Misspending money directly from the temple collection

[Guest guest]

Sarasvati Thakura called together all the sannyasis and chastized them,

saying that first of all, any collection should come into the accounts and

all the needs for the Deities (God's service) should first be seen to. Then

if there's any balance, the mission will see what you require and will give

to you. Not that one should take directly from the collection. In this

regard, he wrote in his Gaudiya Bhasya (commentary on the Caitanya

Bhagavata), in the section where Advaita Acarya celebrated a huge festival,

the disappearance day of Madhavendra Puri, that if the money is misspent,

the collection which is being collected with great difficulty by the

brahmacaris and sannyasis, then there will come a day in our mission when we

will hire pujaris, and the pujari will take from the collection box to buy

coconut oil for his wife's hair. The mission will be ruined.

 

Fron Bhakti Vikasa Swami's notes on SBSST