Japa Workshop—06 Chanting with Genuine Spiritual Feeling

Giriraj Swami: Today’s topic is “Chanting With Genuine Spiritual Feeling” but because yesterday’s session was shorter, and because I did deal with the topic of “Gratitude” I thought I would briefly add one or two more points to yesterday’s discussion and then continue to today’s topic. Is this loud enough?

The basic idea of humility as Yajna Purusha Prabhu mentioned as well, is that when we seriously try to chant with attention and we realize how weak we are. And at the same time when we observe where our mind goes, we confront the fact that we have turned away from Krishna and it is hard to turn back to Him. And we actually have two tendencies within us as Srila Prabhupada said—in Satya-yuga the demons and devotees would live on different planets; in Treta-yuga they would be in different families. There would be families of devotees and families of demons. In Dvapara-yuga you have demons and devotees in the same family like the Pandu dynasty. And in Kali-yuga you have the divine and demonic tendencies in the same person. So that is our position. Maybe I should just speak for myself but that is our position. And when we analyze our thoughts, when we try to chant japa and stray, generally we find that the underlying principle is that, “I am the controller, I am the proprietor, I am the enjoyer.”

Now why are we thinking of these different things? Because underneath it all we are thinking, I want to control this; I want to possess this; I want to enjoy this; which is the demonic nature described in the Bhagavad-gītā. Īśvaro ‘ham—I am the controller, I am the Lord; ahaṁ bhogī—I am the enjoyer. So when we realize this about ourselves it is humbling. I did mention the first verse briefly yesterday. These are the divisions of surrender and just as we surrender to Krishna, we surrender to the holy name and it begins as we mentioned yesterday: Ānukūlyasya saṅkalpaḥ prātikūlyaṁ vivarjanam—to accept things that are favorable and reject things that are unfavorable; rakṣiṣyatīti—to have full faith that Krishna will protect us. The holy name will protect us because that is part of what we think about, how to protect ourselves, how to protect our families, how to protect our assets, how to protect our position. And if we have faith that Krishna, the holy name will protect us, we don’t have to worry about protecting ourselves. We take normal precautions. 

Then goptṛtve varaṇaṁ tathāgulp chiptray varanam tata, and we accept Krishna as our guardian, like a father or husband or master or maintainer, that He will maintain us. We are also worried how will we maintain ourselves, but Krishna will maintain us. He is the Supreme Father of every living entity. As it is He is maintaining every living entity, so why should He maintain the souls who have surrendered to Him and are engaged in His service? Again it doesn’t mean we don’t work according to our position, varnashrama, and we have our duties. We do our duties but ultimately we have faith that Krishna will protect us. And I have never seen a devotee go hungry. I have just never seen it in my whole life. 

I had my own little experience when I went to Pakistan for the first time. Maybe Amogalila didn’t get my telegram, so when I arrived at the airport in Karachi there was no one there to receive me and I had no idea where to go or what to do. So ultimately I got a taxi and just said “Hindu temple” and he ended up taking me to the Swami Narayana temple. And the Swami Narayana temple is very big; a very big compound with many residences and amazingly enough the main deities are Radha and Krishna, whom we named Radha Karachi Isvara. 

Well that is all right. I had a place where I could lie down at night just slept on the floor of the darśana-maṇḍapa of the temple. But what about food? What do you do about food in Pakistan? So it turned out that there was a little Hindu hotel, meaning restaurant, nearby. Of course I didn’t have money. I definitely didn’t have any Pakistani rupees and I didn’t know Urdu  but anyway I went to this Hindu hotel near the temple and they had some chapatis. And I don’t know how I transacted the exchange but I got something to eat and then I lay down at night on the marble floor. And then in the morning people started to come for darshan, not many, but people started to come and I started to ask around if you know Amogalila, Hare Krishna devotees? And then finally they told me about a friend who was known to be interested in Krishna consciousness named Mr. Tirani.

So somehow I got his address; I made it to his office and I met him at his office. So that was good and all the time carrying these heavy bags that I had brought, mainly filled with books. And I remember struggling with those bags but anyway I made it. And then he said, “Okay, stay with me, in the evening when I finish we will go to my house.” And I said, “Oh, I will get a real meal, because what I got from the hotel was vegetarian but it did have onions; it wasn’t really. . . but it was all there was. And I had felt I had to have something. So it turned out that his wife was away so it was left to the two of us to come up with our own preparations. But we managed; we came up with some kichari and some vegetables and we didn’t starve. And soon Amogalila came and started getting invitations and the feasts began, which is the usual condition of devotees, but the fact is I have just never seen a devotee starve. Krishna does provide. He may not provide for us to live lavishly or extravagantly, but he always provides what we need. So then ātma-nikṣepa, of full self-surrender, surrender ourselves to Krishna; surrender ourselves to the holy name, to the process of chanting the holy name, and kārpaṇye, humility.

Now there is another type of humility or another aspect to humility. One is, we realize how fallen we are and we cry out to Krishna to save us; Krishna the holy name, the Vaishnavas. Another type comes when we start coming closer to God and we realize how great He is. And when we see how great He is, it is humbling because we realize in comparison how small we are. We may be proud of whatever it is; say we might be proud of our intelligence, if we meet someone who is more intelligent than we are, we were humbled. We might think that we are wealthy but we may meet someone much more wealthy than we are and that is humbling. So Krishna or beauty, any of the opulences, Krishna has all the opulences in full. So it is compared to when we compare ourselves to Him, it is very humbling and that is good.

