Retreat—01 Srila Prabhupada’s Faith in the Holy Name

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna. Faith in the holy name is a common thread throughout Srila Prabhupada’s life. Once I was in Srila Prabhupada’s room in Juhu and he had me read a verse and purport from the First Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam about what the earth was like during the reign of Maharaja Yudhisthira. And then he commented that what he was saying now (means say 1974) was the same as what he had written in the Bhāgavatam before he came to America. He was making the point that nothing has changed. And the same applies to Srila Prabhupada’s faith in the holy name. It is something that even his godbrothers recognized in him before he came to America.

One incident that comes to mind was Srila Prabhupada’s godbrother, OBL Kapoor. He was also a disciple of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. He was a professor. Srila Prabhupada in his grihastha ashram was a pharmacist or as they say in England and India, a chemist. Once Professor Kapoor met Srila Prabhupada in Mathura, happened to meet him in Mathura, and he asked him that, “You are a chemist. Can you tell me the formula? You know formulas and how to mix chemicals. Do you know the formula for love of God?” And Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes I do.” And Professor Kapoor asked, “Well, what is it?” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “Tṛṇād api su-nīcena taror iva sahiṣṇunā amāninā māna-dena kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ.”

So Srila Prabhupada had that faith that just by chanting the holy name in the proper mood one could develop love of God or one would develop love of God without any extraneous effort or complicated or elaborate or esoteric practice.

Srila Prabhupada had another godbrother named niṣkiñcana Krishnadasa Babaji Maharaja who was always chanting the holy name. He would always chant the holy name in ecstasy. Srila Prabhupada even remarked that he was a paramahamsa. Once Babaji Maharaja asked another godbrother of Srila Prabhupada’s, Bon Maharaja, because Bon was a sannyasi that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura had sent to the West to preach, and he had actually gone, so Babaji Maharaja asked him that, “You went to the West and Swami Maharaja (that’s how they referred to Bhaktivedanta Swami) went to the West.” “Yes.” “And you preached the message of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and he preached the message of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.” “Yes.” “And you brought the Hare Krishna mantra and he brought the Hare Krishna mantra.” “Yes.” “So, why was he so successful and why were you a complete failure?” Bon Maharaja didn’t know what to say and Babaji Maharaja gave the answer, “Because he had complete faith in the holy name. He had faith that if people would just chant Hare Krishna their lives would be transformed. If they just chanted Hare Krishna, everything else would follow. Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ. Everything.”

Babaji Maharaja had seen this in Prabhupada many years before Prabhupada even went to the West. As many of you may know, after grihastha ashram Srila Prabhupada entered vanaprastha ashram and then finally he accepted the renounced order of life, sannyasa. So he was receiving the renounced order of life from a godbrother, His Holiness Bhaktiprajnana Kesava Gosvami Maharaja at the Kesavaji Gaudiya Matha in Mathura. During the sannyasa ceremony as usual there was a priest, a disciple of Kesava Maharaja, performing a fire sacrifice and reciting various mantras. Meanwhile niṣkiñcana Krishnadasa Babaji Maharaja was in the audience of devotees and he was chanting Hare Krishna. So the priest who was performing the yajña and reciting the mantras told him or gestured to him, “Shh. Keep quiet. I am chanting the mantras.” And then he went back to reciting the mantras and putting the oblations into the fire. And then Prabhupada glanced towards Babaji Maharaja like, “Keep chanting. Keep chanting.” [laughter]

Srila Prabhupada had complete conviction that everything was included in the holy name and one could get everything by chanting the holy name. And that’s how he began the Krishna consciousness movement in the West, just chanting Hare Krishna. And he said anyone could go anywhere in the world just like he had done, going to New York, sit down under a tree, and chant Hare Krishna, and eventually people would come and see. They would wonder, “What is this crazy fellow doing?” That was Prabhupada’s words, “What is this crazy fellow doing?” And then you would begin to tell them about chanting and Krishna consciousness.

This is going ahead but it demonstrates the same principle. This is going to early 1977, Prabhupada’s last year with us. He was already very ill. Srila Prabhupada had a very staunch devotee, he was never initiated, a householder named Mr. PL Sethi. So Mr. Sethi was a member of a group, basically householders who had a guru in Vrindavan, and every week on Sunday they would meet and have a khaṇḍa hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana. They would have continuous chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra for twelve hours from six in the morning to six in the evening and then from about six to eight they would sing different songs from Vraja.

