GUIDANCE

Issue# 10

Lectures of His Divine Grace

Om Vishnupad Jagad Guru Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj

published at SCSMathInternational.com during January-March 2017

CONTENT

Vaishnava-Vandana: Service Track

28 February 2012

"Samsara-davanala" is Guru-vandana. Whose vandana do we do after Guru-vandana? Our line is Guru, Vaishnav, Bhagavan. Do you say Bhagavan, Vaishnav, Guru? No, it is Guru, Vaishnav, Bhagavan. So, after the Guru-vandana goes Vaishnav-vandana. This is how you must practise, this is the line you must follow. What happen if you do not follow the line? What happens if the train goes off the track? The train will fall upside down. There are many buses on the street, but if I am going to Nabadwip, I need to take the bus that goes to Nabadwip. If I go to Vrindavan, I must take the train that goes to Vrindavan. You must get on the right train. So,

bhaja re bhaja re amar mana ati manda

(bhajan vina gati nai re)

(ohe amar mudha-mana bhajan vina gati nai re)

(bhaja) vraja-vane radha-krsna-charanaravinda [1]

(jnana-karma parihari' re)

(suddha raga-patha dhari' jnana-karma parihari' re)

Serve! Serve! My mind is so foolish. There is no way other than service! O my foolish mind! There is no way other than service. Serve Radha-Krsna's lotus feet in Vrndavan. Abandon worldly knowledge and action! Follow the path of divine love and abandon worldly knowledge and action!

What does it say? Jnana-karma parihari. It says you must give up karma. Does it mean you must give up your job, you must stop cooking, eating, etc.? What does it mean? You must understand what karma is. If you cook for yourself, this is karma; if you cook something and offer it to Govinda, this is seva (service). What happens when you do karma? You become bound by that karma. Suppose two brothers go to the market. Why do they go shopping? One brother says, "I have parents, children, their families at home, and I need to get some fruit, vegetables, etc. for them." The other brother says, "I have Gopal (Govinda) at home, and I am doing the shopping for Him." One is karma, one is seva. When a cat catches a mouse and carries it in its mouth, what does it do it for? For its own food, for pleasure. But when the same cat is carrying its own kitten in its mouth, does it do it to eat the kitten? No. It is carrying it and looking where to keep the kitten, how to protect it, etc. One is karma, one is seva.

atmendriya-priti-vancha—tare bali ‘kama'

krsnendriya-priti-ichchha dhare 'prema' nama

"The desire to gratify one's own senses is kama (lust), but the desire to please the senses of Lord Krishna is prema (love)."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 4.165)

When you do something for your own pleasure, it is called kama, desire for enjoyment, lust, it is pleasure-seeking. When you do something for the Lord, it is called prema (love), or devotion.

So, again, what happens when you do karma? You become bound by the karma, and what is the result of the bondage of karma? Suffering in hell. So, jnana-karma parihari—give up knowledge, give up karma.

(bhaja) gaura-gadadhara-advaita-guru-nityananda

(gaura-krsne abhed jene)

(guru krsna-priya jene gaura-krsne abhed jene re)

srinivasa, haridasa, murari, mukunda [2]

(gaura-preme smara smara re)

(srinivasa, haridase, gaura-preme smara smara re)

Serve Gauranga, Gadadhar, Advaita, Nityananda, and Sri Guru. Know that Gauranga and Krsna are nondifferent, and that Sri Guru is Krsna's dear devotee. Remember Srivas Thakur, Hari Das Thakur, Murari Gupta, and Mukunda Datta. With love for Gauranga, always remember them. With love for Gauranga, remember Srivas Thakur and Hari Das Thakur.

rupa-sanatana-jiva-raghunatha-dvandva

(yadi bhajan karbe re)

(rupa-sanatane smara yadi bhajan karbe re)

Remember Rupa Goswami, Sanatan Goswami, Jiva Goswami, Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, and Raghunath Das Goswami. If you want to serve, then remember Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatan.

Remember Rupa and Sanatan. Why? To to be able to do service.

Jiva Goswami Prabhu served twenty-two and a half hours a day, and he used the remaining one and a half hours to sleep, eat, go to the bathroom, etc. How much service he did! There are eight divisions (asta-prahara) in a day, four at night and four in the day time, and he served his Guru during seven and a half of these praharas. But we do the opposite—we do service one and a half hours and sleep for twenty-two and a half hours. If you want to serve, you must remember Rupa-Sanatan and Jiva-Raghunath (Raghunath Das Goswami Prabhu served Svarup Damodar and Jiva Goswami Prabhu served Rupa Goswami Prabhu). If you remember how much they served, you will be able to serve them.

Mahaprabhu sent Rupa and Sanatan to Vrindavan, because He loved them so much, but everybody thinks, "Oh, Mahaprabhu sent Rupa and Sanatan to Vrindavan, there is so much austerity there, it is so hot and so cold there!" If I send now somebody to Siliguri, they will say, "Oh, it is a very bad place!" If I send them to Bamunpara, "Oh, it is a very bad place!" Even if I send them to Ekachakra, they will say, "No, it is a very bad place, it is too hot there, and there is no internet, no electricity, nothing!" What internet was there in Jiva Goswami Prabhu's time? I told once an Indian sannyasi to stay in some place and preach, but he said, "Oh, there is no internet there, and it is too hot there!" What can I do? They think I do not like them... In Ekachakra, for example, so many new visitors come there every day, may a thousand a day—if you just sit there and preach, going to Tarapith and Ekachakra from time to time, it is sufficient for the whole Bengal.

Mahaprabhu once told Gadadhar Pandit,

"Stay in Puri."

Gadadhar Pandit answered, "I will stay with You!"

"You want to stay with Me because when I am preaching, they are giving Me so much food, and you probably want to take good food! No, you must stay in Puri and do Gopinath's service!"

"If I see Your lotus feet one time, it is equal to a million times of Gopinath's service!" answered Gadadhar Pandit.

Gadadhar Pandit is expert, he is a scholar (pandit), and Mahaprabhu understood, "If I talk with him and fight with him further, I will lose, I cannot compete with him." Finally, Mahaprabhu closed his mouth and said, "Do not say anything more. You stay here, otherwise if you go with Me it will be seva aparadh. Go and serve there." Then, Mahaprabhu took a boat and left. As soon as Mahaprabhu took the boat, separation came to Gadadhar Pandit and he fainted.

What is service? Gurudev says you must stay wherever your service is, even if it is a jungle, it is not a question. If there is no service in some place, what will you stay there for? You have no interest there.

So, if you want to do service, who should you remember? Rupa, Sanatan and Jiva, Raghunath.

raghava-gopala-bhatta-svarupa-ramananda [3]

(krsna prema yadi chao re)

(svarupa-ramanande smara krsna-prema yadi chao re)

Remember Raghava Pandit, Gopal Bhatta Goswami, Svarup Damodar, and Ramananda Ray. If you want Krishna-prema, then remember Svarup Damodar and Ramananda Ray.

gosthi-saha karnapura sena-sivananda

(ajasra smara smara re)

(gosthi-saha sena sivanande ajasra smara re)

rupanugasadhu-janabhajana-ananda [4]

(vraje vas yadi chao re)

(rupanuga sadhu-jane smara vraje vas yadi chao re)

Remember Kavi Karnapur, Sivananda Sen, and their family. Always remember them! Always remember Sivananda Sen and his family. Remember the sadhus who follow Sri Rupa and the joy they feel in their service. If you want to reside in Vraja, then remember the sadhus who follow Sri Rupa.

* * *

Been There, Heard That

28 February 2012

In 1940, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj was the president of the Devananda Gaudiya Math here in Nabadwip, and in those day nobody used to come to the class—they would almost all come to the temple library and read the books on their own. Some brahmachari would say, "What will I hear at the class? They say one and the same thing every day, every sannyasi says the same thing—I am not this body, I am atma. I know all this! Why will I go to the class?" I always tell about this example. Gurudev also said, "I cannot put water in a glass with a hole. I can only pour water into a perfect glass." There is also a story, a very good example:

There was a simple-living, high-thinking sadhu who always sat in one place doing bhajan. One day, one man decided to see that sadhu. The man some ego, "That man is giving lecture, he is teaching everybody, but I know what he knows! I know everything. Let me go and test him!" So, the man, suited-booted (wearing a coat, pants, a tie), came there, sat on a chair and said to the sadhu, "Sadhu! I have heard that you have so much knowledge. Can you teach me something of your knowledge?" The sadhu understood that the man had not come in a surrendered mood, that he had come to test or play a trick on him, and sat there without saying anything.

(Tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya. Three things are necessary—surrender, honest enquiry, and service. This is the proper way to approach the Guru.)

So, what did the sadhu do in the end? He brought a glass with water and a jug with sweet water and put them on the table in front of the man, and then started pouring sweet water into the glass full of water. The water started falling from the glass, and the man exclaimed, "Hey, sadhu, what are you doing?! I heard you had so much knowledge, but you are behaving like a fool! The glass is full of water, what are putting more water into it for?? What is this?!" The sadhu replied, "What can I do, baba? You are full of knowledge inside and have no place to take my knowledge. If I give you some knowledge, where will you keep it?"

If you have some ego, if you think, "I know so much, I know everything," you cannot accept any knowledge. If you come to your Gurudev thinking, "I know more than the Guru," then you will not be able to take anything from your Guru. It is necessary to have humility. You must think about this.

* * *

Service Will Take You Home

28 February 2012

Others cook for their pleasure, but from today you must cook and offer bhog to the Lord. Do this, all right? Do the service of the Lord.

There is somebody (Krishna's assistant Chitragupta) who is always writing a diary for you, always writing down what service you have done. Your service will take you to your own place, nothing else, only your service can take you there. By service you can go back to the Lord's own home.

This house is not your house. Where is home? You have lost your address and I have come to take you to your own home. In the place where I have come from, the Lord is crying there for us—for us, His lost children. Here, some have come from Midnapore, some have come from Nabadwip, some have come from London, some have come from America, but we are actually all Lord's lost children, we have one father. Our Father and Mother are crying for us, "When will our child come back?" To bring His child back, the Father sends His own man (Gurudev), and when Gurudev comes, he is actually the Lord Himself who comes in the form of a Guru, he comes to take us back to our home. Just as a police officer looks for a missing person and takes them back to their home, in the same way our Gurudev, our Gurupadpadma, comes to take us back home.

We are the lost servants of the Lord, and the Lord sends His associate, His own man, to bring His servant back, "I have lost My son, please go there, bring him back!" But we eat all sorts of things here and say, "No, I will go later!" We have fallen within the bondage of maya and under the influence of this bondage we enter into more and more bondage.

...If we teach a bird to chant Hare Krishna, the bird will learn to chant Hare Krishna, but in this human body there is too much illusory environment—people cannot chant Hare Krishna no matter how many times you tell them. Such people are Krishna Nama aparadhi. Mahaprabhu says that the Holy Name does not come to the mouth of the offenders of the Holy Name.

* * *

Maya Family or Chaitanya Saraswat Family?

28 February 2012

This family's name is Chaitanya Saraswat Family. If you can stay in this family, then you will be able to chant the Holy Name together, as a member of the family, in the place where this family is. You must stay within this family. If you want to go where this family is, you must stay with this family. Do you understand? What is the name of the family? Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Family.

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)

You must listen to the sadhus with your ears. If I wear a policeman's uniform, do I become a policeman? No, I do not. You see somebody wearing saffron clothes and you think this is a sannyasi, but do you become a sannyasi just by wearing the sannyasi clothes? No, you do not. If I give you sannyas clothes today, do you become a sannyasi? No. You must always listen to Hari-katha, always practise. Does anyone study in the college first? First you must go to the primary school, then the secondary, then the high school, then only you can go to college or university. So, practise, always practise—always engage in Hari-kirtan, in Krishna-kirtan, take prasad.

When you come to the temple, do not listen to gossips and bad talks. I have told it to you before—the temple has a Deity, the temple has devotees, and the temple also has a drain. Take good things, do not take bad things. You have ears, hear good things; you have eyes, see good things; you have mouth, speak good things. Ku-boliba na, ku-dekhiba na, ku-suniba na—do not say bad things, do not see bad things, do not hear bad things. Remember it.

bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara

bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

(Saranagati, 1)

"We will accept what is favourable to devotion and we will reject what is not favourable to devotion."

If you always see the drain (if you are a drain inspector), then you will fall into the drain and you will only get a bad smell, but if you come to the Deity, you will get the smell of incense and sandalwood. So, see good things and avoid bad things. Always remember it, do not do bad things.

What is a sadhu's character? If a sadhu comes to the bank of the Ganges to take bath and somebody throws stool at him, what is the duty of the sadhu? If somebody throws stool at you, you must go and take bath again; they throw cow dung at you, you must again go and take bath; they throw dog's stool at you, you must go and again take bath. In the end, when that person comes to you and asks, "Prabhu, I have done such a big offence to you, why do you not get angry?" what must you say? The sadhu will say, "You did not do anything wrong. You actually did me good. Every day I take bath in the Ganges one time, but today, thanks to you, I have taken bath in the Ganges ten times." You must be like this. When a sadhu sees a scorpion going to the Ganges, where it is sure to die, what will a sadhu do? He will pick the scorpion up and save it.

People in this illusory world are bound by maya...

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya

kabhu bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

"If a devotee wants liberation or material enjoyment, Krishna immediately bestows it, but He keeps pure devotion hidden."

Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 8.18

We are like foolish babies. We are crying and asking our mother and father to give us poison, what will the mother and father do? They cannot give us poison, instead they give us some water or some chocolate cake, perhaps. The child cries so much, "Father, I want to go with you," but when the father gives something to the child, the child forgets all about going with the father. So,

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya

kabhu bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

"If a devotee wants liberation or material enjoyment, Krishna immediately bestows it, but He keeps pure devotion hidden."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 8.18)

Gurudev always told this to me. If you ask Krishna for something without devotion, what will He give you? You ask Him for name ad fame, you ask Him for a house, for some kanak, kamini, a wife, etc. Krishna will give you everything, but He will hide devotion from you. If you want a wife, Krishna will give you a good wife; if you want a good husband, Krishna will give you a good husband; if you want a car, Krishna will give you a mercedes car—He will give it to you and you will forget everything... If you want an A/C house, Krishna will give you an A/C house, but you will not be able to come to the mangal arati...

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay!

* * *

Perils of Karma

15 December 2010

apane achare keha, na kare prachara

prachara karena keha, na karena achara

'achara', 'prachara',—namera karaha 'dui' karya

tumi—sarva-guru, tumi—jagatera arya

"Some follow rules and regulations but do not preach Krishna consciousness; some preach Krishna consciousness but do not follow rules and regulation. You perform both duties in relation to the Holy Name by your personal behavior and by your preaching, therefore you are the spiritual master of the entire world, you are the most advanced person in the world."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya-lila, 4.102-103)

Somebody follows rules and regulations, does everything perfectly but does not preach; and somebody does preaching but does not follow rules and regulations—both is not correct. Mahaprabhu says this. It is necessary to do both achar and prachar: you must follow the rules and regulations and you must preach also. And you think you will go and do bhajan, sitting under a banyan tree, chanting, "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna"... You must follow the rules and regulations and you must tell something to others; in the same way, if you do not follow the rules and regulations but you preach, it will not work.

You can see many people chanting, some kirtaniya (professional kirtan singers) come and chant Hare Krishna for two-three hours with a harmonium, but it gives no benefit to anybody. Why? Because they do not follow the rules and regulations. If ten thousand people sit and listen to their chanting, there will be not even one person who will come to this line. Why? Yesterday also you heard some lady was singing in the evening—they are preaching but there is no worth. That kind of guru cannot rescue the whole world.Chaitanya-charitamrita said,

dharmachari-madhye haya bahuta 'karmanistha'

koti-karmanistha-madhye eka 'jnani' srestha

koti-jnani-madhye haya eka-jana 'mukta'

koti-mukta-madhye 'durlabha' eka krsna-bhakta

"Among those who follow the dharma there are many of those who practise karma. Among millions of such sincere karmis, there is only one truly wise person. Among millions of such wise people, there is only one liberated soul. Among millions of such liberated souls, there is hardly one devotee of Krishna."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 19.147-148)

Can you understand it? On the other hand, just one devotee can rescue the chaudda bhuvan, the entire fourteen worlds. Chaitanya-charitamrita says it. Then you can understand it yourself...

People say they are followers of the Vedas but they do not follow the Vedas. There are many restrictions and prohibitions in the Vedas, and they do not follow it, they always do nonsense. There are millions of karmis, they say that karma (working, action) is the best. But what is karma and what is seva? It is difficult to tell the difference. Gurudev told me, "If it is an order coming from me to read Chaitanya-charitamrita, then it will be readingChaitanya-charitamrita, but if I do not order you to read it, then your reading ofChaitanya-charitamrita or any other book will be the same as reading a newspaper. But if I tell you to read a newspaper, then it will be like reading Chaitanya-charitamrita."

There are three kinds of karma—sukarma (good action), akarma (inaction), vikarma (bad action). You may be doing something and think, "Oh, I am doing service!" but if it is not recommended to you by your Guru, whatever you are doing all goes to karma. What is the result of karma? Karma-bandhan, bondage of the karma. What is this bondage? It is called narak-yantrana: suffering in hell. This is a difficult matter, is it not?

* * *

"How Can Vyasa Not Know?"

15 December 2010

Question: Can I ask you a question? Lord Siva said, "Aham vetti, Suka vetti, Vyasa vetti na vetti va." So how can I understand that the very person who gave all the scriptures (Mahabharata, Srimad Bhagavatam, etc.) may know, may not know? How can it be that he does not know it?

Yes, of course it can be. Even Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami says, "Nahi chautha jana, there is no fourth person who knows it" (CC, 2.4.194). Even those who do not anything can write something, it comes by the mercy above. You may write something or do something but it is coming from The Lord—He is writing, He is doing everything. In all Chaitanya-charitamrita, at the end of each chapter, Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami writes,

sri-rupa-raghunatha-pade yara asa

chaitanya-charitamrta kahe krsna-dasa

"Always desiring the lotus feet of Sri Rupa and Raghunath, Krishna Das is narrating this Chaitanya-charitamrita."

He says, "I do not know anything."

When he says, "Ei jagate nahi chautha jana, there can be no fourth person in this world who knows it, only three devotees know it," we know that he knows it, but he does not say it, he says it is coming above. Devotees are always humble, they feel, "We do not know anything, but Krishna is giving some power." That same Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami, when he was in Jhamatpur Baharan, said, "Prabhu, I am a very old person, how shall I write about You?" The answer came to him, "You do not have to write anything, you only take your khag (খাগ, quill) and I will write everything." This is how he wrote. He said, "Ei grantha lekhaya more Madana Mohana: Madan Mohan is writing this scripture through me. I am not writing it."

What did Ray Ramananda say? "Prabhu, You know everything. You want to hear something from me, but I know that You are actually saying everything, I am not saying anything!" Even Brahma said, "Somebody can say, 'Oh, I know everything about Krishna!' They may know, but I know that I do not know anything." Also you can see what Lord Krishna Himself said to Uddhav Maharaj. He said, "Uddhav, you are My dearmost! Not even Lord Siva, Lord Brahma or even I Myself am as dear to Me as you are!" But then, after giving so much power and praise to him, Krishna said in the end, "Uddhav, you think you are My dearmost, but actually there is somebody even more dear to Me... You should go and see the gopis in Vrindavan!" This is Krishna's play. He likes to play.

We can see it in Mahaprabhu's pastimes too. When Nityananda Prabhu came to Mayapur, at that time there were not so many houses in Mayapur, there were not so many big temples, nothing; there were only a few, maybe ten-six, houses in the village. Nityananda Prabhu came to Nandan Acharya Bhavan, He is such a big personality, but when Mahaprabhu sent some devotees to Him, "Somebody has come to Mayapur, go find Him!" From Yogapith to Nandan Acharya Bhavan there were no houses, and Nityananda Prabhu is right there, but they could not find Him. Devotees returned and said, "Prabhu, nobody has come." Then, Mahaprabhu said, "Can you not find Him? I have to go Myself..." This is the Pastimes They are playing—"Mahaprabhu must go and take Me Himself!" This is the play of Gaura Nitai, Mahaprabhu and Adi-Guru Nityananda!...

* * *

Nimai: "Worship Me! I will give you everything!"

Caracas, June 2010

...At that time, Laksmi Priya was nine years old, and she would get a little shy—she was not throwing mud like others, she would always stay a little far. Mahaprabhu, on the other hand, would throw so much mud, so much sand and water at the girls who came to the Ganges. All the girls would rebuke Him, "Hey, what are You doing? I am Your sister and You are behaving like this!"

He was actually remembering His pastimes with the gopis and showing He was like a debauchee.

On special days, all the ladies would come to the Ganga to do Ganga puja, they would bring some white rice (atop chal, not boiled rice), bananas, other different fruit and ingredients, but Mahaprabhu would break their puja. He would say, "Worship Me!" He was a nine-ten year old boy at that time—He is the Lord Himself and He was showing His position to everybody, just as Krishna also taught His father, "It is not necessary to worship Indra, worship Me!" In the same mood, Mahaprabhu would break the girls' offerings and say, "Hey! You do not need to do any Ganga puja! Do My puja, then all puja will be complete!"

The ladies were very unhappy because they were worshipping and pray to Ganga and Lord Siva so that they could get a good husband, but Mahaprabhu did not let them do it. He would say, "Worship Me! I will give everything to you!" So, unhappy, they would take all their worship paraphernalia and go home, but Mahaprabhu would stop them, "Where are you going?! Give the prasad to Me!" Some girls would give something to Him, but some were misers and did not give anything, then Nimai would say, "Oh, you are not giving anything to Me, then your husband will be an old man and he will have seven other wives!" The girls would then get scared and quickly give everything to Him.

These pastimes are described in Chaitanya-bhagavatam...

* * *

Crazy Inside Out

27 April 2013

I have told it many times before. Sometimes you think, "I want this," "I want that," "I want some money." It can be any of the three things—it can be kanak (wealth), it can be kamini (women), it can be pratistha (name and fame, self-establishment). If you always think about kanak, kamini, or pratistha ("I want kanak, I want kanak, I want kanak") and you do not get it, you will become crazy. Kamini is also like that—you are always thinking about kamini, kamini, kamini, and when you do not get it, you become crazy. Sometimes people also become crazy because of pratistha—you want pratistha, establishment, and when you do not get it you become crazy. There was once an Indian girl who became crazy, and Gurudev asked me once, "Do you know why that girl became crazy?" He told me why, and that was the reason—she wanted something very much and because she could not get it she became crazy. But I am surprised—nobody becomes crazy because they want Krishna! Only Mahaprabhu and Srimati Radharani became crazy because of Krishna...

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu gave some teachings in this world and Jagadananda Pandit told about it in his Prema-vivarta. I spoke about it in the morning, and I want to say something now too.

vairagi vaisnava prana-vrtti angikari'

asanchaya stri-sambhasana-sunya, bhaje hari [20]

"Renounced devotees serve the Lord, accept the necessities for life, do not accumulate wealth, and do not converse with women.”

Sometimes we say, "He is a grihastha, I am a brahmachari," or, "He is a grihastha, I am asannyasi," and sometimes I hear people say, "He is wearing white, and I am wearing saffron, so I am senior to him!" I hear people say this sometimes, but here Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says, "Vaisnavera kutinati nai," it means that if somebody says something like that, they are not a Vaishnav.

grhi ha-uka tyagi ha-uka bhakte bheda nai

bheda kaile kumbhipaka narakete yai [22]

"There is no difference between devotees—be they householders or renunciants. If someone makes distinctions between them, they go to the hell of boiling oil.”

Whether it is a renounced person or a householder person, there is no difference between them. If you say there is some kind of difference (bhed), then you have to go to hell.

mula katha, kutinati vyavahara yara

vaisnava-kulete sei mahakulangara [23]

"The main point is that those who behave deceitfully are a great disgrace to the society of Vaisnavas.”

sarala bhavete gathi' nija vyavahara

jivane marane krsna-bhakti jani sara [24]

"Everyone should behave in a sincere manner and know devotion to Krishna to be all-in-all, in life and death.”

It is good to always deal with devotees simply, simple dealings are good.

kutinati kapatata sathya kutilata

na chhadiya hari bhaje, tara dina gela vrtha [25]

"Those who serve the Lord but do not give up deceit, duplicity, dishonesty, and insincerity pass their days in vain.”

sei saba bhagavata kadartha kariya

indriya charana bule prakrti bhulaiya [26]

"They distort the meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam and roam about enjoying the senses and seducing women.”

grhastha-vaisnava sada sva-dharme arjibe

atithyadi seva yatha-sadhya acharibe [14]

"Householder devotees should always earn their living according to their social duty, and they should serve guests and others to the best of their ability.”

vaidha-patni sahavase nahe bhakti hani

sarsapa sutaila vyavahare nahi dosa mani [15]

"Living with a lawful wife is not harmful to devotion, and I do not consider using mustard oil to be a fault.”

"Sarsapa sutaila" means mustard oil. I have seen many times brahmacharis use coconut oil [for body, head, etc.], but Gurudev said that coconut oil is very dangerous. Here also it is written what Mahaprabhu's advice is.

Devotee: Does it mean that mustard oil is OK, and the other oils are not?

It means that, in general, it is not necessary to use oil, but mustard oil can be considered as OK, there is no fault in using it.

dadhi dugdha smarta-upacharita amisa

yukta-vairagira haya grahane niramisa [16]

"Milk and yoghurt prepared according to smarta regulations are non-vegetarian, but they become vegetarian when they are accepted by proper renunciants.”

grhastha-vaisnava sada namaparadha rakhi' dure

anukulya laya, pratikulya tyaga kare [17]

"Householder devotees always avoid offences to the Name, accept the favourable, and reject the unfavourable.”

aikantika namasraya tahara mahima

grhastha vaisnavera nahi mahatmyera sima [18]

"Sincerely taking shelter of the Name is a householder's glory. The glories of householder devotees have no end.”

para-himsa tyaga, para-upakare rata

sarva-bhute daya grhira ei-matra vrata [19]

"The householder's only duty is to avoid envy, help others, and be compassionate to all beings.”

vairagi vaisnava prana-vrtti angikari'

asanchaya stri-sambhasana-sunya, bhaje hari [20]

"Renounced devotees serve the Lord, accept the necessities for life, do not accumulate wealth, and do not converse with women.”

