Enter Auspicious Life

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kolkata-Worldwide, 18 April 2021, part 3

Always attend to service, that is the main thing. Service is our vow. I will explain what service means. If you make your Guru, Vaishnavs, and Bhagavan happy with your activity, that is called seva. Our intention, our strongest desire should be to please our Guru, Vaishnavs, and Bhagavan (the Lord) in whichever possible way, then it will be seva. Otherwise, if you do something but it does not please your Guru, Vaishnavs, and Bhagavan, then it is not seva. You must think about it in that way. Whatever you do, you must please your Guru, Vaishnav, and Bhagavan with that. You should understand this, this is very important.

Srila Ashram Maharaj, you will not believe it. There is an unbelievable situation in Vrindavan! The BJP government of UP (Uttar Pradesh, including Vrindavan, Govardhan) gives special cards for all the sadhus who live in temples, and with this card all the sadhus can use the local train, bus, etc. without any fare, for free. You can also get a local ration with that card—the government gives rice, dal, wheat, etc. And if you have a cow, the government gives 900 rupees per month for the cow. This time I saw there were not so many street cows—the government took all cows and made a huge goshala for them, they are giving many jobs to the local people and they are looking after the cows nicely. So many auspicious things are going on there now. And both Vrindavan and Govardhan are very clean. They have made big roads. It is very nice. Radha Kunda and other place are maintained very nicely. There are CCTV cameras on all streets in Vrindavan, Govardhan, including all the parikrama path. Everything is fine and very nice in Vrindavan and Govardhan now. The municipality takes care of so many things. The streets are not dirty. There used to be so much monkey stool everywhere, but now the government cleans the streets from time to time.

Question: We hear that we must serve Bhagavatam every day, and Bhagavatam means a devotee-Bhagavatam and the scripture-Bhagavatam. So if we do our daily service and do not have time to study the scriptures, how then can we fulfil our commitment to doing both?

If you have permission from your Guru, you can read Bhagavatam, but you must first take shelter at the lotus feet of Gurudev. "Bhagavata pada Vaisnavera sthane, ekanta asraya kara Chaitanya-charane (ভাগবত পড় বৈষ্ণবের স্থানে, একান্ত আশ্রয় কর চৈতন্য-চরণে). Read Bhagavatam under guidance of a Vaishnav and take exclusive shelter of the lotus feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu." You must read Bhagavatam under the guidance of a bona fide Guru. You must first take Mahaprabhu's shelter, and Mahaprabhu means Mahaprabhu's devotee. Mahaprabhu comes to this world along with His associates and His holy abode ("svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatara").

তব নিজ-জন কোন মহাজনে
পাঠাইয়া দিলে তুমি ।

tava nija-jana kona mahajane
pathaiya dile tumi

You have sent a great soul, Your associate (to rescue me).

দয়া করি' মোরে পতিত দেখিয়া
কহিল আমারে গিয়া ।

daya kari more patita dekhiya
kahila amare giya

Seeing me so fallen and being merciful, he came to me and said....

Mahaprabhu Himself sends His associate, His own person to this world as a guru, and you must take shelter of that guru, then you can understand everything. First saranagati is necessary.

Srimad Bhagavatam says you must read Srimad Bhagavatam, Srimad Bhagavad-gita says you must read Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita says you must read Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata says you must read Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata. Yes, Srimad Bhagavatam is the main scripture, but if you read it, you will not be able to understand everything. Our guru-varga has written many books extracting the main slokas of Srimad Bhagavatam, Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita—you can take those books and read them, then you can easily understand everthying. If you start from Srimad Bhagavatam, you will not understand anything because when you come to study, you must start from the primary level, then proceed on to the secondary, higher secondary, then college, and then university level. Srimad Bhagavatam is university level. First learn from the primary level. Read Srimad Bhagavad-gita. You can read it, you can learn from there, then gradually you will understand everything easily.

Another thing is that the main purport of Srimad Bhagavatam is "Jive daya, Name ruchi, Vaishnava seva." You should engage yourself in preaching. "Kiniba, lutiba—I will take and I will give it to others." It means you must take shelter of a bona fide Guru, receive the seed of the Holy Name from your Guru, then you must chant the Holy Name and you must distribute this Holy Name to others also. You must do service yourself, and you must engage others in service too. That is called jive daya. You are serving Gurudev, you are serving the Lord, and you must also engage others in the service to your Gurudev and the Lord. You are chanting the Holy Name, and you must also engage others in chanting the Holy Name, engage others in the Lord's service. This should be your main vision. Name ruchi means you will chant, chant, chant, and then, when your offences are removed through continuous chanting, you will get real taste (ruchi). If you chant one-two times, you may not get any taste, you may think it is bitter, but it is necessary to chant, chant, and chant without offence, then taste will come. Vaishnav-seva means Bhagavad seva. Vaishnavs are non-different from the Bhagavatam scripture.

So you understand what I am saying? First it is necessary to surrender (saranagati), you must take shelter of a bona fide guru, it is necessary to have the strongest faith in your Guru, after that you must practise with strongest faith, and not just for one day—we must practise everyday. We must offer bhog every day. We always sing,

প্রসাদ-সেবা করিতে হয়
সকল প্রপঞ্চ জয়

prasada-seva karite haya,
sakala prapancha jaya

By honouring the Lord's prasadam I conquer over all worldly illusions.

'Suddha-bhakata' by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur

Prasad-seva means you must take prasadam otherwise you eat something, go to the toilet, and everything is finished at that, but if you take prasadam, it removes all prapancha, all diseases. We have five kinds of diseases—avidya (ignorance), asmita (false identification), raga (misdirected love), dvesa (aversion to anything that goes against one's enjoyment), and abhinivesa (being unable to give up unfavourable habits). How can you remove all these diseases? By taking prasadam.

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