So we are chanting and as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says in His Śikṣāṣṭakam

nāmnām akāri bahudhā nija-sarva-śaktis

tatrārpitā niyamitaḥ smaraṇe na kālaḥ

etādṛśī tava kṛpā bhagavan mamāpi

durdaivam īdṛśam ihājani nānurāgaḥ

“‘My Lord, O Supreme Personality of Godhead, in Your holy name there is all good fortune for the living entity, and therefore You have many names, such as “Kṛṣṇa” and “Govinda,” by which You expand Yourself. You have invested all Your potencies in those names, and there are no hard and fast rules for remembering them. My dear Lord, although You bestow such mercy upon the fallen, conditioned souls by liberally teaching Your holy names, I am so unfortunate that I commit offenses while chanting the holy name, and therefore I do not achieve attachment for chanting.’”

So this is our problem. This is why we don’t have attachment, Anurag. We don’t have attachment, we commit offenses. And then as we mentioned yesterday that when we chant the names of Nitai-Gauranga or the names of the Pancha-tattva, they do not commit, they do not consider offenses and therefore we chant the holy names of the Pancha-tattva mantra first before we chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. When Srila Prabhupada first gave us the Pancha-tattva mantra, he said that we chant it first because it will help us to chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra because by chanting the names of Nitai-Gauranga or śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda, we become ecstatic and then when we chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, we can do so without offense or if not ecstatic blessed by their mercy. 

Now there are ten offenses and yesterday we discussed the first, sādhu-nindā—to blaspheme the devotees who have dedicated their lives for propagating the holy name of the Lord. And there are two others that I would like to discuss in brief. They are mentioned in the purport to the verse that I quoted yesterday from Caitanya-caritāmṛta, but still the first one, we will repeat it because it is so important. 

satāṁ nindā nāmnaḥ paramam aparādhaṁ vitanute

yataḥ khyātiṁ yātaṁ katham u sahate tad-vigarhām

To blaspheme the great saintly persons who are engaged in preaching the glories of the Hare Kṛiṣhṇa maha-mantra is the worst offense at the lotus feet of the holy name. One should not criticize a preacher of the glories of the Hare Kṛishṇa maha-mantra. If one does so, he is an offender. “The Nāma-prabhu, who is identical with Kṛṣṇa, will never tolerate such blasphemous activities, even from one who passes as a great devotee”

Now the eighth offense; this is very subtle because embedded within the eighth offense are two words—api pramādaḥ. Sometimes when we recite the ten offenses as they are listed in The Nectar of Devotion in the morning program, someone will add at the end, “It is also an offense to be inattentive while chanting.” So where does that come from? And in Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s list he includes inattentiveness as one of the offenses and he combines two of the others into one offense. And the reason is that these two words, api pramādaḥ, come at the end of the eighth offense and that means it is also an offense to be inattentive. Pramādaḥ actually means like madness, craziness, and in a sense it is a type of madness because we are chanting the holy names. We are actually calling the names of Radha and Krishna and they are responding to us and then we ignore them, we are somewhere else. It is like you invite someone to your house and they come to the door and then you get busy with something else and you ignore them. And then a minute later you invite them again; they come again and again you ignore them. It is a bit cocky.

So that is what we are doing. We are calling Radha and Krishna. We want them to engage us in Their service and then when They come we are somewhere else. It is like we are applying for a job. Imagine going for an important interview for a crucial job. What could be more crucial than being engaged in the service of the Lord? And when we come before our potential employer, our eyes are wandering around the room and hello, are you the person who applied for the job? You take out your cell phone, you talk to your friends. Hello, did you really want this job? So it is like we are asking Krishna to engage us in His service and then our minds are somewhere else. What kind of an impression are we going to create in our future employer? So Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura says that inattentiveness is the root of all the other offenses. If we can chant attentively we can become free from all the other offenses and to the contrary, if we chant inattentively then the other offenses are able to flourish. 

And now we come to the last offense in the list in The Nectar of Devotion. Srila Prabhupada renders it to not have complete faith in the chanting of Hare Krishna and to maintain material attachments, even after understanding so many instructions on the matter. It is not an offense to have material attachments because we all come with them, but it is an offense to hold on to them and we have that tendency. 

I had my own experience during one period. I was really focusing on my japa and one morning I woke up I was so eager and just couldn’t wait to bathe and dress and get ready and begin to chant. And then the next morning I woke up and I felt sad. I thought, Oh, why am I feeling sad? There is a type of sadness that we feel because we realize we have turned away from Krishna and we have become separated from Him. But I felt sad with a little introspection; I felt sad because I thought, If I keep chanting like this I will lose some of the things that are dear to me that I am attached to, and I felt sad. Now I felt sad. And then I thought, Actually, I don’t have faith in the holy name. If I had faith that everything I wanted, all the happiness that I could want, all the love I could want, everything I could want, I could get from the holy name, I could get from Krishna, I wouldn’t be afraid of losing these attachments. 

So I realized I don’t really have faith because if I had faith I would surrender fully to the process of chanting and have faith that everything that I want I will get from the holy name. But I actually don’t have that faith and that is why I think I need this and that, and I don’t want to let go of them because I feel if I do let go of them, those sources of happiness will be gone. And then I thought, Do I really have faith in Krishna? And it is that same thing that we have, the divine and demonic within us. Do I really have faith in Krishna? Do I believe that Krishna exists or am I like those people who has ever seen Krishna? Who knows if Krishna really exists? This exists, we know this exists. I know my wife exists. I know my children exist; they are real. My house exists, my car exists, my assets exist. I know they are real. We don’t know if Krishna is real or not. Why should I give up this real stuff for Krishna who is just something in books that people talk about? We have never even seen Him. So underneath it all is that there in me, I was thinking, It must be; it is there, otherwise I would have faith, I wouldn’t be afraid of letting go of what I am attached to. 