Renounced people always take what is necessary to maintain their life, they do not store and accumulate more than necessary, they do not mix with women; they serve the Lord.

grhi ha-uka tyagi ha-uka bhakte bheda nai

bheda kaile kumbhipaka narakete yai [22]

"There is no difference between devotees—be they householders or renunciants. If someone makes distinctions between them, they go to the hell of boiling oil.”

mula katha, kutinati vyavahara yara

vaisnava-kulete sei mahakulangara [23]

"The main point is that those who behave deceitfully are a great disgrace to the society of Vaisnavas."

Somebody says, "He is a householder, I am a brahmachari," or "He is a householder, and I am a sannyasi," but to make such distinction is an offence. It is written here that it is very bad to do this. Bheda kaile kumbhipaka narakete yai, and vaisnava-kulete sei maha-kulangara. Those who see or say there is a difference between householders, brahmacharis and sannyasis, will go to hell and they are maha-kulangar, great (maha) bastards (kulangar).

[His Divine Grace was reading from Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, chapter 17.]

* * *

Devotion: Transformation of Heart

27 April 2013

Does the Lord say to people, "I am the Lord!"? Those who pretend to be God say, "Be it in jungle or in a forest, I will protect you!" But Bhagavatam says,

anugrahaya bhaktanam manusam deham asritah

bhajate tadrsih krida yah srutva tat-paro bhavet [27]

"'To bestow mercy upon His devotees, Krishna assumes a human-like form and manifests His Pastimes. Those who hear about these Pastimes become devoted to Krishna.'

lampata papistha apanake krsna mani'

krsna-lila anukrti kare dharma-hani [28]

"Lewd sinners consider themselves Krishna, imitate Krishna's Pastimes, and desecrate dharma.

bhakta-saba prakrti ha-iya maje krsna-paya

purusa ekale krsna, dasa mahasaya" [33]

"All devotees are female and revel in Krishna's feet. Krishna is the only male, O Das Mahasay."

raghunatha dasa tabe vinita ha-iya

svarupere nivedana kare du'hata judiya [34]

Raghunath Das joined his palms and humbly spoke to Svarup.

tabe kena grhastha thakibe svadharmete

svadharma chhadiya bhakti pare ta' karite" [36]

"So why should householders remain engaged in their social duty when they can give it up and practise devotion?"

svarupa bale, "suna, bhai, ihate ye marma

baliba tomake ami suddha-bhakti dharma [37]

Svarup replied, "Brother, listen! I will explain to you the nature of pure devotion, which is the essence of this matter.

svadharme jivana-yatra sahaje ghataya

para-dharme kasta achhe, svabhavika naya [38]

"Your livelihood is easily maintained by following your own social duty; it is difficult to follow someone else's duty because it is unnatural.

svadharme bhaktira anukula yaha haya

tai bhaktiman jana grahana karaya [39]

yaha yakhana bhakti-pratikula hana yaya

taha tyaga karile ta' suddha-bhakti paya [40]

"When devotees, in the midst their social duty, accept everything that is favourable to devotion and avoid everything that is unfavourable to devotion, then they attain pure devotion.

ataeva svadharma-nistha chitta ha-ite tyaji'

bhakti-nistha karilei sadhu-dharma bhaji' [41]

"So, only if they remove attachment to their social duty from their heart and develop attachment to devotion do they follow the duty of a sadhu.

Even if you are a householder, you can practise—if you practise and maintain your svadharma (religion prescribed for a householder devotee) properly, without markata-vairagya (monkey renunciation), without phalgu-vairagya (false renunciation), if you do not look at or think about others' wives, then you can stay in your house and maintain your life properly, then such life is also good for you. You can live in this way and worship sadhu-dharma, or Krishna's dharma, religion of Krishna.

trividha vaisnavi bhakti karaha vichara

(1) 'aropa-siddha', (2) 'sanga-siddha', (3) 'svarupa-siddha' ara [56]

"You should know that there are three types of Vaisnava devotion: arop-siddha, sanga-siddha, and svarup-siddha.

There are three types of Vaishnav bhakti. We say kanistha adhikari, madhyam adhikari, uttam adhikari, and here they are called arop-siddha, sanga-siddha, and svarup-siddha.

aropa-siddhara katha baliba prathame

susthira ha-iya bujha chittera samyame [57]

"First, I will explain arop-siddha. Focus and understand it with a controlled mind.

baddha bahirmukha jiva visayi pradhana

jada-sanga-matra kari' kare avasthana [58]

"Conditioned souls who are averse to the Lord are mostly materialists and associate only with material things.

jada-sukha jada-duhkha niyata tahara

prakrta samsarga vina kichhu nahi ara [59]

"They are constantly engrossed in material happiness and sadness, and have no experience of anything other than matter.

aprakrta bali' kichhu nahi paya jnana

aprakrta-tattva mane nahi paya sthana [60]

"They know nothing about spirit, and there is no place for spiritual truth in their hearts.

nije aprakrta vastu tahao na jane

araksita sisu yena sadai ajnane [61]

"They do not even know that they are spiritual beings. Like uneducated children, they always remain in ignorance.

kona bhagye kona janme sukrtira phale

sraddhara udaya haya hrdaya-kamale [62]

"By some good fortune, in some birth, as a result of sukrti, faith arises in the lotus of their hearts.

prathama sandhane sune, 'ami krsna-dasa'

e samsara haite uddhare kare asa [63]

"At first, in the course of their search, they hear, 'I am a servant of Krishna', and then they aspire to be delivered from samsara.

First stage of devotion is arop-siddha. It means at first a person has very much attachment to their family but gradually they begin to think, "I am a servant of the Lord." This is arop-siddha.

guru bale, 'suna, vachha, kara krsnarchana'

krsnarchane tabe tara ichchha-sangathana [64]

"Their Guru says to them, 'Listen! My child, you should worship Krishna', and they then become eager to worship Krishna.

After that, the Guru tells them, "You can do seva, you can do kirtan, you can do puja," and slowly, slowly the person can start worshipping Krishna, engage in puja and archan. This is their first engagement, and this stage of devotion is called sanga-siddha, or madhyam adhukari. Sanga-siddha devotees have dainyata—they are humble, tolerant and give honour to others. They also give mercy everywhere—they do not consider who is higher, who is lower, who is good, who is bad, they give mercy to whoever they see, even to the ignorant and fools.

The third type of devotion is svarup-siddha, these are high standard Vaishnavs. Svarupa-siddha is 'Svaruper-upadesh', advice of Svarup Damodar, who possesses this svarup-siddha. His advice is a very high conception, and it is the final prayojana-tattva. Svarupa-siddha means to always, at every moment practise internal service of Radha-Krishna, it means attainment of service to the lotus feet of Radha-Krishna and to always stay within that service. Whether you eat, rest, sit, or walk, whatever you do, you always think about Krishna, and in the end, in your svarup form (discovering our real identity) you attain the joy of service to Radha-Krishna. This is the final destination. This destination is what is called svarup-siddha...

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay!

[His Divine Grace was reading from Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, chapter 17.]

* * *

My Only Shelter

Speaking online to Venezuela & Colombia

Caracas Deity installation anniversary,

23 June 2013

e ghora-samsare, padiya manava na paya duhkhera sesa

"When one falls into this terrible world, there is no end to their suffering!"

('E ghora-samsare' from Jaiva-dharma by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

This is the main song.

nitai chaitanya, charana kamale, asraya laila yei

kalidasa bale, jivane marane, amara asraya sei

"I will serve those who take shelter of Nitai-Chaitanya, who serve Nitai-Chaitanya. That is the main thing. I will take shelter of those who serve Nitai-Chaitanya. I do not have any quality or qualification to serve Nitai-Chaitanya, but I will serve those who are serving Nitai-Chaitanya." This is what Kalidas said.

You heard also from Chaitanya-charitamrita about the Panihati danda-mahotsav that Raghunath Das Goswami made. Raghunath did not go directly to Nityananda Prabhu, he first asked Raghav Pandit, "Prabhu, please could you speak to Nityananda Prabhu? Could you ask Him how I will come to Mahaprabhu? Please! I am a very fallen soul, can you please arrange some mercy from Him?..."

"Danda-mahotsav" means a punishment (danda) festival, but I always say it is a mercy mahotsav (festival), it is not punishment.

When Raghunath came to Panihati, Nityananda Prabhu said to him, "Ai, chora, ai! Come here, thief, come here!" (Chora means a thief.) Why did Nityananda Prabhu call him a thief? Because when Mahaprabhu took sannyas and came to Santipur to the house of Advaita Acharya, Raghunath Das Goswami went there to see Mahaprabhu without first getting mercy from Nityananda Prabhu, secretly like a thief he went there to meet with Mahaprabhu. That is why Nityananda Prabhu said, "Raghunath! You are a thief! You have not got permission from Me and you directly went to Mahaprabhu! How is it possible?? That is why I am giving you punishment. You must feed all the devotees today. Arrange for some flat rice, jackfruit, mango, banana, yoghurt, etc. and feed everybody, then you will get some relief from your offence."

* * *

Karma-Bandhan

25 November 2010

kintu yadi latara sange uthe 'upasakha'

bhukti-mukti-vancha, yata asankhya tara lekha

"There will, however, appear some unwanted branches on your tree. They are desires for material enjoyment, desire for liberation, and so on (they are too numerous to write all here).

'nisiddhachara', 'kutinati', 'jiva-himsana'

'labha', 'puja', 'pratisthadi' yata upasakha-gana

"Among those unwanted branches are improper practices, deceit, violence towards other souls, desire for gain, worship, prestige, and so on."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 19.158-159)

Nisiddhachara (improper practices) means what is not favourable to devotion, what is an obstacle to devotion. You must avoid it, you must finish such practices. Greed, desire to get something, desire to get some puja ("Oh, somebody will worship me!"), to get name and fame—these are called upasakha (sakha is a branch, and upasakha means a subbranch). There are some fruit trees—you can cut a branch of such a tree, put some medicine on the cut and the branch will grow again.

seka-jala pana upasakha badi' yaya

stabdha hana mula-sakha badite na paya

"If you water and nourish these branches, they will grow stronger, and, interfering with the main branches of your tree, will not let them grow."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 19.160)

"Sek-jal" means if you apply some medicine on the cut, it will grow again, or you can attach a branch of another plant there and it will grow from the tree's branch.

I have told this recently to a devotee. He is seventy-seven years old, and his family called him and asked, "Oh, your granddaughter is getting married, please give some money for the ceremony." His granddaughter is getting married! Granddaughter means his daughter is already married into another family, she got married maybe twenty-five-thirty years ago, and now a daughter of his daughter is getting married, and she is asking her father for money for the wedding festival. Do you see what the illusory environment is, what karma-bandhan is? If he goes again to that place, then again the bondage will come. If you leave everything and avoid contact, then they will not disturb you, but his daughter got married perhaps thirty years ago, and now when her daughter is getting married they are asking him for money—do you see how many years he has to suffer so much? How will he get the money? He is an old man, retired, he does not have any job, only his son gives him some money and he maintains himself with that. When he came to me and said, "Maharaj, I have to go there, my granddaughter is getting married..." I told him, "Thiskarma-bandhan will be with you until your death..." What is the result of karma-bandhan? Narak-yantrana, suffering in hell.

I have also told everyone many times,

bhukti-mukti adi-vancha yadi mane haya

sadhana karile prema utpanna na haya

"If you have material desires, if you want liberation, enjoyment, some mystic powers, and so on, then even if you practise all life, or life after life, prem, divine love, will not come."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 19.175)

I always say this. You are doing some practice, but

bhukti-mukti-sprha yavat pisachi hrdi vartate

tavad bhakti-sukhasyatra katham abhyudayo bhavet

"The ecstasy of devotion to Krishna will never appear in a heart that is haunted by the ghosts of exploitation and renunciation."

(Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, 1.2.22)

If these two witches, bhukti-sprha (desire of enjoyment) and mukti-sprha (desire of liberation), are there, you will not get proper result...

* * *

Keeping Current Clean

20 December 2010

'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)

Sraddha means faith. "Sraddha-anusari bhakti-adhikari (Cc, 2.22.64)—the devotion you have comes through faith. Before sraddha, there is first sukriti. Scriptures and our Gurudev say, "Adau sraddha tatah sadhu-sango 'tha bhajana-kriya." (Brs, 1.4.15) First sukriti is necessary. There cannot be faith without sukriti.

Sukriti means "tad vastu tadiya sevaya"—using His property for Him, forHis service. There are two types of sukriti, ajnata and jnata (knowing and unknowing). From sukriti comes sraddha. There are also four types of faith—kamala-sraddha, taranga-sraddha, drdha-sraddha, sudrdha-sraddha (soft lotus-like faith, wave-like faith, strong faith and the strongest faith). And then, sraddha-anusari bhakti-adhikari (property of one's devotion depends on one's faith).

Through sraddha there comes good association, sadhu-sanga. What happens during sadhu-sanga? Sravanam, kirtanam. There are many kinds of sravan, many kinds of katha in this world, but what you listen to from a sadhu, is called sravan-kirtan. We sing every day (in Parama Karuna kirtan),

visaya-katha parihari mukhe bolo gaura hari

gramya-katha parihari mukhe bolo gaura hari

I give this akor (ornamental line) in the song, and I see everybody searches in the books trying to find it but no one can find it. (His Divine Grace laughs.)

You must avoid (parihari) material talks. If there is no Krishna-katha in some talk, that isgramya-katha. You must avoid such talks—you must avoid what is not related to Krishna-katha, not related to Krishna, to service, to your Guru. That is all gramya-katha. "Gramya-katha parihari," and "mukhe bolo Gaura Hari." Only say "Gaura Hari!" Visaya-katha is material talks, material subjects, all the "How are you?" talks, people are always talking about so many thing. You see that such katha is going on all over the world, and it annoys me very much, I cannot tolerate it when people talk so much.

Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj also could not tolerate it. When he came to Nabadwip, he lived on the bank of the Ganges. He cut some leaves from a palm tree and made a small house for himself, and there he sat and only chanted all the time. He could not tolerate hearing so many outside talks, so he came to the bank of the Ganges and stayed in a quiet place where he could chant without any problem.

sri-gauranga-parisada thakura bhakti-vinoda

dina-hina patitera bandhu

"Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur is an associate of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu and a friend of all low and fallen souls."

They are all parsads (associates) of Mahaprabhu and they all came to Nabadwip. Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj also came to Nabadwip from Vrindavan because Gaura-lila is here in Nabadwip, and he also sat in a quiet corner on the bank of the Ganges and chanted the Holy Name. Both Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj and Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj came to Nabadwip from Vrindavan and lived like this, but Prabhupad Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur's style was different—he declared a totalitarian war against maya.

Sach-chid-ananda Bhaktivinod Thakur also fought against misconception. Even before he came to Nabadwip, when he was a magistrate Puri, there was some problem with a baul and he punished that man. Later, when he came to Nabadwip (Krishna-nagar), he saw there were so much opposition to Krishna consciousness, he saw that Mahaprabhu's conception was going to down and becoming hidden. He prayed to the Lord, "Please send someone! Please send someone who can continue Mahaprabhu's movement!" When the current of a river is flowing, the water in the river is good, but when the current stops, the water becomes dirty. So, just like Bhagirath, Bhaktivinod Thakur (through Prabhupad Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur) was suddha-bhakti-mandakini dhara, a carrier of the current of pure devotion.

Bimala Prasad (previous name of Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur) did a sata-koti Nama yajna (he chanted a hundred crores of Holy Names). It took him six years, six months and sixteen days to finish it, and at the end Guru Gauranga Gadharva Giridhari appeared in front of him. He did not install these Deities, did you know about that? These Deities are still there in Mayapur Chaitanya Math, he brought Them there from the place where he found Them. He was walking down the street one day, chanting, and suddenly he saw these Deities in front of him, in some hut or something like that.

Devotee: No murti-walla was necessary?

No, it was not necessary to order or do anything.

At that time, there were also problems. Prabhupad Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur actually saw Bhaktivinod Thakur as Radharani's parsad, part of Radharani, and saptam(seventh) Goswami also. He had so much affection for him, but his brother was a sahajiya and wanted to make some disturbance in the mission. Bhaktivinod Thakur gave hissampradaya charge to Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, Bimala Prasad, but his brother also wanted to get a share of the "cake." Sundarananda Vidya Vinod, who wrote about this later in the Gaudiya, and all the devotees understood that only Bimala Prasad could do what Bhaktivinod Thakur wanted because he had got the power. In the end, that brother left and stayed in Ula (Birnagar), the place where Bhaktivinod Thakur was born. After that, Prabhupad established his mission. This is the history.

Baba badha Radha (seeing Bhaktivinod Thakur as father is an obstacle to seeing him as Radharani). Baba means father, badha means obstacle, and Radha is Radharani, you know that. When that Deity of Guru Gauranga Gandharva Giridhati appeared before Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, They ordered him to preach the main conception, and in the sixty-four years* that he was alive for he made sixty-four temples all over India and abroad...

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay!

*(In Indian calculation, the age is calculated with one year difference from the Western system. For example, when a child is considered one year in the West, it is considered two years old in India.)

* * *

Trying Times

27 November 2010

You know that before Mahaprabhu came it was a very difficult time, and now also a very difficult time is coming.

That time was very difficult. Patasaha Hussain Sah was the emperor of Bengal, and in Nabadwip also there was Chand Kazi (his actual name was Maulana Sirajuddin). So many different things were happening at that time. In Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's time also, it was very difficult to preach in Nabadwip and Bengal area, and this situation is coming soon too. Preaching Krishna consciousness is becoming very difficult, but anyhow we must preach. It is very difficult to preach in Bengal, but if we can preach somewhere outside Bengal, it will be good.

I was reading yesterday about Mahaprabhu's time and how difficult it was to preach at that time. It is not written in Chaitanya-charitamrita—Prabhupad Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur wrote something about it and Kunja Babu (Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj) published it. I was surprised to read how difficult the situation was at that time. It is unbearable. We cannot even imagine these things.

How much Mahaprabhu was suffering at that time! They used to stop kirtan or any religion everywhere, they thought religion meant a little bit of fire sacrifice or something. They did not follow anything at that time. But Mahaprabhu spread sankirtan movement—He would take people and together with them did so much sankirtan. And it was very difficult at that time—there were no cars, nothing. It is a miracle how He did it.

Mahaprabhu preached like this only up to twenty-four years old, after that He left Nabadwip. Before, there were only two-three persons, but after Mahaprabhu startedsankirtan movement so many devotees came together. They used to be scattered all over India, but when Mahaprabhu came, He was like a pillar and they all got energy and strength from Him.

* * *

Purity of Preaching

27 November 2010

Devotee: Germany is a very materialistic country, it worse than many other parts of Europe...

But still, if somebody comes to this line, if they know the proper line and get proper guidance, proper association, they can develop their spiritual life. The scriptures, andChaitanya-charitamrita in particular, said about it many years ago.

It is also said that there are so many beasts, so many birds, so many trees, so many species in this world, but we think that human population is big. It is not so, there are more plants, trees, etc. than humans, human species is actually rare. Among people there are those who follow the karmi conception, who follow some Vedas and Vedanta. There are four Vedas (Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda, Atharva Veda), and some say, "Oh, I am under the guidance of such and such Veda," but there are rules and regulations in theVedas—some follow them but most do not. It is called nisiddha-achar—there are some things forbidden by the Vedas, but many people who say they are Hindu and follow theVedas do not follow these rules, they do so many things that are forbidden. Among millions of people there are such karmis; among millions of such karmis there is only one wiser person; among millions of such wiser people there is one liberated soul; and among millions of such liberated souls you will get one Krishna bhakta. The scriptures say that it is very rare to get a devotee of Krishna.

Question: Do you think that preaching outside Bengal will be more effective?

Now there is much preaching in South India—Guntur, Gujrat, Bihar, etc. So many people are calling me to Bihar now. Here, in Bengal, people have so much ego. If you preach to the Nabadwip people, they say, "We know Mahaprabhu! We know everything!" Even Brahma says, "I do not know anything. Somebody says they know something—they can say it, but I know that I do not know anything." That is the problem.

If you want to teach somebody and they are already full of everything, what will they take then? If a glass is full of water and you pour more water into it, the water will spill. If somebody is full of ego, if somebody thinks, "I know everything," then what he or she will learn? Even if you give something to them, what will they take? They are already full—their hearts are full not only of ego, but of other things also (bhukti, mukti, siddhi-adi-vancha, kutinati, nisiddha-achar—desire for enjoyment, liberation, perfections, material desires, deceit, forbidden practices). If somebody is fully surrendered, if they feel, "I want to learn something," they can learn something.

I have told this story before. Somebody comes to a sadhu thinking, "Oh, I know everything, I can challenge him!" The sadhu puts a glass of water in front of the man and starts pouring more water into it. The water falls, and the man cries, "What are you are doing this for? Do you not know what you are doing??" The sadhu replied, "What can I do? You want to learn something from me, but you are already full of knowledge, and your knowledge is all misconception, then how will you learn from me?" That is the difficulty.

First it is necessary to have a strong faith. If you have faith in your Guru, then you can get something from your Guru, otherwise you will not get anything. Gurudev also said that when you throw a net into the water, you cannot catch all fish, some fish will escape the net. He also said that when sometimes one door closes, another door will open...

For example, there is the annual book fair in Kolkata, but who will arrange it? Now we are not taking part in it any more because not so many people come through the book fair. In Gurudev's time, they had tried to preach at the book fairs for many years, a lot of money was spent but people did not come through the book fair. Now people do not read this kind of books. If you print some sexual book, some drama or other nonsense, people will buy it happily, but they will not buy spiritual books even if it is very cheap. So, in the end there was a big loss, and Gurudev said many times that it was not necessary to do these book fairs any more, so the past two years we did not go there.

I have a bus and if some devotee wants to go preaching by bus—going everywhere, going to the street, distributing books, distributing prasadam, selling incense, that is more preaching. You can go sometimes by car or by bus to some market, some shopping area, to Kolkata, and do some sankirtan, that will be a very happy thing.

Almost all village people like this. If I send a sankirtan party to the villages to chant, distribute some small books, distribute prasadam (some laddus, for example), people will buy it easily. Village people are simple-hearted. Gurudev said that in towns and cities everything is made of concrete and the hearts of the people in towns and cities is also concrete, they are pasan, stone-hearted and cruel. But village people are not like that. If you go, for example, to Assam (northeastern India), it is inconceivable and incomparable, they are all devotees there. There, if people see a sadhu wearing tilak, etc. in the street, they will immediately come to him and say, "Come, come, come! Stay here! Come here, take prasadam!" They will wash your feet and do arati every day. They do not know who is pure, who is impure because they do not have so much conception, but they are all like this there—they will always invite you to stay for two-three days, always give arati,prasadam, they will do everything. It is a very good area. I have some connection with them, and if some devotees come and can take my car and go to Siliguri and Assam with books, that will be good. It is necessary to have a good leader who always preaches. I need a good preacher...

I have told ***, "Come here, why do you only preach in schools and colleges?"

—He preaches very scientifically and loses his audience...

Yes. This is not our style. Our style is chanting, dancing, kirtan. We do not study Veda andVedanta—Mahaprabhu only chanted and danced, and our preaching will also be chanting and dancing. People will be happy and they will get more benefit. I have told it to him many times. If you chant and do Harinam sankritan, people will be more benefitted, and you can see that people like that. If you can do sankirtan, it is good, it is essential for our line.

—But during his programme that was a problem, there was no kirtan, there was no chanting...

No, it is very bad. It means it is like a mayavadi conception going on there. I can say it clearly—if there is any programme without chanting, without kirtan, then it is called a mayavadi conception.

* * *

Triumph of Sankirtan Movement

28 November 2010

Some devotees are not getting proper guidance, a proper guardian, a proper instructor, that is why they are not getting so much happiness. It is necessary to have a proper guardian, proper guidance and proper nourishment, then they can come out of the illusory environment. Illusory environment is very strong, and when somebody lives in a family life and enjoys life, it is not so easy to come out of that kind of environment. It is necessary to have some sukriti, it is necessary to have some strongest faith, to have some good foundation. Many things are necessary, but they are not getting them. Through practising and proper guidance they can get a chance to come out. Some preach, but after that they go and sit in one place and they do not have any interest. That is why it is so necessary to have a proper guardian and have desire, interest.

If there is proper practice and proper preaching, you will see the result. You saw yesterday that all groups of the country were together. They wanted to separate, but I told them, "It is not a good idea. What is your goal? Everybody's goal is serve to Gurudev's mission, then why are you going to make one-man-one-ashram?" Now they are all together and I told them all leaders should come together. You can make many preaching centres because the country is big, but when we make a preaching centre, what is our thinking? What is our ultimate goal? What is our destination? To serve Gurudev's mission.

Problems come when somebody wants some position, wants some post. As I told them, I joined the temple in 1992 and only in 2000 I became the secretary, but before that, from 1992 to 2000 I was not even a member of the temple, I was only a simple servitor, but I worked as a manager, as a servitor, and did everything I was asked to do. If somebody wants to serve, it is not necessary to have a position, no post is necessary. The post comes automatically.

Actually, I wanted to make an international preaching group, but I want to have a strong group. I do not want an old sannyasi to go to some country, get much opulent prasadam, sit in one place and watch TV—going one time to the class and finished. I do not want that kind of man, you know that. The preaching group should always work with the whole country. If I send somebody to some place for one-two weeks, devotees will pay for the ticket, but they will only go there and sit and expect opulent prasadam, and when some time the prasadam is late, they become angry. I do not want that kind of man, I cannot tolerate that.

This is our mission, this is our temple, and they are our children. They can sometimes do something wrong, but you must maintain and manage it. These are our own groups, why will you complain and who will you complain to? This is your mission and you must manage and harmonise everything. This is the kind of group I want. If they preach together, do sankirtan programme, if they cook, do everything and join all activities, together, then I am very happy. That is the kind of group that is necessary.