So Mr. Sethi had the idea, instead of going to some grihastha’s home as they would, why not have them come to the temple one Sunday. We agreed and they came. At that time the new temple at Juhu was not open. It was just like a shed but it was the Deities’ temple, Radha-Rasabihari’s temple. Srila Prabhupada was on the top floor of one of the towers and he was not well. Anyway the devotees did kirtan in the temple beneath and Prabhupada was listening upstairs. At one stage the devotees in the kirtan really wanted to see Prabhupada but the lift wasn’t working. So he couldn’t come down and he was too sick. They couldn’t go up, it wasn’t practical. But they came out of the temple and they were just chanting under his balcony with great feeling. And then finally Mr. Sethi went up and he helped Prabhupada to walk to the balcony. He looked down at them and they went wild in kirtan. And then Prabhupada went back in.

The next day Srila Prabhupada called for me and he said, “The kirtan was wonderful.” And then he said, “We should do this every day. We should do the twelve-hour kirtan every day from six in the morning until six in the evening.” So, as conditioned as I was by the ISKCON work ethic, I said, “But Srila Prabhupada, we have so much service to do.” And we all knew how important the Juhu project was to him and the temple wasn’t even open. So he said, “Alright. What about once a week?” So I said, “Okay, once a week, that’s okay.” So I agreed.

Then he said, “These devotees who did the kirtan, I want them all to come and stay on Hare Krishna Land.” Now that’s another thing. He named the project Hare Krishna Land. And he said, “I will give them lodging. I will build houses for them and I will provide prasāda for them and all they have to do is do kirtan twelve hours a day.” From that I understood Prabhupada just wanted people to chant Hare Krishna and he had faith that if they just chanted Hare Krishna, Krishna would provide. He wasn’t worried how he would be able to maintain all these families.

And that name “Hare Krishna Land” indicates Prabhupada’s same faith and mood. Once he was at his room in the back and I was in the room and he happened to hear the sound of kirtan from the front where the temple was and he said, “Hare Krishna. The sound of Hare Krishna should always be heard on Hare Krishna Land.”

Once we were walking with him on his morning walk and some little children from the neighborhood came and said, “Hare Krishna.” Of course Prabhupada said, “Hare Krishna.” And he said, “Our mission is a success. They are chanting Hare Krishna.”

Another time the devotees produced a stamp to put on envelopes. It didn’t have any postage value but it was a little picture of Radha-Krishna and at the bottom it said, “Hare Krishna.” So we asked Prabhupada, “What about this?” We wanted to check and he said, “These two words, ‘Hare Krishna,’ should be seen everywhere.” So that was his mood. That was his mission.

As far as japa in particular, Prabhupada was very serious about his instruction to us to chant sixteen rounds. There is one famous verse, one should always remember Krishna and never forget Him. It’s quoted in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta and in the purport Srila Prabhupada writes that to be able to always remember Krishna and not forget Him, one must chant at least sixteen rounds every day. And then he wrote the sentence that His Holiness Sacinandana Swami quoted yesterday, “Of all the regulative principles, the spiritual master’s instruction to chant sixteen rounds daily is most essential.”

Earlier when we were first traveling with Srila Prabhupada in India in 1970 a European or American young man met up with us somewhere in our travels. It was quite rare then. There weren’t many people coming to India. No one was meeting up with us in our travels. He started to live with the devotees. He was a nice fellow. He would sit next to me during prasāda time and he would say, “Krishna definitely exists otherwise how could someone as low as me get this nice prasāda every day?” And our prasāda then was very simple. It was basically just boiled rice and dal and maybe some simple vegetables.

He began to associate with the devotees and he began to hear the philosophy. Then one day he asked Srila Prabhupada, “If all service is absolute, why do we have to chant sixteen rounds? If someone comes and I have some rounds left to chant and it’s late, should I finish my rounds or should I make the person a life member?” So Prabhupada explained in different ways about sixteen rounds, but somehow the young man wasn’t convinced. So he asked once more, “If all service is absolute, why do we have to chant sixteen rounds?” Srila Prabhupada sat up very straight and he said, “Because the Supreme Personality of Godhead wants you to!” He spoke with great authority. He said, “You can eat and sleep the whole day, but you must chant sixteen rounds.” And then looking to all the other devotees, he said, “This is a special prerogative for him.” [laughter] “You are so worried about sleeping, if someone comes late, you don’t want to make him a life member and then stay up late to finish your rounds. You want to do one or the other. So you are so worried about your sleeping, okay, you can eat and sleep the whole day and night, but you must chant sixteen rounds.”

