Maya-devi’s farmhouse – Prema-bhakti-candrika - 05 Oct 2013
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Sometimes, in his Prema-bhakti-candrikā, Narottama dāsa Thakura is in antar-daśā activities of the internal world, and then describes the spiritual abode, and when in bāhya-daśā, external sense, he mercifully thinks about the conditioned souls and advises how they can follow the Vrajavāsīs and vraja-bhakti. He has great kindness and worries about the conditioned souls’ welfare, considering, how will they get spiritual benefit?
In Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā (2.62-63), Kṛṣṇa instructs Arjuna—
dhyāyato viṣayān puṁsaḥ saṅgas teṣūpajāyate
saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ kāmāt krodho ‘bhijāyate
krodhād bhavati sammohaḥ sammohāt smṛti-vibhramaḥ
smṛti-bhraṁśād buddhi-nāśo buddhi-nāśāt praṇaśyati
“By meditating on the sense objects, one develops attachment. Attachment gives rise to desire, which in turn leads to anger. Anger gives rise to delusion, and from delusion comes loss of memory, forgetting the instructions of śāstra. Loss of memory destroys intelligence, and when the intelligence is destroyed, everything is lost and one again becomes fallen in the ocean of material existence.”
When you think about sense objects and mundane relatives, those qualities come to you. They come attack you and make you lose your own intelligence. All your faith gradually becomes lost because of those people’s mundane qualities. Don’t think about them. People think, “I’m doing bhajana.” But they are not strong. They think, ‘what is the problem if I go to ordinary sense enjoyers.’ All conditioned souls in the material world are attached to mundane objects, by thinking about them, one’s nature becomes like them.
Arjuna said, “Acyuta, place my chariot in the midst of the battlefield between the two armies.” Going there and seeing his relatives, Arjuna’s intelligence was lost and he became devoid of strength and determination. Hence, Kṛṣṇa said, “By thinking about one’s mundane relatives, one is attracted and pulled to them without any magnet. Then, their mundane qualities attack and overcome your good intelligence.”
Narotama dāsa Ṭhākura says, “I am always remembering the Vraja-devīs and pastime places in Vraja, therefore my bhajana is never lost.”
People think that their lifestyle is good for themselves and everyone else. But going in family life, one finds only tension and becomes very busy and crazy. Still, he cannot understand his unfortunate condition. If he somehow comes out and takes shelter of the sādhus, then everything changes and he realizes how crazy family life is. He sees how much tension is there.
To treat one for this disease of material life, the sādhus say, “I will give you spiritual medicine and make you forget all your past. Taking shelter of Śrī Guru, you will become absorbed in the blissful process of bhajana and your disease will gradually be finished. You will have no more attachment to this world and no more problems in life.”
Sadhus have relation with God and always serve Him whereas people in general are the servants of māyā. They adopt this identity. Consequently, material family members and all the poison of māyā endlessly attack them.
Sādhus are very kind. They do not give mundane things. One who gives something mundane is an enemy. If people come and give any ordinary thing, this is called poison. Sādhus do not give poison in the form of mundane religiosity, economic development, sense enjoyment and impersonal liberation.
When Param Gurudeva was in Māyāpura, he was the manager of Caitanya-maṭha and his dear godbrother Narahari Sevā-vigraha Prabhu took care of everyone there like a mother. Once, the young nephew of Narahari Sevā-vigraha came. His father and brother had been killed in Bangladesh during a war and he was now orphaned with his mother. He came to the maṭha and thought that his uncle Narahari Sevā-vigraha Prabhu would help him. His mother was at the railway station and he came to the temple for help. He stayed for one, two or three days but Narahari Prabhu did not even speak with him. The boy became very disturbed and was crying profusely. Param Gurudeva asked why he was crying, and he said, “I came to my uncle for help but he does not even speak with me. My father has died and I have no room or place to stay. I came here for help but my uncle ignores me.”
Param Gurudeva then gave him some money and cloth. He asked Param Gurudeva, “Why didn’t my uncle talk to me?”
Param Gurudeva said, “You came to him thinking he was your uncle, but not thinking of him as a Vaiṣṇava. He doesn’t want to cheat you. He wants to bring you to God. He doesn’t want to give you any māyā. Taking this from me, you will remember not that it was your uncle that helped you, but the devotees, and you will certainly come back later in your life. Otherwise, you would take something and go back into māyā, where you would waste your life.”
One should come to spiritual persons for spiritual help. Those who give mundane help actually cheat others. This is not real help, it is cheating. It pushes one into a deep and dark well of materialistic life full of suffering.
Māyā is very powerful. How can one cross māyā and come to Kṛṣṇa? It is not possible without help from the higher realm. Kṛṣṇa’s eternal associates come in the form of devotees in this world, and they help by protecting and bringing lost souls to Kṛṣṇa.
Kṛṣṇa advised—
sarva-dharmān parityajya
mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ Vraja
ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo
mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
Bhagavad-gītā 18.66
“O Arjuna, give up everything and surrender to Me. Don’t worry, I will protect you.”
In this world people are only cheating others. Any soul that comes to them, they try to make their relative, saying, “I’m your father, your mother, your uncle, your sister.” But for how long do you have life? When your life goes from the body, in one moment these so-called relatives will kick you out. They will burn or bury your body and thus throw you away from them. Or if you become diseased or lame, they will not call you uncle or father anymore; they will give you up, putting you in the old house or hospital. They will have no more love for you. They think, “He will die tomorrow, it would be better if he died today.” Then they will quickly kill you and throw you out.
This is the cheating business of Māyā-devī’s realm. Māyā arranges this program in her prison—a program to punish. People say to one another, “You are mine.” And then they bind and punish each other. They squeeze the blood out of one another like long sugarcane stalks are put inside a machine and compressed until they are devoid of all juice, and when dry like straw, they are thrown in the garbage. In this way, people are killing us with their so-called love and affection. They drink our blood and once they are satisfied, they throw us away. These are the natural rules of this world. This is called the farmhouse of Māyā-devī. We are like chickens in the chicken farm. People see nice fat goats and chickens and then sell them for meat. People buy partners to be like their slaves, and if they don’t serve nicely, then they’ll go to court cases against each other.
Gurudeva preaches and says, “You are God’s part and parcel, come and serve God.”
But people say to him, “I am alone and feel very sad. I want a family.”
The jīvas suffer life after life in family life, but then again forgetting their suffering, with the hope of future happiness, again and again they think, “I need a wife, I need a husband, I need love.”
They don’t know this is a very poisonous fruit they are chewing. After taking this, they go further and further into a deep and dark blind well from which they can never come out. Inside this dark well they are boiling, burning and suffering. People suffer in their miserable existences until they finally commit suicide, ingesting poison, or jumping from a tall building. Why? They went to receive happiness but find none and will never be satisfied.
pāpe nā kariha māna adhama se pāpī-jana
tāre māna dūre parihari
pūṅyaje sūkhera dhāma tāra nā laio nāma
pūṅya mukti dui tyāga kari
Prema-bhakti-candrikā 6.15
“O mind, don’t sin. Stay far away from sinful persons. Don’t work to attain material piety, the resting place of material happiness. Don’t strive for the false liberation imagined by the impersonalists.”
People always have desire for sinful work and when they cheat people they clap and say, “Oh I have done something very good today. I cheated this person.”
If one has faith in God, he will not act like this. He will lament and pray to God for mercy.
