Settlement of All Our Material Accounts – Part 1

We in Abudhabi were really fortunate to have the personal association of our beloved Guru Maharaj for three days last week. Maharaj encouraged all the devotees in the performance of devotional service and he gave very serious instructions to be remembered and practiced in our lives. We shall try our best to transcribe the lectures for the benefit of all.

During this yatra, Maharaj was insisting on one particular point and that was regarding the settlement of all our material accounts. We have so many material accounts in the form of fear of death, envy, our attachment to body and family and so on. Maharaj said that all these material accounts have got to be continuously settled one after another before they bite our time. We are always captured and overcome by the illusory energy because we do not see Krishna everywhere. But as soon as we see Krishna everywhere the illusory energy has no existence. As soon as the sun appears, darkness disappears and it cannot survive. So our aim is ‘vaasudevah sarvam iti’ but it is very difficult to see Krishna when it comes in our way of sense gratification. Unless we are very austere, we will not see Krishna everywhere. To see Krishna means to settle all our material accounts. On the contrary we want to cling on to and continue the material accounts and that has got to be avoided. Accounts have got to be settled so that the mind becomes clear and we are able to really relish Srimad Bhagavatam. Unless we glorify Krishna through Srimad Bhagavatam we will not be happy.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.12.50 :

tad eva ramyam ruciram navam navam
tad eva shasvan manaso mahotsavam
tad eva shokaarnava-shoshanam nrnaam
yad uttamashloka-yasho ’nugiyate

"Those words describing the glories of the all-famous Personality of Godhead are attractive, relishable and ever fresh. Indeed, such words are a perpetual festival for the mind, and they dry up the ocean of misery."

The secret of preaching is that we should relish what we preach. Then only the hearers can relish. For relishing these things, we have to first close all the material accounts and touch them to the minimum required extent. In the Sri Prahlad International school in Rajkot, the atmosphere is so nice that the children are so much enamored by Deity darshana, prayers and the whole pure atmosphere that they ask their parents to stop watching television. Thus we get rid of all unwanted things and only carry on with the eternal things.

This is the reason Srimad Bhagavatam is worshipped with the following beautiful verse from Padma Purana.

namaami devam karunaa nidhaanam
tamaalavarnam suhitaavataaram
apaara samsaara samudra setum
bhajaamahe bhaagavata svarupam

"I offer my respectful obeisances and worship unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead who has appeared in the form of Srimad Bhagavatham which is a ocean of mercy, is bluish in colour, has appeared for the real benefit of all the living entities, is the bridge to cross over the limitless ocean of repeated birth and death."

Karuna Nidhaanam – Ocean of Mercy: Just like Srimad Bhagavatam, we should also be merciful to everybody, more so to ourselves. Mercy to ourselves means we should force ourselves to be austere. That is best. Otherwise we misinterpret the meaning of being merciful to ourselves. To the best of our ability we should be austere and that is the clue to give the life force in our body a free reign in our veins. Unless the life force is freely moving in our veins, our health gets affected. This is karunaa nidhaanam. Otherwise comfort we want. There are no sofa sets in the womb of the mother. Otherwise we would come back again and again. And definitely no sofa sets at the time of death. Why to have a sofa set in between? Foam means we are not merciful to ourselves. Foam is a curse of kaliyuga. I remember in our childhood we did not know foam. Cotton mattresses were there but they were very thin like chappathi. Foam was completely absent and the mattresses were used only during the night time and during the day time never seen. Till our body forces us to lie down, we should be active. More so in mangala arati, chanting, reading especially Srila Prabhupada’s books, singing. These are needed for the free passage of life force in our veins. If we are really merciful in this way to ourselves, in old age also the consciousness will not leave till death. Body will definitely decay. But our consciousness should not be touched by the body’s dharma. This is Srimad Bhagavatam. There are 18000 verses and when are we going to read and understand them? It is really impossible unless we are merciful to ourselves in this sense. We try to find some comfortable solution saying that after my death, my son will do Srimad Bhagavatam for me. Son may perform some drama of Srimad Bhagavatam. And this drama should be avoided. Instead austerity should be there. Really we have to be very very austere in going through Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad gita. This iskaruna nidhaanam.

Further points under this heading shall be posted in the ensuing posts, Krishna willing.

Thank you very much.
Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada and Gurudev,
Vaijayanthimala devi dasi
Abudhabi.

Disclaimer: This article was originally published in the Yahoo Groups run by the disciples of H H Mahavishnu Goswami Maharaj – http://groups.yahoo.com/group/granthraj/ by the devotee name mentioned above. The posting in this article, is original realizations of our Guru Maharaj and the devotee who wrote this. Any comments regarding this article would be passed on directly to the devotee. In this article, ‘Maharaj’ and ‘Gurudev’ implicitly refer to our spiritual master H H Mahavishnu Goswami Maharaj.