It is important and there is another level to it which is that it is an order from the spiritual master. It is an order from Srila Prabhupada. Once in Hawaii there was a controversy where some of the devotees were saying, “You shouldn’t force. It’s better we chant as many rounds as we like rather than . . .” These were initiated devotees. It was quite a controversy. Different groups of devotees had formed in different camps and Srila Prabhupada came and they asked him and Prabhupada said, “It is good they are chanting. Let them chant what they can.” And then they said, “But what about their advancement? Will their advancement be the same?” And Prabhupada said, “No.” There is a bit more to it. There was a further discussion about the money they were making if they should give 50 percent of it to the temple or something to the temple. It was a whole discussion, but the conclusion was that, “It is good they are doing all these things, but if they are not following my instructions . . .” Part of the issue was that they were not living in the temple. Prabhupada said, “That’s not a problem.” Then they said, “But they are not chanting sixteen rounds and so on.” Then Prabhupada said, “That is offense. They are disobeying the order of the spiritual master. The spiritual master has come to help them. He is thinking, I wanted to deliver them and now they are going against Me. So that is offense, aparādha, guru-avajñā.”

So, yes, Prabhupada has given us all encouragement to chant sixteen rounds that if we do we can always remember Krishna and never forget Him and if we don’t, we won’t be able to always remember Krishna. But further there is that element of a personal commitment and if one makes the commitment, one accepts the order of the spiritual master to chant sixteen rounds and then if he disobeys the order—that’s what is comes down to—then that’s an offense. It is guru-avajñā. And we can’t advance very well if we commit such offenses. Of course we are here to improve the quality of our chanting, but there is also an element of practice. Prabhupada said, “Practice makes perfect even in spiritual life.” So we want to develop taste—that’s why we’re here—and if we chant our sixteen rounds and avoid the offenses, we will develop taste. But to take a vow to chant sixteen rounds and not to chant sixteen rounds is an offense in and of itself.

Prabhupada was so emphatic, he was so confident of the potency of the formula that he gave us. There is one verse in the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam where the demigods are praying to Lord Krishna within the womb. In this verse the demigods pray to Lord Krishna within the womb that, “Acharyas accept the boat of Your lotus feet to cross the ocean of nescience, but they are so merciful that while crossing the ocean they leave behind the boat that they used to cross so that other devotees could accept the same means to cross the ocean. And You Lord Krishna, because You are especially merciful to Your devotees, You accept the method that the acharyas leave to help the devotees who follow them.” In the purport—there is a beautiful purport—within the purport Srila Prabhupada says that, “In our Krishna consciousness movement we prescribe that the devotees chant sixteen rounds daily and follow the four regulative principles.” And he says, “These instructions are bona fide.” And then he says that, “Anyone who follows these instructions will be able to cross the fierce ocean of nescience because Krishna will accept the devotees who follow these instructions.”

It reminded me of that idea that Krishna will always uphold the promise of His devotee, He will always uphold the word of His devotee. One famous example was Bhīṣmadeva in the battle of Kurukshetra. Duryodhana accused Bhīṣmadeva of being partial towards the Pandavas and because he was partial to them he wasn’t fighting with his full strength. So Bhīṣma took a vow. Actually that name Bhīṣma means “one who has taken a terrible vow.” That was the vow never to marry, to remain brahmachari. That’s another story but he took another vow that, “I will fight so fiercely in the battle that either I will kill Arjuna or Krishna will be forced to break His promise not to take up weapons in the battle.” And it happened. Bhīṣma fought will great strength and expertise to the point that Arjuna was really in danger. He could have been killed and Krishna, to protect Arjuna and at the same time protect the word of Bhīṣmadeva, He picked up a broken chariot wheel as a weapon and rushed towards grandfather Bhīṣma to kill him. And the fighting ended.

The idea is that Krishna always upholds the promise of His devotee. There is the famous verse in the Bhagavad-gītā: kaunteya pratijānīhi na me bhaktaḥ praṇaśyati, where Krishna tells Arjuna, “My dear Arjuna, declare it boldly that My devotee will never perish.” So someone might ask, “Well why didn’t Krishna just declare it Himself? Why did He ask Arjuna to declare it?” The answer is that sometimes for the sake of His devotee Krishna will break His word, but if His devotee promises, Krishna will never allow His devotee’s word to be broken. So Srila Prabhupada has promised that if we just chant sixteen rounds, follow the four principles, and try our best to spread the Krishna consciousness movement, we will go back home, back to Godhead. I believe in Srila Prabhupada’s word and I believe that Krishna will uphold Srila Prabhupada’s word.