Kṛṣṇa advised—
jāta-śraddho mat-kathāsu
nirviṇṇaḥ sarva-karmasu
veda duḥkhātmakān kāmān
parityāge ’py anīśvaraḥ
tato bhajeta māṁ prītaḥ
śraddhālur dṛḍha-niścayaḥ
juṣamāṇaś ca tān kāmān
duḥkhodarkāṁś ca garhayan
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.20.28-29
“Having awakened faith in the narrations of My glories, being disgusted with all material activities, knowing that all sense gratification leads to misery, but still being unable to renounce all sense enjoyment, My devotee should remain happy and worship Me with great faith and conviction. Even though he is sometimes engaged in sense enjoyment, My devotee knows that all sense gratification leads to a miserable result, and he sincerely repents such activities.”
When one understands, I have performed many sinful activities, he should pray, “O God, please forgive me. Punish me if you like, but I do not want to do any further wrong. I have stolen others wealth and had envy for them, wanted to take their wives, and I am always burning in the fires of my different desires. I perform so many sinful activities. I don’t know how to give this up and become clean. My mind and senses are uncontrolled and I run everywhere and suffer incessantly.”
One after the other, the jīva performs so many sinful activities. He tries to cover or hide his own sins and externally appear like a pious man, but nothing can be hidden from God. God knows everything. No one can hide this duplicitous nature. Therefore one should pray to God with an open heart. Kṛṣṇa arranges to mercifully pull one who prays sincerely to Him up out of the miserable material world. He will send many people to quickly give some needed treatment. If a person does many things wrong and no result comes, then he may think, “This is not bad what I am doing.”
Duryodhana was sinning every day but his father, grandfather, or guru said nothing. On the other hand, we see the Pandavas did nothing wrong, but they suffered so many trials as a lesson to the conditioned souls. Suffering is Kṛṣṇa’s great mercy to help break one’s material attachment.
If any devotee comes and prays to God for forgiveness, then when he has a mood of repent, he is immediately forgiven. The sādhaka should always have a prayerful mood. He should understand his fallen condition. This inspiration comes from sādhus and is greatly helpful. If one hides his diseases from the doctor or doesn’t accept that he is sick, how can the doctor help? If you do not show the doctor your condition, the doctor cannot give medicine. One should openly say, “I have this disease.” Then the doctor can give some treatment and immediately operate. It may feel painful but it helps so much.
Why do we sometimes see that sādhus perform sinful acts? When
sādhus come in contact with worldly people, trying to help them, sometimes they take a share of their sin. For example, once there was a sādhu who was out in the cold one evening in the winter. A villager saw him outside and invited him to his house, saying, “You are suffering. It is very cold outside. Come in and I will give you a room, blankets, food and everything. Rest for the night and when the sun rises you can leave.”
The householder brought the sādhu in, gave him a blanket and sat him by the fire. Gradually his cold left and they brought him nice food. He ate and then rested. A sādhu’s nature is to wake early. This sādhu woke at three a.m., collected the blankets and tied them into a bundle. He saw some wristwatches and gold rings in the house, and bound them as well, and then quietly left the house with many valuables in tow. In the morning, the family members woke late, around nine during the winter. They saw the sādhu had left with their blanket, rings and watches. They thought, “This sādhu is not a sādhu, he’s a great thief. We served and helped him and he stole everything of value we had. We will go and catch him, and when we do, we will beat and imprison him.”
Some villagers organized a manhunt and set out to find him. After walking a long distance, the sādhu passed stool, bathed, chanted his gayatri mantra and then said, “Why did I bring this cloth? Why did I bring these rings and watches? Why has my nature changed?” Then he turned around to take everything back. When he came to the village at noon the villagers saw him and shouted, “The bogus sādhu came, the bogus sādhu came, we will beat him.”
An elder person in the village said, “Don’t beat him, he came back himself. Ask him why he returned.”
The man who had given the sādhu place in his house asked him why he had stolen everything. The sādhu said, “I came in your house last night and you fed me. Please tell me where that food came from.”
The man said, “Someone had come and given me some rice and dāl and I cooked it for my family.”
He said, “Who gave this? It was a stolen product and because you gave me this sinful stolen food, my nature became like a thief and I stole your possessions.”
The sādhu‘s heart was clean, but he ate the food of a thief and his nature thus changed. As soon as this food had passed through his body, his good sense returned and he brought back what he had taken and begged forgiveness.
Materialistic families only desire enjoyment and recreation and will do anything to further this business of theirs. When sādhus associate with them, the people will give so much love and affection and speak sweetly and offer the sādhu so many food and gifts. But he must be very careful. This is great poison. If a snake bites you, one life will be gone. But, if a sādhu uses the poisonous objects of māyā proffered by materialistic people, it will destroy many lives, sending him very far away from Bhagavān.
If ordinary people talk to you with love and affection, give you something and come nearby you, then they could steal millions of your lives. Be very careful. It is not so easy to escape. If you think, “I’m a bona fide scholar. I can go and meet with everyone without any problem. I can take donations and use it all for myself, then, this will be like a great fire that engulfs your spiritual life and burns it to ash. Many small worms fly and perish in a fire thinking it has some sweet nectar. Like this, foolish sādhus collect so many donations. They think they are great collectors, but this poison touches them and then makes their hearts full of poison. This is called aṣṭa sāṅga, bad association, and must be avoided. Anything which comes must be offered to Śrī Guru or high-class Vaiṣṇavas. They can save one, and engage all energy properly in God’s service. There are so many big factories where people cruelly slaughter animals, making them suffer so much. Then they go to sādhus to give some donations and charity, thinking, “My sinful reactions will go to him.” If anyone eats food from this money, or takes that charity, he will realize at a moment the bad effect. This is a great poison.
While in Jagannātha Puri, after every few days Ragunātha dāsa Gosvāmī would invite Mahāprabhu and give a feast to Him and His associates with the wealth received from his father. Mahāprabhu would go and take but after a couple years had passed, Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī stopped the feasts. Mahāprabhu asked Svarūpa Dāmodara, “Now Raghunātha is not calling us, why?”
“He says that You take by force but are not really happy.”
“Yes, he knows my mind,” Mahaprabhu said,
pratigraha kabhu nā karibe rājadhana
viṣayīra anna khāile duṣṭa haya mana
mana duṣṭa haile nahe kṛṣṇera smaraṇa
kṛṣṇa-smrti binā haya niṣphala jīvana
(Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi. 12. 50-51)
“One should never accept alms from royalty or wealthy people because when one eats such food the mind becomes polluted. A polluted mind cannot remember Kṛṣṇa and without remembrance of Kṛṣṇa one’s whole life is a failure.”
After the war of Mahabharata was over, Krśṇa and Pandavas came to see Bhiśma Pitamaha while he was lying on a bed of arrows. Kṛṣṇa asked Pitāmaha to give them some advice. Hearing this, Draupadi loudly began to laugh. Kṛṣṇa asked her, “Why are you laughing?” And she replied, “Why shouldn’t I? When Duryodhana and Duṣhasana were abusing me, trying to make me naked and put me on their laps, where was the good counsel of Pitāmaha then? Why is he such a great advisor now?”
Bhīṣma said, “Manusya artha ka dāsa, artha manusya ka dāsa nahi, man is the slave of wealth, wealth is not the slave of man. I ate the food of the sinful Duryodhana, and thus my intelligence was lost. I accepted their wealth and then I was controlled by them. Now, for many days I have been on top of this bed of arrows and all my blood has left my body. Now there is none of that sinful blood in my body and I am clean. Thus anything I say now will be pure.”
