18/04/2026
Self-Rectification
His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Hooghly district,
1 March 2019, part 1
Translated from Bengali
অন্ধীভূত চক্ষু যার বিষয ধূলিতে ।
কিরূপে সে পরতত্ত্ব পাইবে দেখিতে ॥
andhibhuta chaksu yara visaya dhulite
ki rupe se para-tattva paibe dekhite
'My eyes are blind with the dust of visaya, the material world – how can I see the transcendental world?'
Because our eyes are covered with the illusory environment, we cannot see anything. The Lord is in charge of our lives, He manages everything, takes care of us and nurtures us, and we have got a human body and are born in this world only for Him – but we forgot Him. 'O Vaishnav Thakur! You can give Krishna, so I surrender at your holy feet (krsna se tomara, krsna dite para, tomara sakati achhe). Please rectify me and give me a place in the shade of your holy feet (diya pada chhaya sodha he amare).' We turned away from the Lord and have been living in aversion to Lord Krishna since the time immemorial – we forgot about the Lord, and as the result of this forgetfulness we are now suffering so much. We should pray, 'O Vaishnav Thakur, please rectify me! Please make me good. I am clasping your feet. Diya pada-chaya sodha he amare tomara charana dhari.' This is not about coming up and touching somebody's feet. No. Bhakti Devi is not like that. You must mentally grasp Vaishnavs' feet and feel sincerely, 'I will not go anywhere from here. I will do whatever you say.'
দিয়া পদছায়া, শোধ হে আমারে,
তোমার চরণ ধরি ॥
diya pada-chhaya, sodha he amare,
tomara charana dhari
'O Vaishnav Thakur! Please grant me the shade of your feet and purify me. I am clasping your feet.'
ছয় বেগ দমি’, ছয় দোষ শোধি’,
ছয় গুণ দেহ দাসে ।
chhaya vega dami’, chhaya dosa sodhi’,
chhaya guna deha dase
'Please subjugate my six urges, rectify my six defects and bestow the six good qualities upon this servant.'
We have ten senses: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, mind, intelligence, ego, ge****ls, re**um. All these are controlled by the mind. In other words, these senses always do whatever our minds tell them to do. If you close your eyes, you cannot see anything, can you? Gurudev once joked (he would often tell such jokes). There was one man who would always listen to the class with his eyes closed. It looked like he was asleep. Gurudev asked him once, 'Are you sleeping?' The man said, 'No, I can hear everything with my eyes closed.' Do you know what Gurudev said? He said, 'Yes, of course. If you see a nice girl walking down the street, when you close your eyes you can still see her before you.' So, do you think that you cannot see anything if you close your eyes? You can see bad things with your eyes and you can see good things with your eyes. Our eyes always follow our minds – our eyes go whichever way the mind tells them to go. For example, when we were walking down the street today, I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I did not even see the surroundings. My legs are walking, but in my mind I am thinking about this problem or that problem. Sometimes, we can see some person we know on the way, but if we are thinking about something else, we may not even recognise or notice them.
So, it says here, 'Please subjugate my six urges.' What are these urges? Do you know them? You can find them listed at the back of our calendars. These are the urges of speech, mind, anger, tongue, stomach and ge****ls. The urge of the speech means speaking to others roughly. We must always talk sweetly to everybody. Do not swear anybody. The urge of the tongue means that our tongues always run here and there – it always wants to eat.
জিহ্বার লালসে যেই ইতি-উতি ধায় ।
শিশ্নোদরপরায়ণ সে কৃষ্ণ নাহি পায় ॥
jihvara lalase yei iti-uti dhaya
sisnodara-parayana se krsna nahi paya
‘Those who, subservient to their tongues, run here and there and are devoted to satisfying their ge****ls and bellies cannot attain Krishna.’
(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.227)
The urge of anger means getting angry, flaring up or snapping at others. Do you know why we get angry? Where does anger come from? We think of something and want to get it, but when we do not get it, we become angry. Anger comes from desires. At the root of those desires is the tongue. You can see that Muslim people are generally angrier than others. Why is it so? Because they eat a lot of beef, garlic and onion (onion is actually even worse than garlic). The more garlic you eat, the more hot-headed you become. It leads to extremist tendencies. That is why sadhus do not eat garlic or onion.
The urge of the stomach is also about eating.
বৈরাগীর কৃত্য—সদা নাম-সঙ্কীর্ত্তন ।
শাক-পত্র-ফল-মূলে উদর-ভরণ ॥
vairagira krtya—sada nama-sankirtana
saka-patra-phala-mule udara-bharana
'The duty of a renunciate is to always engage in Nama-sankirtan, and maintain your stomach with vegetables, leaves, fruit, and roots.'
(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 3.6.226)
Paneer, nice tasty preparations, cakes, sweets – do not think about all this. Do not dance to the tunes of your stomaches. Do not fixate yourselves on eating nice things and wearing nice clothes.
The urge of the mind means that our minds always go this way, that way; it is always restless. And you can understand yourselves what the urge of the ge****ls is like. It means excessive attachment to women or men and to the enjoyment with women or men.
Always remember these things.
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