And in my own case it is. . . anyway, each one of these could be a whole discussion but that is in us. And it is not such a simple thing that we have to learn the technique to chant, the technique to receive the holy name. We actually have to want to receive the holy name. Receiving the holy name means you can’t keep both at the same time. You can’t keep maya and Krishna at the same time. So receiving Krishna means maya is going. So yes, of course we are devotees, we want Krishna. Krishna yay maya nay, but when it really comes down to it, how much faith do we have in Krishna and the holy name? How much faith do we have in the real things of the world? And according to our faith we will be attached. So it is really quite serious.

And again we really need the devotees. It is the association of devotees that can save us. Their faith, their realization, because 99 percent of the world or more, 99.9 percent, they don’t have faith in Krishna. They don’t even really have faith in God. They like to believe that God is there to fulfill their desires. Like after Nine-Eleven; all these signs, God bless America, meaning God protect us from the demons. So most people have that idea, “God bless us this day with our bread,” blessings, material things. We don’t really give up anything material in that type of religiousness if we don’t give up anything material, and rather we think that by being pious God will give us more material things, we will be more prosperous, more comfortable, more happy, but this, ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam—cleansing the heart; we have to want that and although on a certain level we do, because we are devotees, we have heard the philosophy, we have learned the philosophy, we speak the philosophy. But how much do we really believe it? How much faith do we really have? Are we really ready to let go of these attachments and take shelter of the holy name and Krishna?

Now having said that, giving up the attachment does not necessarily mean giving up the thing. On the deepest level it means changing our relationship with the thing. To give a common example, say a husband and a wife. So now we are accustomed in this demonic mood that has brought us into the material world, accustomed into thinking, This is my wife, she is meant for me to enjoy, she is meant to serve me. And when we are chanting, we might be thinking of her to make sure the relationship is all right. Want to make sure she will still cook for us, still clean the house, still take care of the child. You don’t want any disruption. We are thinking about our relationship with her, is everything in order, and when we should be chanting. So then for a little introspective we think, Oh, and of course one is okay but we have got to leave this and just focus back on the holy name, which is correct. But at some stage we might consider, Why is my mind going to my wife? Whatever it is, underneath it all, I am thinking, I am the center and she is very important for my enjoyment. She is important for my well-being. She is important for my future. That means I am the center. I am the proprietor; I am the controller. I want her to do what I want her to do. I am the enjoyer. I want her to do all these things so ultimately I can be happy. That is the underlying and the more literal translation of the tenth offense as mentioned in this purport by Srila Prabhupada.

If one has heard the glories of the transcendental holy name of the Lord but nevertheless continues in a materialistic concept of life, thinking I am this body and everything belonging to this body is mine and does not show respect and love for the chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, that is an offense. So depending on what the attachment is we might have to reject it. But given that we are devotees, we hope that the things to which we are attached are not in principle to Krishna consciousness. It may just be our relationship with them has to be changed, like money. If we have money and we think, I am the proprietor; this is my money. I am the enjoyer; this money is meant to be spent on my sense gratification, that is a material attachment. But if we think, Everything is Krishna’s energy, it is meant to be engaged in Krishna’s service, let me use this money in Krishna’s service, let me print books, distribute books, buy a property for the temple, build the temple, then that is not maya, that is not a material attachment. 

So in his list of the sixty-four items of devotional service given in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, Rupa Gosvami lists some items that he did not include in the list that one might think should have been included, and he explains why. And one of the items is the cultivation of renunciation both knowledge and renunciation—jnana and vairāgya. And this goes back to the basic question of what makes one eligible for pure devotional service. 

And here Srila Rupa Gosvami quotes a verse from the Eleventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam:

yadṛcchayā mat-kathādau
jāta-śraddhas tu yaḥ pumān
na nirviṇṇo nāti-sakto
bhakti-yogo ‘sya siddhi-daḥ        [SB 11.20.8]

“If somehow or other by good fortune one develops faith in hearing and chanting My glories, such a person, being neither disgusted with nor very much attached to material life, should achieve perfection through the path of loving devotion to Me.”

So of course the first thing is faith—jāta-śraddhas. That is the basic qualification. But beyond faith there is na nirviṇṇo and nāti-sakto; nāti-sakto means one shouldn’t be too attached to material things. If one is too attached, he won’t be able to take to bhakti-yoga. He will take to karma-yoga or karma and na nirviṇṇo; one shouldn’t be too detached; one shouldn’t be too negative; one shouldn’t be too disgusted with material things. Otherwise one will take to jnana-yoga or jnana. One should be in the middle; not too attached like a karmi and not too detached like a jnani. One should be in the middle and have faith. 

Now by taking this position, the question could arise, if renunciation is not an item of devotional service, does it mean we should be attached? And of course, obviously we should not be detached. And here Rupa Gosvami has placed two very important verses in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, which unfortunately didn’t make it into this presentation. But the first one describes yukta-vairāgya anāsaktasya viṣayān, without being attached to the objects of the senses, if one engages them in the service of Krishna—nirbandhaḥ kṛṣṇa-sambandhe, if one understands their relationship with Krishna and thus engages them in the service of Krishna that is called yukta-vairāgya or appropriate renunciation, detachment. And opposed to yukta-vairāgya is phalgu-vairāgya. And there Rupa Gosvami says that if one rejects material things, not understanding their relationship with Krishna—hari-sambandhi-vastunaḥ, that is called phalgu-vairāgya or artificial renunciation. 

