Song 11

(1)
kena bhekera prayāsa? 
haya akāla-bheke sarva-nāśa
 ha’le citta-śuddhi, tattva-buddhi, bheka āpani ese’ haya prakāśa

Why do you make so much effort to wear the clothes of a renunciant? By prematurely putting on the clothes of a renunciant, everything is ruined. When the consciousness is purified, then one’s intelligence understands reality, and then the attire of a sannyāsī will come naturally and manifest.

(2)
bheka dhari’ ceṣṭā kare, bhekera jvālāya śeṣe mare 
neḍā–neḍī chaḍā–chaḍi, ākhaḍā beṅdhe’ vāsa 
akāla-kuṣmāṇḍa, yata bhaṇḍa, karche jīvera sarva-nāśa

When one tries to put on the clothes of a sannyāsī, the fire from that dress will ultimately destroy you. Just like the Neḍā-Neḍī,* who uselessly loiter around and are stuck living at an ākhaḍā. * Such hypocrites are like unripe pumpkins* who ruin everything in their lives.

* The Neḍā-Neḍī are an apa-sampradāya sect that originated after the time of Śrī Caitanya. The son of Nityānanda, Vīrabhdra Gosvāmī, converted and initiated thousands of Tantrika Buddhist monks and nuns, but after his disappearance many of these converts regressed back to their debauched practices, mixing Tantrika Buddhism with Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism.

* An ākhaḍā is a boarding house for sādhus in North India.

* An ‘unripe pumpkin’ refers to someone who is useless.

(3)
śuka, nārada, catuḥsana, bhekera adhikārī ha’na 
tāṅ’dera samān pārle ha’te bheke karbe āśa 
bala temana buddhi, citta-śuddhi ka’jana dharāya karche vāsa?

Śuka, Nārada, and the four Kumāras are qualified to wear the attire of renunciants. One may hope to wear such a sādhu’s dress if one is equal to them. So tell me, who can attain the intelligence and purity of heart of these personalities just by wearing a certain piece of cloth?

(4)
ātmānātma-suviveke, prema-latāya citta-bheke, 
bhajana-sādhana-vāriseke karaha ullāsa
cāṅda bāula bale, emana ha’le, ha’te pārbe kṛṣṇa-dāsa

With proper discrimination as to what is the ātmā and what is not the ātmā, wear the dress of a renunciant in your heart, and make the creeper of prema grow by watering it with the rain of your bhajana-sādhana. Cāṅda Bāula says, when this happens, you can become ‘kṛṣṇa dāsa.’