Internal and External Struggles

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama, Mahadvadasi
Noon class, 25 March 2021, part 2
Translated from Bengali

bahu-dina tomara patha kari niriksana
kabe asi' madhava ama karibe sevana
tomara prema-vase kari' seva angikara
darsana diya nistariba sakala samsara

"For many days I have been observing you, and I have been wondering, 'When will Madhavendra Puri come here to serve Me?' I have accepted your service due to your ecstatic love for Me. Thus I shall appear, and by My audience all fallen souls will be delivered."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.4.39-40)

The Lord says, "Madhavendra, I have been waiting for you for so long!" You know, Srila Guru Maharaj has a book called 'Loving Search for the Lost Servant'—just as we are looking for the Lord, the Lord is also looking for us, His lost servants, everywhere. We were just singing in the kirtan, "Vaisnavi pratistha tate kara nistha (বৈষ্ণবী প্রতিষ্ঠা তাতে কর নিষ্ঠা). Firmly establish yourself as a servant of the Lord." If you do not do that, you will have to fall into a terrible hell...

I have just remembered something now. When we went to Mayapur on the first day of Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama, you were all in the bus and I was behind, in a car. The window in the car was open because I was looking and making sure everyone got on the bus, and I heard some woman say, "Sadhus must go on foot, why do they go in cars?" People are jealous and cannot tolerate it that sadhus go in a car. Such people are heading to hell. We have to return by car, otherwise you will not come back until very late at night. It would take you the whole day to return here, to Godrumdwip. We go by car for service. It is not necessary for anyone to say anything about that, it is an offence to do that.

It is written here that Srila Madhavendra Puri did not give any respect to pratistha, but pratistha ran behind him. He never wanted any name or fame, he actually ran away from Puri for fear of pratistha. Somebody wants to practise Krishna consciousness in seclusion thinking, "If I stay at the temple, I have to listen to others and do what they say, but I have some money—I can rent a room and chant the Holy Name on my own." This is called self-deception or simply cheating. It is mentioned in the kirtan 'Vaishnav ke' also. Many do not understand its meaning, and if we were to explain the entire poem, it would take a long time. I will only explain some of it briefly.

rada-dasye rahi chhada bhoga-ahi
pratisthasa nahe kirtana-gaurava
radha-nitya-jana taha chhadi mana
kena va nirjana-bhajana-kaitava

"If you stay with Radharani's servants, giving up the snake of enjoyment, for your own name and fame, it is not the real glorious kirtan. O mind, you leave the eternal associates of Radha, what is the use cheating with your solitary practice?"

hari-pada chhadi' nirjanata bari
labhiya ki phala, phalgu se vaibhava

"You leave the lotus feet of the Lord and stay alone at home, but what will you get by that? The result will be false."

People leave service to the Lord and decide to live alone, practising service through remembrance. When you live in a temple, you offer bhog to the Deities, and the Deities take it, and if you do not do it properly or timely, the Deities will have to fast and others will be telling you, "Hey, you are not serving the Deities properly! Hey, you have not offered the bhog! Hey, you have not woken up for the mangal arati!" So, many want to stay alone. If you stay at the temple, you must wake up early to do the mangal arati, you must cook and offer the bhog, you must do this service, that service, etc. and if you live alone, nobody will tell you what to do, so you think it is a better life, but this is not Krishna consciousness—this is 'Maya consciousness.'

vaisnavera dasa tava bhakti asa
kena va dakichha nirjana ahava

"O mind, if you are a servant of Vaishnavs and aspire for devotion, why are you then crying and fighting for solitude?"

ye phalgu-vairagi kahe nije tyagi
se na pare kabhu haite vaisnava

"Those who engage in false renunciation and call themselves taygi, can never become a Vaishnav."

If you give up everything—your parents, home, etc.—and live alone practising Krishna(?) consciousness, this is called false renunciation. Such false renunciates can never become Vaishnavs.

madhavendra-puri bhava-ghare churi
na karila kabhu sadai janaba

"Always remember that Madhavendra Puri never put on a show (lit. never stole from the house of transcendental feelings)."

