Japa Workshop—The Role of Japa in Bhakti

Giriraj Swami: The role of japa in bhakti. Lord Chaitanya explained to Sanatana Gosvami that there are three topics discussed in the Vedic literature; sambandha, abhidheya, and prayojana. Sambandha means relationship. In sambandha-jñāna we come to know who we are, who God is, what the material energy is, what the spiritual energy is, and what the relationship between them are. This is the fundamental knowledge on which all other knowledge and practice is based. We have heard many times that we are not the body, we are the soul. But actually, we need to hear it because we forget. We have theoretical knowledge, but not realized. So, although our main topic is abhidheya, it is a fact that we always need to remember that we are not the body and not be in the conception of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ based on the body. Because if we analyze our japa and the thoughts that pass through our mind during our japa when we should be hearing the holy name, the thoughts usually come to the point that, “I am the body and everything in relation to the body is mine.” There are consequences of identifying with the body but to think that, “I am the creator and I am the enjoyer, I am the proprietor and I am the enjoyer.” And our minds are preoccupied with these thoughts of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ in the bodily concept of life. But still, because at least theoretically, we understand we are not the body, we can proceed to the discussion of the next topic, which is abhidheya, which is how to act on the basis of our sambandha-jñāna.

When it comes to the point of, “Who am I?” Like Sanatana Gosvami asks Lord Chaitanya, kaḥ asmi, “Who am I?” Lord Chaitanya replied, jīvera svarūpa haya kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa, “You are the eternal servant of Krishna.” And that is our actual identity. And abhidheya means to act in terms of our identity and our relationship with Krishna. And prayojana is the ultimate goal, which is kṛṣṇa-prema, pure love for Krishna. So, in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, Srila Rupa Gosvami has presented the complete science of bhakti-yoga with reference to various scriptures, especially Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. And to understand japa and pure chanting, we have to understand the principle of bhakti, or pure devotional service. So, we will begin with that definition.

Now, we have the verses to project on the screen so that you don’t have to be paging through the handout. It is better if you don’t, actually it is better if you just look at the screen when required. As we learned yesterday, when our eyes are moving about here and there, it is hard to concentrate.

anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ

jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam

ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu-

śīlanaṁ bhaktir uttama

I will not discuss every word in the definition, although our acharyas have discussed each and every word in great detail. But for our purposes, this word ānukūlyena is important. Ānukūl means favorable, our service to Krishna should be favorable to His desires, to His pleasure. In other words, we should offer Krishna what He wants, that means we should know what Krishna wants. And we know from the three standard authorities; sadhu, shastra, and guru. In this case, as we will read later, Krishna wants us to chant His holy names. The Vedic literature are expressions of Krishna’s desire, Krishna’s instructions. And of course, we all know, harer nāma harer nāma harer nāmaiva kevalam, we should chant the holy name for success, especially in Kali-yuga. But the chanting itself should be done in a way that is favorable.

Sanatana Gosvami writes in Hari-bhakti-viläsa, ānukūlyasya saṅkalpaḥ prātikūlyasya varjanam, that one should accept whatever is favorable, and reject whatever is unfavorable to one’s devotional service. So, chanting is favorable, most favorable, but committing offenses is unfavorable. So, we want to chant but avoid offense. Another important word is anuśīlanam. Aṇu means to follow. So, we engage in devotional service following the scriptures and the previous acharyas. Aṇu also means continuous. And this is a critical point for us, that our devotional service should be continuous, there should be no interruption. In other words, our only activity should be devotional service. Devotional service is not something that we do for ten minutes a day, or two hours a day, or six hours a day. Our very life is meant for the service of Krishna because that is our identity, jīvera svarūpa haya kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa, we are parts and parcels of Krishna. And therefore, our natural function is to serve Him. Just like the hand is part of the body, the natural function of the hand is to serve the body. It is not that the hand serves the body six hours a day and then the rest of the time it does its own business. It has no other business other than service to Krishna. And we, as spiritual souls, as part and parcel of Krishna, we also have no other business than to serve Krishna.

Now, someone might ask, “Well, what about my body? I have to take care of my body, you can’t just neglect the body.” And that is true, we do have to take care of the body, but the purpose should be to serve Krishna. As Srila Prabhupada says, we do whatever minimum is required to keep the body and soul together, to keep the body fit for serving Krishna. So, if we maintain our bodies for the sake of devotional service, then that effort is also part of devotional service, it is not against the principle of pure devotional service. And one may say, especially in grihastha ashram, that, “Well, I have my wife and children” or, “My husband, children. I have my responsibility towards them.” That is also true, but your first responsibility is to deliver them from the repetition of birth and death.

