(13/13) Start From Tongue

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Tarakeshwar, 10 February 2021, part 13

The soul’s duty is to serve Paramatma. The tongue wants to eat fish, meat, chickens, goats, cats, dogs and other things. Everyone eats whatever they want according to their fortune. For example, pigs eat stool – they eat what humans discard as filth. In some countries, people eat dogs, snakes and frogs. We eat vegetable pakoras, but somebody else eats cockroach pakoras. Some eat earthworms, some eat snakes, some eat frogs. Even in our country, many people eat frogs. People even eat mice. When I worked in the field, I noticed people looking for something in the field – it turned out that they were looking for mice. Such are the people in this world.

শরীর অবিদ্যা-জাল, জড়েন্দ্রিয় তাহে কাল,
জীবে ফেলে বিষয়-সাগরে ।

sarira avidya-jala, jadendriya tahe kala,
jive phele visaya-sagare

‘This body is a net of ignorance, and the material senses are the cause of its ruin because they throw the soul into the ocean of material life.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

There are material senses of perception and action (karmendriya): feet, hands, rectum, genitals, mouth; and material senses through which we acquire knowledge (jnanendriya): eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, mind, intelligence, ego. The mind always wants something, but you can say, ‘No, I will not eat fish and meat from today.’ Why is it so hard? What loss is there for you if you do it? There is no loss, but people say, ‘Oh, I will die if I do not eat fish and meat.’ This is a very bad mentality. If your intelligence is bad, you cannot control your mind. It is said that the tongue throws us into the ocean of material life, so if you cannot control your tongues, you will not be able to control anything. It is necessary to always control the tongue. That is why when you come to Gaudiya Math, the first and foremost rule you face is that you must control your diet. That is also why there are so few disciples, or devotees, in this line. If I were to say, ‘Eat whatever you like’, a thousand people would come to take initiation, but there is no use taking initiation like this. Both those who receive such an initiation and those who give such an initiation will go to hell. Always control your food – do not eat meat, fish, onion, garlic, masoori dal (lentils).

You invite aul, baul, kartabhaja, nera, darvesh, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, atibari, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari people to your house, you spend money and feed people, but you do this only for name and fame. 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)

You can see here also that when you make a festival, so many people come – how many people come to hear the class and how many people come to eat? People come as beggars for food (bhojan), not as beggars for Krishna consciousness (bhajan)… If you come and listen to the class, if you come to this line, become vegetarian, follow ekadasi, chant the Holy Name and practise Krishna consciousness, then it is good. But people do not do this. It is said in the scriptures, ‘Among ten million workers you will find one wise person; among ten million wise people you will find one liberated soul; and among million liberated souls you will find only one devotee of Krishna.’ Among thousands of Vaishnavs, there may be only one devotee of Krishna. There are very few devotees of Krishna, but just one such devotee of Krishna can liberate the entire universe. The people of this world cannot understand this, so they keep coming to this world. What can we do?

We are told so many times that we are all children of nectar and that we all must go to nectar. We have got this human birth, and it is not certain whether we will ever get it again. If we live this life doing wrong things – eating meat, fish, onion, garlic, masoori dal (lentils) and other bad things – we will have to go down again (we will be demoted). When you work, you can be promoted and you can also be demoted: if you work well, you get promoted, and if you work bad, you get demoted. It is the same here. We have got this human birth from the Lord having previously crossed so many births, but if we get this human birth and do not practise Krishna consciousness (do not serve the Lord), we will have to go back to all those species again.

People always make all kinds of excuses. For example, some say that if a girl takes initiation, she will not be able to get married. Nobody knows when your destiny will call you (when the time will come for you to leave this world). You have so many plans, ‘I will do this’, ‘I will do that’, but tomorrow you can go to ‘pick patol’ (kick the bucket). What will you say then? [His Divine Grace chuckles.] Gurudev told me, ‘People think that they will do so many things, but they can never be sure that they will not go to pick patol (kick the bucket) the next day.’

Anyway, much has been said today…

[His Divine Grace chants ‘Hari Haraye Nama Krsna’ and recites Sri Jaya Dhvani, concluding the evening class.]

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Length: 92 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Always Practise Devotion
2) Pure Devotional Life (1)
3) Pure Devotional Life (2)
4) Detach and Immerse Yourself
5) Earn Qualification
6) Humble Heartfelt Plea
7) Quality and Qualification
8) Devotional Depth
9) Surrender and Practise
10) Cut Off Material Attachment
11) Bogus Kirtan – Bogus Devotion
12) Embracing Controlled Life
13) Start From Tongue