Some say, "Oh, this country does not want me..." What is this? I must find out myself why some country does not want me, I must find out what my fault is. They are not guilty, I am guilty, and I must ask myself what my fault is.

This group can be four-five people who can do something, not just talk. To say is easy, to do is hard, you know that. We must be practical, and I want practical dealings. I do not want papers. I will sit in a cold room and issue orders and make plans on my computer—I am not that kind of man. I am a working man, I go to the field and play there. In Mahaprabhu's time there were no computers, nobody sat in cold rooms making plans. There were not even pens and paper. Sometimes some used pen and paper, for example Sanatan Goswami wrote books on the order of Mahaprabhu, but even then they did not even use pen and paper, they did it on some leaves.

To go and preach is worth much more. You have all facility, take a car and preach. That is being practical. You can go every week or every two-three days for sankirtan with kirtan. What is your job here? Five-ten people can take a mridanga and kartals, some leaflets and go for sankirtan. Not everybody gets your news—not everybody knows that your ashram is there, some people do not know about it.

You can see in Chaitanya-bhagavat how Mahaprabhu conquered people. Through sankirtan, only through this. Everywhere. Somebody can criticise you, but even in those days people criticised Mahaprabhu. Even in those days there were so many problems, there were things in those days that do not even happen now. In Mahaprabhu's time, Chand Kazi himself came to Srivas Pandit's house and broke a mridanga, and even more than that happened before. Many obstacles, many things can happen. Even in Sanatan Goswami's time, they had so much austerity in Vrindavan, so many things happened at that time and after that also. You can go and see Vrindavan—so many temples are broken because Muslim kings came there. They made Taj Mahal and broke Hindu Deities' temples, even the king had to abandon Vrindavan and run away to Jaipur, he said, "This is not my place."

So, only sankirtan movement, only Krishna sankirtan movement can rescue all these kinds of people, only through sankirtan can people come out of the illusory environment, there is no other way.

* * *

Nurture Devotion, Not Desires

28 November 2010

If we do not use our life properly for practising, for service, after that we may not get this chance. Actually, we do not know what will be good for us, we do not know what is our benefit. If Gurudev tells you to do something, that is your benefit, and that is what is good for you. Mind is always naughty, and if you follow your mind, then you cannot prosper, you cannot develop your spiritual life.

How much association have we got from Gurudev? If we read his scriptures, read his books, we can easily get his association. When we get time, we must not waste our time on doing some nonsense—when we have time, we should read books, we should practise, chant, preach. That is our life.

My only desire is to fulfil Gurudev's desire...

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya

kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

"If you ask Krishna for anything except devotion, He can give you those things—bhukti, mukti, liberation, and so on—but He will hide devotion from you. You will not get devotion."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 8.18)

There is a nice example. There was a devotee, Krishna fulfilled his desire ten years later. I am surprised when I think about it. Ten years ago a girl came and he wanted to marry her. Everything was settled and finalised, but some problem happened, perhaps his or her mother got sick, and all arrangement was broken, the girl disappeared. He continued to do some service, took part in programmes, kirtans, etc. Although he did service, his desire was different. Then, ten years later that girl came and said, "I want to marry you now." For ten years there was no news from her, nobody knew where she lived, what she did. He was already in his late thirties, early forties perhaps, and she was also the same age, and now they are married. He wanted this, and Krishna gave it to him, made him peaceful. This is what is called,

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya

kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

"If you ask Krishna for anything except devotion, He can give you those things—bhukti, mukti, liberation, and so on—but He will hide devotion from you. You will not get devotion."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 8.18)

He wanted this, and Krishna gave him that and made him happy with these things, but He hid Himself.

We must cut all these unwanted branches (upasakha)—kutinati, bhukti-mukti-adi vancha (deceit, desire to enjoy, desire for liberation, etc.); otherwise if you cannot stop these unwanted things from the beginning, they will grow more and you will have a big problem, you will not be able to get rid of them. As soon as such desires come to your heart, come to your mind, you must immediately cut them off, otherwise your tree will not grow tall, there will be so many bushes. And you must also water your tree—water it through chanting, through practising. How will you cut the unwanted branches? What is your tool, weapon? Do you think you can do it with a knife ? No, you cannot. What kind of 'knife' do you need? Your 'knife', your astra (weapon) is chanting the Holy Name, practising, reading the books, chanting kirtans. These are your weapons. If you are niskam (when you have no selfish desires), not sakam (driven by selfish interest) and you practise, then all unwanted things will easily be finished.

* * *

What You Wish Is What You Get

28 November 2010

If somebody wants to do some service and does some service, I like it. Some obstacles can come through service, you should remember it. When I also did something, so many things came to my ear. Somebody would say, "Oh, you are working, but your work is not good," "What you are doing is not good," "You are stealing money," etc. What did I do? I did not think, "Oh, I will stop doing it." This is not the way. If you do something, somebody can say something but it is Krishna testing you.

We are like purisera kita, insects in the stool. We were in the stool before, and Gurudev took out of there, cleaned and gave us some service, but our mind is always in the stool... Gurudev again brings us back, he tries to take us out again and again, he is very merciful, but our mind always goes back to the stool. We are staying at the Math, but we are always thinking of the commode. (A commode is a western style toilet bowl.) Gurudev always takes us out, but our mind always goes there and eats the stool. You can see it yourself—if you take some worms out of the stool, they will always go back to the stool, their character is like that.

Maya is very powerful. That is why,

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya

sadhu-guru krpa vina na dekhi upaya

"It is not possible to conquer maya by engaging in maya. I see no other way to get relief except for the mercy of sadhus."

('Ki rupe paibe seva', Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

You cannot conquer this illusory environment unless you get proper mercy. As I said before, when your heart is full of other things, then how will you accept mercy? How will you get proper mercy? You must be able to accept it, you must want it. If you actually really want mercy, then you will get it easily, but if you do not want it, then you will not get it. I am an example of this. I wanted Gurudev's kripa (mercy), not position or anything like that. And mercy came. I did not sit with Gurudev, I did not always stay with him—I wanted to try to fulfil his desire, I wanted to try to do what he wanted, and in this way I got the result. If you also try, if you also have that kind of desire, if you want that, then you will easily get his mercy, but if you follow your mind, then you will not get it.

* * *

Accepting Guru's Order

28 November 2010

Gurudev gave some explanation about uttam, madhyam and adham devotees. If you tell somebody something and then they do it, that is called madhyam. If you tell somebody something and they do not do it, it is adham, the lowest, fallen. And uttam means some indication only is enough. For example, Gurudev says, "OK, if you can do it, that will be good"—he does not order anyone to do it, but if you immediately do that job, then you are uttam, the highest class devotee.

Question: Even if Gurudev says it indirectly?

Yes, he can say indirectly, "If someone does it, it will be good," he does not order directly.Ye jana Krsna bhaje se jana chatur—those who serve Krishna are very intelligent. Gurudev is very clever, he knows that if there are five-ten devotees or sometimes twenty-fifty devotees sitting in front of him and he gives an order to one of them to do something, the others will get upset, "Oh, Gurudev is not giving me an order..." So, Gurudev says, "If somebody does it, it will be good." I have seen Gurudev say this many times, and immediately one of the devotees would do that job.

One time I remember when I was in London (many, maybe eight-nine, years ago, I cannot remember now), when Gurudev was speaking to the devotees in the morning, he said, "I heard the vegetable collection is good here... If someone goes there and collects, that is good." I thought to myself, "OK, I will do it," but I did not tell him I was going. Later that day, when Gurudev went to take rest after breakfast and everybody was sleeping, I told a devotee who drove a van that I was going for the collection. So, that devotee, a few others and myself went for collection. At that time, 200-300 devotees came to the temple every day, and what we collected during that one day (not even one full day, only a few hours) was enough for three-four days after that. We brought three trucks full of subji. They did not have place to keep it (the Green Street temple is small) and chastised me, "Why did you go there? You have brought so many vegetables, where will we keep it now?!"... [His Divine Grace laughs.]

* * *

His Things For His Service

28 November 2010

[A question came that somebody earns their living by cheating people:]

Cheating people is not a problem if you use the money you get for the service of the Guru, then it is not harmful and no karma-bandhan (bondage) will come. For the service of the Lord you can do everything. Krishna told Himself in Srimad Bhagavad-gita (9.30),

api chet suduracharo, bhajate mam ananya-bhak

sadhur eva sa mantavyah, samyag vyavasito hi sah

"If even a very sinful person serves Me exclusively with devotion, he should be regarded as saintly, for his resolve is perfect."

Krishna Himself says, "If My devotee is a thief, if My devotee is a rascal, etc. still he is My devotee."

Question: But if I think I want to steal and do some action, there will be reaction...

If you do any action for the Lord, then there is no reaction. When you are cutting the vegetables, for example, you are killing the vegetables. If you are doing it for the Lord, then there is no reaction, but if you are cutting the vegetables to eat them yourself, if you cook for yourself, then reaction will come. It is an easy method. Srimad Bhagavad-gita (3.13) said also,

yajna-sistasinah santo, muchyante sarva-kilbisaih

bhunjate te tv agham papa, ye pachanty atma-karanat

"By accepting sacrificial remnants of the universal gods, virtuous persons are liberated from all sins arising from violence towards other living entities. But those who prepare food for their own pleasure partake only of sin."

Krishna says, "If you eat or use something without giving it to Me, it means you are stealing My property and you are eating sin. I created everything in this world for Myself, not for you. If you think you are the proprietor, that you are the enjoyer (bhogi), that is incorrect." Your wife is also Krishna's property, Krishna's dasi (servant)—if you enjoy with her, that is also wrong.

Question: But this is difficult to understand for the society, because if people see us robbing bank, then they will think bad about us.

I know one man who is a member of the parliament now in Mursidabad district. He was my friend before and now also he helps the temple sometimes. He is a good man, the leader in the area, and everybody knows him in India. His age is fifty-five now.

He got some karma. He had only one daughter—he is a big rich man, a member of the parliament, but his daughter was mixing with his driver, a low person, and he could not tolerate that. When he found out about this, he chastised her, "What are you doing? This is not our culture! I am a member of the parliament, everybody knows me in India, and you are my only daughter! I will get you a well-educated good husband, you yourself are well-education, but what are you doing?!" He chastised her very much that night, and next day the girl committed suicide—jumped from a roof of a building.

I went talk to him for a few minutes, and he said, "Maharaj, what can I do? It is my karma. I did some bad karma before and I now have got some reaction..." He told me that some time in his past he had robbed a bank, he was a big dacoit, but what did he do with the money he stole? He gave it to those who needed it. For example, somebody's relative died and they did not have money for cremation, or somebody could not arrange their daughter's wedding ceremony because they had no money—he gave some money to such poor people, to the old people. This is how he used the stolen money. At some time, a court case came against him, he spent perhaps two-three months in jail, but he came out—the judge gave him bail and released him because he had not used the stolen money for his own purpose.

In this way Krishna also gives some kind of bail to you. If you use His property for yourself, a reaction will come, but if you use His property and His things for your Gurudev, for Krishna, the Lord, then no reaction comes (worshiping the Ganges with the Ganges water). Tad vastu tadiya sevaya: His things are for His service.

* * *

Austerity: Part of Service

19 July 2013

Question: Why do pure devotees face obstacles and opposition?

Krishna always tests His devotees—He tests them to see, "How much tolerance, how much patience do they have? How much can they sacrifice for Me? If they get austerity, will they leave Me or not?" He tests them to find this out.

Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami said that we are smaller, worse than insects in the stool, so Krishna wants to clean us, wants to clean His devotees. That is why pure devotees always face so many problems. This world is actually completely different from that world, and Krishna will take us from this material world to our own place, to His place to stay there forever—He wants to clean us, so He gives us tests.

That is why it is necessary to have some austerity. If you think that there is no austerity coming through your service, then it is not service, it is only aram, easy life, a life of enjoyment. You must understand that austerity must come through service. If a devotee has attachment to the Lord, has attachment to their Guru, then they will not leave their Guru in face of austerity. That is why Krishna always tests us through service and always gives very hard service.

All pure devotees had austerity, there were always tests everywhere, even in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's life—the Lord Himself also faces so much austerity. Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur was also beaten and tortured by the people of this world. You can see the life history and life style of all mahajans, you will see that all of them were in the same position, everybody got austerity—Raghunath Das Goswami, Haridas Thakur, Sanatan Goswami, Rupa Goswami, and others. Even Krishna, the Lord Himself, was born in jail, then you can realise that austerity will always be there.

* * *

Core Qualities of Disciple

19 July 2013

Question: What are the qualities of a pure disciple?

A pure disciple is a real disciple. Disciple has to be always surrendered, this is first of all, and the second main quality is faith—it is necessary to have both surrender and strongest faith.

If I fully surrender to my Guru, then faith will come automatically, and slowly, slowly everything will come if you practise, if you follow your Guru's order, your Guru's instruction. Follow means do or die. Gurudev gave an example. Suppose you are walking with your Guru down a road, and suddenly you see a snake,

"Gurudev, there is a snake! A snake! Be careful!"

But the Guru says, "It is not a snake, it is a rope."

You must believe what your Guru says.

There is also an example of Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur. He was once walking from Chaitanya Math in Yogapith, Mayapur, to the ghat. At that time, there were no temples on both side of the road, there was only a jungle, forest, and people would pass stool on both sides of the road. Passing these places, one of Srila Prabhupad's disciples could not tolerate the smell of the stool and closed his nose. Prabhupad asked him,

"What is happening? What smell are you getting?

"Prabhupad, there is so much stool on the road..."

"What stool? I am not getting any smell of the stool? I am getting the smell of incense."

How is it possible? Prabhupad explained, "Yes, I can see on both sides of the road there are so many temples, but you cannot see them. Mahaprabhu's worship is going on on both sides of the road, but you cannot it now. Later you will see."

And it happened.

So, you must believe, you must have strongest faith. Faith and surrender are the main qualities. The problem is that we cannot surrender fully. We only say it with our mouth, but actually we are not fully surrendered souls. When a soul (jiva atma) is surrendered (saranagata), then if some offence comes through their service, Guru and Krishna do not take their offence. Through offence, heart becomes dirty, but if a surrendered soul makes an offence, then Krishna does not take their offence. So, mainly, surrender is necessary.

* * *

Our Mantra, Our Japa

19 July 2013

Question: Which sloka would you like your disciples to always meditate on, think about?

What is a sloka? A sloka means some Sanskrit words. The main idea is to remember your Guru, remember the Lord. There is a sloka spoken by Krishna in Srimad Bhagavad-gita,

sarva-dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja

aham tvam sarva-papebhyo, moksayisyami ma suchah

"Give up all kinds of religion and surrender to Me alone. I will liberate you from all sins, do not despair."

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

There are many slokas that you can think about, there is not one single sloka. There are many good slokas in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Srimad Bhagavatam and other scriptures.

Those who are initiated can always remember their gayatri mantram, that is good for them. You can remember the gayatri mantram not only three times a day—you can always recite and remember it, it is good for you. You must always keep connection. Otherwise, you can always chant the Holy Name, always remember Krishna. Whatever you do, you must only keep connection with your Guru. This is called abhidheya, practice. Practice is necessary. What does practice mean? How will you practise? When you are cooking, it is also practice; when you are cutting vegetables, that is also practice; when you are making a garland, that is also practice; when you are sweeping the floor or the yard, that is also practice.

The main thing is that through service you must be able to always remember your Guru, remember the Lord. That is your main mantram—always think about your Guru, think about your Gurudev's service.

There is not only one particular sloka, but you can always chant the gayatri mantram, always remember the Brahma gayatri, the Guru gayatri, you can also always chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Every day when you wake up, you must start chanting.

There are many very good slokas in Srimad Bhagavatam and other scriptures. Mahaprabhu liked this sloka from Bhagavatam,

tava kathamrtam tapta-jivanam

kavibhir iditam kalmasapaham

sravana-mangalam srimad-atatam

bhuvi grnanti te bhurida janah

"My Dear, bestowing the greatest fortune that is attained after so many births, exalted souls come to this world and live here by singing and spreading Your nectarean glories that are life and soul for those suffering in this material world being devoid of Your divine love; that are the gist of all poets' songs; that are the destroyer of all sins; that benefit anyone who hears them; and that possess universal attraction."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 14.13)

Uddhav Maharaj also spoke one very nice sloka where he explained to the devotees what our head is for, what our legs are for, what we must use our hands for, why our head on our shoulders is so heavy and how to make it light (by paying obeisance to Lord Krishna), etc. There is also a sloka written by Rupa Goswami where he describes Krishna's murti,

madhuram madhuram vapur asya vibhor

madhuram madhuram vadanam madhuram

madhu-gandhi mrdu-smitam etad aho

madhuram madhuram madhuram madhuram

"O, Lord Krishna! The beauty of Your transcendental form is very sweet, but Your beautiful face is even sweeter, yet the sweet smile on Your face, which is like the sweet aroma of honey, is sweeter still."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 21.136)

This is a very nice sloka. Krishna's beauty, Krishna's face, Krishna's chest, everything is madhuram, more madhuram, and more madhuram (more honey, more honey, and more honey). There is also Rupa Goswami's sloka about Nama mahatmya (glorification of the Holy Name),

tunde tandavaniratim vitanute tundavali-labdhaye

karna-kroda kadambinighatayate karnarbudebhyah sprham

cetah prangana-sanginivijayate sarvendriyanamkrtim

no jane janita kiyadbhir amrtaih krsneti varna-dvayi

“When the holy name of Krishna descends and captures the tongue and lips, it controls them so strongly that it engages them in chanting the holy name as if the lips and tongue have gone mad. In this way, the power of the name descends in them, and one feels that only one tongue and one mouth are not enough; thousands of mouths are necessary to taste the name. Then the holy name of Krishna enters the ear with such a great force and current that the ears are captured, and one thinks that only two ears are insufficient; he wants millions of ears to attend to the sweet current entering the ears. Two ears are nothing to him; he wants millions of ears. The nectar of the holy name is coming like a flood through his ears, pushing its way within the heart.

“It is so sweet that as it goes to capture the heart, the center of all senses, everything is paralyzed. Wherever that sweet aggressor touches, the whole thing is captured with such intensity that everything else is ignored. Rupa Goswami writes, "I don't know, I can't say, I fail to express how much nectar there is in the holy name of Krishna. These two syllables contain so much sweetness, and such a high quality of sweetness. And this sweetness is so aggressive that it captures everything."

(Vidagdha-Madhava, the translation is quoted from 'The Search for Sri Krishna')

There are so many slokas but it is difficult for simple-hearted devotees to recite so many slokas. If you always only chant the main mantra—the Hare Krishna maha-mantra—it is good for you.

* * *

Heart to Heart

19 July 2013

Question: What is the heart to heart transaction between the Guru and a disciple?

It is very difficult to explain this transaction, or connection. This connection, this transcendental power comes from above automatically. It is a very high conception to speak about it. Srila Rupa Goswami wrote about it, and Uddhav Maharaj also spoke about it.

When Uddhav Maharaj came to Vrindavan, he wanted to give some nourishment to all Vraja gopis, to Mother Yasoda, Nanda Maharaj, but when he saw them he thought he was the lowest person, "Who am I? I am nothing compared to them!"

When he asked somebody, "Can you please tell me where Nanda Maharaj's house is?"

Pointing at a drain the person replied, "Can you see the water coming down this drain? Go up this drain—the place where the drain finishes is the house of Nanda Maharaj."

The water in that drain was not water actually, it was tears of Mother Yasoda and Nanda Maharaj. Uddhav Maharaj became surprised, "How is it possible that tears can form a drain?!" When he came to Vrindavan, he also wanted also to hear about pastimes of Krishna, to hear what Krishna did in that area. In the end, Uddhav Maharaj's final words were, "I do not want to stay in this human body, I want to be born in a tree's body so that I can come here and hear some Krishna-katha from those who have become trees. I want to stay here, and when all the Vraja gopis come and speak Krishna-katha, I will hear it from them!" This was the desire and feeling of Uddhav Maharaj...

Krishna gave so much power to Uddhav Maharaj, who was one of His closest ministers, but that heart to heart connection comes automatically. To get it, it is necessary to give something—it is necessary to sacrifice your life. Sacrifice can also be different—if you sacrifice something and in lieu of that you think you will get something, it is not a real sacrifice, it is sakam bhakti (devotion driven by desires), it is not niskam bhakti (devotion free from desires).

Gurudev can understand why a particular person has taken initiation from him, what a person has come to him for, and a real disciple (who is a niskam bhakta, selfless devotee) can also understand what the Guru wants from him or her. The Vraja gopis do not think about themselves. Even Sivji Maharaj, even Laksmi, Brahma, Uddhav Maharaj, Narad Muni, even Satyabhama, Rukmini, everybody failed—how is it possible that the Vrajagopis could do it? Because they have given their heart and they have stolen Krishna's heart, that is why through their service, through their nourishment that special connection has come.

Heart to heart connection with Guru and Krishna comes through service: through pleasing your Guru, through making your Guru happy, that connection is transferred to your heart. The gopis said, "My legs can rot, I may have leprosy, it is not a problem—I want good for Him, I want Him to be alive and happy; even if we die for Him, it is not a problem." This is the heart to heart connection between the Vraja gopis and Krishna. Such connection is very rare to get...

* * *

Arriving at Sri Ekachakra Dham

30 January 2015, Sri Ekachakra Dham

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim

yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

"The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill—all it takes is mercy from Gurudev."

(Bhavartha Dipika)

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya

chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

"I offer my obeisance unto Sri Gurudev, who has opened my eyes, which were blinded by the darkness of ignorance, with the salve of divine knowledge."

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam

chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam

govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram

vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

I offer my obeisance unto he who perfectly fulfils his Gurudev's most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his Gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all aspects of Vedic knowledge, both conceivable and inconceivable; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu's line; who is known as 'Govinda'—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj; whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the Guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.

Today is Bhaimi Ekadasi, everybody must observe it. As a result of your fortune you are observing it today at the holy dham of Nityananda Prabhu. Even if somebody does not observe Ekadasi, they must observe Bhaimi Ekadasi—this Ekadasi was observed by Bhimsen. Tomorrow is dvadasi and the adhivas (eve) of Nityananda Prabhu's appearance, then it is Nityananda trayodasi, and after that there is also magh purnima. There are many purnimas (full moon days) in the year, but magh purnima is the best, so we always observe magh purnima and gaura purnima.

Today, by our great fortune we have arrived here at Sri Ekachakra Dham, the land of Lord Nityananda Prabhu. The Lord Himself appeared here as Nityananda Prabhu, a son of Hadai Pandit and Padmavati. "Balaram haila Nitai, Vrajer Balai Nitai holo, Vrajer Kanai Gaura holo." All those associates who came in Dvapar yuga to perform pastimes with Krishna, appeared in this world in Kali yuga—"svaparsada sviya dhama saha avatara."

Very near from here there is a very beautiful place called Pandav tala. When the Pandvas (Yudhisthir, Bhim, Arjun, Nakul, Sahadev, and their mother Kunti) came here during their exile, there was a jungle and there lived a demon. Bhimsen slew him and after that they stayed at a house of a brahman by the wish of Krishna. Vyasadev, the composer of Srimad Bhagavatam, also came at that place. So, this is not an ordinary place, and this is the place you have arrived at.

You can also see behind the temple there is a kunda called Janu Kunda (janu means a knee). Here, Krishna Balaram (where there is Krishna, there is Balaram) crawled and played in the water, and one day They disappeared. Later, when Jahnavi and Vasudha came to the Yamuna, to the bank of Kadam Khandi (you will see it later during the parikrama), they found Them in a Deity form. These Deities are still served here, it is the Banka Ray Deity (Banka means Krishna).

Here at Ekachakra Nityananda Prabhu performed many pastimes.

One time, Padmavati Mayi sent Nitai to the workers in the field with some muri and fire-baked eggplant, begun pora (it was the favourite food of Hadai Pandit), but on the way to the feild, Nitai ate everything Himself. The workers were hungry and went home,

"We will not work there!"

"Why? What has happened?"

"You have not sent any food for us!"

"What?! I sent Nitai. Where has He gone?"

Later, when she found Nitai, He confessed, "I got hungry and ate it all..."

His character is full of wonder. He also gave mercy to all the dacoits. By the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, dacoits became Vaishnavs.

Once, there was a gang of dacoits who decided to burglar the house of Nityananda Prabhu. When they came to His house on the first day, they could not enter it because they saw there was a flood and there was water all around it. They tried the next day. When they came on the second day, they saw there were so many insects and scorpio around the house. Attacked by the insects they ran away. Next day, they came again and saw many security and military men around the house. Finally, when they came on the fourth day, the leader of the dacoit gang became blind! Then the dacoits came to Nityananda Prabhu and apologised—they did not know whose house they had come to! When they surrendered to Nityananda Prabhu, their blind leader said, "Prabhu, for three days we have tried and tried, but this happened, this happened, and now I have become blind! Please rescue me!" Nityananda Prabhu laughed when He heard it. Then, all dacoits took shelter of Nityananda Prabhu's lotus feet and Nityananda Prabhu said,

"Can you do something for Me?"

"Yes, what is it? What service can we do for You?"

"No, you do not have to do any service for Me, but you have been dacoits all this time, please be Vaishnavs now."

They became Vaishnavs. Such is Nitai's unlimited mercy. Without Nityananda Prabhu's unlimited mercy we cannot come to this place.

We sing in the kirtan,

nitai-pada-kamala koti-chandra-susitala

ye chhayaya jagata judaya

"Cooling like ten million moons, Nitai's lotus feet soothe the world with their shade."

For those who take shelter of Nitai's feet, the world becomes cool. The sun heats and the moon cools, and Nitai's feet are cooling like ten million moons.

hena nitai vine bhai radha-krsna paite nai

drdha kari' dhara nitaira paya

If you only say, "Radha Krishna! Radha Krishna!" and do not get mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, you will not get anything. Narottam Das Thakur writes this. Drdha kari—it is necessary to have the strongest faith for Nityananda Prabhu, we must hold onto the lotus feet of our Guru very strongly.

se sambandha nahi yara vrtha janma gela tara

sei pasu bada durachara

"The life of one who had no connection with Nitai passed in vain. Such an animal is very wicked."