Hari-kathā and hari-kīrtana is not possible to be performed by someone who takes all these sinful things. The sādhaka should thus be very careful what he eats. The Guru-varga instruct sādhus to take mādhukarī, a small amount of grains from many, and only enough to maintain the body. They should not take too much. If the sādhaka over-collects, then great trouble will come in his life. The sādhu should remain apart from materialistic people as much as possible. If the sādhu does not try to help others, they cannot progress. So help should be given, but it must be from a very neutral standpoint. One must tread with great care.
One sādhu was walking and found a scorpion drowning in a pool of water. The sādhu picked it up to save it, but the scorpion bit the sādhu’s hand and the sādhu involuntarily dropped the scorpion. He tried to pick it up again, but it bit him again. This went on for many sequences, until someone nearby asked, “Why are you trying to help the scorpion? Every time you pick it up, it only bites you, and you drop it again.”
The sādhu replied, “His nature is to bite me and my nature is to try and help him. Why should I give up my nature to suit his?”
Sādhu’s have this great power of tolerance. But remember—don’t think you are such a great sādhu. Know your own position.
One should not consider sins or mundane piety, heaven or hell, there is no need. Only perform kṛṣṇa-bhajana. If any regulations are not favorable for kṛṣṇa-bhajana, then give them up. And if you ever perform some sin by mistake, pray to Kṛṣṇa and He will forgive you and give His shelter.
prema-bhakti-sūdha-nidhi tāhe dūba nirabadhi
ara jata kṣara nidhi prāya
niraṅtara sūkha pābe sakala saṅtapa jābe
para-tattwa karile upāya
Prema-bhakti-candrikā 6.16
“Dive into the shoreless nectar ocean of pure love for Kṛṣṇa, larger than the largest salt-water ocean. If one swims in that nectar ocean of love for Kṛṣṇa, Lord Kṛṣṇa will make all his sufferings disappear, and he will attain endless transcendental bliss.”
Prema-bhakti is pure nectar. It is very sweet. Drinking this, showering in this, you will feel great happiness. Everything else is like a salty ocean. When the living entities are extremely fortunate they come in the association of pure devotees and begin to follow devotional life. When objects of sense gratification then come to them, they will not accept. One who has desire for material sense enjoyment cannot follow pure devotion or be forever blissful. If one has desire to attain the lotus feet of Mukunda, he will not collect wealth, stay in bad association and will not waste his time. He who does not perform bhajana and bhakti simply wastes his time accumulating bad karma which will come back with a fearsome result and compounded interest.
If ordinary people do bad activities and think it will not have any effect because they go to a holy river, bathe and give some charity, or perform a sacrifice, or do some spiritual activity; it is not like that. You are doing both good and bad work so both effects will come.
The intelligent sādhaka does not consider doing good or bad. He acts only for the happiness of God. Then, everything is reserved and balanced with God. There will be no loss or cause to fear. Bhakti-devi will give pure existence and pure knowledge, connected with svarūpa-śakti. If one receives knowledge of the world and material nature, then he can cross beyond māyā and become connected with the divine potency.
There is an important question to consider here. Bhakti is full of so much bliss, why do the living entities doubt this? Where does this doubt come from? People follow bhakti but they have some doubt. Sometimes, this doubt comes because they touched something of māyā. Therefore they must be very careful. Someone gives a cloth, or a coin, or some food, this is like food poisoning. Taking this one becomes restless and suffers. Sarvasva-guruva-dadyat, offer everything to Guru. Very carefully take only what is absolutely necessary to maintain your life and always pray to Kṛṣṇa, “Please forgive and protect me.”
The devotees should very carefully remain in the shelter of svarūpa-śakti and always pray for protection. Prema-bhakti is a ṣudha nidhi, an ocean of pure nectar. Touching or tasting this once, your desire will increase to relish even more.
pañcama puruṣārtha sei prema-mahādhana
kṛṣṇera mādhurya-rasa karāya āsvādana
(Caitanya-caritāmṛta Adi-līlā 7.144)
“Love of Godhead is so exalted that it is considered to be the fifth goal of human life. By awakening one’s love of Godhead, one can attain the platform of mādhurya-rasa, tasting it even during the present span of life.”
anyera paraśa yena nāhi kadācit hena
ihāte haibe savādhāna
rādhā-kṛṣṇa nāma gāna ei se parama dhyāna
āra nā kariha paramāṇa
Prema-bhakti-candrikā 6.17
“Take great care only to serve the Divine Couple, and don’t let any other activity touch you. Know that the chanting of the holy names of Sri Sri Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa is the supreme spiritual meditation. Please don’t try to raise any objections to this, or try to present evidence confirming any other view.”
Kṛṣṇa is controlled by prema-bhakti. To attain this prema-bhakti, always serve Śrī Rādhā Mādhava under guidance of Śrī Guru. You will then be saved from this fearsome world and awake in the blissful abode, where you will remain joyful eternally.
– Śrīpāda Premānanda Prabhu
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Link: http://bhaktabandhav.com/2013/10/maya-devis-farmhouse-prema-bhakti-candrika/ (Latest harikatha on Bhaktabandhav.com)
Sometimes, in his Prema-bhakti-candrikā, Narottama dāsa Thakura is in antar-daśā activities of the internal world, and then describes the spiritual abode, and when in bāhya-daśā, external sense, he mercifully thinks about the conditioned souls and advises how they can follow the Vrajavāsīs and vraja-bhakti. He has great kindness and worries about the conditioned souls’ welfare, considering, how will they get spiritual benefit?
In Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā (2.62-63), Kṛṣṇa instructs Arjuna—
dhyāyato viṣayān puṁsaḥ saṅgas teṣūpajāyate
saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ kāmāt krodho ‘bhijāyate
krodhād bhavati sammohaḥ sammohāt smṛti-vibhramaḥ
smṛti-bhraṁśād buddhi-nāśo buddhi-nāśāt praṇaśyati
“By meditating on the sense objects, one develops attachment. Attachment gives rise to desire, which in turn leads to anger. Anger gives rise to delusion, and from delusion comes loss of memory, forgetting the instructions of śāstra. Loss of memory destroys intelligence, and when the intelligence is destroyed, everything is lost and one again becomes fallen in the ocean of material existence.”
When you think about sense objects and mundane relatives, those qualities come to you. They come attack you and make you lose your own intelligence. All your faith gradually becomes lost because of those people’s mundane qualities. Don’t think about them. People think, “I’m doing bhajana.” But they are not strong. They think, ‘what is the problem if I go to ordinary sense enjoyers.’ All conditioned souls in the material world are attached to mundane objects, by thinking about them, one’s nature becomes like them.
Arjuna said, “Acyuta, place my chariot in the midst of the battlefield between the two armies.” Going there and seeing his relatives, Arjuna’s intelligence was lost and he became devoid of strength and determination. Hence, Kṛṣṇa said, “By thinking about one’s mundane relatives, one is attracted and pulled to them without any magnet. Then, their mundane qualities attack and overcome your good intelligence.”
Narotama dāsa Ṭhākura says, “I am always remembering the Vraja-devīs and pastime places in Vraja, therefore my bhajana is never lost.”
People think that their lifestyle is good for themselves and everyone else. But going in family life, one finds only tension and becomes very busy and crazy. Still, he cannot understand his unfortunate condition. If he somehow comes out and takes shelter of the sādhus, then everything changes and he realizes how crazy family life is. He sees how much tension is there.