The Bhāgavatam says, “No one should become a guru, no one should become a husband, no one should become a father, no one should become a mother, unless he or she can deliver his dependent from the repetition of birth and death.” And the only way to deliver them is through pure devotional service. As Srila Prabhupada says, one cannot discharge one’s duty as a mother or father or husband or teacher or public leader unless one is a pure devotee. Because unless one is a pure devotee, one can’t even deliver oneself. So, how will one be able to deliver others? Pure devotee doesn’t necessarily mean on the highest level of pure devotional service. We are discussing the definition of pure devotional service, and the definition accommodates different degrees of advancement in pure devotional service. But the basic purpose of our life must be to serve and please Krishna, and we should have no other activity other than that. And I am explaining how certain practical activities that we are obliged to perform in relation to the body and in relation to society are also included within the definition of pure devotional service.

Then we find the word kṛṣṇa, kṛṣṇa-anuśīlanam. And again, the acharyas have commented that the word kṛṣṇa of course means Krishna, but it doesn’t mean only Krishna, the Original Personality of Godhead, but it includes His expansions, such as Balarama, Ramachandra, Nṛsiṁhadeva, and the various Vishnu forms. It includes His name, His form, His qualities, His pastimes, His paraphernalia, and His pure devotees. They are all included within the use of the word kṛṣṇa here. And therefore, chanting the holy name of Rama is included in the definition of pure devotional service, or serving the devotees is also included in the definition of pure devotional service.

Now, to engage in pure devotional service, we have to be free from the bodily conception of life. And that is explained in the next verse, sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṃ tat-paratvena nirmalam. Upādhis are designations. In the bodily concept of life, we have so many designations, and these are very prominent in our consciousness. And as this society in general is more steeped in the bodily concept of life, they are more absorbed in designations. And people identify very strongly with their designations; man and woman, it is a very big one, conservative and liberal. So, you hear these designations; Hindu, Muslim. People get excited just by hearing these designations. Chinese, Russian.

So, to really engage in devotional service, we have to be free from these designations, we have to identify ourselves as spirit soul, part and parcel of the Supreme Spirit Soul, Krishna, and eternal servant of the Supreme Spirit Soul. And as soon as we identify with the body, or as long as we identify with the body, we will want to render service in relation to the body. Serve, we have to, our nature is to serve. But in the bodily concept of life, we serve the designations, ‘I’ and ‘mine,’ and we can’t serve Krishna, and we can’t really be happy. That is the point, that we want happiness, we want love, everyone wants love, everyone wants happiness. But we cannot find satisfaction outside of Krishna consciousness, that is a fact. We try, people try, but they never succeed. And therefore, they are always desiring things. And the fact that they are desiring things means that they are not happy with who they are or with what they have. And only pure devotional service can ahaituky apratihatā, pure devotional service, which is unmotivated and uninterrupted, only that can completely satisfy the self. But the beauty of devotional service is that even if one is not free from designations, if one chants and hears about Krishna, one will become free, ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam.

Next, we come to the definition of sādhana-bhakti. There are three divisions in bhakti-yoga, as described by Srila Rupa Gosvami; sādhana-bhakti, bhāva-bhakti, and prema-bhakti. In general, every definition will have two parts. One is the intrinsic quality, and the other is the marginal quality, ‘taṭastha’-lakṣaṇa. The marginal quality is exhibited under certain circumstances, whereas the svarupa-lakshana, or intrinsic quality is always manifest. So, kṛti-sādhyā bhavet sādhya, sādhana-bhakti is executed with the senses. We all have senses, and they have to be engaged, we engage them in sādhana-bhakti. And sādhya-bhāvā sā sādhanābhidhā, these are practices by which our dormant love for Krishna is awakened. In other words, we don’t do it for some material purpose, we don’t do it just for the sake of doing it, to be accepted socially or to feel that we have done something so that we don’t feel guilty that we haven’t done it. We don’t do it certainly to merge and become one with God. Why do we do it? We do it to develop love for God. And we should be aware of the reason that we are doing it. Otherwise, we can come under the sway of niyamāgrahaḥ; niyamāgrahaḥ means that you follow for the sake of following, without even really knowing why you are following. But we want to be clear that we are engaging in activities for a purpose, and the purpose of course is to please Krishna. But the perfection of the desire to please Krishna comes in the stage called bhāva-bhakti, or prema-bhakti. And at that stage, Krishna is revealed.