There is actually a river in Bihar called the Phalgu river which appears like sand. It appears to be dry land or sand but underneath there is a whole river. There is a very strong current under the sand and the idea is that impersonalists, they may appear to be very renounced but without Krishna consciousness, without yukta-vairāgya, their renunciation is artificial. And under this surface, under the thin veneer of renunciation is a strong current of material desire. So we have to develop yukta-vairāgya which is possible only by development of Krishna consciousness. Otherwise it is a thin line. On the one hand we don’t want to enjoy Krishna’s property, that would be wrong but at the same time we don’t want to renounce Krishna’s property because that would also be wrong, because it is not our property to renounce. It is like if I were to say I renounce the Golden Gate bridge but it is not mine to renounce.

So nothing is ours to renounce and nothing is ours to enjoy. Everything is Krishna’s energy and meant to be engaged in Krishna’s service. And that applies to the things most near and dear to us; our husband, our wives, our children, our homes, our cars, our assets. And the process of purification by chanting the holy name, ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam, doesn’t mean that we have to give up our wife, our husband, our children, our home, our car, but it means we have to give up the false conception that we are the proprietors and controllers, enjoyers, and see them really as Krishna’s property and try to engage them in Krishna’s service. 

And that is a challenge because we are habituated to thinking we are the center and everything is meant for our enjoyment. We might have developed some bad habits in japa over the last one year or five years or twenty years, but the habit of wanting to enjoy material things has been with us since we were born. It has actually been with us since our past life, it has been with us through our entire journey within the material world. So that is a very old habit and just like we want to reform our japa we need to reform everything about our lives so that everything in our life is favorable to our japa. And again, we are coming to ānukūlyasya saṅkalpaḥ, making everything favorable to Krishna consciousness. 

And here there is a very important couple of verses from Queen Kunti’s prayers to Lord Krishna and they raise this issue especially about our attachment to family. Our first attachment is to the body and our secondary attachments are to the things that are related to the body, that give pleasure to the body and mind. And generally, those are our wife and children and loved ones; relatives. So Queen Kunti, a completely surrendered soul, prays to Krishna: 

atha viśveśa viśvātman

viśva-mūrte svakeṣu me

sneha-pāśam imaṁ chindhi

dṛḍhaṁ pāṇḍuṣu vṛṣṇiṣu

“O Lord of the universe, soul of the universe, O personality of the form of the universe, please, therefore, sever my tie of affection for my kinsmen, the Pāṇḍavas and the Vṛṣṇis.”

The Pandavas, those are her sons; all great devotees—Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadeva. In the purport Srila Prabhupada says that. . . and on the other side her brother was Vasudeva, the father of Krishna, so the whole Vishnu dynasty—Lord Krishna’s personal family. So in the purport Srila Prabhupada raises the question that affection for devotees is not outside the range of devotional service because we discussed the very first definition of uttamā-bhakti kṛṣṇa-anuśīlanam. Krishna includes His name, His form, His qualities, His pastimes, His paraphernalia and His devotees. They are also included in Krishna. So Srila Prabhupada raises the question that affection for devotees is not outside the range of pure devotional service, so why is Kunti praying that her tie of affection, sneha-pāśam be cut off. And Srila Prabhupada explains that what Kunti is actually praying, is that the material side of her affection to her kinsmen, which is based on the body, that should be cut off and this spiritual feature of the affection can remain. We don’t have to reject the relationship if the relationship in principle is favorable, but we purify the relationship. Some relationships have to be abandoned; they are just not favorable. 

Of course on a gross level wine might be attached to drinking wine but we have to abandon that attachment because it is unfavorable. We can’t really purify it unless we switch to grape juice or something, but wine itself is not an attachment that we can really dovetail and there are other relationships that cannot be dovetailed. If a person is. . . anyway we don’t need to go into that. But in an ordinary circumstance, grihastha ashram, the relationships with our family members can be purified through Krishna consciousness and therefore it is so important for all the family members to be Krishna conscious to purify the whole household existence, and then we don’t have to reject the relationship.

We had a wonderful devotee; this is such an instructive story; again that relates to Pakistan. We had a very wonderful devotee in Pakistan named Anup Bhattacharya. He was actually born in east Bengal. He grew up near a temple of Mahaprabhu. He didn’t even know who Mahaprabhu was. But later when he met us he understood that is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and he, as a child, used to play there and he immediately wanted to buy all of Prabhupada’s books. It was amazing but everything, full set of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, full set of Caitanya-caritāmṛta, the Bhagavad-gītā, The Nectar of Devotion—all the books, and he was seriously reading them. And his wife wasn’t so favorable, and one stage he thought he will just move into the ashram. The ashram really meant an apartment that Amogalila had, and maybe once in a while there was another boy with us at the ashram and sometimes I would stay there when I visited, and he was a boon because he was a great cook. He used to make these nice Bengali vegetables and it was like eating out of Caitanya-caritāmṛta and he was so faithful. He would look up the recipes and he would quote to us when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would eat these preparations and say these are His favorites. So he was so devotional he was ready to do anything and everything and he loved to chant, and we were in bliss. 