Srila Prabhupada said that and this was very hard for me to understand when I first joined because I have the idea and in principle it is true that the spiritual master is the representative of Krishna and whatever he says is the same as Krishna. But a little after I joined I heard that Srila Prabhupada said that, “The spiritual master is like the representative of a company. If he signs an agreement on behalf of the company, the company is bound to honor the agreement even if otherwise the company or the owner of the company wouldn’t want to. But because their representative signed the agreement on their behalf, they have to honor it.” Srila Prabhupada gave that example in relation to the spiritual master accepting someone as a disciple. I would say the same principle would extend to his promise, sort of contract with his disciples and grand disciples and line of successive generations of disciples that if they chant sixteen rounds, follow the four principles, and work cooperatively to spread Krishna consciousness, Krishna will accept them. They will go back home, back to Godhead.

I don’t know much about Krishna. I don’t even know much about the holy name, but I do have faith in Srila Prabhupada’s order and again just the same point that, “Your qualification is that I give you an instruction and your try to follow it.” We just try. Prabhupada will be pleased. Yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādo: when he is pleased and gives his mercy then Krishna will be pleased to give His mercy.

After the first japa retreat I attended, I thought of Srila Prabhupada’s initiation letter to me. He wrote among other things that, “You should chant sixteen rounds daily and follow the regulative principles.” After the first retreat I was thinking, My God, he wrote me to chant sixteen rounds and avoid the ten offenses. This is the first instruction in my initiation letter and I haven’t even been able to follow that and how many years has it been? That was 1969 and that retreat was 2006 in Ojai. So twenty-seven years later.

When I got back to Carpinteria I looked up the letter and there it was just like I remembered it: “Chant sixteen rounds daily and avoid the ten offenses as far as possible.” Srila Prabhupada is so merciful. [laughter] If he would have said, “Avoid the ten offenses,” I would have been finished from day one. He said, “as far as possible.” That means we try our best, we sincerely try our best. We are not lazy, we are not lethargic, we don’t take anything for granted. Pariśrama. We do hard labor. And that’s it. It is just like Sacinandana Swami and Yajna-purusa Prabhu have been saying, we just make our effort and depend on the Lord’s mercy. For us in particular, me in particular, that comes through Srila Prabhupada and his devotees and that’s all we have to do. And in that sense, we are free from anxiety. We are doing our part. Actually I am not sure of the context but Kartikeya Prabhu approached me after the afternoon session, “What is that name in Vraja that if you go there you become completely free from anxiety?” But yes, if we just sincerely do our best to follow Srila Prabhupada’s instructions, we don’t have to be in anxiety about our future.

There is one beautiful verse in the Second Canto and in the purport Srila Prabhupada says that devotees—and he mentioned great devotees like Nityananda Prabhu and Haridasa Thakura—they do not mind what becomes of the future of their lives because they have received the order of their spiritual master and they are doing their best to follow it and they do not mind what becomes of the future of their lives. So no anxiety.

The example is of the cat and the kitten and the mother monkey and the baby monkey. I actually saw it once. As part of my physical rehabilitation, I went for a walk in the Johannesburg Zoo, and I saw really high trees and the mother monkeys were jumping from tree to tree and the baby monkeys, they were like really little babies, they were holding on for dear life. If they would have lost their grip and it’s possible because they were really little and the mothers were jumping way up there, from tree to tree, so they would have lost their grip. They would have fallen down and been severely injured, not killed.

So that example is used by our acharyas to illustrate making your own effort or the ascending process. Of course we do have to make our own effort, that’s part of it (pariśrama), but the other example is the mother cat and the baby kitten, that the mother cat picks up the baby kitten and carries the baby wherever she wants to take the kitten and the kitten is in no anxiety. It is just being carried by the mother. The responsibility is on the mother.

So my conviction is that if we just try our best to follow Srila Prabhupada’s instructions, especially this most essential instruction to chant sixteen rounds daily, he will take care of the rest, and according to his word, we will go back home, back to Godhead.

Hare Krishna.

Sacinandana Swami: Just a short technical question, could you just say [?] “If you just try to follow the instruction of the spiritual master, that is your qualification.” Can you elaborate? [inaudible].

Giriraj Swami: The quotation is, “Your qualification is I give you an instruction and you try to follow it.”

