more than that—8,400,000 species is minimum because if somebody is unfortunate, they have wandered throughout even more species before they have finally got this human body.

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 his birth as a human being in the land of India should take advantage of his birth and bring benefit to all other people."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 9.41)

Brahma took initiation from Krishna and created this material universe according to the realisation that he had got from the Lord, and we now anyhow live in this world—somebody worships Durga, somebody worships Kali, somebody worships Lakshmi, somebody worships Vishnu, somebody worships Narayan, so many people worship demigods, demigoddesses. However, it is said in the scriptures,

চারি বর্ণাশ্রমী যদি কৃষ্ণ নাহি ভজে ।
স্বকর্ম্ম করিলেও সে রৌরবে পড়ি মজে ॥

chari varnasrami yadi krsna nahi bhaje
svakarma karileo se raurave padi maje

"Whatever varna (a priest, fighter, manager, or worker) or asram (a celibate, householder, renouncer of the household life, or monk) you may belong to, if you do not worship Krishna but engage in your prescribed duties, you will have to fall into a terrible hell (Raurav)."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 22.26)

Even if you follow the four varnas (brahman, ksatriya, vaisya, sudra) and four ashrams (brahmachari, grihastha, vanaprastha, sannyasi), you will have to go to hell again and again. I have written in the third volume of Guidance how much suffering we undergo in hell. We suffer here in so many ways, but sadhus, Gurus and Vaishnavs are very merciful—they come right to our door. These close associates of the Lord come and try to send us back to the Lord...

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