To treat one for this disease of material life, the sādhus say, “I will give you spiritual medicine and make you forget all your past. Taking shelter of Śrī Guru, you will become absorbed in the blissful process of bhajana and your disease will gradually be finished. You will have no more attachment to this world and no more problems in life.”
Sadhus have relation with God and always serve Him whereas people in general are the servants of māyā. They adopt this identity. Consequently, material family members and all the poison of māyā endlessly attack them.
Sādhus are very kind. They do not give mundane things. One who gives something mundane is an enemy. If people come and give any ordinary thing, this is called poison. Sādhus do not give poison in the form of mundane religiosity, economic development, sense enjoyment and impersonal liberation.
When Param Gurudeva was in Māyāpura, he was the manager of Caitanya-maṭha and his dear godbrother Narahari Sevā-vigraha Prabhu took care of everyone there like a mother. Once, the young nephew of Narahari Sevā-vigraha came. His father and brother had been killed in Bangladesh during a war and he was now orphaned with his mother. He came to the maṭha and thought that his uncle Narahari Sevā-vigraha Prabhu would help him. His mother was at the railway station and he came to the temple for help. He stayed for one, two or three days but Narahari Prabhu did not even speak with him. The boy became very disturbed and was crying profusely. Param Gurudeva asked why he was crying, and he said, “I came to my uncle for help but he does not even speak with me. My father has died and I have no room or place to stay. I came here for help but my uncle ignores me.”
Param Gurudeva then gave him some money and cloth. He asked Param Gurudeva, “Why didn’t my uncle talk to me?”
Param Gurudeva said, “You came to him thinking he was your uncle, but not thinking of him as a Vaiṣṇava. He doesn’t want to cheat you. He wants to bring you to God. He doesn’t want to give you any māyā. Taking this from me, you will remember not that it was your uncle that helped you, but the devotees, and you will certainly come back later in your life. Otherwise, you would take something and go back into māyā, where you would waste your life.”
One should come to spiritual persons for spiritual help. Those who give mundane help actually cheat others. This is not real help, it is cheating. It pushes one into a deep and dark well of materialistic life full of suffering.
Māyā is very powerful. How can one cross māyā and come to Kṛṣṇa? It is not possible without help from the higher realm. Kṛṣṇa’s eternal associates come in the form of devotees in this world, and they help by protecting and bringing lost souls to Kṛṣṇa.
Kṛṣṇa advised—
sarva-dharmān parityajya
mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ Vraja
ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo
mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
Bhagavad-gītā 18.66
“O Arjuna, give up everything and surrender to Me. Don’t worry, I will protect you.”
In this world people are only cheating others. Any soul that comes to them, they try to make their relative, saying, “I’m your father, your mother, your uncle, your sister.” But for how long do you have life? When your life goes from the body, in one moment these so-called relatives will kick you out. They will burn or bury your body and thus throw you away from them. Or if you become diseased or lame, they will not call you uncle or father anymore; they will give you up, putting you in the old house or hospital. They will have no more love for you. They think, “He will die tomorrow, it would be better if he died today.” Then they will quickly kill you and throw you out.
This is the cheating business of Māyā-devī’s realm. Māyā arranges this program in her prison—a program to punish. People say to one another, “You are mine.” And then they bind and punish each other. They squeeze the blood out of one another like long sugarcane stalks are put inside a machine and compressed until they are devoid of all juice, and when dry like straw, they are thrown in the garbage. In this way, people are killing us with their so-called love and affection. They drink our blood and once they are satisfied, they throw us away. These are the natural rules of this world. This is called the farmhouse of Māyā-devī. We are like chickens in the chicken farm. People see nice fat goats and chickens and then sell them for meat. People buy partners to be like their slaves, and if they don’t serve nicely, then they’ll go to court cases against each other.
Gurudeva preaches and says, “You are God’s part and parcel, come and serve God.”
But people say to him, “I am alone and feel very sad. I want a family.”
The jīvas suffer life after life in family life, but then again forgetting their suffering, with the hope of future happiness, again and again they think, “I need a wife, I need a husband, I need love.”
They don’t know this is a very poisonous fruit they are chewing. After taking this, they go further and further into a deep and dark blind well from which they can never come out. Inside this dark well they are boiling, burning and suffering. People suffer in their miserable existences until they finally commit suicide, ingesting poison, or jumping from a tall building. Why? They went to receive happiness but find none and will never be satisfied.
pāpe nā kariha māna adhama se pāpī-jana
tāre māna dūre parihari
pūṅyaje sūkhera dhāma tāra nā laio nāma
pūṅya mukti dui tyāga kari
Prema-bhakti-candrikā 6.15
“O mind, don’t sin. Stay far away from sinful persons. Don’t work to attain material piety, the resting place of material happiness. Don’t strive for the false liberation imagined by the impersonalists.”
People always have desire for sinful work and when they cheat people they clap and say, “Oh I have done something very good today. I cheated this person.”
If one has faith in God, he will not act like this. He will lament and pray to God for mercy.
Kṛṣṇa advised—
jāta-śraddho mat-kathāsu
nirviṇṇaḥ sarva-karmasu
veda duḥkhātmakān kāmān
parityāge ’py anīśvaraḥ
tato bhajeta māṁ prītaḥ
śraddhālur dṛḍha-niścayaḥ
juṣamāṇaś ca tān kāmān
duḥkhodarkāṁś ca garhayan
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.20.28-29
“Having awakened faith in the narrations of My glories, being disgusted with all material activities, knowing that all sense gratification leads to misery, but still being unable to renounce all sense enjoyment, My devotee should remain happy and worship Me with great faith and conviction. Even though he is sometimes engaged in sense enjoyment, My devotee knows that all sense gratification leads to a miserable result, and he sincerely repents such activities.”
When one understands, I have performed many sinful activities, he should pray, “O God, please forgive me. Punish me if you like, but I do not want to do any further wrong. I have stolen others wealth and had envy for them, wanted to take their wives, and I am always burning in the fires of my different desires. I perform so many sinful activities. I don’t know how to give this up and become clean. My mind and senses are uncontrolled and I run everywhere and suffer incessantly.”
One after the other, the jīva performs so many sinful activities. He tries to cover or hide his own sins and externally appear like a pious man, but nothing can be hidden from God. God knows everything. No one can hide this duplicitous nature. Therefore one should pray to God with an open heart. Kṛṣṇa arranges to mercifully pull one who prays sincerely to Him up out of the miserable material world. He will send many people to quickly give some needed treatment. If a person does many things wrong and no result comes, then he may think, “This is not bad what I am doing.”
Duryodhana was sinning every day but his father, grandfather, or guru said nothing. On the other hand, we see the Pandavas did nothing wrong, but they suffered so many trials as a lesson to the conditioned souls. Suffering is Kṛṣṇa’s great mercy to help break one’s material attachment.
If any devotee comes and prays to God for forgiveness, then when he has a mood of repent, he is immediately forgiven. The sādhaka should always have a prayerful mood. He should understand his fallen condition. This inspiration comes from sādhus and is greatly helpful. If one hides his diseases from the doctor or doesn’t accept that he is sick, how can the doctor help? If you do not show the doctor your condition, the doctor cannot give medicine. One should openly say, “I have this disease.” Then the doctor can give some treatment and immediately operate. It may feel painful but it helps so much.