But his wife was quite aggrieved and she would phone him and sometimes common friends, because the Hindu community in Karachi wasn’t that big. Then, maybe now but then Pakistan was 98 percent Muslim 1 percent Hindu and 1 percent Christian. So sometimes we get reports that his wife is very upset. Now we were at that stage of ISKCON where we thought we should just surrender to Krishna and don’t worry about that maya. But fortunately we did understand that his leaving her like that, and leaving his children like that, wasn’t good. Eventually he would regret it. It wasn’t good, he should go back to her, and he did. He was very dutiful and this is the point. He wasn’t too attached and he wasn’t too disgusted. He went back and from then on once he understood that this was his duty, from then on he became the ideal husband and ideal father. He was still a devotee, but he spent the majority of his time with his wife and children which is usually what you have to do, especially when the children are young. 

And then it so happened that he had the means to emigrate to India and he settled in Pune and came to the association of the devotees there, and gradually his wife became favorable. To begin with, she was not favorable and when he left her to live in the ashram, you can imagine how favorable she was. But by his exemplary behavior as a grihastha, he didn’t compromise his principles in Krishna consciousness but he was exemplary as a husband and a father. She gradually became favorable and the children became favorable. And by the time I visited, for a while I actually had some visa problems and I couldn’t go to India because of my visits to Pakistan. By the time I got back to India, his whole family was very favorable and at the first Pune yatra, Anup came and he was initiated by then and it was wonderful to see how advanced he had become. And then it happened by nature’s course that his wife left her body. They were reasonably old by then and the children were grown. She left her body and he moved in to the temple in Chowpatty and he lived as a vanaprastha. And at that time he was the only elder in the brahmachari ashram. He was like their father and mother, and he was super. They are all super brahmacharis but he was really super vanaprastha. He would live with them, sleep on the floor, get up early, be in the temple for the whole morning program. He would do everything and on top of it care for them because he was older and more mature and experienced. So if they were sick he would take care of them and just do all sorts of services for them. He was very beloved to all the devotees. 

And eventually when he was quite a bit older he got sick, as will happen to all of us, and eventually he left his body in a very exalted state of Krishna consciousness. And I think he is really a wonderful example; he wasn’t too attached or too detached. He just wanted to do his duty. When he thought his duty was to leave his family at an early stage, he left them which was wrong. And when he realized his duty was to take care of them and help them to become Krishna conscious, he did that perfectly and he was successful. By the end his wife was chanting sixteen rounds. I don’t think she took initiation but she was chanting sixteen rounds, the children also. And then when she passed on and the children were grown up, he understood, now it is my duty I am a vanaprastha, I should live in the temple, which is a holy place and serve the Vaishnavas and chant the holy name full time. And he left his body in perfect Krishna consciousness. So we don’t have to reject anything material but we do our duty. So what I would like to do is take a two-minute break. 

hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare
hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare

So just to return to the story of Abhiram Thakura dasa, Anup Bhattacharya, he was very attached to me from when I would visit Karachi and then he moved to India. I couldn’t visit India because of my visa problems and there, as I mentioned, he came to the association of the devotees in Pune. He took initiation from His Holiness Radhanath Swami. So when I returned to India I attended the Pune yatra of His Holiness Radhanath Swami with his devotees. And at the end of the yatra, Radhanath Swami and I rode on the train with the other devotees from Bombay or the majority of the devotees. And Abhiram Thakura, because he lived in Pune, he was on the platform to see us off. But he stayed on the platform and Radhanath Swami and I came to the door because we were going to be on the train with all the other devotees between Pune and Bombay. So it came to the doorway and we were next to each other. I had my arm around his shoulders and he had his arm around me and we were looking at Abhiram Thakura and Abhiram Thakura was weeping. He was just so happy because the two people to whom he was most attached were together and that was such a happy moment for him and a happy occurrence because of many reasons. 

So the point I am making here is that Abhirama Thakura had a very soft heart. He was crying out of happiness and that brings us back to the point of why the cultivation of renunciation independent of Krishna consciousness or as a separate item, is not really part of pure devotional service. Because Rupa Gosvami says that the real activities of devotional service, which are mainly hearing and chanting about Krishna and remembering Him, make the heart soft. Whereas the cultivation of knowledge, Brahma Gyan and the cultivation of renunciation or the performance of artificial austerities can make the heart hard. Both make the heart hard—artificial austerities make the heart hard and sense gratification and material attachment also make the heart hard. Bhakti makes the heart soft. And so again we come to the point we don’t want to maintain material attachments; those make the heart hard. People do so many horrible things for the sake of their material attachments, but artificial austerities also make the heart hard. And therefore we really want to follow the true process of bhakti which is principally śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ, that will make the heart soft. And that will make us naturally detached. 

vāsudeve bhagavati
bhakti-yogaḥ prayojitaḥ
janayaty āśu vairāgyaṁ
jñānaṁ ca yad ahaitukam        [SB 1.2.7]

That by performance of bhakti-yoga, causeless knowledge and detachment follow. And that detachment is not artificial renunciation, that detachment is manifest in yukta-vairāgya—seeing everything as Krishna’s property, seeing oneself as servant of Krishna and everything that belongs to Krishna and trying to engage everything in Krishna’s service. 

And when I was in India last December, I gave a Sunday talk in Chowpatty and immediately after the talk, Radhanath Swami got off from that large āsana that is reserved for him and the speakers and his godbrothers and other speakers, and he went to the doorway, and in the meantime I was also meeting people. And afterwards he came to me; he was so happy and so excited. He said, “You will never guess who turned up.” He said, “You will never guess, you will be so happy to hear this.” He said, “There was Abhirama Thakura’s son and daughter.” It is so many years later and they came specially to see him, to see Radhanath Swami. And they are chanting and he was just so happy that they were. Of course, he is full of love for everyone, for all devotees, but I have seen he especially takes special care of devotees’ relatives, especially their children who might not be. They might be strict or they might not be strict but because they are children of his godbrothers and godsisters, he takes special care of them. 

