Regulated Life

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Basirhat, noon programme, 28 February 2021, part 8
Translated from Bengali

[Distracted by something, His Divine Grace comments:] People are so worried about the vaccine now. Some disease comes, they create a vaccine; another disease comes, they again have to create another vaccine. They spend their entire life only talking and thinking about vaccine, vaccine, vaccine; yet you will not hear "Hare Krishna" come out of their mouth even once...

দৈন্য, আত্মনিবেদন, গোপ্তৃত্বে বরণ ।
'অবশ্য রক্ষিবে কৃষ্ণ'—বিশ্বাস পালন ॥
ভক্তি-অনুকূল মাত্র কার্য্যের স্বীকার ।
ভক্তি-প্রতিকূল ভব—বর্জ্জনাঙ্গীকার ॥

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
'avasya raksibe krsna'—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

"Humility, self-submission, embracing the Lord's guardianship, maintaining the faith that 'Krishna will certainly protect me', engaging only in activities that are favourable to devotion, rejecting everything unfavourable to devotion."

(Saranagati, 1)

We must do that which is favourable to devotion. You must listen to this carefully. If you listen once nicely and remember it, then you will get a good result. What do you do? You do what is favourable and at the same time you also do what is unfavourable to devotion. People say, "I will eat meat, and I will chant the Holy Name!" It is the same as saying, "I will drink liquor, and I will take medicine!" Will your disease be cured like that? It will not. Suppose you have a problem with bloating or gas in the stomach—if you continue eating spicy food, chilli, etc. thinking, "It is OK, I will take medicine," will that remove your illness? Suppose you have blood sugar—you take medicine and you also eat sweets and potato. Will that help you? It will not. So, when the doctor tells you, "Do not eat this, do not do this, this, and this," you must follow this advice and take medicine. Our medicine is chanting the Holy Name, and we must follow a wholesome, healthy 'diet'.

You think that you can chant the Holy Name and eat meat, but,

অসাধুসঙ্গে ভাই কৃষ্ণনাম নাহি হয় ।

নামাক্ষর বাহিরায় বটে তবু নাম কভু নয় ॥

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

"Brother, the Name of Krishna never appears in bad association: the letters of the Name may appear, but the Name never does."

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 7.1)

What you chant may sound like "Hare Krishna," but it is not the Holy Name proper. It is said in the scriptures that we must do that which is favourable to devotion and we must reject that which is unfavourable to devotion.

When you come to a doctor, the doctor will tell you, "Do not eat this." Depending on your disease, the doctor will give recommendations and prescribe the medicine. If you have blood sugar, the doctor will prescribe one medicine; if you have some other disease, the doctor will prescribe another medicine, etc. Why do people these days have a heart attack at a very young age? It means they eat too much oily or fried food, too much paneer, etc. and their cholesterol goes high. People do not walk, do not exercise, do not work hard. This is how cholesterol increases and people end up having a stroke or a heart attack. Anyhow, if you come to a doctor and the doctor gives you recommendations and prescribes medicine, but you do not follow all this properly, if you do not understand the importance of following what the doctor says, then you will end up doing both what is favourable and what is unfavourable. Suppose you are doing a yajna—you are putting ghee into the fire and then you put some water into the fire. You will not be able to do any yajna in this way. So, you think, "I will eat everything," but you all know that every action has an equal opposite reaction, so that which you are eating in this birth will later eat you.

I have told this to you all before. If I were to come here to Basirhat and tell everyone, "Eat whatever your soul wants! Drink liquor! Smoke ganja! Do whatever you want!" then you will see so many people will come to take initiation. There is a system, and it is necessary to follow the system. The scriptures say that when such do-whatever-you-like gurus take disciples, then both the guru and the disciples go to hell. This is written Srimad Bhagavatam. Such gurus clear your path to hell. This is called sahajiya.

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