Why do we sometimes see that sādhus perform sinful acts? When
sādhus come in contact with worldly people, trying to help them, sometimes they take a share of their sin. For example, once there was a sādhu who was out in the cold one evening in the winter. A villager saw him outside and invited him to his house, saying, “You are suffering. It is very cold outside. Come in and I will give you a room, blankets, food and everything. Rest for the night and when the sun rises you can leave.”
The householder brought the sādhu in, gave him a blanket and sat him by the fire. Gradually his cold left and they brought him nice food. He ate and then rested. A sādhu’s nature is to wake early. This sādhu woke at three a.m., collected the blankets and tied them into a bundle. He saw some wristwatches and gold rings in the house, and bound them as well, and then quietly left the house with many valuables in tow. In the morning, the family members woke late, around nine during the winter. They saw the sādhu had left with their blanket, rings and watches. They thought, “This sādhu is not a sādhu, he’s a great thief. We served and helped him and he stole everything of value we had. We will go and catch him, and when we do, we will beat and imprison him.”
Some villagers organized a manhunt and set out to find him. After walking a long distance, the sādhu passed stool, bathed, chanted his gayatri mantra and then said, “Why did I bring this cloth? Why did I bring these rings and watches? Why has my nature changed?” Then he turned around to take everything back. When he came to the village at noon the villagers saw him and shouted, “The bogus sādhu came, the bogus sādhu came, we will beat him.”
An elder person in the village said, “Don’t beat him, he came back himself. Ask him why he returned.”
The man who had given the sādhu place in his house asked him why he had stolen everything. The sādhu said, “I came in your house last night and you fed me. Please tell me where that food came from.”
The man said, “Someone had come and given me some rice and dāl and I cooked it for my family.”
He said, “Who gave this? It was a stolen product and because you gave me this sinful stolen food, my nature became like a thief and I stole your possessions.”
The sādhu‘s heart was clean, but he ate the food of a thief and his nature thus changed. As soon as this food had passed through his body, his good sense returned and he brought back what he had taken and begged forgiveness.
Materialistic families only desire enjoyment and recreation and will do anything to further this business of theirs. When sādhus associate with them, the people will give so much love and affection and speak sweetly and offer the sādhu so many food and gifts. But he must be very careful. This is great poison. If a snake bites you, one life will be gone. But, if a sādhu uses the poisonous objects of māyā proffered by materialistic people, it will destroy many lives, sending him very far away from Bhagavān.
If ordinary people talk to you with love and affection, give you something and come nearby you, then they could steal millions of your lives. Be very careful. It is not so easy to escape. If you think, “I’m a bona fide scholar. I can go and meet with everyone without any problem. I can take donations and use it all for myself, then, this will be like a great fire that engulfs your spiritual life and burns it to ash. Many small worms fly and perish in a fire thinking it has some sweet nectar. Like this, foolish sādhus collect so many donations. They think they are great collectors, but this poison touches them and then makes their hearts full of poison. This is called aṣṭa sāṅga, bad association, and must be avoided. Anything which comes must be offered to Śrī Guru or high-class Vaiṣṇavas. They can save one, and engage all energy properly in God’s service. There are so many big factories where people cruelly slaughter animals, making them suffer so much. Then they go to sādhus to give some donations and charity, thinking, “My sinful reactions will go to him.” If anyone eats food from this money, or takes that charity, he will realize at a moment the bad effect. This is a great poison.
While in Jagannātha Puri, after every few days Ragunātha dāsa Gosvāmī would invite Mahāprabhu and give a feast to Him and His associates with the wealth received from his father. Mahāprabhu would go and take but after a couple years had passed, Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī stopped the feasts. Mahāprabhu asked Svarūpa Dāmodara, “Now Raghunātha is not calling us, why?”
“He says that You take by force but are not really happy.”
“Yes, he knows my mind,” Mahaprabhu said,
pratigraha kabhu nā karibe rājadhana
viṣayīra anna khāile duṣṭa haya mana
mana duṣṭa haile nahe kṛṣṇera smaraṇa
kṛṣṇa-smrti binā haya niṣphala jīvana
(Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi. 12. 50-51)
“One should never accept alms from royalty or wealthy people because when one eats such food the mind becomes polluted. A polluted mind cannot remember Kṛṣṇa and without remembrance of Kṛṣṇa one’s whole life is a failure.”
After the war of Mahabharata was over, Krśṇa and Pandavas came to see Bhiśma Pitamaha while he was lying on a bed of arrows. Kṛṣṇa asked Pitāmaha to give them some advice. Hearing this, Draupadi loudly began to laugh. Kṛṣṇa asked her, “Why are you laughing?” And she replied, “Why shouldn’t I? When Duryodhana and Duṣhasana were abusing me, trying to make me naked and put me on their laps, where was the good counsel of Pitāmaha then? Why is he such a great advisor now?”
Bhīṣma said, “Manusya artha ka dāsa, artha manusya ka dāsa nahi, man is the slave of wealth, wealth is not the slave of man. I ate the food of the sinful Duryodhana, and thus my intelligence was lost. I accepted their wealth and then I was controlled by them. Now, for many days I have been on top of this bed of arrows and all my blood has left my body. Now there is none of that sinful blood in my body and I am clean. Thus anything I say now will be pure.”
Hari-kathā and hari-kīrtana is not possible to be performed by someone who takes all these sinful things. The sādhaka should thus be very careful what he eats. The Guru-varga instruct sādhus to take mādhukarī, a small amount of grains from many, and only enough to maintain the body. They should not take too much. If the sādhaka over-collects, then great trouble will come in his life. The sādhu should remain apart from materialistic people as much as possible. If the sādhu does not try to help others, they cannot progress. So help should be given, but it must be from a very neutral standpoint. One must tread with great care.
One sādhu was walking and found a scorpion drowning in a pool of water. The sādhu picked it up to save it, but the scorpion bit the sādhu’s hand and the sādhu involuntarily dropped the scorpion. He tried to pick it up again, but it bit him again. This went on for many sequences, until someone nearby asked, “Why are you trying to help the scorpion? Every time you pick it up, it only bites you, and you drop it again.”
The sādhu replied, “His nature is to bite me and my nature is to try and help him. Why should I give up my nature to suit his?”
Sādhu’s have this great power of tolerance. But remember—don’t think you are such a great sādhu. Know your own position.
One should not consider sins or mundane piety, heaven or hell, there is no need. Only perform kṛṣṇa-bhajana. If any regulations are not favorable for kṛṣṇa-bhajana, then give them up. And if you ever perform some sin by mistake, pray to Kṛṣṇa and He will forgive you and give His shelter.
prema-bhakti-sūdha-nidhi tāhe dūba nirabadhi
ara jata kṣara nidhi prāya
niraṅtara sūkha pābe sakala saṅtapa jābe
para-tattwa karile upāya
Prema-bhakti-candrikā 6.16
“Dive into the shoreless nectar ocean of pure love for Kṛṣṇa, larger than the largest salt-water ocean. If one swims in that nectar ocean of love for Kṛṣṇa, Lord Kṛṣṇa will make all his sufferings disappear, and he will attain endless transcendental bliss.”
Prema-bhakti is pure nectar. It is very sweet. Drinking this, showering in this, you will feel great happiness. Everything else is like a salty ocean. When the living entities are extremely fortunate they come in the association of pure devotees and begin to follow devotional life. When objects of sense gratification then come to them, they will not accept. One who has desire for material sense enjoyment cannot follow pure devotion or be forever blissful. If one has desire to attain the lotus feet of Mukunda, he will not collect wealth, stay in bad association and will not waste his time. He who does not perform bhajana and bhakti simply wastes his time accumulating bad karma which will come back with a fearsome result and compounded interest.
