Re: Falldown and avoiding offenses

Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna!

Dear Guruji, Bhakta Matus Prabhu, Srinath Prabhu and devotees. Please accept my humble obeisances.

In the Chaitanya Mangala Lord Chaitanya says: �Anyone who just once his life speaks the word �Nityananda� becomes purified. He becomes My pure devotee.�

This is a wonderful promise of the Lord and it reveals His unfathomable mercy upon us fallen souls. When we have complete faith in the Lord and His words we know by this one sentence what we have to do: distributing this miraculous holy Name of Lord Nityananda to everyone. There are no strings attached to the holy Name of Lord Nityananda. There is no rule, no restriction, no condition, no pre-occupation, no attitude and no any other request than just saying ONCE the Name �Nityananda�. Can we ever understand the magnitude of this wonderful statement of the Lord? We should fall down at the feet of everyone who says the Name Nityananda just once because that person is to be understood a pure devotee of the Lord in some point of time and eternally he or she IS already a pure Vaisnava because the Lord accepts this person as His pure devotee. So time is very relative here. When the greatest sinner says �Nityananda� and keeps on sinning, still he or she is a pure devotee by the promise of the Lord. So all the sins of the past, present and future of such a person should be forgiven because ultimately we are looking at a pure devotee. Being as tolerant as a tree has so many meanings and forgiveness is a very important one. Because when we cannot forgive a pure devotee of the Lord what does that say about our own advancement and understanding? Can we have a grudge because he or she is not a pure devotee yet? Are we then not entangling ourselves in the relativity of time? When somebody BECOMES the pure devotee of the Lord he or she IS already accepted as such. Who are we not to abide with that promise of the Lord?

I agree with Srinath that �all offenses culminate and lead to the most dangerous Vaisnava aparadha� and therefore we should be very cautious. The Mantrarajas �Nityananda� and �Gauranga� are so merciful that they do not consider any offences. However there is one offence that even They do not tolerate: Vaisnava aparadha or the offenses made to a devotee of the Lord. We can easily understand this with the analogy of a mother and a child. When somebody is nice to her child but that same person offends her, she can tolerate it. But when that person is nice to her but offends her child she can�t tolerate it. Why? Because she loves her child more than herself. Likewise the Lord forgives our offenses but He doesn�t tolerate offenses made to His devotee. They are His children and He protects them, nourishes them and loves them like a mother does a child. Only when the child forgives his or her offender and asks the mother to forgive the offender as well, the mother will do so out of love for her child. So when anyone offends us (aspiring Vaisnavas) we should always be forgiving and ask the Lord for our offender�s forgiveness as well. This is the only way to disable the effects of Vaisnava aparadha and to set all offenders free.

So the only offense that is fatal is given in the hands of the devotees of the Lord and therefore all His devotees are given the instruction and responsibility to �be as tolerant as a tree� by always forgiving those who offend them. An ideal example was given by the pure Vaisnava Jesus Christ who showed by His own example to be as tolerant as a tree. While dying He prayed in love for those who had killed Him with the words: �Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.�

We should always have the highest respect for whoever has uttered the most inconceivable merciful Name �Nityananda� just once because he or she IS a pure devotee of the Lord. Even though the pureness of such a person may not be apparent to us (yet), he or she is accepted by the Lord as becoming His pure devotee. We cannot �timestamp� such an eternal pure devotee of the Lord by our own whimsical limited and conditioned interpretation of what is pure and what is not pure. It is not a coincidence that a living entity would utter the holy name Nityananda. It is the causeless mercy of the Lord Who makes that happen. It is one of His inconceivable ways of waking up His devotees and we can be assured that whoever says the name �Nityananda� IS His pure devotee. There are so many �sleeping� devotees of the Lord everywhere around us and He has given us the most beautiful assignment to wake them up. How? By saying to anybody who will listen: �Please repeat after me: �Nityananda!�� At the same time He has also given us the tremendous responsibility of not putting His pure devotees back to sleep again. We have to be as tolerant as a tree and forgive whoever offend us and ask forgiveness for them at the feet of the Lord. We are given the key to not only awaken His pure devotees but also to eradicate the ultimate offense of Vaisnava aparadha. In fact, on the deepest level he has given the most awesome loving gift to His devotees: He has given Himself to them to free the path for all living beings to His lotus feet. Who can comprehend His Love?

Your servant,

Hadai Nityananda dasa

Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna!

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