I think it was the last time he stayed with me, he spent a whole, not just evening, late into the night which was really off his approved schedule for his health with Sambha dasa, Hayagriva Prabhu’s son. And of course I am sure he cares for Sambha dasa but it was Hayagriva Prabhu’s son. And so I have seen it with so many, even Bhurijana Prabhu’s son, Jaya Gurupad, he lives in Bombay now. He is an aspiring Bollywood actor and he is just so affectionate to him because of Bhurijana Prabhu and because he understood the boy’s psychology, he announced to the devotees, “Do not preach to him, just be nice to him. Do not preach to him.” And as a result Jaya Gurupad really likes to visit the Chowpatty temple and be with Radhanath Swami and the devotees there. So anyway there are just so many examples but this would be a very relishable topic but it is not quite on the subject but that also extends to Srila Prabhupada’s family. 

Radhanath Swami has a very friendly relationship with Srila Prabhupada’s granddaughter who took initiation in ISKCON from His Holiness Jayapataka Swami and then such a tragedy. She died in a flood in Mayapur and then this last time when we were both in Calcutta and Mayapur together, he visited Prabhupada’s son, the father of the girl who was lost in the flood, Vrindavan Chandra deva. He really extended himself to Vrindavan Chandra and his family. 

But anyway just coming back to this point about Abhirama Thakura, who had a very soft heart. He wasn’t too attached or too detached but he did his duty. And I was thinking, What a rare example he is for us? We have examples of exemplary brahmacharis. A very good example is coming tomorrow, Radhe Shyam Prabhu from Pune, coming to visit San Jose. And we have many examples of exemplary grihasthas. We have examples of exemplary sannyasis but Abhirama Thakura was a rare example because he was exemplary as a grihastha and as a vanaprastha, as a householder and as a renunciate, and we don’t have many of those in ISKCON yet.

Vaisesika Prabhu may become one. Seriously, he has been an exemplary grihastha. He and his wife both have been exemplary grihasthas and from what I understand, they are moving in the direction in which they will be exemplary vanaprasthas and eventually he will probably become an exemplary sannyasi. Vaisesika Prabhu ki jaya. And that, you can’t take sannyasi really properly, you can’t take sannyasi. There could be exceptions, no doubt there can be exceptions, but ideally one should not take sannyasi without the blessings of the wife. And for the wife to encourage the husband to take sannyasi means the wife has to be Krishna conscious. It is not something that the husband does on his own. It could in some circumstances but ideally it is something he should do with the blessings of his wife. And her blessings will come if she is Krishna conscious. So it means that the two have to be Krishna conscious together. That means no artificial renunciation and no sense gratification. It means just Krishna consciousness; they can be very good friends; they can be the best of friends on the basis of Krishna consciousness. Then they can be ideal vanaprasthas and he can be an ideal sannyasi. She can be an ideal former wife of a present sannyasi which is not a small thing. In Vedic culture the ladies of the renunciates, they would hold a very esteemed position in society; they would be gurus in their own right. 

So this is the result of pure Krishna consciousness. And as one progresses in pure Krishna consciousness, one becomes attached to Krishna. That is what progressing in Krishna consciousness means, that by becoming attached from Krishna to Krishna, we naturally become detached from sense gratification. It doesn’t mean we become detached from the objects of the world or the people in the world, but we become detached from sense gratification. 

And coming back to our discussion of the different stages. The different stages are really degrees of attachment to Krishna. Ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅgo ‘tha bhajana-kriyā. Most of us are in the stage of bhajana-kriyā, engaging in the practice of devotional service. But again we might be in the aniṣṭhita stage, unsteady, we engage but we are not steady. Even we make vows; we will do this, we will do that, but we can’t keep our vows because we are not steady yet. Then we go through that period of anartha-nivṛtti, then we come to the stage of steadiness niṣṭhita-bhakti or niṣṭhā. Then after that comes ruci. Ruci means taste. In the stage of ruci, your taste for hearing and chanting and remembering Krishna far exceeds your taste for anything else. And after ruci comes the stage of āsakti, which means attachment. In the stage of āsakti one is attached to Krishna. In the stage of ruci, one’s attachment is more for the activities of devotional service, for hearing and chanting and remembering, whereas in āsakti one’s attachment is for the object of the service, which is Krishna, Radha and Krishna. And then from āsakti one comes to the stage of bhāva and that is the state of direct revelation of Krishna, direct perception of Krishna. That is the beginning of love of Godhead. 

So chanting with genuine spiritual feeling or experiencing any aspect of Krishna consciousness with genuine spiritual feeling, means the heart has to be in the proper condition. In other words, it shouldn’t be hard. It should be soft and that is achieved by hearing and chanting and by letting go of material attachments and also avoiding artificial renunciation. It is just pure bhakti; then one can have genuine spiritual feelings like Abhirama Thakura demonstrated and we know from examples of advanced devotees.

So I am going to read a morning walk conversation and we will be handing this out and these verses later. This took place in Nairobi on November 2, 1975.

MORNING WALK CONVERSATION

Devotee: When chanting our sixteen rounds, we are not sure if these rounds are sincere. . .

Prabhupāda: You should be sure.

Devotee: How can we be sure?

Prabhupāda: There are beads.

Brahmānanda: No, he’s saying that when we chant our rounds, how can we be sure that when we chant the round that the round is a perfect, attentive round; sincere?

Prabhupāda: Therefore it is śāstra: “You must.” There is no question of understanding.

