No Pain, No Gain

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama, Day Four
Evening class, 27 March 2021, part 4
Translated from Bengali

You have all done this Nabadwip Dham parikrama very well, and many of you also have come for the Gaura Purnima festival itself. The Lord will bestow His mercy on you.

The parikrama went very well and very beautifully. Whatever austerity, whatever difficulty there is, why will we stop? We have got this opportunity to do the parikrama, we must appreciate it. I only feel pain because some devotees came and left early. Maya (illusory) is so powerful.

This year, a group of devotees came from Tarakeshwar. Usually they cannot come because it is the potato harvest time, but this year the parikrama is later, so they could come. However, two days after they came, they started worrying so much about their houses, they said they had to go to husk mustard... Engrossed in the material world, we are so deeply attached to the material things that we cannot give our mind to the service of the Lord even for seven days. They cannot even do the parikrama for five days! There are 365 days in a year, but they cannot give even five days of their time to the Lord. The parikrama is over today, and they have already got their tickets for tomorrow. They are running away at once. What can one say? Many ladies have to stay with their husbands, sons—if they do not come back quickly, their family can kick them out. If they kick you out, well and good—you can come here then, and you will see that after a while they will come running here to bring you back. Sometimes, you must teach them a lesson also. You can tell your husbands, "I want to take a holiday for five-six days," but then you are thinking there would be nobody to cook for them, that they would suffer—you become a maid of your family, and because of them you cannot even come to do the parikrama of the holy dham. Some worry that they will not get a train, so they want to leave early in the morning. I have stopped some, but some have left. People are so attached to their material things... They worry that they will suffer some loss. If the Lord wants it, you can stay the whole year at home and suffer loss, and if the Lord does not want it, then even you stay here, your life will be complete in every respect—there will be no loss, no harm. Everything happens by His will. Every action happens by His will. Nothing can happen without His desire.

I have seen this in my own life, I have seen this in Gurudev's life also. When my Gurudev came to the temple, he used to work and earn twenty rupees a month. His father had left his body and Gurudev supported his mother and two brothers (one was seven, the other one was three) with that money. When Gurudev left, they became beggars. One day, they came to Srila Sridhar Maharaj with folded palms and crying bitterly. Gurudev was sitting outside as the security guard of the temple. His mother was crying so much, but he still did not go. Srila Sridhar Maharaj told them, "Your son does not want to go. Why are you trying to take him forcefully? What will he go to that house for? As I understand, you are lacking food and clothes now. How much money did he give you?" They said that Gurudev used to earn twenty rupees, and Srila Sridhar Maharaj said then, "All right, twenty rupees will be sent to you every month. Is there anything else you want?" They said no, it is OK. Then, Gurudev's elder brother started working, and the younger brother came to the temple also, Srila Sridhar Maharaj trained him as a brahmachari, but he did not stay at the temple. Srila Sridhar Maharaj warned him, "If you stay, it will be good for you, otherwise if you leave, you will suffer." He went back home and ended up in some scrape. Now he is dead, and his wife was also sick and suffered. They did not listen to Srila Sridhar Maharaj. The other brother who got a job lived a good life. So, when Gurudev left, nothing happened to the family, they all continued to live and managed.

When I left home and came to the temple, they told me, "He is a highly educated boy, but now he has become crazy! He is now wearing tilaks, beads and roams around as a sadhu. He is crazy. He had a good job, but he has left his parents!" Those who criticised me in this way, died without any food in their house. They did not even have anything to eat. That was their situation. All my brothers got a share of the family land (about four-five acres each), they could have cultivated the land and live off that. We have a devotee who has his own land and cultivates it—he works in the field like an ass the whole day, but they have food, the Lord provides everything. On the other hand, we have eleven acres of land in Hapaniya, and there are two people who cultivate it, but they still cannot manage the temple—I have to send money to the Hapaniya temple. They could be cultivating the land (it is eleven acres!) and manage the temple with that money and produce, and also send the money to me... So, those who cultivate land know it very well that unless you toil yourself nothing will appear on its own. It is necessary to toil yourself. When I lived in Nabadwip, I cultivate enormous land (about thirty-one acre)—I had wheat, sesame, and mustard planted. Mostly, the profit from all this was straw for the cows, nothing else.

So, if we serve the Lord, if we stay with the Lord, if we always think about the Lord, if we have faith in the Lord, then we can be successful. All scriptures say that faith is the main thing.

'শ্রদ্ধা' শব্দে—বিস্বাস কহে সুদৃঢ় নিশ্চয় ।
কৃষ্ণে ভক্তি কৈলে সর্ব্বকর্ম্ম কৃত হয় ॥

'sraddha'-sabde—visvasa kahe sudrdha nischaya
krsne bhakti kaile sarva-karma krta haya

"Sraddha is firm, determined faith that by service to Krishna all actions are accomplished."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 22.62)

Your debt to your father, mother, rishis (sages), demigods—all debts are cleared if you serve the Lord. The problem is that we do not have faith in what we say, we do not have faith in what the scriptures say.... I was telling you today—they placed the dead body of a dead boy on a raft and let it float down the river, then Saranga Thakur spoke a mantra into the dead boy's ear, and the boy came to life. He had faith. Mayavadis (materialists who deny that the Lord has a personality) do not have any faith in the Holy Name, then they will not see these things...

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