Those who have no connection with Nityananda Prabhu, who have never chanted Nitai's name, have never served Nitai, waste their life. You must have connection with Nitai!

se sambandha nahi yara vrtha janma gela tara

sei pasu bada durachara

nitai na balila mukhe majila samsara-sukhe

vidya-kule ki karibe tara

"The life of one who had no connection with Nitai passed in vain. Such an animal is very wicked. What will learning (aristocratic birth) do for one who was immersed in worldly pleasures and never called aloud, 'Nitai'?"

Somebody may be a great pandit, a great learned man, but

jada-vidya yata, mayara vaibhava,

tomara bhajane badha

moha janamiya, anitya samsare,

jivake karaye gadha

"All mundane learning is an exhibition of maya and an obstacle to Your service. It brings about infatuation for the temporary world and makes an ass of the soul."

(Saranagati, 3)

* * *

Sri Ekachakra Dham: Exclusive Land

7 February 2017, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Translated from Bengali

By the mercy of our Gurupadpadma, by a great fortune, we have arrived today at the holy land of Nityananda Prabhu. This Ekachakra Dham is the birthplace of Nityananda Prabhu, and you have all come here today, on this Ekadasi day.

Without mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, we cannot follow any bhajan line,

ara kabe nitaichand karuna karibe

samsara-vasana mora kabe tuchha ha'be

"When will Nitaichand give mercy to me? When will all my material desires become insignificant?"

('Prarthana' by Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

kabe nityananda more kari' daya

chhadaibe mora visayera maya

"When will Nityananda be compassionate to me and relieve me from the mundane illusion?"

("Kabe habe bolo se dina amar" by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

You must become detached from this material world, otherwise, if you are attached to this world, you will never get the Lord. If you want to get the Lord, you must want the mercy of Lord Nityananda—without His mercy we cannot proceed, we cannot progress in our spiritual life. Nityananda is non-different from Guru-tattva (Gurudev), so if you do not get the mercy of Gurudev, you can never get the mercy of the Lord. If the Guru is angry with you, then nobody, not even the Lord, can protect you.

ara kabe nitaichand karuna karibe

samsara-vasana mora kabe tuchha ha'be

"When will Nitaichand give mercy to me? When will all my material desires become insignificant?"

('Prarthana' by Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

kabe nityananda more kari' daya

chhadaibe mora visayera maya

"When will Nityananda be compassionate to me and relieve me from the mundane illusion?"

("Kabe habe bolo se dina amar" by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

When will Nityananda Prabhu give me His mercy?...

Having travelled through 84,000,000 species we have finally got this human birth, but

durlabha manava janma labhiya samsare

krsna na bhajinu duhkha kahiba kahare?

"I have got a very rare human life in this world, but I have not worshipped Lord Krishna. Whom can I tell of my misery?"

'samsara' 'samsara' kari' michhe gela kala

labha na ha-ila kichhu, ghatila janjala

"Time has passed as I have been busy in my material life, and I have got nothing—only became burdened."

kisera samsara ei chhayabaji praya

ihate mamata kari vrtha dina yaya

"What sort of world is this? It is like a trick, a show. While I affectionately take it as my own, days pass by in vain."

dina yaya michha kaje, nisa nidra-vase

nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe vase

"My days are passed in useless work and nights are wasted on sleeping. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting next to me."

Life is not eternal, when we have to leave this body and go, we do not know where we will be posted, but this time we have got this body and we must listen to Gurudev, not to our mind. "Satisfying the whims of your mind is not bhajan—following Gurudev, serving the Guru, the Vaishnavs and satisfying them is what is called bhajan."

jivana anitya janaha sara

tahe nana-vidha vipada-bhara

namasraya kari' yatane tumi

thakaha apana kaje

"Understand the essence: life is temporary and filled with all sorts of adversity. Carefully taking shelter of the Name, engage in your work."

Take the shelter of the Holy Name, and do your job. Nobody tells you that you must give up your job, there is not such rule, but for those who can engage themselves in the service of Guru, Vaishnavs and Bhagavan, if we can follow Guru and Vaishnavs, everything is possible.

guru-mukha-padma-vakya chitete kariya aikya

ara na kariha mane asa

"Make the teachings from Sri Guru's lotus mouth one with your heart, and do not desire anything else within your heart."

There are so many vitta harankari gurus (gurus who take away your money, steal your property, and so on) in this world, but a santapa-harankari guru, a guru who takes away the three-fold miseries (adhibhautik, adhidaivik, adhyatmik, miseries caused by one's body, by the nature, and other souls) is rare to get. Where are we to go to get the Lord? Where are we to go to get a real shelter? Where can we get a real guru? Where are we to go to come to a Guru-parampara line? We must understand it, we must think about it.

You have taken the trouble to come here to the holy land of Nityananda Prabhu, tomorrow also many devotees are coming. Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur writes,

kabe habe bala se dina amara

aparadha ghuchi suddha name ruchi

krpa-bale ha'be hrdaye sanchara

"Please tell me, when will that day be mine when my offences will be dispelled and taste for the pure Name will be infused within my heart by the power of mercy?"

dhana jana ara, kavita-sundari,

baliba na chahi deha-sukha-kari

janme janme dao, ohe gaurahari!

ahaituki bhakti charane tomara

"When will I declare that I do not desire wealth, followers, erudition, beautiful women, or any other bodily pleasure? O Gaurahari! Birth after birth, please give me unconditional devotion to Your feet."

("Kabe habe bolo se dina amar" by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

"I only want Your devotion!"

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya

kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

"If you ask Krishna for anything except devotion, He can give you those things—bhukti, mukti, liberation, and so on—but He will hide devotion from you. You will not get devotion."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 8.18)

There is karma misra bhakti (devotion mixed with selfish desire), jnana misra bhakti (devotion mixed with pursuit of knowledge), jnana sunya bhakti (devotion devoid of knowledge-seeking), suddha bhakti (pure devotion). It is said that if you do not become a Vaishnav you cannot serve a Vaishnav...

* * *

Varaha Avatar

31 January 2015, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Today is the day when we must worship Varahadev. He is the adi-pati of Koladwip (the master of Koladwip), so today at the time of His worship we must make a special offering.

In Vaikuntha, Laksmi Devi and Narayan had two gate keepers, Jaya and Vijaya. One day, when they were standing on their guard outside Laksmi Devi and Narayan's door, four brahman sons of Brahma came there naked.

"We would like to see Narayan," said one of the brahmans.

"It is not possible to see Him now, Prabhu is resting now," answered Jaya and Vijaya.

Everything happens by the will of the Lord—the Lord was disturbed by His gate keepers and by His will Jay and Vijay could not stay as gate keepers any more. Hearing their reply, the sons of Brahma cursed them, "You will have to take birth on the earth! You will not be able to stay in Vaikuntha!"

In the meantime, Narayan heard some noise outside.

"What has happened?" the Lord asked His gate keepers as He came out.

"Prabhu," said Jaya and Vijaya, "we are Your gate keepers, and these four children come here naked to take Your darshan... We told them You were resting."

"You do not know who they are—they are Brahma's sons! You have stopped them, so they cursed you, and now cannot do anything, you have to go to the earth. But I can give you some relief."

"Please tell us, Prabhu, how can we get relief?" prayed the gate keepers.

"I give you two options. If you come to earth and worship Me, you will be born seven times; if you become My enemies, then you will be born only three times, after that you can come back. Which do you choose?"

"Prabhu, we want to come back to You soon, so we will be Your enemies."

So, in Satya-yuga they became two brothers Hiranykasipu and Hiranyaksa, and the Lord took the form of a boar and killed Hiranyaksa.

There are ten avatars (incarnations) of the Lord, and one of them is this incarnation in the form of a boar, that is Varaha avatar.

* * *

Cry and Call, "Doyal Nitai!"

7 February 2017, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Translated from Bengali

jive daya name ruchi vaisnava seva

iha bahi sanatana nahi ara dharma

"Be merciful to the souls, chant the Holy Name, and serve the Vaishnavs. Sanatan, besides this, there is no other religion."

Mahaprabhu told Sanatan Goswami, "You must be merciful to the jiva souls—bring the souls averse to Krishna to this path. You must have taste for the Holy Name and you must serve the Vaishnavs." When Mahaprabhu left Nabadwip, He said to Nityananda Prabhu, "I am going to Puri on the order of My Mother, but who will look after Gaura mandal? Preach about Krishna, preach about service to Krishna in this Gauda mandal!" But Nityananda Prabhu instead started preaching about Mahaprabhu,

bhaja gauranga, kaha gauranga, laha gaurangera nama re

ye jana gauranga bhaje, sei amara prana re

"Worship Gauranga! Say Gauranga! Take Gauranga's Name! Those who worship Gauranga are My heart and soul!"

samsarera para haiya bhaktira sagare

ye dubibe se bhajuka nitai chandere

"To cross over material existence and dive into the ocean of devotion, you must worship Nitaichand."

(Chaitanya-bhagavat, 1.17.152)

If you want to cross over this material world and dive into the ocean of devotion, you must worship Nityananda. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami wrote,

jagai madhai haite muni se papistha

purisera kita haite muni se laghistha

mora nama sune yei punya ksaya

mora nama laya yei tar papa haya

"I am more sinful than Jagai and Madhai and lower than the worms in the stool. If anyone hears my name, they lose all auspiciousness; if anyone takes my name, they become sinful."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 5.205-206)

"Who will give mercy to such a low fallen soul as myself except Nityananda? Except Nityananda, there is no one in this world who can give mercy to me." Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami wrote this. We must worship this Nityananda Prabhu, we must cry and call, "Doyal Nitai!" If you chant the Holy Name, there is some offence, but if you chant the Name of Nitaichad, there is no offence. Nitaichad says, "Amara kiniya bhaja Gaura Hari!You can buy Me—worship Gauranga and I will be sold to you!"

If we worship Gauranga,

"gorara ami, gorara ami" mukhe balile nahi chale

gorara achara, gorara vichara la-ile phala phale

loka dekhana gora bhaja tilaka matra dhari'

gopanete atyachara gora dhare churi

Just saying, "I am Gora's! I am Gora's!" does not do. Only when you follow Gora's practices and Gora's conception will you get the proper result. You show the world you serve Gora simply by wearing tilak but secretly you misbehave. Gora will catch you, you thief!

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6-7)

You must accept Gaura's practice and teaching. There was a brahman called Gunarnava Misra who did not like Nityananda Prabhu and for this reason did not want to give honour to Ramdas Minaketan, a devotee of Nityananda Prabhu. Srila Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami said that he did not accept such half-hen logic—if you give honour to one person and do not give honour to another person, it is pasanda (being faithless). Later that night, Nityananda Prabhu appeared to Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami in a dream and called him to Vrindavan, "Listen, listen, Krishna Das! Do not stay in Jhamatpur, come to Vrindavan!" The next day Krishna Das Goswami left for Vrindavan where he later composedChaitanya-charitamrita.

When we sing Nityananda Prabhu's kirtan, we sing, "Asatyere satya kari mani—I accept untruth as truth." We think, "This is my house, this is my room, my child, my family," and so on, we live in this material world, but we must alway think, "When will this material net be removed? When will I be able to leave material attachment?" Thinking about this, remembering this, we must engage in sincere service of the Lord (Hari bhajan), sincerely. Only saying, "Jay Nitai!" will not do—you must not only say it, you must accept His teaching and practice properly.

We need to get the mercy of Nitaichand,

asraya laiya bhaje tare krsna nahi tyaje

ara saba mare akarane

"Krishna never leaves those who have taken shelter in Him. All others simply die in vain."

(By Srila Narottam Das Thakur, Prarthana, 17)

Nityananda Prabhu left this Virachandrapur, Sri Ekachakra Dham, when He was twelve years old. A sannyasi came to His parents' house and asked for alms from them. What did he want as a donation? He wanted Nitaichad. Padmavati said to her husband that she had no choice, she had to give Nityananda to that sannyasi... Later, when Nityananda Prabhu came to Nabadwip, He first came to Nandan Acharya Bhavan (we always go there when we go on the Nabadwip Dham parikrama). Mahaprabhu could understand that Nityananda Prabhu had come to Nabadwip and sent some devotees to find Him. The devotees looked everywhere but could not find Him. Then, Mahaprabhu Himself went to look for Nityananda and immediately found Him—when He saw Nityananda Prabhu at Nandan Acharya Bhavan, both fell unconscious. Another time, when Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu were in Kalna, They came to the house of Gauri Das Pandit. Gauri Das Pandit said to Them, "Prabhu, You have come here by Your desire, but it is my desire that You may not leave." Then he saw that there were Gaura Nitai in his house and Gaura Nitai in front of him—Mahaprabhu asked him, "Choose who will stay." Gauri Das Pandit thought, "Who is original? Those who are inside or those who are outside the house? OK, let those who are inside the house stay." And They stayed there.

In this way, we must get mercy of Nitaichader

ara kabe nitaichand karuna karibe

samsara-vasana mora kabe tuchha ha'be

"When will Nitaichand give mercy to me? When will all my material desires become insignificant?"

('Prarthana' by Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

These glories of Nityananda Dham who can understand? Those who have got the mercy can understand it. Those who have truly got Nityananda Prabhu's mercy, who have got mercy of the Guru, they can understand Nityananda Prabhu, they can know Nityananda Prabhu, otherwise not.

isvarera krpa-lesa haya ta' yahare

sei ta' isvara-tattva janibare pare

"Only those who receive even a trace of the Lord's mercy, can understand the Lord."

(Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 6.83)

When Mahaprabhu was going to Puri, Nityananda Prabhu broke His danda, and Mahaprabhu got angry—He ran to Jagannath mandir and fell there unconscious in front of Jagannath. Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya, who was the manager of the Jagannath temple, told the pandas (servitors of the temple), "Whoever He is, bring Him to my house." When Acharya Gopinath, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya's brother-in-law, saw Mahaprabhu, he told Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya,

"You do not know, but this is Jagannath Misra's son and grandson of Nilambar Chakravarti. He is not an ordinary man—He is Svayam Bhagavan, the Lord Himself."

Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya did not agree, "I do not think so. Why do you think so?"

"You do not think so because you do not have mercy of the Lord. I have His mercy, that is why I know He is the Lord."

It is those who have mercy of the Guru, that can know the Guru, that can understand who the Guru is. Without his mercy you cannot understand him. Without the mercy of the Guru you cannot understand anything, you cannot see the Guru—without his mercy, the Guru will look like an ordinary conditioned soul. That is why we want to get the mercy of the Guru...

By the strong desire and mercy of Gurudev, by the wish of Prabhupad, by the supreme mercy of Srila Guru Maharaj, a branch of Chaitanya Saraswat Math has manifest here, and now you can come here, we can take shelter of this place, but we must come here and serve here properly, with determination and attachment...

* * *

Pandav Tala

9 February 2017, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Translated from Bengali

We are very fortunate to have made Sri Ekachakra Dham parikrama. During thisparikrama we went to the Jagannath mandir—one time, Hadai Pandit wanted to have the darshan of Lord Jagannath, and Sriman Nityananda Prabhu said to him, "You do not have to go to Puri to have the darshan of Lord Jagannath, I will bring Jagannath here!" This is how this temple appeared.

There is also Pandav tala near our temple. When the Pandavs were exiled from their kingdom, they started travelling to many different places, and when a few years passed, they came here to Ekachakra. Before, there was a forest here and in the forest there was a house of an old brahman. The five Pandavs (Yudhisthir, Arjun, Bhima, Nakul, and Sahadev) with Kunti stayed at his house.

In this area there was also a demon called Baka who would go house to house destroying everything and killing people every day. Eventually, the villagers came to the demon and offered to send a cart full of food and one person from the village every day. The demon agreed. So, one day, it was the turn of that brahman's house where the Pandavs were staying—they had to send one person to the demon for his food. The brahman had a wife and a son.

"I will go," said the son to his parents.

"No, we cannot allow this. We are old now, we will not live long, one of us will go."

"I will go," said the father.

"No, no, I will go," said the mother.

"No, mother and father. You will not go, I cannot allow this," said the child.

The mother began to cry and Kunti Devi, the mother of Pandavs, saw her crying.

"What has happened? Why are you crying?" she asked the wife of the brahman.

"No, no, it is nothing..." she replied thinking that the Pandavs and their mother were guests at their house so they should not tell anything to them.

"No, no, tell me what is the problem?" insisted Kunti. "My son Bhima is very strong, he can help."

"You are our guests, we cannot trouble you. A guest in the house is Narayan—we must always serve the guests..."

Eventually, they found out what the matter was and Bhima said, "Who is this Baka demon? Where does he live? I will finish him!" What did he do then? There was prepared a bullock cart loaded with food and Bhima took the cart and started off to the raksasa's place. As he was walking, he became very hungry and started eating the food in the cart. By the time he reached the demon's place, it had gotten very late and the cart was empty. The demon was impatient and angry, "Who is coming today? Will they come or not?!" When he saw Bhima and the empty cart, he became very angry, "You are not only late, but you have eaten all my food!"" They started fighting and Bhima killed the demon.

So, this Pandav tala is the place where the Pandavs stayed, Vyasadev also came here...

* * *

Whole-Hearted Service

16 June 2010

Narottam Das Thakur was born in Sripat Keturi (Bangladesh now) and in his life he composed many Vaishnav songs, mostly these are Vaishnav vandana songs.

When Mahaprabhu once went to preach in Bangladesh, He came to the Padma River. In India it is Ganga Devi, and the same Ganga that flows in Bangladesh is called Padma. It is very wide and very, very long, at some places you cannot even see the opposite bank—compared to the Padma, the Ganga is small. When Mahaprabhu came into the Padma, He took some water in His hand, touched it to His forehead and threw it back into the river shouting, "Narottam! Narottam! Narottam!" At that time, even Narottam's father and mother were not born, and all devotees wondered, "Who is Narottam? What is Narottam?" Nobody knew it. Later, not just a few years later, but many years later, maybe a hundred years later, Narottam was born in that area as a devotee, you know it.

When Narottam Das Thakur grew up, he said to his mother, "Mother, I want to go to Vrindavan. Please do not stop me—if you do not let me go there, I will die! Please give me permission to go to Vrindavan." He was a young boy at that time, perhaps eight-nine years old. Without his father knowing anything, Narottam's mother gave him some money (Gurudev said it was about thirty rupees) and told him to go.

Narottam Das Thakur preached Mahaprabhu's conception and he was the last one who preached it widely, after that it was Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur. Narottam Das Thakur preached with Srila Jiva Goswami, Srila Shyamananda Prabhu. After they left, so much misconception came...

One devotee of Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur wrote about Prabhupad,

sripat khetari dhama thakura sri narottama

tomate tanhara guna dekhi

This is written very nicely. "Narottam Das Thakur was born in Keturi, and he preached so much. I can see that you, Prabhupad, are doing the same kind of preaching now, and I can see all kinds of good qualities of Srila Narottam Das Thakur in you."

Actually, all our Guru-varga serve the Lord and serve their Guru whole-heartedly, with kaya, mana, vakya (body, mind, and speech). They used all their heart and body for the service to their Guru. Mahaprabhu also said that you must use all instruments of your body for the service to your Guru. Ramanuja Acharya said that you can use and serve with your body from your head down to your navel (you cannot use your legs in service, for example), but Mahaprabhu said it was not correct—you must serve with everything. Mahaprabhu said when you have Krishna-prema—when you have love for Krishna, when you have love for your Guru—then you can serve with your legs even. Rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa (senses that perceive form, taste, smell, sound, touch)—you can use everything. Arjun, for example, always paid obeisance with his head and eyes only, but if you bow at the lotus feet of Lord Krishna, it pleases Him more. Krishna is pleased more with Sridham-sakha, Subal-sakha. Sridham and Subal can even climb with their legs on top of Krishna's shoulders, and Krishna becomes very happy. Krishna feels more happiness than when He is with Arjun. Mahaprabhu gave this example.

Acharya Ramanuja would travel everywhere, and one time he came to Tirupati, Sailapurna ashram. He stayed there for one month. There, he had a very good servitor whose name was Govinda. Govinda always made Ramanuja Acharya's bed, and after he made his bed, he lay on it for a few minutes. One day, Ramanuja Acharya got to know about it and asked Govinda,

"Govinda, what are you doing? I hear that you sleep in my bed! Do you not know that if you use your Gurudev's bed you will have to go to hell?"

"Yes, Gurudev, I know that..." answered Govinda.

"Then why do you sleep on my bed?"

"Prabhu, when I make the bed for you, I want to know if that bed is comfortable or not because you will sleep in it. That is why I test it."

"Oh, OK, I understand now..."

Govinda thought, "For your service, Gurudev, I can even go to hell, it is not a problem."

There are many other examples of this. For the service to the Lord, to Krishna, to your Guru, you can do anything actually, but not for your indriya tarpan—for our own enjoyment we cannot do anything.

* * *

Clean Heart, Open Door

8 February 2017, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Translated from Bengali

We are sitting in the nat mandir and I am kindly asking you to please not talk during the class. This is not a place for idle talks—the nartya mandir, the Math are for Bhagavat-katha, sadhu-sanga, Nama sankirtana, Mathura-vasa, sraddhaya sri murti sevana. Do not gossip here, do not have idle talks, do not sit and criticise others, do not discuss mundane things, do not listen to any mundane talks. Leave all these talks at home. This place here is Sri Bhakti Siddhanta Sravan Sadhan: you must listen to bhakti-siddhanta (devotional conception) here, you must listen to the teaching of Guru Maharaj, to the teaching of Gurudev, listen about Nityananda Prabhu. Do not engage in prajalpa.

If you engage yourself in sravan and kirtan, then all dirt from your heart will go away, but if you do not clean the dirt from your heart, Bhakti Devi will never come there—the seed of devotion will never sprout in your heart.

brahmanda bhramite kona bhagyavan jiva

guru-krsna-prasade paya bhakti-lata-bija

"Having travelled throughout the universe and got the mercy of Guru, Krishna, a fortunate soul receives a seed of the devotional creeper."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 19.151)

Have you come here to sleep and gossip or to hear about Nityananda Prabhu? You have come here from so far, you have taken much trouble to come, and you have come here to hear about the glories and pastimes of Lord Nityananda Prabhu. You heard in the kirtan,

nitaiyer karuna habe vraje radha-krsna pabe

dhara nitaiyer charan duhkhani

nitaiyer charana satya tanhara sevaka nitya

nitai-pada sada kara asa

"When Nitai bestows His mercy you will reach Radha-Krsna in Vraja. Grasp Nitai's feet! Nitai's feet are truth, and His servants are eternal. Always aspire for Nitai's feet."

samsarera para haiya bhaktira sagare

ye dubibe se bhajuka nitai chandere

"To cross over material existence and dive into the ocean of devotion, you must worship Nitaichand."

(Chaitanya-bhagavat, 1.17.152)

You must hear the glorification of Nityananda Prabhu, hear about His pastimes and teaching—those who hear about His glories, can get devotion to Nityananda Prabhu. You cannot buy devotion with money.

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya

kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

"If you ask Krishna for anything except devotion, He can give you those things—bhukti, mukti, liberation, and so on—but He will hide devotion from you. You will not get devotion."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 8.18)

We are chanting the Holy Name, but why are we not getting any result? Because we make many offences. The first offence is sadhu-ninda and Vaishnav-ninda—criticising, speaking bad about others. Sadhu-ninda is the first and biggest offence.

"Krsna rusta hale Guru rakhibare pare, Guru ruste hale Krsna rakhibare nare—if Krishna becomes angry with you, Gurudev can save you, but if Gurudev is angry with you, Krishna cannot save you." If you make an offence at the lotus feet of the Lord, Vaishnavs can forgive you, but if you make offence at the lotus feet of these Vaishnavs, who will then forgive you? That is why it is said,

krsna yadi chhute bhakte bhukti mukti diya

kabhu prema-bhakti na dena rakhena lukaiya

"If you ask Krishna for anything except devotion, He can give you those things—bhukti, mukti, liberation, and so on—but He will hide devotion from you. You will not get devotion."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 8.18)

If, instead of devotion, you ask the Lord for money, wealth, car, house, the Lord will give everything to you, but you will not get devotion. If, on the other hand, somebody says, "O Lord, I want You!" they will get everything in this world.

You have heard the story of Bali Maharaj. Bali Maharaj gave three steps of land to Vamandev. Vamandev took everything with two of His steps, and there was no place left where He could make His third step. Then, Bali Maharaj's wife told her husband, "You have given everything, but have you given yourself to the lotus feet of the Lord?" If you can give yourself, then you will get everything—money, house, car, wealth, you will know no want, you must only give yourself to the service of Vaishnavs, Guru, devotees...

Do you see how many people have come today to take prasadam? The festival is tomorrow, but so many people have come today, and I gave an order to the devotees to keep the gate always open. Our heart must also always be open—do not close the door of your heart. Keep it open. If Bhakti Devi comes to you and your door is closed, how will she then enter? Do not close your door, keep it open, then Bhakti Devi will come.

This is our prayer to you. You have come to the dham of Nityananda Prabhu, but if you only engage in prajalpa, it will not do—if you only sleep and eat, if you do not listen to Hari-katha about Nityananda Prabhu, then you will incur a debt. You have all facilities here (you have a place to sit, a place to sleep, etc.), but you do not listen about Nityananda Prabhu, you listen to material talks...

There was once a maulana who used to give Koran classes and one old lady would sit at his classes and cry as soon as he started talking. One day, the maulana asked the old lady,

"You come to hear me read Koran every day, but what do you hear? How do you understand it? Why do you cry?"

"There is some reason why I cry..."

"What is it?"

"Many days ago I lost my goat. The goat had a beard just like yours, and when I see you talk and see your beard I remember my goat..."

So, do not talk here about material things, about "house" talks.

'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 Madhav Himself."

('Vaishnav ke?' verse 12)

We live in this material world, we use material things, but we do it for the Lord, for the service to the Lord, not for pleasure of our senses.

* * *

Nityananda: Our All in All

8 February 2017, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Translated from Bengali

ara kabe nitaichand karuna karibe

samsara-vasana mora kabe tuchha ha'be

"When will Nitaichand give mercy to me? When will all my material desires become insignificant?"