If ordinary people do bad activities and think it will not have any effect because they go to a holy river, bathe and give some charity, or perform a sacrifice, or do some spiritual activity; it is not like that. You are doing both good and bad work so both effects will come.
The intelligent sādhaka does not consider doing good or bad. He acts only for the happiness of God. Then, everything is reserved and balanced with God. There will be no loss or cause to fear. Bhakti-devi will give pure existence and pure knowledge, connected with svarūpa-śakti. If one receives knowledge of the world and material nature, then he can cross beyond māyā and become connected with the divine potency.
There is an important question to consider here. Bhakti is full of so much bliss, why do the living entities doubt this? Where does this doubt come from? People follow bhakti but they have some doubt. Sometimes, this doubt comes because they touched something of māyā. Therefore they must be very careful. Someone gives a cloth, or a coin, or some food, this is like food poisoning. Taking this one becomes restless and suffers. Sarvasva-guruva-dadyat, offer everything to Guru. Very carefully take only what is absolutely necessary to maintain your life and always pray to Kṛṣṇa, “Please forgive and protect me.”
The devotees should very carefully remain in the shelter of svarūpa-śakti and always pray for protection. Prema-bhakti is a ṣudha nidhi, an ocean of pure nectar. Touching or tasting this once, your desire will increase to relish even more.
pañcama puruṣārtha sei prema-mahādhana
kṛṣṇera mādhurya-rasa karāya āsvādana
(Caitanya-caritāmṛta Adi-līlā 7.144)
“Love of Godhead is so exalted that it is considered to be the fifth goal of human life. By awakening one’s love of Godhead, one can attain the platform of mādhurya-rasa, tasting it even during the present span of life.”
anyera paraśa yena nāhi kadācit hena
ihāte haibe savādhāna
rādhā-kṛṣṇa nāma gāna ei se parama dhyāna
āra nā kariha paramāṇa
Prema-bhakti-candrikā 6.17
“Take great care only to serve the Divine Couple, and don’t let any other activity touch you. Know that the chanting of the holy names of Sri Sri Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa is the supreme spiritual meditation. Please don’t try to raise any objections to this, or try to present evidence confirming any other view.”
Kṛṣṇa is controlled by prema-bhakti. To attain this prema-bhakti, always serve Śrī Rādhā Mādhava under guidance of Śrī Guru. You will then be saved from this fearsome world and awake in the blissful abode, where you will remain joyful eternally.
– Śrīpāda Premānanda Prabhu
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Sometimes, in his Prema-bhakti-candrikā, Narottama dāsa Thakura is in antar-daśā activities of the internal world, and then describes the spiritual abode, and when in bāhya-daśā, external sense, he mercifully thinks about the conditioned souls and advises how they can follow the Vrajavāsīs and vraja-bhakti. He has great kindness and worries about the conditioned souls’ welfare, considering, how will they get spiritual benefit?
In Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā (2.62-63), Kṛṣṇa instructs Arjuna—
dhyāyato viṣayān puṁsaḥ saṅgas teṣūpajāyate
saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ kāmāt krodho ‘bhijāyate
krodhād bhavati sammohaḥ sammohāt smṛti-vibhramaḥ
smṛti-bhraṁśād buddhi-nāśo buddhi-nāśāt praṇaśyati
“By meditating on the sense objects, one develops attachment. Attachment gives rise to desire, which in turn leads to anger. Anger gives rise to delusion, and from delusion comes loss of memory, forgetting the instructions of śāstra. Loss of memory destroys intelligence, and when the intelligence is destroyed, everything is lost and one again becomes fallen in the ocean of material existence.”
When you think about sense objects and mundane relatives, those qualities come to you. They come attack you and make you lose your own intelligence. All your faith gradually becomes lost because of those people’s mundane qualities. Don’t think about them. People think, “I’m doing bhajana.” But they are not strong. They think, ‘what is the problem if I go to ordinary sense enjoyers.’ All conditioned souls in the material world are attached to mundane objects, by thinking about them, one’s nature becomes like them.
Arjuna said, “Acyuta, place my chariot in the midst of the battlefield between the two armies.” Going there and seeing his relatives, Arjuna’s intelligence was lost and he became devoid of strength and determination. Hence, Kṛṣṇa said, “By thinking about one’s mundane relatives, one is attracted and pulled to them without any magnet. Then, their mundane qualities attack and overcome your good intelligence.”
Narotama dāsa Ṭhākura says, “I am always remembering the Vraja-devīs and pastime places in Vraja, therefore my bhajana is never lost.”
People think that their lifestyle is good for themselves and everyone else. But going in family life, one finds only tension and becomes very busy and crazy. Still, he cannot understand his unfortunate condition. If he somehow comes out and takes shelter of the sādhus, then everything changes and he realizes how crazy family life is. He sees how much tension is there.
To treat one for this disease of material life, the sādhus say, “I will give you spiritual medicine and make you forget all your past. Taking shelter of Śrī Guru, you will become absorbed in the blissful process of bhajana and your disease will gradually be finished. You will have no more attachment to this world and no more problems in life.”
Sadhus have relation with God and always serve Him whereas people in general are the servants of māyā. They adopt this identity. Consequently, material family members and all the poison of māyā endlessly attack them.
Sādhus are very kind. They do not give mundane things. One who gives something mundane is an enemy. If people come and give any ordinary thing, this is called poison. Sādhus do not give poison in the form of mundane religiosity, economic development, sense enjoyment and impersonal liberation.
When Param Gurudeva was in Māyāpura, he was the manager of Caitanya-maṭha and his dear godbrother Narahari Sevā-vigraha Prabhu took care of everyone there like a mother. Once, the young nephew of Narahari Sevā-vigraha came. His father and brother had been killed in Bangladesh during a war and he was now orphaned with his mother. He came to the maṭha and thought that his uncle Narahari Sevā-vigraha Prabhu would help him. His mother was at the railway station and he came to the temple for help. He stayed for one, two or three days but Narahari Prabhu did not even speak with him. The boy became very disturbed and was crying profusely. Param Gurudeva asked why he was crying, and he said, “I came to my uncle for help but he does not even speak with me. My father has died and I have no room or place to stay. I came here for help but my uncle ignores me.”
Param Gurudeva then gave him some money and cloth. He asked Param Gurudeva, “Why didn’t my uncle talk to me?”
Param Gurudeva said, “You came to him thinking he was your uncle, but not thinking of him as a Vaiṣṇava. He doesn’t want to cheat you. He wants to bring you to God. He doesn’t want to give you any māyā. Taking this from me, you will remember not that it was your uncle that helped you, but the devotees, and you will certainly come back later in your life. Otherwise, you would take something and go back into māyā, where you would waste your life.”
One should come to spiritual persons for spiritual help. Those who give mundane help actually cheat others. This is not real help, it is cheating. It pushes one into a deep and dark well of materialistic life full of suffering.
Māyā is very powerful. How can one cross māyā and come to Kṛṣṇa? It is not possible without help from the higher realm. Kṛṣṇa’s eternal associates come in the form of devotees in this world, and they help by protecting and bringing lost souls to Kṛṣṇa.
Kṛṣṇa advised—
sarva-dharmān parityajya
mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ Vraja
ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo
mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
Bhagavad-gītā 18.66
“O Arjuna, give up everything and surrender to Me. Don’t worry, I will protect you.”
