Śrīla Bhakti Vaibhava Purī Mahārāja
(Excerpts from the book “Śrī Guru-vāṇī” by Śrīla Bhakti Vaibhava Purī Mahārāja)
Sit alone, concentrate your mind, don’t talk to anybody, repeat Nāma. Then you will understand. Nobody can come and tell you what is ānanda. You can understand it if you follow the method. Service to Guru must be there and his advice must be followed. But if the disciple does not follow, what can the Guru do? If the disciple complains, “My mind is not present during my practice. Or even if my mind is present I am not getting any good result. I am not happy.” This means that there is some disturbance in his sādhana and he cannot obtain perfection in his practice.
But we must work hard. If one works hard, Kṛṣṇa will help him, but if one is lazy, Kṛṣṇa will never help him. He is there to help us and we always need His help. Only by His grace we can progress. Still we must always check ourselves and see how much we have advanced from the last Ekādaśī, how much we have proceeded until now in our march toward Goloka. We can detect if we have made any progress and if not what is the cause, only we can say, nobody else can tell us.
This is the method. We must look after ourselves. This is called pratyak-ātmā. Now if I consider how far I have progressed in this line, then I can be able to solve some problems, but if I am parāk-ātmā, I am always thinking about the activities of others. Actually this is not my position, I should just think about myself, about my progress, because who can really think about others?
Only the Lord can. He is taking care of all jīvas. So we must just think on how to proceed, we must perform harināma without any offences. Because if we perform Nāma and we don’t progress, there must be some offences. With self-introspection we can detect what is the defect in us. The example is Mahāprabhu who one day said, “Why is My mind not happy today? There must be some cause. I have associated with some materialistic people and because I have discussed with them, now I don’t feel happy.” Then the day after Mahāprabhu avoided meeting with those atheists. In this way bhajana will start. Individually one must progress.
People want to disturb you in your sādhana, because they never want to cultivate it seriously. So we must see if something is impeding our sādhana, then we must give it up. This is the duty of a sādhaka. The mahātmās, the great souls, their duty is to help others. But we are beginners. We are at the bottom of bhakti. We have not climbed the tree. We must work and try hard to reach the top of the tree where the fruit is. The prema-phala is there on the top.
So how can we, standing on the ground, be able to pick that fruit? We cannot imagine it. We can say that there is a fruit, but how to reach it? We must receive it, taste it, we should hold it in our hands. But how will it come? We must cultivate such a method by which we can reach there.
This sort of advice is always given in the śāstras: kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ. Mahāprabhu is saying, “Always do kīrtana! Repeat Nāma! There is no way other than Nāma.” You don’t have to sit erect or take only a particular quantity of food. These restrictions are not there in bhakti. In the bhakti cult you may or may not do penances, you may be in any position, but the main thing is that you must have faith in bhakti and the teachings of śāstras and Guru. You have to cultivate according to their dictations and then you will reach the goal easily. They say that bhakti is easy. You just have to hear the sound “Hare Kṛṣṇa” with concentration. This is sādhana. You don’t require money or any physical abilities. Only the tongue can repeat Nāma. And if you feel tired in repeating Nāma you can just hear. Day and night you can hear. Hearing is very easy. You just have to open your ears and hear. You can hear while sitting, walking or doing other activities. One thing though, you should not talk while hearing, because one sound is already coming in your ears. With the other indriyas you can do some work, but not with your tongue. If you talk you will not pay attention to Nāma. You cannot do both. Our duty is to repeat Nāma, everyday one lakha Nāma. Gosvāmīs have instructed that we should always perform saṅkīrtana.
Gaura Hari Hari Bol