COMMENT

Now, do you understand what Prabhupada just said? The devotee is asking how can we understand if our round is sincere and Prabhupada said there is no question of understanding, the shastra says you chant so you just chant. That is what Prabhupada just said. I will continue.

You see this is also one of the special features of Srila Prabhupada, that sometimes it seemed like he didn’t understand a question or wasn’t answering it. But actually he was. But maybe they didn’t get the answer; they didn’t like the answer. So they asked the question again. So Brahmananda says yes, Prabhupada says you must. There is no question of understanding and Brahmananda says:

CONVERSATION (continued)

Brahmananda: the quality of the chanting he is asking. How can we make the quality the best? 

Prabhupada: Quality. . ., you’ll understand; first of all come to the quantity.

COMMENT

In other words, you are asking, how will you understand when you are chanting with quality and Prabhupada is saying, first come to the quality then you will understand. How can you understand if you haven’t come to the stage of quality? 

CONVERSATION (continued)

Prabhupada: Quality. . ., you will understand; first of all come to the quantity. Without having quantity, how will you understand the quality? You follow the instruction of your spiritual master, of the śāstra. That is your duty. Quality, no quality—it is not your position to understand. When the quality comes, there is no force. You will have a taste for chanting. You will desire at that time, “Why sixteen rounds? Why not sixteen thousand rounds?” That is quality. Now it is by force. You will not do it; therefore at least sixteen rounds. But when you come to the quality, you will feel yourself, “Why sixteen? Why not sixteen thousand?” That is quality, automatically.

COMMENT

Now I do want to mention, because Prabhupada is going to himself mention this, different stages of bhakti. That it is not that one is fixed in a particular stage. Generally, we might be at this stage, say of aniṣṭhita bhajan-kriya or niṣṭhā bhajan-kriya or ruci or whatever, but whatever stage we are generally in, we can at any time experience a higher stage or a lower stage. We might be generally in a particular stage, but under certain favorable circumstances or by some special mercy, we can experience a higher stage. And as I was hearing the reports of the devotees’ experience in the japa circle with tulasi, I was thinking they were experiencing a higher stage than usual. And one of the symptoms of āsakti, at the stage of āsakti if your mind wanders, it is like now our mind wanders; we don’t know how it wandered, and then we have to bring it back. In the stage of āsakti, your mind wanders but automatically it comes back. You don’t know how it came back but you didn’t; it is just the opposite like now we are chanting, suddenly our mind is gone. We didn’t even notice how it happened. And in the stage of āsakti if by chance your mind wanders, suddenly it comes back, you don’t even know how it came back. 

And that is what devotees were saying yesterday that even if their mind wandered it didn’t stick, it came back. And in some cases it came back without them even knowing how or why or making any effort, it just came back. So we can glimpse higher stages even when we are not at that stage, and unfortunately sometimes we can also glimpse a lower stage that we have already passed out of but not completely out of for all time. But now we are discussing quality and what Prabhupada’s definition of quality is. 

CONVERSATION (continued)

Prabhupada: Now it is by force because you will not do it; therefore we prescribe at least sixteen rounds. But when you come to the quality, you will feel yourself, “Why sixteen? Why not sixteen thousand?”

COMMENT

At our japa retreat in Joshua Tree, Mahatma Prabhu up on the paper: Today I get to chant sixty-four rounds; not like today I have to chant sixty-four rounds; I get to chant sixty-four rounds and more; when you are in that stage you want to chant more. 

CONVERSATION (continued)

Prabhupada: That is quality, automatically. Just like Haridāsa Ṭhākura was doing. He was not forced to do. Even Caitanya Mahāprabhu, He requested, “Now you are old enough. You can reduce.” So he refused, “No. Up to the end of my life I shall go on.” That is quality. Have you got such tendency that you will go on chanting and nothing to do? That is quality. Now you are forced to do. Where is the question of quality? That is given a chance so that one day you may come to the quality, not that you have come to the quality.

Quality is different. Athāsaktiḥ. āśakti, attachment. Just like Rūpa Gosvāmī says that “How shall I chant with one tongue? And how shall I hear, two ears? Had it been millions of tongues and trillions of ears, then I could enjoy it.” This is quality. Quality is not so cheap. Maybe after many births. For the time being you go on following the rules and regulations. It is being done by force. Where is the quality? So you wanted to understand quality. This is the quality. You’ll not be forced, but automatically you will desire. That is quality. I am writing books. I am not being forced by anyone. Everyone can do that. Why one does not do it? Why I get up at night, one o’clock, and do this job? Because I cannot do without it.

COMMENT

So this applies not just to chanting japa, this is a general principle of devotional service. How will one do it artificially? He is talking about getting up at one in the morning and translating; so to come back.

CONVERSATION (continued)

Prabhupada: I am writing books. I am not being forced by anyone. Everyone can do that. Why one does not do it? Why I get up at night, one o’clock, and do this job? Because I cannot do without it. How one will do it artificially? This is quality. Therefore they like my purports. That quality is shown by Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Śūnyāyitaṁ jagat sarvaṁ govinda-virahena me [Śikṣāṣṭaka 7] = “Oh, I do not see Govinda. The whole world is vacant.” Śūnyāyitaṁ jagat sarvaṁ govinda-virahena me. This is quality.

COMMENT

Just like we have got practical example. One man’s beloved has died and he is seeing the whole universe as vacant. Is it vacant? That is the quality of love. So there is no formula of quality. It is to be understood by yourself. Just like if after eating something you feel refreshed and get strength, that is quality. You don’t have to take certificate. Will you give me a certificate that I have eaten? Nobody says, “How do I know if I have eaten?” Well you have eaten, you feel satisfied, you feel energized. So it is the same thing with quality, you don’t have to ask, “Am I chanting with quality?” When the quality comes you will know you are chanting with quality. You won’t have to ask for someone to certify. 