So, that love for Krishna is already there within the heart, it is not something to be gained from some other source, nitya-siddha kṛṣṇa-prema ‘sādhya’ kabhu naya śravaṇādi-śuddha-citte karaye udaya. It is there within the heart, but it is dormant. And it has to be awakened only by hearing and chanting about Krishna, that will awaken it. Srila Prabhupada gives the example that fire is within a match, you just have to strike the match and the fire will come out. So, in the same way, love for Krishna is there within the heart, we just have to strike the heart by hearing and chanting in the association of devotees, and that dormant love will be awakened. But again, as we discussed yesterday, it can be awakened very easily, just by a little association with the powerful process of bhakti-yoga, or the five most potent forms of devotional service, if we do not commit offenses, that is the condition. But that is also natural. If the match becomes wet, it is going to have trouble igniting.

So, within sādhana-bhakti, there are two divisions; vaidhī-sādhana-bhakti and rāgānugā-sādhana-bhakti. And basically everyone begins with vaidhī-sādhana-bhakti, and at a certain mature stage of practicing vaidhī-sādhana-bhakti, one may develop rāgānugā-sādhana-bhakti, but it happens naturally in its own way. So, at this stage, we don’t really need to discuss it but we must discuss and understand and properly execute vaidhī-sādhana-bhakti. And the basic principle of vaidhī-sādhana-bhakti is, smartavyaḥ satataṁ viṣṇur vismartavyo na jātucit, that one should always remember Krishna and never forget Him, sarve vidhi-niṣedhāḥ syur etayor eva kiṅkarāḥ. These two principles; the positive injunction to always remember Krishna, and the negative prohibition to never forget Krishna, all the other injunctions and prohibitions in the scriptures are servants of these two. In other words, whatever we do should help us to always remember Krishna and never forget Him. And therefore, we avoid meat eating, intoxication, and so on. Because when we engage in those activities, our consciousness becomes polluted and it is hard to remember Krishna. In fact, they tend to make us forget Krishna.

And of course, chanting. Best way to remember Krishna is to chant His name. And kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ, we should always chant, we should always engage in devotional service, we should always chant. And that may mean chanting directly, or it may mean other activities that include the chanting, that include the holy name, like hearing about Krishna, remembering Krishna, worshipping the Deity of Krishna. In all such activities, we should be conscious of the name of Krishna. It is always good to be hearing, even when you worship the deity, it is nice if you hear some tape of kirtan, of bhajana, a lecture, discussion. Or whatever you are doing, wherever you are going, riding in the car, walking on the way. So, now we come to the holy name, in particular.

nāma cintāmaṇiḥ kṛṣṇaś

caitanya-rasa-vigrahaḥ

pūrṇaḥ śuddho nitya-mukto

’bhinnatvān nāma-nāminoḥ

This is a verse from the Padma-Purana, which is quoted in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta. Nāma cintāmaṇiḥ kṛṣṇaś, the holy name of Krishna is like a cintāmaṇi stone that fulfills all desire. This is a very important point, that the holy name fulfills all desires. And we will come to the point of desire soon. Because the holy name is Krishna, ‘bhinnatvān nāma-nāminoḥ, on the absolute platform, there is no difference between the name Krishna and the possessor of the name, who is Krishna Himself. And Krishna fulfills all desires. Unfortunately, we desired to turn away from Krishna, and therefore, we have come into the material world. And when we turn away from Krishna and come into the material world, we come under the control of maya, and we are punished by the threefold miseries. So, sometimes people question God or blame God that, “If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world? Why do bad things happen to good people?” But we are in the material world because of our desire, it is our desire that has brought us here. And unless we change our desire, we will remain here, and we will have to suffer. There is no way that you can live in the material world in a physical body and not suffer the threefold miseries, which attack us at every moment. So, desire is very important.

