Embracing the Fortune

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Begampur, 7 March 2021, part 7

Question: What should be our consciousness when we go for Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama?

When you are doing parikrama, you must think that this land is not an ordinary land. 'Agartala' (আগরতলা) and 'Choukirtala' (চৌকির তলা) is not the same thing! [A Bengali saying meaning where is Agartala, a famous grand city, and where is 'the floor under your bed'?] This holy dham is a place where Mahaprabhu, the Lord Himself, appeared; this is an extremely pure land, non-different from Goloka Vrindavan.

We must always pay obeisance to all dham-basis and pray for their mercy, pray that we may not commit any offence to them ("dhama-basi jane pranati kariya magiba krpara lesa). We must not contaminate the holy abode.

How does one do the parikrama of a dham? On one's head. We must do parikrama with our heads. We must take the dust of the holy dham on our heads. All demigods reside here—Bhagavan Sri Krishna, Gauranga Mahaprabhu Himself joins this parikrama, Nityananda Prabhu and all other associates of Gauranga Mahaprabhu come for this parikrama, but we have no eyes to see that. Our eyes are always covered by the illusory environment, our eyes are full of illusory dust. We do not know anything, we cannot see anything, we cannot understand who and when comes to this parikrama—we cannot recognise what demigod, what devotee comes to this parikrama. We cannot recognise it when Mahaprabhu comes, when Srivas Pandit comes, when Advaita Acharya, Gadadhar Pandit and other devotees come. They all come to this parikrama, but we cannot recognise them. So, we must always pay our obeisance at all the places of the parikrama, and we must be always serious about Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama.

It is necessary to have this kind of consciousness. We must not do anything bad when we come to the dham. That is all there is to it.

[Addressing one of the devotees.] ...How is your preaching going? Try and try, and you will be successful. If you are to make one devotee, you have to shed gallons and gallons of blood. Do you think people come to this path so easily? Everybody is too much attached to their material life—all foreign countries are very materialistic, and India now also looks like that too. Anyhow, you must try to preach and recruit devotees. It is not easy, but you will try and try, and you will be successful. Try and try, you will successful. You can see my example. I preach village to village going door to door; on some days I go to 140 houses a day—I come and tell everyone to come and join Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama. I started preaching like this from my brahmachari life in 1992 when Gurudev sent me for village preaching, and I am still doing the same thing.

Practise properly. Everybody should practise properly. The problem is that we practise properly but then we sometimes also accept that which is unfavourable for devotion. There are six faults, six urges that we suffer from. Atyahara, people eat too much, keep too much money—if you always save money, it means you have no faith that Krishna will protect you. Money cannot save you. Prajalpa, we always talk and gossip.

Gurudev says that if you pour milk into a pot and see that the level of milk is slowly going down, it means there is a hole in the pot. So, you can practise properly following all rules and regulations, but if you also accept that which is not proper for practising life, then you will be reducing the result you get from your spiritual practice. That is why, it is necessary to practise properly. Practise properly accepting that which is favourable to devotion (bhakti-anukula karya) and reject that which is not favourable—we have to always reject and avoid such things. Always gossiping, always seeing others' faults and not seeing your own fault—this is a problem. Vaisnav habe adosa darasi. Vaishnavs will never see others' fault—they will always think about their own fault.

Question: Is Govinda Das who wrote Bhajahu re mana different from Govinda Das who was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's servitor?

Yes, they are different. Mahaprabhu's servitor is from Odissa, and the other Govinda Das is from Bardhaman District. Govinda Das who composed this song was a worshipper of Ma Kali before, and his brother worshipped the Lord. One day, when Govinda Das was offering a flower to Ma Kali, Ma Kali did not accept it and indicated that he had to worship her Lord instead. After that, he gave up worshipping Ma Kali and started to worship Lord Krishna composing this song, "Bhajahu re mana sri-nanda-nandana abhaya-charanaravinda re. O mind, serve the son of Nanda's lotus feet, which make one fearless."

Does anyone else have any questions?

Question: Can a person take initiation if they sell meat, etc.?

What to do? They can take the Holy Name and they must not eat the meat themselves. Sometimes somebody sells eggs, but as long as they do not kill animals, they can take initiation. If somebody kills animals (cut cows, goats, etc.), they should not take initiation—they are too sinful, and the Holy Name does not want to come to such people. If somebody finds himself in such a situation, they must cry out to the Lord, "O Lord please save me from this job!"