('Prarthana' by Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

kabe nityananda more kari' daya

chhadaibe mora visayera maya

"When will Nityananda be compassionate to me and relieve me from the mundane illusion?"

("Kabe habe bolo se dina amar" by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

It is necessary to always meditate on this in your heart. "When will Nitaichand give His mercy to me? When will my desires become insignificant? When will Nityananda be merciful to me and relieve me from the material illusion? When will He rescue me from the material world? I have so much attachment to the material world, when will He rescue me from this kind of attachment?" We must be free from material attachment and we must establish ourselves in the relationship with the Lord.

'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 Madhav Himself."

('Vaishnav ke?' verse 12)

There must be only relation with the Lord and no material attachment. When there is no material attachment, there remains only relation with the Lord.

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim

yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

"The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill—all it takes is mercy from Gurudev."

(Bhavartha Dipika)

First of all, I am offering my full obeisance at the lotus feet of Om Vishnupad Jagad Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, begging him for his causeless mercy, after that I am offering my obeisance to all Guru-varga, to all my God-brothers and sisters, to all devotees and all of you praying for your mercy.

Today is an auspicious day of Varaha-dvadasi, the appearance day of Varahadev. There were two brothers, Hiranyakasipu and Hiranyaksa—Hiranyakasupu was killed by Nrisinghadev, and Hiranyaksa was killed by Varahadev (the Lord assumed the form of a boar and killed him). Today, we first offer a good worship and make a good sweet rice offering to Varahadev, then we break the Ekadasi fast.

Today is also the eve of Nityananda Prabhu's appearance day.

kabe nityananda more kari' daya

chhadaibe mora visayera maya

"When will Nityananda be compassionate to me and relieve me from the mundane illusion?"

("Kabe habe bolo se dina amar" by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

"When will Nityananda Prabhu give His mercy to me? When will I chant Nityananda's name?" It is necessary to always think about it. There is no hope for us if Sriman Nityananda Prabhu does not give us His mercy. Nityananda Prabhu is Guru-tattva...

You have heard that Raghunath Das Goswami had come to Mahaprabhu time many times, but every time Mahaprabhu sent him back—Raghunath Das Goswami did not get His mercy. When Nityananda Prabhu came to Panihati, He sat there under a tree and Raghunath Das Goswami, taking the permission of his father and his father's men, came there to take darshan of Nityananda Prabhu. Seeing Raghunath, Nityananda Prabhu said, "Ai, chora, ai! Come here, thief, come!" Why did he call him a thief? What did he steal? Nityananda Prabhu called him a thief because he went to Mahaprabhu going past Nityananda Prabhu. It is first necessary to get Nityananda Prabhu's mercy, but he made a mistake and went to Mahaprabhu first.

Mahaprabhu told him so many times, "Go back to your home, do not be crazy. Do not show false renunciation to impress others! Yatha-yogya visaya bhunja' anasakta hana: stay in your house but without any attachment." Later, after Raghunath Das Goswami had arranged the chira-dahi mahotsav, he came to Nityananda Prabhu and asked Him or His mercy, "Please save me from this ocean of material world!" Then Nityananda Prabhu told him, "Go, now you can go, now all your bondage is gone." He did that Vaishnav seva and got mercy of Nityananda Prabhu.

That is why it is said, "Nitaiyer karuna habe Vraje Radha Krsna pabe, dhara Nitaiyer charan duhkhani—when Nitai bestows His mercy you will reach Radha-Krishna in Vraja. Grasp Nitai's feet!" If we can simply remember and think about Nityananda Prabhu, we can get His mercy, He is Guru-tattva.

asraya laiya bhaje tare krsna nahi tyaje

ara saba mare akarane

"Krishna never leaves those who have taken shelter in Him. All others simply die in vain."

(By Srila Narottam Das Thakur, Prarthana, 17)

jagai madhai haite muni se papistha

purisera kita haite muni se laghistha

mora nama sune yei punya ksaya

mora nama laya yei tar papa haya

"I am more sinful than Jagai and Madhai and lower than the worms in the stool. If anyone hears my name, they lose all auspiciousness; if anyone takes my name, they become sinful."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 5.205-206)

"Who in this world but Nityananda Prabhu can save such a sinful person as I am? Besides Nityananda Prabhu there is no one in this world who can rescue me! Except Him, there is nobody in this entire world..." Nityananda Prabhu is extremely merciful,

uttama, adhama, kicchu na kare vichara

ye age padaye, tare kraye nistara

“Nityananda Prabhu does not consider who is good and who is bad, He saves anyone who falls before Him.”

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 5.208-209)

He does not differentiate who is lower, who is higher—He saves whoever falls at His feet. Tell me, who is there in this world besides Him?

* * *

Mercy Through Surrender and Service

8 February 2017, Sri Ekachakra Dham

Translated from Bengali

As I have told you before, when Nityananda Prabhu was twelve years old, a sannyasi came to Hadai Pandit and Padmavati Mayi's house and said to Padmavati,

"I want to beg something from you."

"What shall I give?"

"I want your only son, Nityananda."

Padmavati had no choice—she agreed and handed Nitai over into the hands of thesannyasi.

Later, when Mahaprabhu took sannyas in Katwa, Nityananda Prabhu knew everything and He came there too. Mahaprabhu wanted to go to Vrindavan, but the strong desire of Nabadwip basis pulled Him and did not let Him go there. Instead, He appeared in Santipur, Advaita Acharya's house. Mahaprabhu asked Advaita Acharya if it was Vrindavan, and Advaita Acharya said, "Prabhu, wherever You are, there is Vrindavan." In this way, Mahaprabhu stayed at Advaita Acharya's house for about ten days, and all Nabadwipbasis, all Vaishnavs and devotees from Nabadwip and nearby villages came to see Him there. Sachi Mata also came there. She asked Advaita Acharya, "You all will see Him so many times, but I cannot cook for Him anymore, please ask Him whether He will eat if I cook for Him now?" (Mahaprabhu agreed.)

As for Nityananda Prabhu,

tava nija-jana kona mahajane

pathaiya dile tumi

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

daya kari more patita dekhiya

kahila amare giya

ohe dina-jana suna bhala katha

ullasita ha'be hiya

Seeing me so fallen and being merciful, he came to me and said, “O humble soul, listen to this wonderful message and your heart will rejoice.

tomare tarite sri-krsna-chaitanya

navadvipe avatara

toma hena kata dina-hina jane

karilena bhava-para

"Sri Krishna Chaitanya has appeared in Nabadwip to deliver you. He has brought many humble souls just like you to the shore of the ocean of material existence."

vedera pratijna rakhibara tare

rukma-varna vipra-suta

mahaprabhu name nadiya mataya

sange bhai avadhuta

"To fulfil the prophecies of the Vedas, He has appeared with a golden complexion as a brahman's son bearing the name 'Mahaprabhu' and driven all of Nadia (all the world) mad with divine love in the company of His brother Nityananda.

Mahaprabhu's brother Avadhut (Nityananda Prabhu) is younger than Mahaprabhu. In Treta-yuga there are Ramachandra and Laksman, Laksman is younger and Ramachandra cannot serve him, that is why in Kali-yuga he takes birth as a younger brother—"Balarama haila Nitai."

Since time immemorial we have been averse to Lord Krishna,

krsna bhuli' sei jiva anadi-bahirmukha

ataeva maya tare deya samsara-duhkha

“Having forgotten Krishna, the soul wanders throughout the universe. Being thus covered by illusion, the soul goes through much material suffering.”

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 20.117)

Having forgotten the Lord, we have fallen into the three-fold sufferings and there is only one way how to get out of this suffering—we must take shelter of the lotus feet of the Lord, we must take shelter of the lotus feet of Nitai. We must not use Nitai, we must serveHim. Only when you serve Him can you get His mercy. Mercy is kripa, kore-pabe (do-get): to get something, it is necessary to do something. What should we do? We should serve Nityananda Prabhu, we should serve His Dham, then we will understand everything.

When the guest house building here was completed, I asked Gurudev what would be its name and Gurudev gave the name Hadai Pandit Padmavati Smriti-Kunja. If you want to get the mercy of this Nityananda, you must serve Hadai and Padmavati. If you do not serve them, you will not get Nityananda Prabhu.

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya

sadhu-guru krpa vina na dekhi upaya

"It is not possible to conquer maya by engaging in maya. I see no other way to get relief except for the mercy of sadhus."

('Ki rupe paibe seva', Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

We have fallen into this bondage of maya, and to get out of it there is only one way out—

tad viddhi pranipatena, pariprasnena sevaya

upadeksyanti te jnanam, jnaninas tattva-darsinah

“You will be able to attain knowledge by satisfying the divine master with submission, relevant inquiry, and sincere service. The enlightened souls who are learned in scriptural knowledge and endowed with direct realisation of the Supreme Absolute Truth will impart divine knowledge to you.”

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 4.34)

It is necessary to surrender fully (sadanga saranagati),

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana

'avasya raksibe krsna'—visvasa palana

bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara

bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

sad-anga saranagati ha-ibe yanhara

tanhara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

“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. These are the six types of saranagati, and if you can surrender in all the six ways, Krishna will hear you."

Yesterday I told you about the kirtan,

sarvasva tomara, charane sapiya,

padechhi tomara ghare

tumi ta' thakura, tomara kukura,

baliya janaha more

“I have offered everything at Your feet and taken shelter in Your home. You are my Master; please consider me Your dog.”

bandhiya nikate amare palibe

rahiba tomara dvara

pratipa-janere asite na diba

rakhiba gadera pare

"Tie me up nearby and maintain me. I will remain at Your doorstep. I will not allow anyone who is against You to enter, I will keep them outside."

(Saranagati, 19)

This is a kirtan of a surrendered soul.

For ten months we stayed in our mother's womb, with our head down, legs up, and in the end we cried, "O Lord! I cannot stay here any longer! Please let me out of here!" The fortunate souls get the darshan of the Lord in their mother's womb—the Lord says to the soul, "You will come out of here, but once you come out you will forget Me. That is why I am giving you eyes, I am giving you nose, I am giving you mouth, I am giving you ears, I am giving you everything so that you can remember and serve Me. I am giving you a tongue, a mouth so that you can chant the Holy Name."

Mahaprabhu said to Raghunath Das Goswami,

gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe

bhala na khaibe ara bhala na paribe

amani manada hana krsna-nama sada la'be

vraje radha-krsna seva manase karibe

"Do not listen to the mundane talks, do not listen to the mundane news. Do not eat fancy food, do not wear fancy clothes. Do not expect honour to yourself, but offer all respect to others. Always chant the Holy Name of Krsna, and in your mind serve Radha-Krsna."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya-lila, 6.236-237)

We must not listen to gramya-katha, gramya-varta (mundane talks, mundane news). What did the Lord give us a mouth and tongue for? We have nine doors in this body—if we use our mouth for sadhu-ninda, Vaishnav-ninda (for criticising others, for speaking bad about others), then what is the difference between mouth and the other door where stool comes from? If the same thing comes out of these holes then there is no difference...

* * *

Temple—Transcendental School

17 February 2017, Tarakeswar

Bengali evening class, part 1

You have got this human live and if you spend your life chanting the Holy Name, you will attain Goloka Vrindavan. This temple here is for your benefit. What kind of benefit is it? In this world, you can get everything for your enjoyment. You go to school, college and in the end you become an ass, but the school that Prabhupad Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur made can actually make you a human.

Why an ass? When the children grow up, get married, etc. and they do not take care of their parents—they pass school exams, get some big job in a bank, get a master degree, a doctor's degree and all they worry about it how to get the property and wealth of their father—when the father dies, he leaves everything to their mother and the children kick their mothers out of their houses. What did Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur write? People go to big schools, big colleges, and what do all these Ph.D., M.A. do?

jada-vidya yata, mayara vaibhava,

tomara bhajane badha

moha janamiya, anitya samsare,

jivake karaye gadha

"All mundane learning is an exhibition of maya and an obstacle to Your service. It brings about infatuation for the temporary world and makes an ass of the soul."

(Saranagati, 3)

People go to school and become pandits by going to school, they learn so many things but what is the result? They do not look after their parents or kick their parent out of home. But Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur says those who listen about the Lord (engage in Bhagavat-sravan) get the supreme benefit—they do not have to return to this world again and again, do not have to take birth again in this world as snakes, cats, frogs, dogs, mosquitos, etc. Where do they go? To Goloka Vrindavan.

There, there are surabhi cows. In this world, we come to a cow and milk the cow with our hands, but there you come to a surabhi cow, put a bucket and the milk flows on its own. There, you come to a mango tree and say, "I want a jackfruit," and the mango tree gives a jackfruit. The trees there are kalpa-vriksa, wish-fulfilling trees—you can come to a tree, and the tree can give you whatever you ask for. That is called Goloka Vrindavan.

And we live in this world and only worry about our bodies—you worry what you will eat, what you will wear, how you will maintain your lives. But what do you actually worry about? When we die, do they burn us or do they burn our body? The body.

So, the sadhus (the gurus and Vaishnavs) come to teach you all this, they come to tell you about this truth.

mahanta-svabhava ei tarite pamara

nija karya nahi tabu yana tara ghara

"It is the general practice of all saintly people to deliver the fallen. Therefore they go to people's houses, although they have no personal business there."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 8.39)

They have no want or need of food or clothes. They go house to house to save such low and fallen souls like us—this is why they come to this world. Having travelled through 8 400 000 species we have got this human body and having got this body if you do not serve the Lord, the Guru and Vaishnavs, then you will have to come to this world again and again—you will come again, you will go again.

* * *

Message of Guru, Vaishnavs

17 February 2017, Tarakeswar

Bengali evening class, part 2

You should listen to the teachings, to the message of the Guru and Vaishnavs, you should listen to the message of Srimad Bhagavad-gita. What does Gita say? You do Kali puja, Durga puja, Laksmi puja, Ganesh puja, Kartik puja, etc. but there are two Saraswatis, for example. One Saraswati (goddess Saraswati) makes you an ass, and the other Saraswati (Srila Saraswati Thakur, suddha Saraswati) gives you transcendental knowledge. Suddha Saraswati brings you the message of Goloka prema-dhama (the transcendental abode of love), about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Lord Krishna Himself is the creator of this world and the entire universe. In this Kali yuga, the Lord appears as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and goes house to house to save the conditioned souls.

For nine-ten months we were in our mother's womb, head down, legs up, and we got so much austerity. Those who are fortunate souls get to see the Lord in the womb of their mother. The Lord comes and says,

"Why have you called Me?"

"Prabhu," prays the soul, "I cannot stay here any longer. Worms are biting me... Please let me out! Save me!"

"All right, but when I let you out, you will forget everything. I will give you eyes so that you can see My vigraha (Deity form)."

(The Deity of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Madan-Mohan will live here in this temple. Do you know who served Madan-Mohan? There are three deities in the Gaudiya Vaishnav line—Radha-Gopinath, Radha-Govinda, Radha-Mohan. Madan-Mohan was served in His Deity form by Sanatan Goswami. There was a Muslim emperor whose wife became jealous of the grand temples of Vrindavan, she could not tolerate it and told her husband to break them. The Jaipur King took the Deity and left for Jaipur. This Madan-Mohan Deity will be installed here in Tarakeswar on 26 February.)

So, the Lord says, "I will give you eyes so you can see My vigraha; I will give you ears so you can hear about Me; I will give you mouth so you can speak about me," and so on. The Lord has given us so much, but

bhajibo boliya ese samsara-bhitare

bhuliya rohile tumi avidyara bhare

"You came into this world saying, 'O Lord, I will serve You', but, having forgotten this promise, you have remained in ignorance."

('Jiva Jago Jiva Jago' by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

You have promised the Lord that you will do His service, but what are you doing now? You have got eyes, and some mucus, tears come from your eyes; earwax comes from your ears; mucus comes from your nose; saliva comes from you mouth; bad things, stool comes from your anus, etc. You have nine doors in your body, and some dirty things come from each of the door, but the Lord so merciful—He has given you a tongue, a mouth, but if you do not chant the Holy Name of the Lord with this mouth, if instead you criticise and gossip about others, then what is the difference between your mouth and the place where stool comes from? You must think about this.

jivana anitya janaha sara

tahe nana-vidha vipada-bhara

namasraya kari' yatane tumi

thakaha apana kaje

"Understand the essence: life is temporary and filled with all sorts of adversity. Carefully taking shelter of the Name, engage in your work."

Life is not eternal. Even we say that we are going to install the Deities, but we may or may not be here at that time. We can leave at any time.

dina yaya michha kaje nisa nidra-base

nahi bhavi marana nikate achhe base

“My days are passed in useless work and nights are wasted on sleeping. It never occurs to me that there is death sitting next to me.”

('Durlabha manava janma labhiya' by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

We sleep and spend our days busy with so many things, but the time is passing. We never think that at any time we can go. Mahaprabhu came to this world and went house to house telling everyone,

jiva jaga, jiva jaga, gorachanda bale

kata nidra yao maya-pisachira kole

“Sri Gorachand says, ‘O souls, awake! O souls, awake! How much longer will you sleep in the lap of the witch Maya?’”

"O soul! Do not sleep, wake up! You have lost your address!" This is not your house, this is not your address—you must understand that you are only a security guard of your house, but actually this is not your house. The Lord gives us some days in our life and as many days He gives us, that many days we will stay here. You are only a security guard, you are guarding this house but one day you will have to leave.

So, we pray at your feet and ask you to please always engage in service of the Lord, always engage in Hari-kirtan, always chant the Holy Name of the Lord.

* * *

Coming to Give or to Take?

17 February 2017, Tarakeswar

Bengali evening class, part 3

Today, by the mercy of Gurupadpadma and by the mercy of Sivji Maharaj Taraknath we are here in a branch of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Tarakeswar. One day, Parvati asked Sivji Maharaj, "Of all kinds of worship, whose worship is the highest?" Sivji Maharaj said in reply, "Of all worships, the worship of Vishnu is the highest." Parvati became upset, she thought, "The worship of Vishnu is the highest, but I am worshipping Lord Siva..." Guessing her thoughts, Sivji Maharaj said, "Parvati, do not be sad.

aradhananam sarvesam visnor aradhanam param

tasmat parataram devi tadiyanam samarchanam

"Of all types of worship, worship of Lord Vishnu is best, and better than the worship of Lord Vishnu is the worship of His devotee, the Vaishnava."

"The worship of Vishnu is the highest, but higher than that is the worship of a devotee of Lord Vishnu." Siva is a devotee of Vishnu. Vishnu Himself also says, "Those who say they are My devotees, are not My devotees, but those who say they are devotees of Krishna's devotee, are My devotees."

In Padma-purana, Sivji Maharaj also says, "O Devi! In this world there are very few gurus who actually can rescue the soul from the three-fold miseries (santapa-harankari guru)." For example, you go to a doctor and the doctor says, "You have diabetes, do not eat sweets and potato." You say, "Doctor, prescribe some medicine for me, I will take it, but I cannot give up sweets and potato." If the doctor loves you, he will say, "Do not come to me. If you cannot give up sweets and potato and keep coming to me, what benefit is it for me? I do not want your money." But if the doctor loves your money, he will give you medicine and tell you to come every week.

There are many disciples in this world—some love the guru and some love the guru's money... In the same way, there are many gurus in this world. There are gurus who can really save a disciple from the three-fold miseries, but such gurus' number is very small. "Santap" means "tri-tap-jvala" adhibhautik, adhidaivik, adhyatmik: miseries caused by one's body, by the nature, and other souls. You may have money, you may have wealth, but you will not have peace or happiness in your life...

What is this beautiful temple for? You can see Gaudiya Maths all over the world now,

prithivite achhe yata nagaradi grama

sarvatra prachara haibe mora nama

"My Name will spread to every village and town on this earth."

Mahaprabhu predicted this, but who fulfilled it? Our Guru-varga. There was so much unlawful behaviour going on in the name of religion, so much adulteration in the name of religion. Advaita Prabhu and Haridas Thakur would offer Tulasi leaves and Ganges water calling the Lord to come, and with those Tulasi leaves and Ganges water they brought the Lord (Mahaprabhu) to this world. After Mahaprabhu, Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur came to revive and begin to spread the almost lost at the time movement of Mahaprabhu all over the world.

matha mandira dalana badira na kara prayasa

artha thake kara bhai yemana abhilasa

artha nai tabe matra sattvika seva kara

jala-tulasi diya giridharike vakse dhara

"Do not endeavour to make monasteries, temples, or big houses, but if you have wealth, brother, then you can make them, as you desire. If you do not have wealth, then simply perform pure worship. Offer water and Tulasi to Giridhari and hold Him to your chest."

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 9.29-30)

If you have money you can make temples, but if you do not have any money, what will you do? You can offer water and Tulasi and hold Giridhari to your chest, nothing much is necessary. You have water, you have Tulasi, and with that you can worship and hold Giridhari close to your chest.

So, in this world there are very few santapa-harankari guru (real gurus who take three-fold miseries from you), but there are so many vitta-harankari guru (gurus who take your money from you). There are many rich men in this world—if such bogus gurus make rich men their disciples, they get a lot of money and things from them. People always run behind money, but if you always engage in real service, if you always chant the real Holy Name, money will come on its own.

In this world, people go everywhere out of lust, but the sadhus go everywhere out of prema (divine love). Kama and prema look the same, but they are actually not. Kamameans the relationship between a husband and a wife in this world, and prema means the relationship between the gopis and Krishna. Kama and prema are the opposites—one is intense darkness and the other is intense light. They are as different as hell and heaven. Where there is kama, there is no light—there is no right for prema; and where there is prema, kama has no right there. This is said in the scriptures.

Sivji Maharaj also says that if you drink milk, you will feel nourished, but once a snake touches this milk, what will happen to you if you drink it? You will die. It is the same with the Holy Name. If you hear the Holy Name, you will get benefit, but if hear the Holy Name and there is offence in that chanting, you will not get any benefit, it will actually harm you.

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)

The Holy Name never comes to the mouth of offenders. The Holy Name is conscious, and the Holy Name of Krishna and Krishna are non different from each other.

By the mercy of the sadhus and the Guru, we have come to this path, we have come to this line. You do not have to leave your family to join this line, but your worship must be exclusive—Krishna Himself says if worship Him you do not have to worship Durga, Kali, Laksmi, Ganesh and others. You worship Kali and say, "Dhanam dehi, vidhyam dehi, rupam dehi, bharyam dehi, kavitam dehi, sundarim dehi, etc." You always want something. Suppose a father has four sons—the eldest says, "Father, give me this, give me that," another child says, "Father, give me this, give me that," another says, "Give me a house, give me a car, give me wealth," and so on. If on the other hand, a child looks after his parents and serves the Lord, then the parents are happy with this child. Here also it is like this.

We are all the Lord's children, we have all come from him. We have all come here to Takareswar from different places—some come from London, some are from South Africa, Russia, Venezuela, some are from Colombia. What have they come here for? Have they come here to get some money? No, they come give money, they come here to do service. If you serve the Guru, you will get the Lord—if your Guru is pleased, you will get the supreme benefit.

So, this is our prayer to you—there is going to be a new temple in your village, what is it for? It is for your benefit, it is here so that you can chant the Holy Name, so that you can come to the line of pure devotion.

* * *

Finishing Samsara

17 February 2017, Tarakeswar

Bengali evening class, part 4

durlabha manava janma labhiya samsare

krsna na bhajinu duhkha kahiba kahare?

"I have got a very rare human life in this world, but I have not worshipped Lord Krishna. Whom can I tell of my misery?"

'samsara' 'samsara' kari' michhe gela kala

labha na ha-ila kichhu, ghatila janjala

"Time has passed as I have been busy in my material life, and I have got nothing—only became burdened."

Samsara (material life) means husband, wife, children, but we do not say that you must give up everything and live in the temple. There is a boy sitting here, he works, looks after his family, does all his duties at home and serves the Math, he offers bhog to the Lord at his home and takes prasad. Those who serve the Lord, get much joy. I remember when I first came to the Math, Gurudev told me, "Brihat svartha paite haile, ksudra svartha tyaga korte habe." At that time, I left my job and came here—when I came to the Math I had only twelve rupees with me and I gave it to Gurudev when was taking initiation from him, but you can see that by the mercy of Gurudev so many temples have appeared.

If we engage ourselves in real service of the Lord, we can get supreme benefit.

koti janma yadi kare sravana kirtana

tabu na paya vrajendranandan

"If you practise hearing and chanting for millions of lives, you may still not get the Son of Nanda who dwells in Vraja."

Even if you serve the Lord for millions of lives, you will not get the Lord because of the offences. It is necessary to give up offences, otherwise you can chant the Holy Name, you can do sravan and kirtan for millions of lives, but you will not get the Lord.

eka bara hariname yata papa hare

patakira sadhya nai tata papa kare

"No sinner can commit the amount of sins that the Holy Name chanted just once is capable of removing."

This is the result of chanting the Holy Name just once, but we chant the Holy Name and do not get the result. Why is it so? Because when we chant the Holy Name we make so many offences—if we chant the Holy Name giving up the offences, we will get the supreme benefit. Unless we serve Krishna, unless we serve the Lord, we will not get anything.

kaya bara eli kaya bara geli

tabu tattva na sikhili

nijer matha nije khaili

e-dosa dibe kare bhai?

"Coming and going, coming and going, and never learnt anything. You have been eating your own brain, who will you blame now, brother?"

How many times will you keep on coming and going? To stop coming and going does not mean you must give up your family, you must give up your job, business, etc.

grhe thaka, vane thaka

sada 'hari' bale' daka

sukhe duhkhe bhulo naka

vadane hari-nam kara re

"Stay at home, or stay in a forest, regardless, always call out 'Hari!' In happiness and in sadness, don't forget: chant the Lord's Name aloud."