Now, by constitution, jīvera svarūpa haya kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa, by constitution, our desire is to serve Krishna. But by association with the modes of material nature, we have developed other desires. By the process of bhakti-yoga, the other desire is to be purified, so that only the original desire to serve Krishna remains, and then we can be freed from the prison house of material existence. But while chanting the holy name of Krishna, we also have to be careful not to chant to fulfill other desires than the desire for pure devotional service. Because of our conditioning, because of our association with the modes of nature, we have other desires. But when we come to Krishna consciousness, we don’t act on the other desires. In principle, we don’t act on the other desires but we surrender to Krishna and follow Krishna’s instructions, and we have faith that Krishna will do whatever is best for us. There is a nice verse in the Fourth Canto. A devotee prays to the Lord that, “Just as the father does whatever is best for the child without being asked, so the devotee prays to the Lord similarly, You do whatever is best for me without even asking.” So, we surrender to the Lord and depend on the mercy of the Lord. We don’t have to ask for material things, we really should ask only for pure devotional service.

In his famous talk, or famous essay on chanting, Srila Prabhupada says that when we chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, we are actually calling the names of Radha and Krishna. And if you call someone’s name and the person hears you, which Radha and Krishna will, They will ask, “Yes, you called me? What do you want?” So, what will be our answer? Our answer, if we are serious about bhakti, our answer will be, “We want to serve You. Please engage me in Your service.” If They answer and you say, “Whatever, You know better than I do.” [laughter] Or maybe not but, “I need to pass my exams, I need to be admitted in school, I need to find a job, I need to get a wife, I need to get a husband, I need to find a husband for my daughter, I need to find a wife for my son,” so many things. [laughter]

Now, there are some verses in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and also in Caitanya-caritāmṛta that say that when someone calls on Krishna’s name and asks Krishna for material things, Krishna thinks that, “This person is a fool. By chanting My name, he could get Me, or she could get Me, but instead of asking for Me, for My love, for My service, they are asking for something material.” But Krishna says, “But I am not so foolish, I am actually very clever.” He says, “I may fulfill their desires, but I will do it in such a way that they don’t come back to Me again to petition Me for more material things.” And because what we get materially never really satisfies the soul. There are many examples, but there is one story of a worshiper of Lord Shiva. He worshiped Lord Shiva to get the boon that whatever he touched would turn to gold. So, Lord Shiva’s Asutosha, he is very easily satisfied. So, He gave him the boon. So, he touched his house, and it became gold. “Well, that was okay.” He touched the plants in his garden and they became gold. But as happens, he became hungry, came into the house for prasāda, his wife brought forward a beautiful plate of prasāda and he touched it, it became gold, he couldn’t eat anything, it all became gold. His young daughter came to him to embrace him, he embraced his daughter, she turned to gold. His whole life became ruined. Then he went back to Lord Shiva, “Please take this boon back.” [laughter]

So, Krishna says that, “If someone approaches Me for material things, he is a fool, he is a mūrkhāḥ. He could be getting the nectar of My association, but instead he is asking for the poison of sense gratification. But I may fulfill his desires, but in such a way that he doesn’t come back to Me with more desires.” So, this is a very delicate point about desire. Now, because we are conditioned, we do have desires. And it is not an offense to have desires because we come with them, everyone comes to devotional service with desires. It is an offense to maintain them, to act upon them, to act to fulfill them, to hold on to them. If one chants the holy name in the right mood, to become purified, to awaken one’s love for Krishna, to be able to serve Krishna better, then one’s material attachments will slacken and eventually, they will disappear. But if we chant the holy name for the purpose of fulfilling a material desire, then we don’t get the real benefit of chanting the holy name, we will get something else that won’t really satisfy us.

There are different stages in chanting, as we may discuss in more detail later. But to chant to get something material, or as the offense was raised, to maintain material attachments even in spite of understanding so many instructions in the matter, it may get us some things to fulfill our material desires, but the result will not be what we really wanted. But by surrendering to Krishna and chanting in the mood of pure devotion, we can get more, we get everything. That is the beauty of Krishna consciousness, you get all material facilities, you get liberation, you get everything. But it is a byproduct, it is like a byproduct. The example is given that someone plants a mango tree. The idea of planting the mango tree is to get the fruit, to get the mangoes. But automatically, as the tree grows, you get shade. You may get some wood made come from the tree that you can use as fuel. But the real purpose is to get the fruit, and the other things come automatically as the plant grows, as the tree grows.