Many ladies come to take initiation but their husbands do not come to this line, and the ladies have to cook for them. Gurudev had one disciple whose husband would put meat in the fridge on ekadasi just out of spite. Moreover, when Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj, the founder of ISKCON preached abroad, he went to the USA alone—at first, when he stayed in the house of a non-devotee, he would cook something in the morning, take prasadam and then go out to preach the whole day, and he would keep some prasadam in the same fridge where the host kept cow's meat! Was his spiritual life destroyed by that? No, it was not. Srila Sridhar Maharaj said about him that he was a saktya-vesa avatar of Nityananda Prabhu! He gave him this title.

So, if somebody wants to come to this line, we must give them a chance to come. It is not easy to come to Krishna consciousness. Almost all foreigners who come used to eat cow's meat before, but look what service they do now! Can devotees from India serve like them? You must have seen at the Math how one sannyasi (although he is a sannyasi!) would come from abroad, get off the place, come to the temple and go to clean bathrooms. If I told some sweeper to clean the bathrooms, he would get upset, "You have taken my service from me!" They have this kind of attachment to service. Here in India nobody practises Krishna consciousness like they do. As they say, although the candle gives light, there is always darkness under the candle (pradiper niche andhakar, প্রদীপের নিচে অন্ধকার)...

Indian people do not understand so much and they do not come to this path so easily. I was asked about preaching recently, and I was saying that it is easy to preach to those who come from Christian or Muslim background, but it is very difficult to preach to those who come from Hindu background—people worship Durga, Kali, Laksmi, Ganesh, Kartik, Manasa, etc. Brahma took initiation from Krishna and then instructed many others, but all disciples are not the same, so if somebody does not hear one's guru properly, then some misconception starts spreading. Yet Brahma did what he was instructed to do by Krishna—he created this world according to that. So, people worship Kali, Durga, Laksmi, Ganesh, somebody is a kasatriya, somebody is a brahman, somebody is a vaisya, etc.

I have to go to Kolkata, Dum Dum Park today, so I would like to finish a little earlier, please forgive my offence. I am requesting everybody to participate in Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama. You must all contribute to your Nabadwip Dham Parikrama. You cannot come this year, but I do not want to stop your service to Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama because of that. If you contribute your service for Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama, I will be very happy and it will be good for you also. I will be thinking about you all every day, especially about Srila Ashram Maharaj, Srila Janardan Maharaj, Sripad Puri Maharaj... I have also invited ***, but I do not know if he will come or not. He told me he had not decided yet. I told him to please come, but anyhow, I do not want to give pressure to him because he is mature now, he is not below eighteen any more, he can do as he decides. I told him, "This is Gurudev's, Guru Maharaj's, and Srila Prabhupad's big festival, and you have an opportunity to come because you are in Vrindavan. You should come and join this parikrama..."

Srila Prabhupad told that secluded practice (nirjan bhajan) is mere self-deception (kevala kaitav, atma-vanchana). We sometimes want to practise in a secluded place (we want to go to some cave or stay in Vrindavan at Radha Kunda), but Srila Prabhupad says it is all self-deception.

vrndavane giya na thakiya chira kala
govardhane uthiya na dekhiya gopala

"When you go to Vrindavan, do not stay there for a long time and do not climb the Govardhan Hill to see Gopal."

But

কীর্ত্তন-প্রভাবে স্মরণ হইবে
সে কালে ভজন নির্জ্জন সম্ভব

kirtana-prabhave, smarana haibe,
se kale bhajana nirjjana sambhava

"Chanting of the Holy Name (kirtan) arouses remembrance (smarana), and at that time it becomes possible to practise nirjan-bhajan."

Vaishnav Ke? 19

When you practise remembering through kirtan, at that time you become a babaji and you can practise this privately, it is not a problem. However, Srila Prabhupad has given him an opportunity to preach. He has accepted sannyas life, and it is necessary to preach. You must preach what you have received—you have some knowledge and you must preach. Srila Sridhar Maharaj also went to Nandagram, stayed in Vrindavan, but when he later got a message from Srila Prabhupad, he left and came to Nabadwip. After that, one day he went to Ekachakra to beg Nityananda Prabhu for mercy, but Nityananda Prabhu told him, "You must first distribute the mercy, the wealth that you have got from Srila Prabhupad! First distribute what you have got!"

Anyhow, *** thinks that he is not a proper person to distribute, he feels he is not ready to distribute it. In another way it is good also—he is thinking in a very humble way, so it is OK, no problem...

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

[His Divine Grace then chants 'Sarvasva tomara charane sampiya' and 'Hari Haraye Krsna' and finishes the programme.]

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