Sacinandana Swami: In what context did he say that? Did you ask him what was the qualification for going back to Godhead? Or is it just this . . .

Giriraj Swami: It was a general statement. There are many other statements as well, but I don’t think they contradict this one.

Sacinandana Swami: Srila Prabhupada also had written this that, “You just chant sixteen rounds and avoid the offenses, you follow the four regulative principles, I promise you that after this life you will be taken back to Godhead.” I am very, very delighted by your explanation of this, how you quoted this Bhāgavatam verse about the acharyas having put a boat for us to cross the ocean. Our boat is the sixteen rounds. It is very genius. It is very encouraging.

Allow me to ask you my question. I am not asking on behalf of [others?]. Sometimes my thinking is, did Prabhupada say this to just put me on the land so to say so that I could go on my journey because I noticed that as I am trying to chant, I am trying to follow this instruction, sixteen rounds and no offenses and [?], but I noticed now as I get older I become interested in the detail of Gaudiya Vaishnava philosophy and I [?]. I like to do that. Is it maybe that actually we need to do more to go back home, back to Godhead? Is it good? This is the seed from which we will grow into all these different interests? In other words, from the seed more should grow in interest in the person Krishna, in His [pastimes?]. If it doesn’t grow, then it is like a seed which will maybe atrophy. The reason I am thinking like this is when I revisit this instruction, I [?] Is it sensible or should I be attracted by all the details, or maybe am I too complicated? It is not good to be interested in the details? This is my question.

Giriraj Swami: Thank you for your question Maharaja. It is a question that has exercised the minds of the greatest souls within the movement for many years. I can’t claim to have the answer, but I will give two answers among many possible answers. The first answer is something that I have discussed with Bhurijana Prabhu because he has often expressed his concern that if devotees here just chant sixteen rounds, follow the four principles, work to your capacity to spread Krishna consciousness—that’s quite a broad statement—they might take it that they don’t have to do as much as they in fact do need to do.

One explanation is that in order to maintain the standard of chanting sixteen rounds and following the four principles, one must do so many other things like keep association with devotees. Just to give an example, once a disciple who had left the association of devotees came to see Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada said, “You are not chanting your sixteen rounds.” The disciple said, “How do you know?” [laughter] Srila Prabhupada said, “Because you have left the association of devotees.” Now Prabhupada did say that. There can be exceptions obviously. If someone is very advanced, he gave the example of Bhaktivinoda Thakura. But he said for us, neophytes, unless they stay in the association of devotees, they will be affected by the karmis’ poison and they won’t be able to maintain the standard.

Another answer is it comes back to the same point that we should always remember Krishna and never forget Him. Prabhupada always said somehow or the other keep your day filled with Krishna consciousness: maṅgala-ārati, chanting rounds, cleaning the temple, dressing the Deity, distributing books, preaching, managing the temple accounts. Somehow or other always be engaged in some service to Krishna and that’s a general principle, even in that same purport where he mentions the sixteen rounds.

Now different devotees as they mature will develop taste in different types of service. As Prabhupada said in his own way and as Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta emphasizes, the name that’s best for you is the name for which you have the taste, or the process that’s best for you is the process for which you have taste. Again there are the nine processes: śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ, and one can achieve success by one or two or three or all nine. If we are pure enough to only chant like Haridasa Thakura, we can only chant, or if we can sit down and hear Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam without eating or drinking like Maharaja Parīkṣit, we can attain success in that way. But most of us need variety to keep our attention. So some Deity worship, some japa, some kirtan, some preaching, some book distribution, some administration to support the preaching.

Now I am coming to another point which is also a major theme in Prabhupada’s instructions and that is that in the beginning we follow the regulative principles, but in due course, by following the regulative principles, a spontaneous attraction will develop, and that’s our goal, because that is also niyamāgrahaḥ. Everything has two sides to it. They do not mind what becomes of the future of their lives. That is in the mood of complete surrender and dependence. But it is not niyamāgrahaḥ that you just follow for the sake of following without knowing why you are following. There is a reason why we are following and that is to develop love for Krishna. The desire to develop love for Krishna is not a material desire or a selfish desire. So to want to develop love for Krishna, to chant and hear and serve the orders of the spiritual master and serve the mission of the spiritual master, to get the mercy of Krishna, to develop love for Krishna, that’s also pure devotional service. That’s not an extraneous desire or a selfish desire. That’s recommended. One of the five most potent forms of devotional service is mathurā-vāsa, to live in Vrindavan.

