(1/5) Self-Deception

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Tarakeshwar area, 11 February 2021, part 1

গৃহে থাক, বনে থাক, সদা হরি বলে’ ডাক ।
সুখে দুঃখে ভুলো নাক, বদনে হরিনাম কর রে ॥

grhe thaka, vane thaka, sada ‘hari’ bale’ daka
sukhe duhkhe bhulo naka, vadane harinama kara re

‘Whether you live at home or in a forest, always call out to the Supreme Lord. In happiness and in sadness, do not forget it: loudly chant the Lord’s Names.’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You must chant the Holy Name both when you are happy and when you are unhappy. When you go to hospital, you are sad and call out to the Lord, ‘O Lord, please save me!’ But you must chant the Holy Name always, both when you are happy and unhappy.

maya-jale baddha ha’ye, achha michhe kaja la’ye
ekhana-o chetana peye, radha-madhava-nama bala re

‘Bound in Maya’s net, you waste your time on useless work. While you are still conscious, chant Radha-Madhav’s Names!’

(Sri Gitavali, Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur)

You cannot come to the Lord through any material activities, mystic powers or knowledge. Bound by the net of illusory environment, you simply spend your days working in vain…

Maya (the illusory world) is created by the Lord. It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita:

দৈবী হ্যেষা গুণময়ী মম মায়া দুরত্যয়া ।
মামেব যে প্রপদ্যন্তে মায়ামেতাং তরন্তি তে ॥

daivi hy esa gunamayi mama maya duratyaya
mam eva ye prapadyante mayam etam taranti te

‘My supramundane trimodal illusory potency (alluring those who are averse to Me) is extremely difficult to overcome. However, this insurmountable potency of Mine can be overcome by those who exclusively surrender to Me.’

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 7.14)

Created by the Lord, Maya keeps us away from Him. We are all actually relatives – we are all sons of nectar. We have come from the Lord, and until and unless we return to our home, we will keep coming to this world again and again: some time we will get a human birth, some time we will get other births. It is said in the scriptures:

জলজা নবলক্ষাণি স্থাবরা লক্ষবিংশতি
কৃময়োরুদ্রসঙ্খ্যকাঃ পক্ষিণাং দশলক্ষনম্
ত্রিংশললক্ষাণি পশবঃ চতুরলক্ষাণি মানুষাঃ

jalaja nava-laksani sthavara laksa-vimsati
krmayo rudra-sankhyakah paksinam dasa-laksanam
trimsal-laksani pasavah chatur-laksani manusah

‘There are 900,000 aquatic species; 2,000,000 nonmoving living entities (trees, plants, etc.); 1,100,000 species of insects and reptiles; 1,000,000 species of birds; 3,000,000 species of beasts; and 400,000 species of humans.’

(Sri Padma Purana, Sri Vishnu Purana)

I spoke about it yesterday. We have crossed 8,400,000 births before getting this human birth. Among those 8,400,000 births, we have been born 400,000 times as humans. When sadhus give you their asirbad (blessing), it means that they give you a blessing so that your coming to this world (asir) stops (bada) – so that you do not again become cows, cats, dogs, snakes and frogs (there are so many species of trees, plants and animals). Sadhus give their blessings so that your coming and going throughout all these species comes to an end. As I have started saying, we have been born 400,000 times as humans, 3,000,000 times as animals, 1,100,000 times as insects, spiders, etc., 900,000 times as species living in water, 2,000,000 times as trees and hills, and 1,000,000 times as birds flying in the sky. So, it is great fortune for us to have got this human birth. All scriptures describe this human birth as a very rare achievement.

Although there are many kinds of people in this world, the number of insects and animals is so much more than that – in other words, the number of human species is very small compared to all the other species. Among these various human species, many people say that they follow the Vedas (some follow Rig Veda, some follow Sama Veda, some follow other Vedas), but although they say that, they actually do what is prohibited by the Vedas. For example, none of the Vedas say that we must kill other living entities. Even Muslim people say in the Quran that you can kill a living entity only if you can give life to another living entity. Can anyone give life to others? Nobody can because it is the soul that keeps the body alive…

So, we have got this human birth, but this life is coming to an end and it can end at any time: ’Jivana haila sesa, na bhajile hrsikesa (জীবন হইল শেষ, না ভজিলে হৃষীকেশ). Your life is ending, but you have not served Lord Hrishikesh’ (Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur). Do you think that you will get a notice when the time comes for you to leave? Pariksit Maharaj got a notice that he would die in seven days, but it is a rare incident – we are not as fortune as he is.

You have promised that you will serve and worship the Lord, but I have heard that people come to your house to do kirtan for money. What use is that? We do not come here to chant kirtan – we come to make you chant kirtan. Coming to this house again and again, we have managed to make one person practise kirtan here. Now only this lady here is left – she promised that when her son got married, she would take initiation.

The lady: Yes, when the grandchildren are born, I will do it.

Now grandchildren! Do you think that if you chant the Holy Name, you will not have grandchildren? Do those who chant the Holy Name have no grandchildren?! So many excuses! That is why it is said that people have three hands – these two hands here (hata, হাত), and the third one is excuses (ajuhata, অজুহাত). People say, ‘Oh, I cannot chant the Holy Name.’ But the problem is that you do not want to chant the Holy Name, that is why you are not able to chant it. You must try, but the problem is that you do not want to chant.

I told one person whose health is not so good: come to the temple, and your health will come right. If you need money to support your family, I will give it to you. There are four floors at the temple, you can stay in a room on one of the floors and look after the floor, take care of the cows. But they think, ‘I will not be able to drink tea there’, ‘I will not be able to smoke there’, ‘I will not be able to eat fish there.’ They worry about all this. If you want to attain great things, you must give up small things…

— : • : —

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Length: 22 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Self-Deception
2) Think About Lord
3) Stay Away From Nonsense
4) Delay No More
5) Pastimes of Lord Siva