So, devotional service is meant to purify our senses, purify our mind. And actually, our desires will be purified. And that purification comes in sādhana-bhakti by engaging the senses in the service of the proprietor of the senses, Krishna. And it begins specifically with the tongue, sevonmukhe hi jihvādau, with chanting the holy names and taking kṛṣṇa-prasāda. But of all the different practices of bhakti, the most important, or the best is the chanting of the holy name. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says tāra madhye sarva-śreṣṭha nāma-saṅkīrtana niraparādhe nāma laile pāya prema-dhana, “Of the nine processes of devotional service, the most important is to always chant the holy name of the Lord. If one does so, niraparādhe, avoiding the ten kinds of offenses, one very easily obtains the most valuable love of Godhead, prema-dhana, the wealth, the treasure of prema.” Golokera prema-dhana, hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana, that treasure of prema has descended from the spiritual world and is available to us through hari-nāma; golokera prema-dhana, hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana.

Now, what are these ten offenses? We keep hearing about the offenses. What are these ten offenses? These quotations were originally arranged for three talks that I gave at the japa retreat at Joshua Tree, but because we have fewer days here, we are going to condense the subject into two talks. So, now we will just skip ahead a little bit and pass that to the offenses.

‘kṛṣṇa-nāma’ kare aparādhera vicāra

kṛṣṇa balile aparādhīra nā haya vikāra

“There are offenses to be considered while chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. Therefore simply by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa one does not become ecstatic.”

Now, we are fortunate because we have appeared in Kali-yuga, and we are in the best position to receive the mercy of the Pancha-tattva. They appeared in this Kali-yuga, They don’t appear in every Kali-yuga. In fact, Krishna, in His original form, appears only once in a thousand yuga cycles, in Dvapara-yuga. And Lord Chaitanya and the Pancha-tattva, They also appear only once in a thousand yuga cycles. And that in the Kali-yuga after the Dvapara-yuga in which Krishna appeared. So, we are in an extraordinary position right here. And the mercy of the Pancha-tattva is such that They don’t consider offenses. Krishna considers, but the Pancha-tattva don’t. They may give us a little slap just to help us, but They don’t really deliver the reactions to offenses the way one gets the reactions if one offenses Krishna. And therefore, because there is not much consideration of offenses, when we chant the holy names of the Pancha-tattva, we become ecstatic.

Because as Srila Rupa Gosvami says, even a little association with one of the five processes, if performed without offense, will enable one to experience ecstatic love for Krishna, bhāva. And we can experience it. There are different symptoms of ecstasy, ‘aṣṭa-sāttvika’ bhāva. And one may not experience all of those in the beginning, but Srila Prabhupada said that that ecstatic mood is experienced in the urge to dance, one has the urge to dance. And we had some amazing experiences in Southern Africa when we would go into the homelands, or the townships and do hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana, how the locals would just love to chant and dance. Especially in the homelands where there wasn’t so much influence of modernization and industrialization. They would just chant, they just loved to chant and dance. They wouldn’t want to stop. The devotees would get tired, they would feel, “Okay” [laughter] They wouldn’t want to stop. And I realized that one of the reasons is that they haven’t committed any offenses, they never saw devotees before, they never heard of Krishna before and never committed any offenses. So, they naturally feel ecstatic. So, when we chant the holy names of Nitai-Gauranga or śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda śrī-advaita

gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda, we can become ecstatic very easily. And then when we chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, because we are in an ecstatic mood, we are not in an offensive mood, then we can get the benefit of chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.

But as we have mentioned, offenses are not things that we commit only when we are in the act of chanting. In fact, there are things that we commit when we are not chanting, and they are listed. Again, I won’t read all of them because they are available in the books, almost every book of Srila Prabhupada mentions them; The Nectar of Devotion, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Caitanya-caritāmṛta. But the one offense, and this is very interesting, the way the Sanskrit is. Sanskrit is such a language that the words can be divided differently. And so, there can be many readings to the same verse, and they can all be correct. It is just the richness of the language and the poetry.

Now, when we read the list of the ten offenses from The Nectar of Devotion, there is no mention of being inattentive. So often, after reading the list of the ten offenses, the devotees will add at the end, “It is also an offense to be inattentive while chanting.” But there are other versions of the list that mention being inattentive, and then they combine other of the offenses differently. But the word for inattention in the Sanskrit is pramāda, it comes at the end of the eighth offense, dharma-vrata-tyāga-hutādi-sarva-śubha-kriyā-sāmyam api pramādaḥ. The eighth offense is to consider the chanting of the holy name as a ritualistic activity. And at the end, it says api pramādaḥ. So, that api pramādaḥ means to be inattentive.