Sahajiyas do that—they put on a show to impress others, "I have much renunciation!", "I have love and affection!", "I have Vaishnav qualities!" It is not necessary to give up pratistha to become a guru—if you can become a disciple, that is sufficient. If you think you must become a guru to practise Krishna consciousness, it is not so. What is your capacity? When you make a disciple, you take all their sins and carry this burden on your shoulders—are you capable of doing that? If you can hold this burden, then you can become a guru.

kirtana chhadiba pratistha magiba
ki kaja dhundiya tadrsa gaurava

"You give up kirtan and seek prestige and position, but what is the use of seeking such glory?"

Many chant kirtan to get name and fame. It is written here very beautifully,

matsarata-vase tumi jada-rase
ma'jechha chhadiya kirtana-sausthava

"You sink to endless jealousy and enjoyment of the material world, giving up the greatness of kirtan."

You are controlled by envy, enamoured by the opposite sex, and you are sitting showing you are mesmerised by kirtan...

kirtane yahara pratistha-sambhara
tahara sampati kevala kaitava

"If somebody does kirtan (chants the Holy Name, preaches, etc.) for their own name and fame, then the result is nothing but cheating."

When you chant kirtan, you get much name and fame, but such chanting has no value, there is no wealth in it. It is only self-deception. I told you the other day that people read Bhagavatam and charge money for it—they call it "bhagavat saptah" (professional seven-day-long reading of Bhagavatam as a way to earn money). Guru Maharaj and my Gurudev were absolutely against it. Such readers' wealth is only pratistha—they can never become Vaishnavs. Their 'wealth' is nothing but self-deception. It is necessary to practise proper renunciation. This is what we do. We left our houses, but we did not go to the jungle—if I had gone to the jungle and stayed alone, if Srila Sridhar Maharaj had gone to the jungle and stayed alone, then where would all these devotees be? Where would they come? To rescue all them, Srila Sridhar Maharaj made a small house and gradually established a temple there.

kanaka-kamini pratistha-baghini
chhadiyachhe yare, sei ta vaisnava
sei anasakta sei suddha bhakta
samsara tatha paya parabhava

"Those who give up money, women, and fame the tigress, are the true Vaishnavs—they are detached, they are pure devotees, and they can defeat the whole material world."

We must have no attachment.

'asakti-rahita,' 'sambandha-sahita,'
visaya-samuha sakali 'madhava'

When you are free from material attachment and establish relationship with the Lord, then you will see that everything around you is Lord Mādhav Himself.

There must be no attachment; but there must be knowledge of the relationship that everything in this world belongs to Madhava—everything is His property, His wealth.

Those who are possessed by envy and jealousy practise this kind of false life, but we pray to the Lord that we can tolerate all unhappiness, all austerities, all suffering.

তোমার সেবায় দুঃখ হয় যত,
সেও ত' পরম সুখ ।

tomara sevaya, duhkha haya yata,
seo ta' parama sukha

"All the distress I encounter in Your service is also my greatest happiness."

(Saranagati 16.4)

You must not just say this with our mouth. When you want to do some service, there will be a lot of obstacles—it is necessary to tolerate all difficulty. This is the highest happiness. If Gurudev gives you service, you must do that service, and when you do this service, you must work very hard, you must struggle, you must tolerate so much suffering. You cannot run away leaving this service. One day, Gurudev caught my hand and asked me, "So many difficulties will come, will you not run away?" I gave my word to Gurudev that I would not run away. I did not specifically promise it, but I told Gurudev, "I will not run away, I will stay here," and I keep my word.

I have come here now and they gave me such a hard time—before Gaura Purnima, they tried so hard to make so that I would not be able to make this festival and parikrama. But I did not accept it. They fight so much for money, they think I have so much money, but I do not have even fifty rupees! I spend everything for the devotees. They see the new buildings and think that I must have much money, but you will not get even ten rupees in my room—maybe only a mobile phone, and there is some petrol money for the car... There is nothing besides that, but so much austerity, so much danger and so many problems come...

At such times I remember the Lord and Prahlad Maharaj, "Prahlad Maharaj, when you tolerated so much austerity, why cannot I tolerate this little austerity? They threw you into fire, they threw you from a hill, they threw you into water. What worse austerity can there be? O Lord, if You give me more austerity, it is even better. The more austerity you give me, the more I will remember You. The more I suffer, the more I can think about You."

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