In happiness or sadness, you can stay in your family, but you must make your family Krishna's family—when you cook, you must cook for Krishna. In many houses, people cook, but they cook for their husband, children, other family members—they cook and wait for them to come back from school or work, but you do not know if they will come back. On the other hand, if you cook for Govinda, then Govinda will bring your family back home to take prasad. One is karma, and one is seva. If you do karma (if you do something for yourself), you will become bound by karma and the result of that bondage is suffering in hell.

atmendriya-priti-vancha—tare bali 'kama'

krsnendriya-priti-ichchha dhare 'prema' nama

"The desire to gratify one's own senses is kama (lust), but the desire to please the senses of Lord Krishna is prema (love)."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 4.165)

If you do something for your own self, it is called "atmendriya vancha" (sense-gratification), and if you do something for the happiness of Krishna, Lord, it is called "Krsnendriya-vancha" (seva, service). One is lust, the other is love. Externally, both look the same. For example, one time a cat carries a mouse in its mouth and another time the same cat carries its kitten in its mouth—both look the same, but when the cat takes its child into its mouth, it does it to carry the kitten with affection to a safe place, but when it carries a mouse, does it do it with affection? No, it carries the mouse to eat it. One is karma, and the other one is seva. If you do karma, you will be bound by that karma and the result of that bondage is suffering in hell—you will have to come to this world again and again to 'enjoy' the hellish suffering.

If you do something pious, you will go to heaven. You will enjoy there, but the demigods too have to come back from heaven, and you too will have to come back. If you do something sinful, you will go to hell, and when the result of your sins finishes, you will have to come back from hell. But where is the place where you can go and do not have to come back? It is your own house. Back to God, back to home. When you come to the Lord, you come back to your own home.

Mahaprabhu would go house to house saying,

jiva jaga, jiva jaga, gorachanda bale

kata nidra yao maya-pisachira kole

Sri Gorachand says, "O souls, awake! O souls, awake! How much longer will you sleep in the lap of the witch Maya?"

pisachi paile yena mati-chchhanna haya

maya-grasta jivera haya se bhava udaya

"When someone is possessed by a ghost, they become bewildered. This condition overtakes souls bound by Maya."

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.3)

As if possessed by a ghost we say, "Oh, it is my room. It is my house. It is my son. It is my family. My name is such and such," but it is not true. We take untruth for truth (asatyera satya kari mani).

se sambandha nahi yara vrtha janma gela tara

sei pasu bada durachara

"The life of one who had no connection with Nitai passed in vain. Such an animal is very wicked."

ahara-nidra-bhaya-maithunam cha

samanyam etat pasubhir naranam

"Eating, sleeping, sex, and defense—these four principles are common to both human beings and animals."

It is necessary to engage in real service of the Lord.

People worship Lord Siva, but they think, "Siva takes ganja, so I will take ganja too." They think they have become Siva! But Siva swallowed poison, can you swallow it? There is Vaishnav Siva who is worshipped by the devotees and Gaudiya Vaishnavs. Laksmi Devi could not come to the rasa lila, but Sivji Maharaj could enter there, and Krishna gave him the name Gopeshwari. If you go to Vrindavan you can see there Gopeshwar Mahadev near Vamsivat. In Govardhan, there is Chakraleswar Mahadev, at Surya-kunda there is Bhuteswar Mahadev, and here in Takeswar there is Taraknath.

You can see now there are so many missions here in Tarakeswar. After Mahaprabhu there appeared so many different apa-sampradayas—aul, baul, kartabhaja, neda, daravesa, saki, sahajiya, sakhibheki, smarta, jata-gosani, ativadi, chudadhari, gauranga-nagari. In Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur's time, the situation in Bengal was such that there was not a single Chaitanya-charitamrita to be found anywhere.

Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami wrote in Chaitanya-charitamrita,

'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)

If you just keep faith that by serving Krishna all duties are fulfilled, then you are no more indebted to your forefathers, demigods, or anybody else. We must understand this.

So, I am finishing here and will not keep you any longer.

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay!

* * *

Switching Focus

21 February 2017, Tarakeswar

Bengali evening class, part 1

Tomorrow is ekadasi day, Hari-vasar tithi. I told you yesterday that it is necessary to observe Hari-vasar tithi (auspicious days favourite to the Lord). There are two ekadasisevery month, and it is necessary to follow these two ekadasis. The Lord is pleased with those who observe it, so we do it out of love for the Lord, out of love for Krishna.

There are some rules in the scriptures, according to them on the day when you observe a (fasting) vow you must not take rice. If you take rice, you commit a sin. I told you yesterday what sin it is when you eat rice on ekadasi (the sin is equal to eating cow's meat). That is why you must observe ekadasi—it is a duty of every human being.

If you want, you can come tomorrow to the temple and observe it here, you can bring some fruit for the Lord.

There are five things prohibited on ekadasi (rice, wheat, barley, pulses, mustard/sesame oil). Do not take rice (it includes flat rice and muri), if you cannot do a full fast on ekadasi, you can take some potato. You must not use sesame or mustard oil—you can use ghee, peanut oil or sunflower oil instead; buy some sunflower oil at the market and use that. You can take peanuts also—if you have a problem with your stomach you can boil some peanuts and take that. You can also take all kinds of fruit, milk, paneer, home made sweets. Do not use turmeric from the store—if you can get some turmeric root and make the powder or paste yourself, then can you use it, otherwise do not because during the production they use the same equipment to produce everything else. (I remember when I went to some village, I saw what people do—they inject some chemicals into eggplants and cauliflowers and the next day the vegetable becomes so big. This is the situation in this world now.)

In Satya-yuga, the duration of life was 100,000 years. Do you know about it? There are four ages (yugas), four ashrams, and four varnas. The four ages are Satya, Dvapar, Treta, Kali, the four ashrams are brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha, and sannyas, the fourvarnas are brahman, ksatriya, vaisya, sudra.

In Satya-yuga, people used to meditate, and by meditation they attained the Lord. In Treta-yuga, people did fire-sacrifice (asvamedha yajna, rajasuya yajna, etc.), the lifetime was 10,000 years at that time. In Dvapar-yuga, the lifetime was 1,000 years and people did puja, archan. In Kali-yuga, the lifetime decreased to 120 years only. Now there are not many people who live to even a hundred years old, most people die at 60-70. So, in Satya-yuga people practised meditation, in Dvapar-yuga sacrifice, in Treta-yuga Deity worship, and in Kali-yuga people chant the Holy Name, practise Harinam sankirtan. Tell me, was it Mahaprabhu who brought Harinam sankirtan to Kali-yuga? No. It is written inSrimad Bhagavatam that Kali-yuga's religion is chanting the Holy Name—Mahaprabhu came just some 531 years ago and the Bhagavatam was written many thousands years ago. There, it is written:

krsnavarnam tvisakrsnam sangopangastra parsadam

yajnaih sankirtana prayair yajanti hi sumedhasah

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 11.5.32)

Hiding His own colour and taking Radharani's colour, Krishna appeared as Gaura. "Why does Radharani cry when She takes My Name? What kind of happiness does She get when She does My service?"—to taste this sentiment, to know what kind of joy a devotee of the Lord gets when serving the Lord, Lord Krishna appears in the form of a devotee in this age of Kali.

kali-kale nama-rupe krsna-avatara

nama haite haya sarva-jagat-nistara

"In the Kali-yuga, Krishna appears in the form of the Name. The entire world is delivered through that Name."

(Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 17.22)

The Name, form, qualities, associates, features of the Lord are completely non-different from the Lord, and no one except the devotees of the Lord can distribute these. The Holy Name is an incarnation of the Lord in this age of Kali, there is no difference between the Lord and His Name. Where is Krishna, there is the Name; where is the Name, there is the Lord.

In this age of Kali, Gauranga Mahaprabhu comes to this world and goes house to house telling everybody (we sing about it in a kirtan every morning):

jiva jaga, jiva jaga, gorachanda bale

kata nidra yao maya-pisachira kole

Sri Gorachand says, "O souls, awake! O souls, awake! How much longer will you sleep in the lap of the witch Maya?"

bhajiba baliya ese samsara-bhitare

bhuliya rahile tumi avidyara bhare

"You came into this world saying, 'O Lord, I will serve You', but, having forgotten this promise, you have remained in ignorance."

"Avidya" (ignorance) means material knowledge. I told you the other day that there are two Saraswatis—one is suddha (pure) Saraswati and the other one is Devi (goddess) Saraswati. Who is suddha Saraswati? Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, and Devi Saraswati is the one who gives knowledge, education, who makes an ass out of you.

vidyara gaurave, bhrami' dese dese,

dhana uparjana kari'

svajana-palana, kari eka-mane,

bhulinu tomare hari!

"Then on the strength of my learning, I travelled from place to place, earned money, and maintained my family with undivided attention. I forgot You, O Lord!"

(Saranagati, 2)

When we take birth we promise the Lord, "I will serve You! I will see Your Deity form with my eyes, I will hear about You with my ears," but all of a sudden Krishna creates maya,

daivi hy esa gunamayi, mama maya duratyaya

mam eva ye prapadyante, mayam etam taranti te

"My alluring, 'trimodal,' illusory potency is practically insurmountable. However, those who take shelter in Me can overcome this powerful obstacle."

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 7.14)

* * *

Messengers of Hope

21 February 2017, Tarakeswar

Bengali evening class, part 2

You must wear Tulasi beads on your neck, even the scientists say that wearing Tulasi beads has some good properties. Also, if you wear Tulasi neck beads, the yamaduts (messengers of the Lord of Death) cannot touch you.

You have heard the story of Ajamil. Ajamil was a son of a brahman, but he mixed with a lady of a low caste who used to sell alcohol and lost his brahman culture. He ended up marrying the girl and becoming a drunkard. Ajamil did not have only one-two sons from her—he had ten sons. When his tenth child was born, a sadhu came to his house, and Ajamil said to him, "O sadhu! You have come today to my house, and today I have got a son. Can you give him a name?" The sadhu called the child Narayan. So, Ajamil would all the time called out for Narayan, "Hey, Narayan, where did you go?", "Narayan, come here!" and so on.

When Ajamil was dying, messengers of Yama came to take him away. When a soul lives within a body, it never wants to leave that body, but it still has to go—yamaduts are sent to take the soul. The yamaduts look very fearsome—they have a long beard, big teeth, etc.

When the yamaduts came and said, "Come, it is time for you to go!" seeing him, Ajamil got frightened, he started calling out for his son, "Narayan! Come to me! Come here! I am so scared, I do not want to go! Narayan!" Out of fear he started calling his son, but the child's name was Narayan and it is a name of the Lord. What properties does the Name of the Lord have? When he called out the name Narayan, vishnuduts came there.

Vishnuduts said to the yamaduts, "Hey, go away! You cannot touch this body because he has called out to our Master."

"Who are you?"

"We are vishnuduts. Who are you?"

"Yamaduts."

"You must go," said the vishnuduts.

"Why must we go? Our Gurudev, Yama sent us here."

"If you do not believe us, go to your Guru and ask him."

So, the yamaduts went to Yamaraj (the Lord of Death) and he said to them, "Yes, what they said is correct. They are the messengers of my Guru (Vishnu). You must leave Ajamil alone because he remembered the shadow of the name of the Lord at the time of death."

That is why, the sadhus, Guru, Vaishnavs come to remind us that we are all Lord's children.

'krsna-nitya-dasa'—jiva taha bhuli' gela

ei dose maya tara galaya bandhila

"When the jiva soul makes the mistake of forgetting that it is an eternal servant of Krishna, Maya captures the soul by its neck."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 22.24)

Maya (illusion) is created by the Lord.

daivi hy esa gunamayi, mama maya duratyaya

mam eva ye prapadyante, mayam etam taranti te

"My alluring, 'trimodal,' illusory potency is practically insurmountable. However, those who take shelter in Me can overcome this powerful obstacle."

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 7.14)

The Lord Himself says, "I have created maya (illusion), and you cannot conquer it." How is it possible to conquer it? The Lord Himself gives the answer, "I Myself rescue those who surrender to Me, who remember Me." So,

mayare kariya jaya chhadana na yaya

sadhu-guru krpa vina na dekhi upaya

"It is not possible to conquer maya by engaging in maya. I see no other way to get relief except for the mercy of sadhus."

('Ki rupe paibe seva', Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

If you want to overcome maya it is necessary to get the mercy of the sadhus and the Guru...

* * *

Sivji Maharaj—Param Vaishnav

20 January 2016, translated from Bengali

Some say, "You are a Siva bhakta, I am a Krishna bhakta!" You must not say such things. Siva and Krishna are not different from each other, and at the same time Krishna and Siva are one. Siva is a particular expansion of Krishna.

vrajendranandana krsna sarvesvarsvara

mahesvara adi tanra sevana-tatpara

(Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, Dasa-vidha Nama-aparadha)

Question: We have a big temple of Lord Siva at home, what is the position of Lord Siva?

If you worship Lord Siva, it is not a problem. Siva is a param Vaishnav (great Vaishnav), but you must not imitate Lord Siva. Siva swallowed poison—can you take poison? Siva can take ganja, but if you take ganja it is very bad.

Our Gurudev is also a son of Lord Siva, did you know about this? There is Buroraj Siva in Jamalpur, and our Gurudev is his son. Gurudev's mother did not have any sons, so she went to Jamalpur and prayed to Lord Siva, "Prabhu, I have no children, please, send me a son. If you send me a son, I will give him to you." After that, she had a son—this was our Gurudev. After Gurudev appeared, there were many ghosts and other disturbances in the house, so his parents put some cow dung kajal (black dot) on his forehead so that no evil could approach the child. One day, Gurudev's father (his name was Nitaipad) went to Jamalpur. When he paid his obeisance there, he suddenly head some divya-vani (divine sound): Sivju Maharaj said to him, "Hey, you had told me that you will give your son to me! The child may be staying with you, but his is my son, why have you put cow dung on his forehead? Wipe the cow dung and put some chandan (sandalwood) instead!" Then, Nitaipad returned home, told his mother what Dharmaraj (Buroraj Sivji Maharaj) had said to him, and they put sandalwood on Gurudev's forehead instead of cow dung.

One time, the Lord decided to test Sivji Maharaj. Sivji Maharaj prayed to Krishna, "Prabhu, please show me Your pastimes!" Then, all of a sudden Krishna took the form of a lady (Mohini) and taking a ball in His hands, He walked playing ping-pong in front of Lord Siva. Seeing Mohini, Sivji Maharaj became enchanted and ran behind her. Seeing him, everyone was surprised, "What is this? Why is this sadhu is running behind a lady?! Ha he gone mad?" Parvati also was there, she said, "O Prabhu, where are you going? I am your wife!" What wife? He forgot everything and could not hear anything. In the end, he caught Mohini and wanted to embrace Her, but as soon as he embraced Her, She again became Krishna and their bodies became one: one part is Hari, and the other part is Hara. The place where this happened received the name "Harihara Ksetra"—if you go to Nabadwip, you can see this place there.

Sivji Maharaj is also a great devotee (param-bhakta). If you go to Vrindavan, you can see there Rasesvar Mahadev, Chaklesvar Mahadev, Bhutesvar Mahadev, Gopesvar Mahadev, and others. One time, Raseswar Mahadev came to Gokula to take darshan of Krishna, but seeing him Mother Yasoda said, "No, no. If my Gopal sees you, He will become scared! You have such long hair and big beard, and on your neck you are wearing a snake! What is this? I will not show you Gopal!" So, Raseswar Mahadev left to his abode without seeing the Lord. He sat there meditating, "When will I get the darshan of the Lord?" In the meantime, Lord Krishna began to cry (became His devotee has left without seeing Him, His devotee got so much trouble)... Krishna cried so much and said to His mother, "I will stop crying only if you bring Mahadev here!"

So, Siva is a servant of the Lord, he is His particular expansion, they are neither one nor different from each other. Remember this.

* * *

Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj

Sri Nabadwip Dham, 2 March 2015

We have come with the parikrama now to this place—Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj'ssamadhi mandir and bhajan kutir. You can see his photograph in all our nat mandirs and temples (the last photo), he is a part of our Guru parampara line. Before the Ganges changed her course, there was a bank of the Ganges here in this place, and Srila Jagannath Das Babaji lived here and engaged in bhajan and chanting of the Holy Name.

Before that, he lived in Vrindavan. One day he received a divine call from Radharani saying, "Why are you staying in Vrindavan? You must go to Nabadwip!" At that time Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj could not walk, so his servant Bihari Das carried him in a basket on his head to Nabadwip.

Tomorrow we are going to Svananda-sukhada-kunja, a place where Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur used to stay. One say, Bhakti Vinod Thakur was chanting the Holy Name and suddenly he saw some divine light far off. He went to see what it was and came to Yogapith (we went there yesterday). There, he saw there many Tulasi trees growing in a garden. He asked some local man, "Why do you not cultivate this land? Why are here only Tulasi trees growing?" The man replied, "We have tried to plant something here many times, but only Tulasi always grows." Then Bhakti Vinod Thakur thought, "This must be the appearance place of Mahaprabhu!" Knowing that nobody would believe it (at that time, people thought that the place of Mahaprabhu's appearance had disappeared), he decided to bring Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj to this place. When Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj arrived, he jumped out of the basket and began to dance(!) shouting, "At last! This is my Lord's appearance place!" This is how this place was identified. He was 137 years old, could not walk, but seeing Mahaprabhu's appearance place he began to dance.

He was a siddha purush (a liberated soul)...

* * *

Distraction of Attraction

21 February 2017, Tarakeswar

Bengali evening class, part 3

Who can do the kirtan of the Lord (who can chant the Holy Name of the Lord, who can glorify the Lord)?

dainya, daya, anye mana, pratistha-varjana

chari-gune guni hai karaha kirtana

"Humility, mercy, consideration for others, and giving up position are the four qualities needed to perform kirtan."

Those who can be humble and merciful to others, who can respect and give honour to others, and who can reject pratistha, name and fame. It is necessary to become detached from the material world,

'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 Madhav Himself."

('Vaishnav ke?' verse 12)

You must have no material attachment but keep relation with the Lord, then you will see everything as Madhava. You live in a house, but you must understand that it is not your house, you are only a security guard. You must keep this relation. The property of the Lord needs to be guarded and you are doing it, do not consider it your house.

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara

sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

"May I have the same affection and attraction to your feet that I now have for material things."

(Gitavali, 4.5, Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

If you have some desires, it must be desire to do everything for the satisfaction of Krishna (Krishna-karmapana)—whatever you have is for the service of the Lord. When you cook, you should cook for the Lord; when you do business, do it for the Lord; you go to work, do it for the Lord—do everything for the Lord. Those who have such mood are devotees of Krishna. If you do not become a devotee of Krishna, you cannot serve devotees of Krishna, so you must become a devotee of Krishna, then it will be possible to serve a devotee of Krishna.

It is actually very hard to give up attachment—we want to give up material attachment, but so many years pass and we have not been able to do it. We cannot give up attachment to our family, home, wife, children, etc.

One time, two sadhus came to Haridwar and were sitting on the bank of the Ganges. In Haridwar, the water in the Ganges is very shallow but the current is very fast. Suddenly they noticed something black floating down the river. One sadhu said to the other one, "Look, it is a blanket! Let's take it out, we can dry and use it." The other sadhu said, "OK, you go."

So, the sadhu went into the river to catch the blanket but it turned out that it was not a blanket—it is was a black bear. The bear got caught in the swift current of the river and could not get out—it wanted to save itself, but it cannot get out of the river, it had to catch hold of something. The bear was very strong, so when it caught the sadhu, it did not let him go and the sadhu could not get out. The sadhu who stayed on the bank of the Ganges, shouted, "Let the blanket go! Come out!" the sadhu struggling in the water shouted back, "I am letting the blanket go but it does not let me go!"

In the same way, we too want to give up the material things but the material world does not let us go. Such is our condition.

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara

sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

"May I have the same affection and attraction to your feet that I now have for material things."

(Gitavali, 4.5, Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

How can you understand that you have devotion? We must have that same pulling attraction to the Lord that we have towards our sons, daughters, and wife. If we think and regret that we have not been able to engage in service, if we think about it, if we feel such kind of pull towards service, then love will come, and then you will be able to understand that you have some devotion.

When you go to school after ten years you take an exam and you can see your result and get a certificate, but how can you get a certificate here? You can ask yourself, "Do I like listening to Hari-katha or I like hearing different stories and watching TV series? What do I prefer doing?" If you like listening to Hari-katha, then you can understand that some devotion, some attraction and attachment to Krishna is coming.

It is necessary to surrender to the lotus feet of Lord Krishna. Always remember this.

* * *

Parikrama on Service Plane

4 March 2017, Sri Nabadwip Dham

Bengali & English evening class, part 1

You are very fortunate to be attending Sri Gaura Purnima Festival and Sri Nabadwip Dhamparikrama this year. You are also very fortunate to have come a few days earlier.

We all feel very happy to see this festival and we feel inspired to see your great desire to take part in it. We do not feel any disturbance because you have come several days earlier, we are actually becoming happy because if you come earlier you can do more service here. Those who come before the festival can help arrange the festival. To arrange a festival and to enjoy the festival are different things, and it is more important to arrange the festival. So, it is actually more important for us that you come earlier and help arrange the festival. Seeing devotees coming earlier and taking up different services we are becoming very glad, we are becoming very happy.

Only a fortunate soul can make this parikrama, this does not happen by just a little sukriti. Actually, we must enter the service plane. We must try. If you can take part in the festival in this way, I will be very happy. I heard that some devotees had come yesterday and some devotees are also coming today are coming—if you can take part in service and do this Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama, you will earn some sukriti as a result.

We pray to you that you always try to come for Sri Nabadwip Dham parikrama here at Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. Somebody tries to make disturbances from many sides and places, but this parikrama was first started by Srila Sridhar Maharaj, and Srila Gurudev continued running it after him. After Srila Gurudev's disappearance, I continued this parikrama with my Guru-varga, with my godbrothers, Srila Ashram Maharaj, Srila Janardan Maharaj, Srila Avadhut Maharaj, and other sannyasis. Many sannyasis from abroad are coming this year also to join the parikrama at Guara Purnima. Try to come for the parikrama.

We are now making a pandal at Sri Govinda Kunda and during the festival we will be giving lectures there...

* * *

Parikrama: Rescue Raid

4 March 2017, Sri Nabadwip Dham

Bengali & English evening class, part 2

Past few months we have been going on preaching and you know that we inaugurated a temple in Tarakeswar on 26 February. Thousands of people took prasad there, thousands of people carried water in clay pots to the temple. It was a grand opening of the temple of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Madan-Mohan jiu.

Guru Maharaj installed two Deities of Madan-Mohan in Kaikhali Radha-Raman-Sundar and of Radha-Madan-Mohan in Dum Dum Park. Keeping this in my mind, I named the Deities Radha Raman-Sundar in Bankura and Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Madan-Mohan jiu in Tarakeswar.

Several thousands of people took prasad in Tarakeswar. In one day we cooked the same amount of rice that we cook in two-three days of parikrama, and even that was not enough. You can see photographs of this festival here on the website and on Facebook and you can see how many people joined and how many people took prasad in three-four places around the Tarakeswar temple.

Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur came to Tarakeswar when he was going to leave for Vrindavan. He actually came there to get permission from Lord Siva to go to Vrindavan, but Lord Siva did not give his permission. He said, "What is your service? Your service is in Nabadwip—you must find my Prabhu's birthplace in Yogapith! At first, Ganga Mata took that place, but now she has given it back, and you must discover it."

So, it is our prayer to you—please come for this Nabadwip Dham parikrama. You do not need to worry about anything, try to come and stay here in the proper mood. You have heard the kirtan,

sakti-buddhi-hina ami ati dina

kara more atma-satha

"Please hijack me!" Sannyasis, brahmacharis, sadhus, Krishna's devotees never hijack money, they never hijack land, they never hijack property—they always hijack the jiva soul. The jiva soul is actually always attacked by the illusory environment, and the sadhus, through Krishna consciousness, hijack the souls from the illusory environment and bring them to Krishna's family, bring them to Krishna consciousness.

That is why we pray to the Lord, we pray to Gurudev, "I have no quality or qualification, I have no strength—Gurudev, please hijack me! Please engage me in the service of the Guru-Vaishnavs!" That is the meaning of this kirtan. It is in this mood that the sadhu, Guru and Vaishnavs arrange this Nabadwip Dham parikrama.

We have come to many places inviting people but many have not been able to come, and we feel it is our fortune that you have come. I am very happy you have come. It is my desire that you all come and join the parikrama every year.

* * *

Parikrama: Tolerant and Chaste

7 March 2017, Sri Nabadwip Dham

Bengali evening class, part 1

So many devotees from all over the world have come here. Just now I have seen that some devotees from Singapore came, I saw Ireland devotees yesterday, Gopeshwar Prabhu from Ireland came, Adhoksaja Prabhu came from Mauritius, also Purujit Prabhu came from Venezuela a long time ago, Jagadananda Prabhu is coming from America, his sons, Ramananda and Premananda are already here, doing a lot of service. Balaram Prabhu also came from Venezuela; Kamalendu Prabhu has been here a long time already, and you know him—we have gone to your houses. (When we went on collection in Tarakeswar, every day we visited ninety houses.) We also went to Hooghly district and did daily programmes there, the Hooghly devotees are all coming today. I have heard that Siliguri devotees have come this morning. Also, many more devotees are coming today with Srila Avadhut Maharaj. Everybody is coming or has already come to join this grand festival at Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math.

Amidst so many difficulties we must do this Nabadwip Dham parikrama, and I am paying my countless dandavats to those who are taking part in this Nabadwip Dham parikrama. Amidst so much adversity attacking us, amidst many unfavourable conditions we have to make preparations for the parikrama, but nothing is possible without your blessings. By your mercy, by your blessing, by your strong desire, I am getting so much help and so much strength and enthusiasm to be able to proceed with you all on this parikrama. Before Santosh Prabhu helped every year, and now devotees are coming and helping.

It is necessary to arrange the parikrama nicely and that is why we pray to you all—again and again the Lord gives us tests just to see how much we can tolerate,

trnadhika hina, dina, akinchana chhara

apane manabi sada chhadi ahankara

“Give up your false ego, and always consider yourself lower than grass, poor, needy, and mean.”

vrksa-sama ksama-guna karabi sadhana

pratihimsa tyaji anye karabi palana

“Practise tolerance like a tree. Stop ill-treating others, instead nurture them.”

jivana-nirvahe ane udvega na dibe

para-upakare nija-sukha pasaribe

“Do not trouble others for your own upkeep, and forget your own happiness in the course of helping others.”