CONVERSATION (continued)

Prabhupada: You will understand whether you eaten or not. That is quality. When you will feel so much ecstasy in chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, that is quality. Not artificially—-"Chant. Chant. Otherwise get out.” This is not quality. This is in expectation that someday you may come to quality. That requires time.

COMMENT

So that is patience. That is one of the requirements for success, utsāhā. We have to be enthusiastic, you have to be enthusiastic. niścayāt dhairyān, we have to be confident that if I continue I will be successful by the grace of the Lord. But we also have to be patient. Srila Prabhupada said that enthusiasm without patience can lead to a desire to control. Even we want to chant attentively but if we are not patient, we want to control by force, but like Yajna Purusha said, you can’t force it no matter how hard you try. It depends, you have to receive the mercy of to receive the holy name and Prabhupada also said that patience without enthusiasm can lead to lethargy: I got plenty of time. First of all, I am only forty years old; let me enjoy for a while. And second of all, Prabhupada said it may take many lifetimes so I am patient; meanwhile go about my household affairs and my economic development and my sense gratification; I have time. So that is patience without enthusiasm and that can lead to lethargy. So we want both; very enthusiastic, get up early, chant those rounds, take a little prasāda, do some more service, and read Prabhupada’s books, distribute his books, take little prasāda, do kirtan, take rest early, going to be enthusiastic but also patient. We can’t expect that overnight we are going to suddenly be on the stage of the āsakti, bhāva. 

So this is an expectation that someday you will come to the quality that requires time. That requires sincerity but quality is there, it will be awakened. In other words, it is already there; it is in your heart, it just has to be awakened. It is not something that you achieve by your effort but it is something you receive by grace. It is manifest, it is awakened, it is already there, so we just have to continue. And there is another verse we didn’t read it. It came, that should encourage us that;

If one commits offenses what does one do? One continues to chant?

It is a nice verse on the Padma Purāṇa:

nāmāparādha-yuktānāṁ
nāmāny eva haranty agham
aviśrānti-prayuktāni

tāny evārtha-karāṇi ca        [SB 6.3.24]

The chanting of Hare Krishna is recommended for persons who commit offenses because if they continue chanting, they will gradually chant offenselessly. Even if in the beginning one chants the Hare Krishna mantra with offenses, one will become free from such offenses by chanting again and again. And then the one point that can triumph over all. Because yesterday we discussed nāma-aparādha, vaiṣṇava-aparādha, that it lingers even after niṣṭhā, that means after anartha-nivṛtti. There are these different stages of eradication of anātha; there is partial, pervasive, complete, absolute. So the effects of anarthas created by nāma-aparādha or vaiṣṇava-aparādha, they continue. They are only partially eradicated by aniṣṭhita, they continue. The eradication is pervasive at the stage of bhāva. It is not even complete but it is general. Bhāva, bhāva-bhakti, it is the beginning of love of Godhead; ecstatic love of Godhead, it is bhāva-bhakti in prema-bhakti. It is complete. There is no more anartha caused by nāma-aparādha or vaiṣṇava-aparādha. 

But there is another stage called absolute, complete; means it is completely gone but it can come back. And absolute means it is completely gone and it can never come back. And that comes only when you attain the lotus feet of Krishna. That is how pesky. . . I had one of those pesky little spots that are hard to get out; that is how pesky the effects of anarthas created by vaiṣṇava-aparādha are. So last night we were discussing after the workshop that if by niṣṭhā, after anartha-nivṛtti, by niṣṭhā, it is niṣṭhā prāya, almost destroyed and what is not destroyed in particular is the anarthas created by nāma-aparādha. What is our hope, how are we ever going to go back to Godhead?

So I will conclude with one story. Srila Prabhupada gave a class in which he said, “In order to go back to Godhead you must be cent percent pure.” So when he said that, the devotees looked a little discouraged. Then Prabhupada said, “90 percent.” They still looked concerned. Prabhupada said, “80 percent,” then he said, “75 percent, but that is the limit.” Now in one lecture in this verse naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu, Prabhupada says prāya, almost destroyed. He says 75 percent. That means we have to pass through anartha-nivṛtti, we have to come to the stage of niṣṭhā, then 75 percent are destroyed. And then according to Prabhupada’s merciful concession, we can go back to Godhead. But that is still pretty advanced. To pass through anartha-nivṛtti, it is still pretty advanced. 

So after the lecture, as usual, the devotees would gather around Srila Prabhupada and follow him. And he said, “Actually if you just hold on to my lotus feet, I will take you back to Godhead. I have the key to the back door.” So what we are discussing, all these different stages and practices, that is the way to get in the front door. But if we start to get hopeless, “I am never going to make it, if you take full shelter of Srila Prabhupada and hold onto his lotus feet.” He has the key to the back door and I think many of our contemporaries, they have gone back to Godhead by holding on to Srila Prabhupada’s lotus feet. I don’t know what stage they were at but I am confident they went back to Godhead because they held onto Srila Prabhupada’s lotus feet to the end, and his mercy took them back to Godhead. And holding on to his lotus feet means they just dedicated themselves, heart and soul, to Prabhupada’s mission. They chanted their rounds, they followed the principles, they did their duty, but ultimately they accepted Srila Prabhupada’s lotus feet as their heart and soul, and that carried them back to Godhead.

Hare Krishna.