Rescue Programme

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Tarakeshwar Temple, evening class,
11 February 2021, part 5
Translated from Bengali

You bring people to your houses, pay them to do kirtans. So many have come and left, taking your money, but how much benefit have you got? If you do not do it yourself (if you do not chant yourself), what benefit is there in others chanting? If you eat, your stomach will be full—if I eat, will that fill your stomach? So, if I chant kirtan and go, what does it give to you? Tell me. Yet if you chant yourself, then you will get benefit. If I can chant, I will be happy. In the same way, if you chant, you will be happy.

One time, I went to Mednipore for preaching. I was a brahmachari (my name was Vinod Ranjan Brahmachari). When I came to one house, a man came out and said with folded palms, "Prabhu, we had a flood, I will not be able to help you." I replied to him, "I have not come to take help from you—I have come to help you." Saying again that he would not be able to give anything, he gave me a mat to sit on, and in the meantime, he went to climb a palm tree to pick a dub (green coconut) for me. I told him, "What? Later, later! First listen to Hari-katha!" I spoke Hari-katha, and as he listened to it, he started crying. After the class, he gave me the dub and some pranami. He went to his house and brought whatever rice he had kept in a clay pot, he put all rice into our bag. I told him, "Come for Nabadwip Dham parikrama." He said he would not be able to come that year, so he promised to come the next year. I told him how he would get money to get to Nabadwip. I told him, "It is all right, you do not need to give us anything. Only give us one handful of rice every day. Give us one handful of rice in the morning and in the evening. Your family cooks two kg rice every day, so take one handful of rice from there and keep it in a pot. I will come at the end of the year and collect it." By the end of the year, he had 36 kg rice. I still remember that rice was 57 or 54 rupees per kilo at that time. So, he would get 2,000 rupees for it. I told him to give 10 kg of that rice to the temple and sell the rest to come to the temple. He came to the Math, did the parikrama, and both the husband and the wife took initiation. They had two daughters, and one of them suffered from epilepsy (she would often lose consciousness). Gurudev put his hand on her head, and she recovered. Both girls later got married, their husbands work in the police. Now, they tell me, "Gurudev, why do you not come to our house any more?" I told them, "I came to your house and hijacked you. What is there to go there for now? You have come to serve the Lord now, so why will I go to your house? There is no need now." I still think like this—when somebody comes to serve the Lord (if they genuinely serve the Lord), there is no more need to go to their house to ask for potato, rice, etc. That family all got initiated in the end—the husband and the wife, then their daughters, and even their daughters' husbands.

This is our duty. We bring jiva souls who are averse to Lord Krishna to this line. It is necessary to bring such souls to this line. It all depends on one's fortune—some people can be very rich (some can have millions of rupees), but they cannot give anything to the Lord, and a poor person can give five kg rice or a sack of potato. Those who have nothing give potato—they go and pick potatoes! I went to one house the other day, they eagerly told me, "I will give two sacks of potato, I will go to pick it up just now!" There are four brothers in that household, two of them took initiation, their wives are also initiated. I had a programme at their house, and I saw they were doing well. They have given everything up. They gave up bidi, cigarettes, tea, etc. Everyone has taken initiation now. We did a programme at their house in the evening, and he bought so many plates and pots—he refused to borrow from other houses or the temple, and he went to town and bought everything for the programme. Such are devotees. It is necessary to practise Krishna consciousness.

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