You must be as humble as a blade of grass and as tolerant as a tree. This is Mahaprabhu's teaching.

In this world, people worship Durga, worship Kali, worship Laksmi, Ganesh, and others, but it is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita (Lord Krishna says), "If you worship Me and alongside engage in all these other worships, this is wrong (avidhi)." But even though you have heard about it, you still go everywhere, you still worship Kali, Durga, Laksmi, Ganesh, etc. Mahaprabhu gave a lesson to Mukunda Prabhu—He called him "khada-jathiya"because Mukunda went everywhere and mixed with everybody. The main thing is chastity (satitva). You must be chaste and fixed, otherwise you will not get anything.

You have heard also about Ramdas Minaketan. Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami's brother arranged a festival in Jhamatpur Baharan, and Gunarnava Misra was invited as the priest, but he did not like Nityananda Prabhu for His deceit-like behaviour and practices. Mahaprabhu, on the other hand, said about Nityananda Prabhu, "Even if Nityananda Prabhu comes hugging a Muslim girl, Brahma will still fall in obeisance at His feet." This is what Mahaprabhu said about Nityananda Prabhu.

* * *

Jagannath Misra's Festival: Serving and Honouring Devotees (1)

13 March 2017, Sri Nabadwip Dham

Jagannath Misra's ananda-mahotsav,

Vishva-Vaishnava-raja Sabha, part 1

We are very happy today because we are going to celebrate the festival of Jagannath Misra's ananda-mahotsav. Today we are also making a special festival for our best friend Sripad Yudhamanyu Prabhu Seva Vikram.

He left us so suddenly, and that is very sad news for us.

'duhkha-madhye kona duhkha haya gurutara?'

'krsna-bhakta-viraha vina duhkha nahi dekhi para'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrta, Madhya-lila, 8.247)

"When a devotee leaves us, that is very sad." Mahaprabhu also said, "Haridasa vina sunya haila medini: without Haridas, this world has come to a zero position (this world has become void)."

In Yudhamanyu Prabhu's absence, we can feel this. But what can I do? It is not in our hands. Krishna took him to His own place because He needed him there—maybe Gurudev took him to another place because he needed help there, and he left this place for this reason...

Today is also Jagannath Misra's ananda-mahotsav. When I started the Ekachakra temple, Gurudev told me, "If you want to start the Ekachakra temple, first make a guest house. Name it Sri Hadai Pandi Padmavati Smriti Kunja." If we do not serve Hadai Pandit and Padmavati, we cannot get the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu.

Jagannath Misra and Sachi Mata are very fortunate—they have got Lord Gauranga as their son, and they beat Him, they chastised Him. Who has that kind of power? Do you have the power to chastise the Lord? No, but Jagannath Misra and Sachi Mata have the power to chastise Nimai (Vishvambhar). If you invite Nimai (Gaura Hari), He will not come, but if you invite Jagannath Misra and Sachi Mata, then Sachi Mata will bring Nimai (Vishvambhar). That is why you must serve the devotees first—devotees can give you Krishna. If you do not serve the devotees, then you will not get devotees' mercy.

You know that if you make an offence to the Lord, only Vaishnav can remove your offence, but if you make an offence to a Vaishnav, who in this world will remove your offence? Who will rescue you from your offence?

Once, in Gurudev's time, I was giving a lecture in Ekachakra (at that time there was no temple yet, so we made a festival in the field) and said that Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj himself wrote the sloka "Gurvvabhista-supurakam" about his disciple, and one devotee (an old sannaysi) stood up on the stage and in front of many thousands of people said, "No, it is a lie!" He took the microphone from me. Later, I asked Gurudev what the truth was, and Gurudev said, "Yes, my Guru Maharaj wrote my pranam-mantra." Gurudev called that sannyasi and said to him, "You must read the nama-aparadh (offences of the Holy Name) and the Harinam-mahatmya properly."

You may be chanting, but it can be nothing. Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that you may be giving a lecture, you may be a great speaker but being a great speaker does not give you the qualification to become a guru. Being a great speaker is not the quality of a proper Guru. These are different thing. It is necessary to understand this.

* * *

Jagannath Misra's Festival: Serving and Honouring Devotees (2)

13 March 2017, Sri Nabadwip Dham

Jagannath Misra's ananda-mahotsav,

Vishva-Vaishnava-raja Sabha, part 2

We are making the festival of Sri Jagannath Misra today...

Jagannath Misra and Sachi Mata chastised Nimai when He played with a snake or sometimes He would take a discarded clay pot covered with black soot and eat the clay or put the soot on His face. One time when Sachi Mata beat Nimai, one old woman, a devotee, said to her, "You do not know who He is! You are beating the Lord Himself, it is not good!" But Sachi Mata replied, "Whether He is the Lord or not, I do not know it. I know that He is my son, that is sufficient for me."

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had so much love and affection for His mother. He stayed in Puri with the permission of Sachi Mata. Before that, when He took sannyas, He came to the house of Advaita Acharya. There, Sachi Mata asked Srivas Pandit, "You can always go and see Him, but I know He will not stay in Nabadwip... I will not be able to cook for Him anymore. Can you please ask Him if He will take prasadam from my hand now that He has taken sannyas?" At that time, Mahaprabhu gave His persmission, "Yes, My mother can cook and I will take that prasad." Sachi Mata cooked for Nimai every day and every day she cried—she always thought, "If He was here, He would eat this, that. He likes this very much, He likes that very much." Sachi Mata cooked and offered bhog every day, and every day the bhog was finished. She wondered, "Who eats it??" She suspected that maybe some animal or Vishnupriya ate it, but Mahaprabhu sent Damodar and asked him to tell His mother, "In winter, on sankranti day, My mother cooked some pitha, malpowa and other things for Me, tell her that I came and ate it. Tell her this, then she will believe it and will not blame Vishnupriya."

How greatly fortunate Sachi Mata and Jagannath Misra are to have got this kind of son—the Lord Himself came to them.

As Sripad Tyagi Maharaj was saying in the morning, some say Vaikuntha is the highest plane, but it is not so—Gaudiya Vaishnavs never say this. There is something higher than Vaikuntha—that is Goloka Vrindavan. Who is the father of Narayan? Narayan has no father, no mother, but who has a father and a mother? Krishna does. Gauranga Mahaprabhu does. This is called vatsalya rasa (service in parental mood).

That is why we must give honour, best honour to Jagannath Misra and Sachi Mata, then we can get the mercy of Mahaprabhu and mercy of the Lord. We must understand properly whom we must serve, that is the main thing in our spiritual life.

There are so many pastimes of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He showed so many things—He showed love and affection and He also showed anger. If we get mercy of Sachi Mata and Jagannath Misra, then we will get the mercy of Gaura Hari. That is the main things in our spiritual life but if we do not give respect to them, if we not give respect to Gurudev's word properly, then it will bring disheartenment to everybody because you cannot fulfil your desires, you cannot fulfil your goals if you do not have Gurudev's mercy—if you have no anugatya (adherence, chastity), you have nothing.

So, I want to say this to everybody: we are going to celebrate, but this celebration is not for our own happiness, it is for the happiness of the devotees, for the happiness of the Vaishnav Thakur. This is the main thing. This is why we make every festival, and so many Vaishnavs come from Mayapur—they support Guru Maharaj, they support what Gurudev had said, and that is the main thing for me on this day of Jagannath Misra's ananda-mahotsav.

What more can I say? I am a tiny fallen soul, but I am trying to serve the devotees, trying to serve the Mission with whatever quality I have. So many obstacle come in this life, but I am tolerating everything, I am not the kind of person who will run away from this Mission.

So, I would like to finish my lecture here.

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj.

Om Vishnupad Jagad Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay.

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha

patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

"Again and again I offer my obeisance unto the Supreme Lord's devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy, and wish-fulfilling trees."

* * *

Mahaprabhu's Pastimes with Jagadananda Pandit

13 March 2017, Sri Nabadwip Dham

Jagannath Misra's ananda-mahotsav,

Vishva-Vaishnava-raja Sabha, part 3

When Sriman Mahaprabhu took sannyas, He followed all rules and regulations very strictly, but you have heard that Jagadananda Pandit always wanted to control Him.

One time, Jagadananda Pandit saw that Mahaprabhu slept on the floor on some banana leaves. Mahaprabhu said He would not use any mattress or pillow, and Jagadananda Pandit thought, "Before, in Dvaraka, the Lord lived in so much luxury, how is possible that now He must sleep on the floor? I must do something..." So, he cut some banana leaves, dried and crushed them into small pieces and put them inside his uttariya making a kind of a mattress. He gave it to Mahaprabhu, and Mahaprabhu said, "What can I do? I have to use this otherwise Jagadananda Pandit will be angry."

Another time, Jagadananda Pandit asked Govinda, "Govinda, what do you use to massage Mahaprabhu's feet?" Govinda said he did not use anything, not even water, so Jagadananda Pandit brought some scented oil from Kulingram and gave it to Govinda. When Mahaprabhu came to His room, He asked Govinda, "What is this smell coming?" Govinda said that Jagadananda Pandit had given some oil. Mahaprabhu became very angry. Later, when Jagadananda Pandit came again, he asked Govinda, "Have you used the oil?" Govinda said that Mahaprabhu had got very angry and thrown it away thinking, "If I use that oil, people will say I am not a real sannyasi, they will say I am a dari-sannyasi (tantric sannyasi who lives gratifying his senses), then offence will come to the people. I cannot use this oil!" Jagadananda Pandit became very upset. He closed the door of his room and stayed there, fasting. Mahaprabhu knew everything. Three days later, He came to Jagadananda Prabhu's house and said, "O Jagadananda, please wake up! I want to take your cooking. Even when you are angry, I like your cooking very much. You have been fasting for three days, and I have been fasting too. Please come out now." Then, Jagadananda Prabhu got shy, he opened the door, cooked something and Mahaprabhu took that prasadam. Jagadananda Prabhu did not take anything, so Mahaprabhu said, "No, no, no. You come too and sit with Me, let us take prasadam together." Jagadananda Prabhu replied, "No, Prabhu, You take first. Believe me, I will take later." When Mahaprabhu finished prasadam, Jagadananda Prabhu asked Him to go to rest, but Mahaprabhu said, "No, first I want to see whether you take prasadam or not." "Please believe me, I will take." Mahaprabhu went away, but He sent Govinda, "Go and see if Jagadananda is taking prasadam or not." Govinda saw Jagadananda Prabhu taking prasadam and gave report to Mahaprabhu. Then Mahaprabhu said, "Good, he is taking prasadam, now I can sleep without any disturbance."

Such was the relation. Another time, in Puri, Sanantan Goswani said to Jagadananda Pandit with tears in his eyes, "Prabhu, Ratha-yatra has finished, the festival has finished... You are so fortunate, you always stay with Mahaprabhu, but we live so far in Vrindavan, we are getting so much austerity. Mahaprabhu ordered us to stay there and we cannot ignore it, we have to leave for Vrindavan..." Jagadananda Pandit said, "Yes, you should go." Then Sanatan Goswami came to Mahaprabhu and said, "Prabhu, the festival has finished, I have to go back to Vrindavan, and even Jagadananda Pandit says I should go now..." Hearing this, Mahaprabhu became very angry. He called Jagadananda Pandit and said, "You were born yesterday and now you think you have become such a great big scholar, you think you know everything! Sanatan Goswami is such a great scholar, he teaches even Me also, but think you think can teach him what to do! You think you have become more than Sanatan Goswmai!" Sanatan Goswami began to cry, "O! Mahaprabhu is giving sweet to Jagadananda Pandit and He is giving bitter to me!"

There are so many pastimes of Mahaprabhu, He showed us so many things, but I would like to finish today's meeting at this.

Om Vishnupad Jagad Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay!

* * *

Sripat Hapaniya Dham

Sripat Hapaniya Dham

28 March 2016

We are very happy today because we have come here at Sripat Hapaniya Dham. We come and make a festival here three times every year—at this time (pancham dol, Sri Sri Radha Gopinath's installation day), the day after Radhastami, and the day after Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj's appearance day in Kartik month. We come here every year and this year also we have come here by the mercy of Guru Maharaj, Srila Sridhar Maharaj and the devotees. You have also come with us and you are very fortunate to be able to come to such a holy place, the place where our Guru Maharaj appeared.

It is a very small village, but it cannot be compared to any other village. Srila Jajavar Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Pramode Puri Goswami Maharaj, Srila Madhusudan Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj, Srila Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj and others—they all visited this place. The Deities here were installed by Srila Bhakti Pramode Puri Goswami Maharaj. We heard from Gurudev that Hapaniya is not an ordinary village. 'Hapaniya' meanings is 'sweet water': you can drink some coconut water here and see that the taste is not the same as in Nabadwip or other places, it is different.

Be careful here with your camera, mobile phone and shoes. In the places where a great personality is born, there a great thief is born also. You can see Vrindavan, Mathura—Krishna was born there and there are also many thieves there. There are thieves in Nabadwip, in Puri, Bamunpara also (you can easily lose your shoes there).

When I came here for the first time, Gurudev sent me to see the construction works. I saw that the construction was not good, what they did was bad, and reported to Gurudev (at that time Gurudev was not here, he was abroad, so I told him about it on the phone). Gurudev was very upset. One day, when I came here again, the person who was the temple manager at the time closed all gates and had some people beat me and put in a sack. I shouted "Radha Gopinath!" and many people jumped over the temple wall and saved me. This is what happened. Those people left the temple a long time ago, and now the temple, the service is running properly by the mercy of the sannyasi here. You know, his name before was Poresh Prabhu. He was born in Bamunpara, Gurudev's birthplace. One day, Gurudev said to me, "You have made a temple in Bamunapara, but you cannot make even one person a devotee there, that is my sadness." But I tried and tried, I preached there and in the end I got a brahmachari, his name was Poresh Brahmachari. This year (2016) he took sannyas, and his name became Bhakti Purna Sroti Maharaj. He is managing the temple here, he is serving here alone. We have a lot of land (6-7 acres) that I bought from Srila Sridhar Maharaj's family—I cannot come here personally to cultivate it, but one of my disciples, Tarok Prabhu, is taking care of the cows and the land. His wife, Varnali Didi, also helps. Service is going on perfectly here.

We come here mainly to pay obeisances to our Guru-vargas' place. Why? You know that Sriman Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also took some devotees to Halisahar, the birthplace of His Guru, Ishwara Puri. (One brahmin lady gave some land nearby, it is near Kolkata, Dum Dum Park, and fortunately we went to that place.) When Mahaprabhu was there with the devotees, He told the devotees to take some dust from that place, and Mahaprabhu and the devotees took so much dust and soil from that place that there appeared a big pond.'Doba' means a pond, so the place became known as Chaitanya Doba. When some devotees do Gaura mandal parikrama they visit that place, it is about forty minutes from Dum Dum Park, on the way to Nabadwip.

All our Guru-varga came to Hapaniya. When Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj came here, he would walk from Nabadwip. We came here by bus or by car, but he would walk twenty-five kilometres from Nabadwip and chant Srila Sridhar Maharaj's Prema Dhama Deva Stotram,

krsna-krsna-krsna-krsna-krsna-nama-kirtanam

rama-rama-gana-ramya-divya chhanda-nartanam

yatra-tatra-krsna-nama-dana-loka-nistaram

prema-dhama-devam eva naumi gaura-sundaram

Later, the Supreme Lord travelled to the holy places of pilgrimage in South India with the clever intention of delivering the fallen souls. Appearing as a beautiful young renunciate, He distributed the sweet Names of the Lord, singing: "Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna he," as He strolled down the different pathways, entered temples, and visited homesteads during the sacred pilgrimage. Infused with an inconceivable type of divine inspiration, the Lord freely chanted "Rama Rama" and joyfully danced with the most charming gestures. Irrespective of time or personal qualification, the assembled bystanders were delivered by the Lord, who inspired them to chant Krishna's Holy Names. I offer my obeisances to that beautiful Golden Lord, Gauranga Sundar, the divine form of Krishna prema.

(Prema-dhama-deva Stotram, 22)

He would walk around the village searching for the place where Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj studied. Before, there was no high school in Hapaniya, so Guru Maharaj studied in Okersa high school, it is in a village about two kilometres from here. Later Guru Maharaj's family gave some land and the local people made a high school in Hapaniya, the government helped them also.

Every day Guru Maharaj would go also to the Ganges, walking two-three kilometres. He would bathe and bring a lotus flower for Lord Siva. Hapaniya is situated in a very high place, and you can see that Nabadwip is flooded nearly every year, but not Hapaniya (sometimes the fields are flooded, but never the place where the temple stands). Varsana is also in a very high place, and Sripad Jajavar Maharaj said that Hapaniya is non-different from Varsana.

When Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj came to Hapaniya, he would search for the places where Srila Sridhar Maharaj played football, for the pond where he bathed, for the school where he studied, and so on. Srila Sridhar Maharaj said, "You are my godbrother. You come to Hapaniya, it is all right, but why do you search for the place of my playground, etc.?" Krishna Das Babaji Maharaj replied, "Because when I read your slokas, I remember Srila Rupa Goswami—I feel that Rupa Goswami himself writes these slokas, that he himself inspires you. That is why I come here and want to see these places."

At first, Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj did not want to come here. He left this village and did not want to come back, but Gurudev forcefully took him here. When they were installing Sri Sri Radha Gopinath, Srila Sridhar Maharaj said to Gurudev, "OK, I can go, but I cannot stay there. I will only go to see your festival." But the village people have so much attachment to him that they did not let him leave. Guru Maharaj said, "I cannot stay in my birthplace, it is impossible," but they forcefully kept him here for three days. He stayed these three days here at this temple, in a room upstairs.

We come here to pay obeisance to Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj because he is not an ordinary person. We come and pray to his family, we pay obeisance to them and beg them for mercy. That is why we come here.

The room where Radha Gopinath now are is the labour room, the room where Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj was born. There was another house in its place before, but it was broken and Gurudev made a temple on its place. Nearby, you saw a small temple of Lord Siva, this is where Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj started kirtan from.

Guru Maharaj would always say to Srila Govinda Maharaj, "This is not my temple, it is your temple." All of Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj's godbrothers came here and saw this place as non-different from Varsana.

So, you have heard today something about the history of Sripat Hapaniya Dham. I saw some photograph in Gaudiya Darshan—when Gurudev came here for the festival, he would do parikrama with the devotees, visiting Santi Sarovar and other places. Now there are not many family members of Srila Guru Maharaj staying here, most of them got a job and moved to cities, they did not stay in the village, but still this place Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Ashram exists here, Sri Sri Guru Radha Gopinath are transcendental, They still exist here, Srila Guru Maharaj's birthplace still exists, and that is why we come here every year to pay our obeisance, to get mercy of Guru Maharaj.

Jaya Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay!

* * *

Division Is Wrong Vision

Sri Nabadwip Dham, 12 March 2017, part 1

mukam karoti vachalam pangum langhayate girim

yat krpa tam aham vande sri-gurum dina-taranam

"The dumb can speak, the lame can climb a hill—all it takes is mercy from Gurudev."

(Bhavartha Dipika)

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya

chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

“I offer my obeisance unto Sri Gurudev, who has opened my eyes, which were blinded by the darkness of ignorance, with the salve of divine knowledge.”

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam

chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam

govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram

vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

“I offer my obeisance unto he who perfectly fulfils his Gurudev's most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his Gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all aspects of Vedic knowledge, both conceivable and inconceivable; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu's line; who is known as 'Govinda'—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj; whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the Guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.”

devam divya-tanum suchanda-vadanam balarka-chelanchitam

sandrananda-puram sad-eka-varanam vairagya-vidyambudhim

sri-siddhanta-nidhim subhakti-lasitam sarasvatanam varam

vande tam subhadam mad-eka-saranam nyasisvaram sridharam

“I offer my obeisance unto my lord, Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, whose speech is most pleasing; whose divine form is adorned with garments the colour of the newly-risen sun; who is an abode of intense, ecstatic devotion; who is the sadhus' sole choice; who is an ocean of renunciation and knowledge; who is a treasure-house of perfect conclusions; who is resplendent with pure devotion; who is the best of Srila Saraswati Thakur's followers; who is the giver of all good; who is the leading general of the tridandi-sannyasis; and who is my sole shelter.”

First, I am giving obeisance to my Divine Master, Om Vishnupad Jagad Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj; then to Param Gurudev, Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, who is the founder Acharya of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. Next, I am paying my heart-felt obeisance at the lotus feet of all other Guru-varga, sannyasis, godbrothers and godsisters.

Krishna gave nine doors to this body, and bad things come from each of the doors of the body—urine comes from one door, stool comes from another door, vomiting, spit comes from the mouth, wax comes from the ears, mucus comes from the nose, and so on. But Krishna is very merciful because He has also given us a tongue and a mouth that can chant the Holy Name, but if in lieu of that you do para-charcha, para-ninda, Vaishnav ninda (offend, criticise, gossip about others), then there is no difference between the door that passes stool and your mouth.

"I am his disciple; he is another Guru's disciple," "He is my disciple; he is not my disciple"—Gunarnava Misra did that. He did not give respect to Minaketan Ramdas (devotee of Nityananda Prabhu), and after that Nityananda Prabhu called Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami, "Do not stay with your brother, you must come to Vrindavan." Why did Nityananda Prabhu call him to Vrindavan? Because He did not want him to mix with his brother (who supported Gunarnava Misra). If we are going divided, it is very bad. "He is my disciple," "I give class only to my disciples," "He is not my disciple, I will not give class to him," "You must not go to his class because you are my disciple"—these kinds of things are not good at all for our spiritual life. We must realise what Gurudev's conception is and follow that.

I promised Gurudev that I will not leave this Mission until there is one drop of blood left in my body. Even if the opposition group possesses everything, even if there is only one place under a tree left, I will stay there, that is not a problem for me. Gurudev had said that they would disturb me, but it will not last forever. We do not know how many more days they will disturb, but it is almost going to finish. It is necessary to understand this.

We cannot understand it because we do not have a great faith. I got so much money from the devotees, and if I did not have faith I could have taken the money and run away from here—I could have made another temple and stayed here. I have also made many new temples and I could stay there, but this is not Gurudev's desire, that is why I will not do that. I must stay here until my death. That is my strongest desire.

We must understand how much I am suffering, how much disturbance I am tolerating, how much I am protecting the mission, how much those who are doing service here, are suffering, they are getting austerity but continuing their service. This Gaura Purnima my health is also very bad, I thought I would not be able to do the parikrama, but you know that I did not even have to take the car except to come back—I did all parikrama on the cart, sitting or sometimes standing, chanting from the morning until after lunch time. I managed to do it properly.

* * *

Understanding Mercy

Sri Nabadwip Dham, 12 March 2017, part 2

"Sarala hale gorara siksa bujhiya la-ibe: if you are sincere and simple-hearted you will understand Gora's teachings." (Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.3) It is necessary to be simple-hearted, it is necessary to be gentle. If you have a critical mind (if you like criticising others), you cannot understand the teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Moreover, if you do not practise properly (do not engage in proper achar), how can you preach? If you do not practise properly, you cannot preach in this line properly.

So many Indian devotees have come here, and I have to speak Bengali to them, but sometimes I also speak some English in-between Bengali. I speak mostly Bengali because if I speak English and Bengali, then what will Sripad Tyagi Maharaj and Srila Janardan Maharaj say? They are experts in English, that is why I do not speak so much in English during the parikrama time, I leave something for them. Sripad Tyagi Maharaj knows the conception well, he knows slokas well, that is why I give some advantage to him. I also send him to preach door to door in foreign countries in lieu of me. This is my desire—because I cannot go abroad at this time, I send him to preach Krishna consciousness, I send him to spread Gurudev's and Mahaprabhu's message, and he is doing it. I am very happy with that. He is young and can do it, Srila Janardan Maharaj is now becoming sick. This time Srila Ashram Maharaj told me, "Maharaj, I came in September and now I must go for preaching in South America, but later, at the time when foreign devotees are not there in India, the opposition group always becomes strong, and I am thinking it is better if I come at that time." He asked me if it was OK, and I said, "Yes, it is OK. You can come later, then you can do some service here with your group."

Sriman Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's conception is,

trnad api sunichena taror api sahisnuna

amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

"One who is humbler than a blade of grass, more forbearing than a tree, who gives honour to others without desiring it for himself, is qualified to always chant the Holy Name of Krishna."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya-lila, 6.239)

But at the same time you see that sometimes Nityananda Prabhu kicked the head of Sivananda Sen with His leg, He kicked the head of Raghunath Das Goswami with His leg, and you must understand this. Mahaprabhu said, "Trnad api sunichena, be humbler than a blade of grass," but He also showed anger to Chapal Gopal. Mahaprabhu was also angry with Madhai, but Nityananda Prabhu gave mercy to him, but at another time Nityananda Prabhu kicked Sivananda Sen's head, He put His leg on the head of Sri Raghunath Das Goswami. Chastising does not mean that Gurudev does not like you.

I think Gurudev chastised me more than anyone else. Gurudev said, "If I chastise anyone else, they will run away, they will not stay here." Gurudev chastised me, Gurudev even kicked me. One time Gurudev called me to come to Kolkata. When I came to him, he asked me,

"Do you need money?"

"Not necessary now," I answered.

Gurudev was lying down, but suddenly, he kicked me and said, "How will you run the temple then?!"

"Later, when you come to Nabadwip for Gaura Purnima, I will take some money," I explained. But he kicked me with his leg saying, "Why are you not taking money?! You are arranging the Gaura Purnima festival, how will you do it without money? Why do you say you do not need money?!"

He told me many times, "Get out from my veranda," and he would tell in front of everybody, "He is my own man. I always tell that boy to get out, but he always comes back." (I would get out, but would always come back in five minutes or so.) Then, you can see how much tolerance I have. I have qualification, I can get any job outside, it is not a problem, but Gurudev told me personally, "You are here, and when I go outside India I feel peace and can preach there properly because I know you are here. Even though I have so many enemies I do not have to worry." This is how Gurudev gave love and affection to me and all the devotees also.