In this world people are only cheating others. Any soul that comes to them, they try to make their relative, saying, “I’m your father, your mother, your uncle, your sister.” But for how long do you have life? When your life goes from the body, in one moment these so-called relatives will kick you out. They will burn or bury your body and thus throw you away from them. Or if you become diseased or lame, they will not call you uncle or father anymore; they will give you up, putting you in the old house or hospital. They will have no more love for you. They think, “He will die tomorrow, it would be better if he died today.” Then they will quickly kill you and throw you out.
This is the cheating business of Māyā-devī’s realm. Māyā arranges this program in her prison—a program to punish. People say to one another, “You are mine.” And then they bind and punish each other. They squeeze the blood out of one another like long sugarcane stalks are put inside a machine and compressed until they are devoid of all juice, and when dry like straw, they are thrown in the garbage. In this way, people are killing us with their so-called love and affection. They drink our blood and once they are satisfied, they throw us away. These are the natural rules of this world. This is called the farmhouse of Māyā-devī. We are like chickens in the chicken farm. People see nice fat goats and chickens and then sell them for meat. People buy partners to be like their slaves, and if they don’t serve nicely, then they’ll go to court cases against each other.
Gurudeva preaches and says, “You are God’s part and parcel, come and serve God.”
But people say to him, “I am alone and feel very sad. I want a family.”
The jīvas suffer life after life in family life, but then again forgetting their suffering, with the hope of future happiness, again and again they think, “I need a wife, I need a husband, I need love.”
They don’t know this is a very poisonous fruit they are chewing. After taking this, they go further and further into a deep and dark blind well from which they can never come out. Inside this dark well they are boiling, burning and suffering. People suffer in their miserable existences until they finally commit suicide, ingesting poison, or jumping from a tall building. Why? They went to receive happiness but find none and will never be satisfied.
pāpe nā kariha māna adhama se pāpī-jana
tāre māna dūre parihari
pūṅyaje sūkhera dhāma tāra nā laio nāma
pūṅya mukti dui tyāga kari
Prema-bhakti-candrikā 6.15
“O mind, don’t sin. Stay far away from sinful persons. Don’t work to attain material piety, the resting place of material happiness. Don’t strive for the false liberation imagined by the impersonalists.”
People always have desire for sinful work and when they cheat people they clap and say, “Oh I have done something very good today. I cheated this person.”
If one has faith in God, he will not act like this. He will lament and pray to God for mercy.
Kṛṣṇa advised—
jāta-śraddho mat-kathāsu
nirviṇṇaḥ sarva-karmasu
veda duḥkhātmakān kāmān
parityāge ’py anīśvaraḥ
tato bhajeta māṁ prītaḥ
śraddhālur dṛḍha-niścayaḥ
juṣamāṇaś ca tān kāmān
duḥkhodarkāṁś ca garhayan
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.20.28-29
“Having awakened faith in the narrations of My glories, being disgusted with all material activities, knowing that all sense gratification leads to misery, but still being unable to renounce all sense enjoyment, My devotee should remain happy and worship Me with great faith and conviction. Even though he is sometimes engaged in sense enjoyment, My devotee knows that all sense gratification leads to a miserable result, and he sincerely repents such activities.”
When one understands, I have performed many sinful activities, he should pray, “O God, please forgive me. Punish me if you like, but I do not want to do any further wrong. I have stolen others wealth and had envy for them, wanted to take their wives, and I am always burning in the fires of my different desires. I perform so many sinful activities. I don’t know how to give this up and become clean. My mind and senses are uncontrolled and I run everywhere and suffer incessantly.”
One after the other, the jīva performs so many sinful activities. He tries to cover or hide his own sins and externally appear like a pious man, but nothing can be hidden from God. God knows everything. No one can hide this duplicitous nature. Therefore one should pray to God with an open heart. Kṛṣṇa arranges to mercifully pull one who prays sincerely to Him up out of the miserable material world. He will send many people to quickly give some needed treatment. If a person does many things wrong and no result comes, then he may think, “This is not bad what I am doing.”
Duryodhana was sinning every day but his father, grandfather, or guru said nothing. On the other hand, we see the Pandavas did nothing wrong, but they suffered so many trials as a lesson to the conditioned souls. Suffering is Kṛṣṇa’s great mercy to help break one’s material attachment.
If any devotee comes and prays to God for forgiveness, then when he has a mood of repent, he is immediately forgiven. The sādhaka should always have a prayerful mood. He should understand his fallen condition. This inspiration comes from sādhus and is greatly helpful. If one hides his diseases from the doctor or doesn’t accept that he is sick, how can the doctor help? If you do not show the doctor your condition, the doctor cannot give medicine. One should openly say, “I have this disease.” Then the doctor can give some treatment and immediately operate. It may feel painful but it helps so much.
Why do we sometimes see that sādhus perform sinful acts? When
sādhus come in contact with worldly people, trying to help them, sometimes they take a share of their sin. For example, once there was a sādhu who was out in the cold one evening in the winter. A villager saw him outside and invited him to his house, saying, “You are suffering. It is very cold outside. Come in and I will give you a room, blankets, food and everything. Rest for the night and when the sun rises you can leave.”
The householder brought the sādhu in, gave him a blanket and sat him by the fire. Gradually his cold left and they brought him nice food. He ate and then rested. A sādhu’s nature is to wake early. This sādhu woke at three a.m., collected the blankets and tied them into a bundle. He saw some wristwatches and gold rings in the house, and bound them as well, and then quietly left the house with many valuables in tow. In the morning, the family members woke late, around nine during the winter. They saw the sādhu had left with their blanket, rings and watches. They thought, “This sādhu is not a sādhu, he’s a great thief. We served and helped him and he stole everything of value we had. We will go and catch him, and when we do, we will beat and imprison him.”
Some villagers organized a manhunt and set out to find him. After walking a long distance, the sādhu passed stool, bathed, chanted his gayatri mantra and then said, “Why did I bring this cloth? Why did I bring these rings and watches? Why has my nature changed?” Then he turned around to take everything back. When he came to the village at noon the villagers saw him and shouted, “The bogus sādhu came, the bogus sādhu came, we will beat him.”
An elder person in the village said, “Don’t beat him, he came back himself. Ask him why he returned.”
The man who had given the sādhu place in his house asked him why he had stolen everything. The sādhu said, “I came in your house last night and you fed me. Please tell me where that food came from.”
The man said, “Someone had come and given me some rice and dāl and I cooked it for my family.”
He said, “Who gave this? It was a stolen product and because you gave me this sinful stolen food, my nature became like a thief and I stole your possessions.”
The sādhu‘s heart was clean, but he ate the food of a thief and his nature thus changed. As soon as this food had passed through his body, his good sense returned and he brought back what he had taken and begged forgiveness.
Materialistic families only desire enjoyment and recreation and will do anything to further this business of theirs. When sādhus associate with them, the people will give so much love and affection and speak sweetly and offer the sādhu so many food and gifts. But he must be very careful. This is great poison. If a snake bites you, one life will be gone. But, if a sādhu uses the poisonous objects of māyā proffered by materialistic people, it will destroy many lives, sending him very far away from Bhagavān.