* * *

Service Pastimes

Sri Nabadwip Dham, 12 March 2017, part 3

I have no problem with any disciple of any sannyasi. If somebody is a disciple of another sannyasi, I do not have any problem with them, they can happily come and stay here, and as much as possible I will try and I am trying to serve them.

The other day I was thinking that some western devotees may not be able to go to takeprasadam in the prasadam hall because it is too much austerity for them with all the thousands and thousands of Indians, so we arranged prasadam for the western devotees in another building.

You can see also that after Srila Gurudev's appearance festival, despite my poor health, I went door to door preaching for the Gaura Purnima for three months. I preached outside for seven days, then came here for one day or one night, managed the goshala, deer, some court cases, etc. and after that again went door to door for another seven days. This is how I arranged this Gaura Purnima parikrama. Before, Santosh Prabhu did this and I had some relief because it was not necessary to worry about prasadam, but this time I had to look after everything myself (prasadam, arranging the rooms, collecting, etc.)—this time I did myself whatever was necessary to arrange for the devotees. How is it possible? I know Gurudev is giving me strength, this is how I am doing it. Also, I know all the devotees have some love and affection for me, and so many letters are coming from them—due to this I am becoming mentally strong. My health is not strong, but mentally I am becoming very strong, and I am very happy with that.

You can see this house (Govinda Dham) here in the Museum, there is so much remembrance (smriti) connected with this house. When I came from Kolkata, Guru Maharaj gave me a room there, and when we were making the museum I wanted to keep the house, but one of his godbrothers wanted to break it. I did not do it. Also, at the time of Gurudev's Vyasa Puja, everybody would write "Acharya Abhinandan", but when I began to print the invitation letters, I wrote "Vyasa Puja Mahotsav". One time, I made a banner saying "All Glory to Sri Sri Guru Gauranga, today is Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj's appearance day," but one of his godbrothers did not like it and broke it. When I made Acharya Bhavan, Gurudev's room, I used whitewash, but somebody went to Gurudev and complained that I was spending too much money. Gurudev said to me in front of that devotee, "Why do you not paint my house black?"

In Gurudev's time, about two hundred people came to join Gaura Purnima, but after I joined the temple permanently, you can see that two-three hundred only foreign devotees have come and thousands and thousands of Bengali devotees have come to celebrate Gaura Purnima this year. Gurudev's mercy is the main thing.

After Gurudev's disappearance, when Gurudev's vigraha (Deity) was finished, I had some problem and could not not come to Nabadwip for the inauguration of the samadhi mandir. At that time, I told Srila Goswami Maharaj to please make and preside at Gurudev's Deity installation programme in lieu of me. He did that, but one of my Indian godbrothers said to me,

"Why are you going to make Gurudev's samadhi?"

"Why not?" I asked him.

"First let the problems get solved, then we can make Gurudev's samadhi."

"And if the problems are not solved for a hundred years, does it mean we will not make Gurudev's samadhi?!"

He did not answer anything to me. In his life Gurudev could not finish some things (he could not finish the job in Ekachakra and in Siliguri), and it is all finished now by the mercy of Gurudev. This Gaura Purnima too is finished successfully. They were trying to delay the programme in many ways, but by the mercy of the Lord, by the mercy of Krishna, by the mercy of Gauranga Mahaprabhu and by the mercy of Gurudev and all the Vaishnavs, the parikrama finished successfully, and today also I hope that Gaura Purnima will finish properly.

* * *

Protecting Purity of Conception

Sri Nabadwip Dham, 12 March 2017, part 4

You know that we, along with all Gaudiya Vaishnavs, do not celebrate dol purnima(festival of paint), we celebrate Gaura Purnima.

On this day I am trying to serve Nabadwip Dham because the dham-basi, those who stay here, make many offences. This year I arranged a meeting with the chairman of the municipality and representatives of all temples. In Nabadwip, people sell and eat fish, meat, etc. on this day, but if you go to the market today, you will not get any fish or meat outside. In Vrindavan, there is no meat or fish, it is prohibited there, and I am trying to have it prohibited here in Nabadwip. Slowly, slowly they are changing and saying that during Nabadwip Dham parikrama they will eat vegetarian food. The presidents of the fish and meat markets came to that meeting (they are Muslim) and said, "I will not sell meat on the Gaura Purnima day."

[Devotees cheer: Jay!]

Even in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's time, there was so much misconception, and now too, after Mahaprabhu left, there is still so much misconception. You could see yesterday, when I was serving the breakfast prasadam, after Gaura Gadadhar temple, near Radha Kunda, one temple was passing by. They were singing (in Nabadwip Dham!), "Radharani ki jay, Maharani ki jay!" I could not stop them because there were so many of them, but I started singing,

pujala raga-patha gaurava-bhange

matala hari-jana kirtana-range

"From afar we shall worship the raga-patha, the path of spontaneous affectionate service, while we ourselves shall live within the Vedic guideline."

There is so much misconception in this world, in India also there are so many things happening, but we must try to manage the conception. We do not disturb anybody, but when they disturb and climb onto our shoulder we have to throw them off. Otherwise we must not fight, we must follow Mahaprabhu's conception. We must try to celebrate this Gaura Purnima festival together, this is called Vishva-Vaishnava Raja Sabha (assembly of the Vaishnavs from all over the universe). Gurudev wanted to hold such an assembly after the festival day, and we are doing it in this way.

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Srila Prabhupad gave us some conception, some message, but maya (illusion) always attacks us. I have said before that if you listen to your Guru properly, then you can easily understand everything—if you serve your Guru properly, if you hear your Guru properly, that is good for you.

So, I am telling to everybody: we must be simple-minded, simple-hearted.

"gorara ami, gorara ami" mukhe balile nahi chale

gorara achara, gorara vichara la-ile phala phale

Just saying, "I am Gora's! I am Gora's!" does not do. Only when you follow Gora's practices and Gora's conception will you get the proper result.

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 8.6)

Only saying that we are devotees of Mahaprabhu will not do. You must follow the rules and regulations of Mahaprabhu's conception. If you only show you are a devotee by wearing clothes, tilak, mala, etc., but your mind is full of dirt, it is not good. You must be simple-hearted, you must have an open mind, heart, everything. That is good for you and good for all devotees. That is my message.

vanchha-kalpatarubhyas cha krpa-sindhubhya eva cha

patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah

"Again and again I offer my obeisance unto the Supreme Lord's devotees, who are saviours of the fallen, oceans of mercy, and wish-fulfilling trees."

* * *

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math Family Reunion

Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Gaura Purnima class,

12 March 2017, part 1

gurvvabhista-supurakam guru-ganair asisa-sambhusitam

chintyachintya-samasta-veda-nipunam sri-rupa-panthanugam

govindabhidham ujjvalam vara-tanum bhakty anvitam-sundaram

vande visva-gurun cha divya-bhagavat-premno hi bija-pradam

“I offer my obeisance unto he who perfectly fulfils his Gurudev's most cherished desires; who is fully adorned with the blessings of his Gurudev’s associates; who is expert in all aspects of Vedic knowledge, both conceivable and inconceivable; who is the pre-eminent follower of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu's line; who is known as 'Govinda'—Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj; whose beautiful, effulgent, exalted form is infused with pure devotion; who is the Guru of the entire universe; and who is the giver of the seed of divine love for the Supreme Lord.”

Today is the grand 2017 festival at Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. We have just finished the parikrama and today we are going to celebrate the holy appearance day of Sriman Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. First, I offer my obeisance to the lotus feet of my Divine Master Om Vishnupad Jagad Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, remembering how merciful he is to me. Then, I offer my obeisance to all the Guru-varga, all the godbrothers and godsisters, and all the devotees.

This year many devotees came from almost all countries. Srila Avadhut Maharaj came from Russia with about 50 devotees, Srila Trivikram Maharaj came with several devotees from Brazil, Srila Janardan Maharaj came from America, Sripad Jagadananda Prabhu and his sons, Premananda Prabhu and Ramananda Prabhu, and many other devotees also came from America. Venezuela's leader Purujit Prabhu, Amita Sakti came with Balaram Prabhu, Rukmini Didi before the festival of Nityananda Prabhu and have been here all this time. Sripad Tyagi Maharaj also came from preaching all over the world just before Gaura Purnima—he came and finished the calendar and Archan-kan book. Munindra Mohan and Krishna Kanta Didi came from Italy; Revati Didi came from Ecuador; Adhoksaja Prabhu came from Mauritius; Omkarnath Prabhu, Kamalendu Prabhu and a few other devotees came from Colombia—they came here many months ago and helped me during the Gaura Purnima parikrama. Sripad Dandi Maharaj and Sripad Keshav Maharaj came after takingsannyas, Sripad Hrisikesh Maharaj came from the South of Russia; Sripad Bhakti Vijnan Muni Maharaj, Sripad Bhakti Niskam Santa Maharaj came from Bangalore, India—they have been making scientist conferences in many places and came here for the Nabadwip Dham parikrama. Also, Sripad Niriha Maharaj, the manager of the Ekachakra Math, came here along with almost a hundred devotees from Siliguri (we sent there first Chandan Prabhu and he brought the Siliguri devotees to Nabadwip). Also, several devotees came from Ganga Sagar, from Bankura Math, several devotees came from Tarakeswar, some devotees came from Mednipore. Many devotees came from South Africa this year. There, sitting in the Sevak Bhavan, you can see a devotee from South Africa, Tripta Krishna Prabhu—he always, the whole day and night, cleans this building where mostly the Western devotees stay, he even could not go to the festival in Tarakeswar and some other places. Also, Ravindra Krishna, Rajeswari, Jaya Vardhan, Vaishnavi, and Subhadra came from Singapore. They came to do parikrama and took so much trouble, but did the Nabadwip Dham parikrama with their small baby. Also, Anjali Didi came form London—despite her age, she came and also joined Nabadwip Dham parikrama. Sadhu Priya Prabhu came from Australia. Several devotees came from China. Sanatani Didi came from America—she came here a few months ago and helped so much at that time, and now she has come again to do the parikrama of Nabadwip Dham. Jivana Didi also came from America. Gopeshwar Prabhu came from Ireland. Sripad Bharati Maharaj, who preaches in Russia, Germany and Ukraine, came here with several devotees. Sanjiv Prabhu came from Delhi, Ramsundar Prabhu came from the UP, Amit Krishna Prabhu also came, so many devotees came from Bokara with Madhumangal Prabhu. Amalendu Prabhu and his wife tried so hard to come from Russia—they could not come with the group of Srila Avadhut Maharaj, but they came later. Kundalata came also with a South African devotee.

Devotees came from so many different countries this year to do this Nabadwip Dham parikrama. They came and enjoyed with this parikrama, and I am thinking everybody is getting some austerity because we are short of rooms, short of space, but it is Krishna's exam. If you pass the exam, then you become one step closer to crossing death—slowly, slowly you are increasing your spiritual life. Gurudev is always with you all, Gurudev's mercy is always with you all.

We want to show that we are together, that we are not breaking our unity. If we all stand separately like one stick, then the enemy group can break one stick easily, but when we are ten sticks together, they cannot break us. This is how we did the parikrama this year. Some went by rickshaw, some walked, some went behind the parikrama, some went ahead the parikrama, this is not a question because they listened to the Hari-katha (glorification of the holy places) properly and they have all got mercy, they are very fortunate (sukriti-van). Only fortunate souls can do this parikrama.

Guru Maharaj gave us an opportunity to do this parikrama and from so many different districts of Bengal devotees have come for that. There is no such district in West Bengal, where devotees did not come from. Devotees came from all West Bengal districts—24 South Parganas, 24 North Parganas, Bakura, East Mednipore, West Mednipore, Birbhum, Siliguri, Kolkata, Hooghly District, etc. From every village and every corner devotees have come for the parikrama this year, and we are very happy with that.

So many obstacles also came and tried to prevent us from coming for the parikrama, but we did not give any attention to that. Gurudev always said, "Brihat svartha paite haile, ksudra svartha tyaga korte habe. If you want to get something big, you must avoid small things. When big things are waiting for you, why do you run after small things?" You can see that they also wanted to do the Nabadwip Dham parikrama, but where did they do it? You can see thousands and thousands of people sitting here, they all did the Nabadwip Dham parikrama with us. We did not give any attention to the other side, we always avoid them. If you always avoid something, it then becomes useless (non-important) and there will be no problem then.

This is how we did the parikrama this year, and today we will celebrate Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's appearance festival. On this festival we always remember Gurudev, remember what he would tell us. On this day, he would always glorify devotees and always praise devotees' service.

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Power of Good Association

Sri Nabadwip Dham, Sri Gaura Purnima class,

12 March 2017, part 2

[Before handing the microphone over to other sannyasis present at the stage:]

Please do not leave. Maharajs will speak now, you must all listen to them attentively. I have told you before, you must see the sadhu with your ears. Sripad Shanta Maharaj reminded me about one story recently:

Every day you sing in a song, "Ramachandra-sanga mage Narottama Dasa: O Srinivas Acharya Prabhu! Be merciful! Narottam Das prays for the association of Ramachandra Kaviraj." What does this mean? Why does Narottam Das always ask for the association of Ramachandra?

One day, Acharya Srinivas and Narottam Das Thakur were sitting one place and they saw a palanquin pass by. Ramachandra was getting married and was going by that palanquin. Seeing the groom, Acharya Srinivas said, "Oh, just look, this man has been attacked by maya, the illusory environment! Ramachandra heard it. He looked through a hole in the palanquin to see who had said it and saw a sadhu sitting on the street. The whole night he did not sleep—he kept on thinking, "What is maya? Why did maya attack me? What does it mean? I must ask that sadhu!"

The next day he came to Acharya Srinivas and asked him, "Prabhu, I heard yesterday from my palanquin you said something about maya. The whole night I was thinking about it and I have now come to you." He heard some Hari-katha from Srinivas Acharya and in the end took initiation.

Then, Acharya Srinivas said to him, "You have taken initiation from me, now you must return to your home." He came back to his home and new wife, but he does not like his life anymore—he liked what he had heard from Acharya Srinivas. So, soon he came back to him again. Acharya Srinivas again sent him away, but Ramachandra returned again. In the end, he stayed with Acharya Srinivas and Narottam Das Thakur.

So, you can see how Ramachandra became a sadhu through hearing. It is necessary to listen properly. So, please listen carefully to what Maharajs are going to tell you.

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Initiation into the Holy Name

Sri Nabadwip Dham, 12 March 2017

If somebody chants the Holy Name, then their mantra will act; otherwise if somebody does not chant, their mantra will not act.

kali-kale nama-rupe krsna-avatara

nama haite haya sarva-jagat-nistara

"In the Kali-yuga, Krishna appears in the form of the Name. The entire world is delivered through that Name."

(Chaitanya-charitamrita, Adi-lila, 17.22)

The Holy Name comes down the Guru parampara from Krishna to Lord Brahma, from Lord Brahma to Narada, and so on down to Madhavendra Puri. From Madhavendra Puri the Holy Name came to Ishwar Puri, then to Mahaprabhu. After Mahaprabhu, some disturbance come to this disciplic line, and it was revived later in the time of Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj, after him Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur, Srila Gaura Kishor Das Babaji Maharaj, Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur. Lastly, there was our Param Gurudev Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj and our Gurudev Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj.

Srila Gurudev (Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj) told me to give initiation and I gave initiation in his lifetime. He stood in front of me and said, "Give initiation," but I was shy, so I gave initiation on his behalf.

I started giving initiations from 6 December 2009, two days after Srila Gurudev's appearance day. That day he ordered to me, "I will not give any initiations any more. This is now your duty—you are now successor and you will give now initiation in lieu of me." This is what Gurudev said.

You have come here through some devotees, so I assume that you know the rules and regulations. You have all heard about it. There are four regulative principles: dyuta, pana, striya, suna. (1) Dyuta means gambling. (2) Pana means drinking whisky, taking intoxicants, even drinking tea, eating pan, smoking, taking drugs. These all are strictly prohibited. (3) Striya means illegal sex. If you get married, it is OK, but if you do sex without marriage it is very bad. (4) Suna means jiva-himsa (violence towards jiva souls). Never eat fish, meat, eggs, red dal (lentils, masoori dal), onion, garlic. These are strictly prohibited, you cannot take them. Do you understand? And you must follow Ekadasi.

Do you agree to do this?

Devotee: Yes.

[His Divine Grace chants on Tulasi beads (mala) and hands them over to the devotee explaining how to chant on it:]

Take the mala in your hand, use your thumb and the middle finger, do not touch the mala with your index finger. Say,

sri krishna chaitanya prabhu nityananda

sri advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura bhakta-vrinda

Chant their name first and say in English, "I am a very fallen soul, I do not have any quality or qualification. Please give some mercy to me, then I can chant the Holy Name." After that start chanting on each bead, starting from the big beads:

hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare

hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

The mala has big beads and small beads. Start from the big beads, then, when you come to the small beads, turn the mala and chant from the small beads to the big beads. Do not cross the bead on top of the mala. Chant sixteen rounds or more in this way. If any day you are busy with service, you can chant four rounds. Four rounds must be chanted every day. When you are working, doing some job, you can chant without the beads. For example, you are writing something, typing on your computer, and you can chant, "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare"; or you are working with your hands, doing some hard labour, you can chant, "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare."

Chant in this way, and Krishna will reveal Himself in your heart, you will be successful in your spiritual life.

Take this book also, the ten offences of the Holy Name are written in it. Many people chant the Holy Name, but they do not get the result because they make offences. Mainly there are ten offences, they are written in this book. Read what they are, memorise them, and you must avoid these ten offences. If you chant without offences, you will get the result quickly.

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Pancharatrika Diksa

Sri Nabadwip Dham, 12 March 2017

Jay Om Vishnupad Jagad Guru Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj ki jay!

Have you all received the first (Harinam) initiation? [Devotees: Yes] Do you all chant the Holy Name? [Devotees: Yes]

This Harinam maha-mantra (the Hare Krishna maha-mantra) is the main and only way to get Lord Krishna's service, but why do we take the second initiation (pancharatrika diksa, or gayatri diksa)? Because we must enter into more service, for example we cook, we do puja, archan (Deity worship)—for these services it is necessary to take the second initiation. Also, you must take prasadam, so you must cook, must give an offering. We do not take anything except prasadam—we do not take what is not offered, we only take what has been offered to the Lord.

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)

How will you conquer all prapancha (the material world, illusion)? How will you conquer it without maha-prasadam? To conquer it you must take prasad. How does something become prasad? Prasad is not just some vegetarian food. Monkeys also take vegetarian food, calves also drink milk—they are vegetarian, but what they eat is not the same asprasad. For something to become prasad, you must offer it first to the Lord, to your Guru, and to make an offering, you need these gayatri mantras.

How to recite these mantras? I will tell you now, listen carefully.

You must sit with your back straight, legs folded like in a yogi pose, and you must sit on a clean asan (clean mat or place). To make the asan clean, you must sprinkle some Ganges water on it. If you do not have Ganges water, you can make it yourself at home. How? A mantra is there,

gange cha yamune chaiva godavari sarasvati

narmade sindho kaveri jale 'smin sannidhim kuru

With this mantra you can make Ganges water. Put some Ganges water on the asan for gayatri and it will become clean. Wear clean clothes. You should keep separate clothes in the Deities' room for doing gayatri. Do not cook in it, do not eat in it, do not enter bathroom in it, etc. use it only for the Deities room. It is not necessary to keep many clothes for this—keep one set of clothes and an uttariya (a cloth worn around the neck, covering chest and front). In the morning, you should sit facing the East side, in the evening the North side. Sit in front of the Deities.

Now how to recite the mantras. Men receive a brahman thread (poita)—they should tie the thread around their right-hand thumb (ladies do not get the brahman thread, they recite the mantras without it). Then, keep your right hand at your navel. I will show your now how to recite the mantras. If I recite them at my navel you will not see it properly, so I am showing you on my hand here.

Each mantra is recited ten times. Touch the tip of your right thumb to the fingers of your right hand and recite each mantra once. Start from (1) the middle of your ring finger, then go clock-wise: (2) the bottom of the ring finger, (3) the bottom of the little finger, (4) the middle of the little finger, (5) the tip of the little finger, (6) the tip of the ring finger, (7) the tip of the middle finger, (8) the tip of the index finger, (9) the middle of the index finger, (10) the bottom of the index finger.

First is Guru-mantra, then Guru-gayatri, Gaura-mantra, Gaura-gayatri. Are you scared thinking, "So many mantras, how will I remember them?"? Do not worry, I will give you a paper. We can recite volumes and volumes of books, and this is just a few mantras, it is simple, everybody can do it. After Gaura-gayatri there is the bij, or mul, mantra (seed, or main mantra) called Krishna-mantra. And the last mantra. Our mind always goes to bad places, it is always naughty and fickle, and to control this mind there is one mantra called kama-gayatri. If you recite this kama-gayatri, your fickle mind will not go to another place, it will not go in bad direction. I am giving you this gayatri now.

These are the gayatri mantras. There are also two more mantras that I am giving you for puja and archan. When you finish cooking five items, take five Tulasi leaves and put a leaf on each of the dishes one by one and recite these mantras.

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Srivas Pandit's Devotion

19 July 2013

Question: Srivas Thakur's son died when Mahaprabhu was performing kirtan, and Srivas Thakur did not disturb Mahaprabhu because of this. Why was Mahaprabhu very happy with Srivas Thakur?

Because Srivas Pandit loves Krishna more than his son. It is a simple matter. At that time there was chanting of the Lord's Name going on, and for him his son was nothing compared to that.

One time, it was many years ago, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj went to Russia for preaching. At that time the communist party was ruling, and they arrested one pregnant lady and put her into jail. They tortured her there very much, but she refused to leave chanting of the Holy Name. When the baby was born, he cried very much, and one of the military men put his heavy high boot on the face of the baby and said, "I will kill your son if you do not stop your kirtan. Stop it, then I will not kill him." The lady replied, "No problem. If you want, you can kill—then I will chant the Holy Name even louder, he will hear it and after death will go to Goloka Vrindavan. He will die one day anyway, maybe today, maybe one hundred or sixty years later, and who knows, maybe he will not be able to hear Hari kirtan during his last moment in life. So, if he can die hearing Hari kirtan now, it is very good.”

But Srivas Pandit's son was very fortunate because every day there was good kirtan in his house. Mahaprabhu said to Srivas Pandit, "I will come to your house every day. Some devotee will be able to see Me, some devotee will not be able to see Me—those who have eyes can see it. I am always present in three places—Srivasa angan (house of Srivas Pandit), Raghava bhavan (house of Radhav Pandit), and Sachi Ma's rannasala (kitchen of Sachi Mata).”

Srivas Pandit was very much attached to the Holy Name and the Lord more than to his own son, that is why he did not care that his son had died. He did not tell anything to Mahaprabhu, because he understood that if Mahaprabhu got to know about it, He would stop the kirtan and there would be so much problem. But Mahaprabhu understood that something was wrong, something had happened. He thought, "Why am I not getting so much pleasure and happiness today? What is happening?”

"Srivas, has something happened today in your house? Why am I not getting happiness internally from the kirtan?" Mahaprabhu asked Srivas Pandit.

(Everybody's quality is not the same, maybe not everybody was present during the kirtantime, maybe some relatives were crying—the body of the son was still in the house; not everybody had so much faith.)

"Yes, Prabhu," answered Srivas Pandit. "It is correct, something has happened. My son has died, his body is in the other room.”

"Why did you not tell Me before?!"

"Because I did not want to disturb You. If you had known about it, Your kirtan would have been stopped, some problem would have come..."

When Mahaprabhu heard this, He was very pleased to see how much attachment and love he had for the Lord. Srivas Pandit thought, "You can get a son, a daughter, a father, a mother in every birth, but you will not get the Lord in every birth Lord. This life is very important, you can get the Lord in this life, why should I misuse it? Why should I not use this opportunity?"

That is why he did not disturb the chanting of the Holy name. That is the strongest devotion to the Lord.

After that Mahaprabhu came to Srivas Pandit's dead son and asked the boy, "O son, why are you leaving us? What offence have we made to you?" And the dead body of the boy spoke in front of everybody, "There is no offence, Prabhu. There is nothing wrong. I had had some connection with Srivas Pandit for a few months, and now You are calling me and I am going to You."

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Internal Dissatisfaction

19 July 2013

Question: How can we follow Gurudev's advice, "My religion is to find fault in my own self"?

The first question is—what is my religion? First we must find out what our religion is, then if we practise properly, if we follow Krishna consciousness properly, we can easily understand, "Is what I am doing right or wrong?" The problem is ego. If somebody has ego, they cannot find any fault in themselves. If we practise properly, if we follow Gurudev's advice and instruction clearly, then we can easily find out, "Am I going in the right or wrong direction?" Then you will understand, "Actually, I am not practising properly, I am not following Krishna consciousness properly. Secretly I am doing wrong things." This kind of feeling will always "knock" in you.

Be simple-hearted. If you have no kutinati (deceit, duplicity), no zigzag behaviour, no contradiction in your heart and mind—if your mind is clear and you are simple-hearted—then you will see whether what you are doing is right or wrong, whether you follow 90%, 80% or 100%. You will understand it easily. This is the main thing, and it is an easy matter.

I know Gurudev said these words ("my religion is to find fault in myself") many times, but first understand what religion means. For example, what is the religion of water? To flow. If you put some water into a green pot, it will look green; if you put it in a red pot, it will look red. In the same way, if you wear blue spectacles, you will see everything in blue colour; if you wear black spectacles, you will see everything as black; but you must have clear spectacles, then you can see everything clearly. What is our religion? Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur explains that the jiva soul's religion (jaiva-dharma) means that we are a jiva soul and we must serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead. How will we serve Him? Under the guidance of a great Vaishnav or Guru. That is the religion of every jiva soul. How many percent we can follow that depends upon each devotee, depends upon their faith, depends upon their surrender.

I told yesterday also—do we think about our own interest or Gurudev's and the Lord's interest? Do we think about our own happiness or our Guru's happiness? That is necessary to understand. I may not be so much satisfied, but if our Gurudev is satisfied, then it is actually good and sufficient. If you can eventually make your Gurudev happy and both you and your Guru are happy, then your life will be fulfilled and successful. This is the main thing.

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