If ordinary people talk to you with love and affection, give you something and come nearby you, then they could steal millions of your lives. Be very careful. It is not so easy to escape. If you think, “I’m a bona fide scholar. I can go and meet with everyone without any problem. I can take donations and use it all for myself, then, this will be like a great fire that engulfs your spiritual life and burns it to ash. Many small worms fly and perish in a fire thinking it has some sweet nectar. Like this, foolish sādhus collect so many donations. They think they are great collectors, but this poison touches them and then makes their hearts full of poison. This is called aṣṭa sāṅga, bad association, and must be avoided. Anything which comes must be offered to Śrī Guru or high-class Vaiṣṇavas. They can save one, and engage all energy properly in God’s service. There are so many big factories where people cruelly slaughter animals, making them suffer so much. Then they go to sādhus to give some donations and charity, thinking, “My sinful reactions will go to him.” If anyone eats food from this money, or takes that charity, he will realize at a moment the bad effect. This is a great poison.
While in Jagannātha Puri, after every few days Ragunātha dāsa Gosvāmī would invite Mahāprabhu and give a feast to Him and His associates with the wealth received from his father. Mahāprabhu would go and take but after a couple years had passed, Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī stopped the feasts. Mahāprabhu asked Svarūpa Dāmodara, “Now Raghunātha is not calling us, why?”
“He says that You take by force but are not really happy.”
“Yes, he knows my mind,” Mahaprabhu said,
pratigraha kabhu nā karibe rājadhana
viṣayīra anna khāile duṣṭa haya mana
mana duṣṭa haile nahe kṛṣṇera smaraṇa
kṛṣṇa-smrti binā haya niṣphala jīvana
(Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi. 12. 50-51)
“One should never accept alms from royalty or wealthy people because when one eats such food the mind becomes polluted. A polluted mind cannot remember Kṛṣṇa and without remembrance of Kṛṣṇa one’s whole life is a failure.”
After the war of Mahabharata was over, Krśṇa and Pandavas came to see Bhiśma Pitamaha while he was lying on a bed of arrows. Kṛṣṇa asked Pitāmaha to give them some advice. Hearing this, Draupadi loudly began to laugh. Kṛṣṇa asked her, “Why are you laughing?” And she replied, “Why shouldn’t I? When Duryodhana and Duṣhasana were abusing me, trying to make me naked and put me on their laps, where was the good counsel of Pitāmaha then? Why is he such a great advisor now?”
Bhīṣma said, “Manusya artha ka dāsa, artha manusya ka dāsa nahi, man is the slave of wealth, wealth is not the slave of man. I ate the food of the sinful Duryodhana, and thus my intelligence was lost. I accepted their wealth and then I was controlled by them. Now, for many days I have been on top of this bed of arrows and all my blood has left my body. Now there is none of that sinful blood in my body and I am clean. Thus anything I say now will be pure.”
Hari-kathā and hari-kīrtana is not possible to be performed by someone who takes all these sinful things. The sādhaka should thus be very careful what he eats. The Guru-varga instruct sādhus to take mādhukarī, a small amount of grains from many, and only enough to maintain the body. They should not take too much. If the sādhaka over-collects, then great trouble will come in his life. The sādhu should remain apart from materialistic people as much as possible. If the sādhu does not try to help others, they cannot progress. So help should be given, but it must be from a very neutral standpoint. One must tread with great care.
One sādhu was walking and found a scorpion drowning in a pool of water. The sādhu picked it up to save it, but the scorpion bit the sādhu’s hand and the sādhu involuntarily dropped the scorpion. He tried to pick it up again, but it bit him again. This went on for many sequences, until someone nearby asked, “Why are you trying to help the scorpion? Every time you pick it up, it only bites you, and you drop it again.”
The sādhu replied, “His nature is to bite me and my nature is to try and help him. Why should I give up my nature to suit his?”
Sādhu’s have this great power of tolerance. But remember—don’t think you are such a great sādhu. Know your own position.
One should not consider sins or mundane piety, heaven or hell, there is no need. Only perform kṛṣṇa-bhajana. If any regulations are not favorable for kṛṣṇa-bhajana, then give them up. And if you ever perform some sin by mistake, pray to Kṛṣṇa and He will forgive you and give His shelter.
prema-bhakti-sūdha-nidhi tāhe dūba nirabadhi
ara jata kṣara nidhi prāya
niraṅtara sūkha pābe sakala saṅtapa jābe
para-tattwa karile upāya
Prema-bhakti-candrikā 6.16
“Dive into the shoreless nectar ocean of pure love for Kṛṣṇa, larger than the largest salt-water ocean. If one swims in that nectar ocean of love for Kṛṣṇa, Lord Kṛṣṇa will make all his sufferings disappear, and he will attain endless transcendental bliss.”
Prema-bhakti is pure nectar. It is very sweet. Drinking this, showering in this, you will feel great happiness. Everything else is like a salty ocean. When the living entities are extremely fortunate they come in the association of pure devotees and begin to follow devotional life. When objects of sense gratification then come to them, they will not accept. One who has desire for material sense enjoyment cannot follow pure devotion or be forever blissful. If one has desire to attain the lotus feet of Mukunda, he will not collect wealth, stay in bad association and will not waste his time. He who does not perform bhajana and bhakti simply wastes his time accumulating bad karma which will come back with a fearsome result and compounded interest.
If ordinary people do bad activities and think it will not have any effect because they go to a holy river, bathe and give some charity, or perform a sacrifice, or do some spiritual activity; it is not like that. You are doing both good and bad work so both effects will come.
The intelligent sādhaka does not consider doing good or bad. He acts only for the happiness of God. Then, everything is reserved and balanced with God. There will be no loss or cause to fear. Bhakti-devi will give pure existence and pure knowledge, connected with svarūpa-śakti. If one receives knowledge of the world and material nature, then he can cross beyond māyā and become connected with the divine potency.
There is an important question to consider here. Bhakti is full of so much bliss, why do the living entities doubt this? Where does this doubt come from? People follow bhakti but they have some doubt. Sometimes, this doubt comes because they touched something of māyā. Therefore they must be very careful. Someone gives a cloth, or a coin, or some food, this is like food poisoning. Taking this one becomes restless and suffers. Sarvasva-guruva-dadyat, offer everything to Guru. Very carefully take only what is absolutely necessary to maintain your life and always pray to Kṛṣṇa, “Please forgive and protect me.”
The devotees should very carefully remain in the shelter of svarūpa-śakti and always pray for protection. Prema-bhakti is a ṣudha nidhi, an ocean of pure nectar. Touching or tasting this once, your desire will increase to relish even more.
pañcama puruṣārtha sei prema-mahādhana
kṛṣṇera mādhurya-rasa karāya āsvādana
(Caitanya-caritāmṛta Adi-līlā 7.144)
“Love of Godhead is so exalted that it is considered to be the fifth goal of human life. By awakening one’s love of Godhead, one can attain the platform of mādhurya-rasa, tasting it even during the present span of life.”
anyera paraśa yena nāhi kadācit hena
ihāte haibe savādhāna
rādhā-kṛṣṇa nāma gāna ei se parama dhyāna
āra nā kariha paramāṇa
Prema-bhakti-candrikā 6.17
“Take great care only to serve the Divine Couple, and don’t let any other activity touch you. Know that the chanting of the holy names of Sri Sri Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa is the supreme spiritual meditation. Please don’t try to raise any objections to this, or try to present evidence confirming any other view.”
Kṛṣṇa is controlled by prema-bhakti. To attain this prema-bhakti, always serve Śrī Rādhā Mādhava under guidance of Śrī Guru. You will then be saved from this fearsome world and awake in the blissful abode, where you will remain joyful eternally.
– Śrīpāda Premānanda Prabhu
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