So these are all recommended, but we should not do anything at the expense—this is my own realization I must say—at the expense of service to the guru. I can honestly say that that year that you did nāma-vrata because that year I spent a bit of time in Vrindavan and at Govardhana nearby and I know what a severe vrata it was, you hardly had time to eat or sleep or talk. I considered it your mercy that on one or two occasions you took time out of your intense vrata to speak with me. But at the end of it all I think what touched me the most was that from Radha-kunda you went to Ahovalam, to the temple of Nṛsiṁhadeva, to pray for the welfare of ISKCON. That really touched me. Later I heard it was a mistake but you actually left before Kartik ended. And that really touched me, that such an intense nāma-vrata for Kartik, and then to leave Vrindavan early and those last five days are very special days, and to use that precious time to go to Ahovalam to pray to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva for the welfare of ISKCON, I thought that was wonderful.

Prabhupada’s mood really was to preach, but you can’t preach unless you practice and the deeper our practice is, the deeper our taste, the deeper our realization, the more deeply we will be able to affect people by our preaching. I remember I had this experience in Dallas where I was giving very good instructions to two devotees separately, but they were struggling to follow them just because of weakness. They didn’t doubt the instruction and the instruction was correct, but they just didn’t have the strength to give up the attachment that was involved and follow the instruction. I was lamenting that, “I wish I could do more to help them.” But what more could I do? I gave them the proper instruction. But then I thought, If I had deep love for Krishna, just the fact that I had deep love for Krishna would inspire them. So that is such an important fact, what is our realization. The depth of our realization will affect our ability to touch other people’s hearts. Therefore our own practices and our desire to preach are not different. The deeper we go in Krishna consciousness, the more deeply we can affect other people’s hearts as preachers. At the same time, the more giving we are of ourselves as preachers, the more Krishna will reward us with taste. So the two really reinforce each other. To want to know about Krishna and His pastimes and the services the different devotees render to Him and the places of their pastimes is a blessing to have that taste. By having that taste, you can give that to others.

But I know myself, one year, it was in my mind to spend the whole Kartik in Vraja, but in the end I was really, internally I was being called back to Juhu for service, but I was resisting it. And even though I was in Vraja, but my chanting and hearing and remembrance were disturbed. Then I thought, This isn’t right. This isn’t what I should . . . then I went to Juhu and I felt fine.

Everything that you said is perfect. It is wonderful. The only caveat, the only exception I would add is that if for any reason at a particular time, not as a rule, but at a particular time pursuing one’s taste for those most wonderful topics of kṛṣṇa-līlā, if at a certain time under certain circumstances it came in the way of some service that was required by the spiritual master, then one should drop that and run to do the service of the spiritual master, but otherwise it is perfect. It is wonderful.

Devotee: I am wondering to what extent is having faith in the holy name dependent on having faith in some other aspects of Krishna consciousness such as Vaishnava culture or some of the more esoteric aspects of Vaishnava philosophy. Can these things be separated from having faith in the holy name or is it like a package deal?

Giriraj Swami: Faith in the holy name is most essential. Our Vaishnava culture is really meant to support our spiritual practices, but the real thing is the chanting, and that’s again Prabhupada’s faith. He came to America. He didn’t really disturb the people’s customs, but he just asked them to chant. Many of his godbrothers took objection like to the boys and girls mingling and different things. Prabhupada commented that the first thing is to introduce Krishna consciousness: yena tena prakāreṇa, somehow or the other fix the mind on Krishna and then gradually introduce the regulative principles. But if you introduce the regulative principles first without the Krishna consciousness, people will be as they say in New York, “turned off.” [laughter] They will be turned off. They will go away. They will be discouraged. They won’t come back.

Smaraṇam (remembrance) is part of our process. So when I dress like this I remember Srila Prabhupada because he dressed like this. When I see Radhanath Swami dressed the way he does, I think of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. When he dances the way he does, I think of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. When we go on yatra, sometimes we would take prasāda on the bank of a river, rice and bitter melon and spinach and things. It would remind me of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and His associates. So these different elements are conducive to remembering Prabhupada, to remembering Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So they are favorable but they come later. They shouldn’t be forced. When people would ask us, “Why do you shave your head?” We would say, “It pleases our spiritual master.” Everything we did was to please Prabhupada including chanting. When I would chant I would think, Oh, Prabhupada would be pleased if I am chanting. And if I am hearing and chanting with attention, Prabhupada will be pleased.

That was such a good question Sacinandana Swami asked. It was really a good question. It brought out hidden truths of Krishna consciousness, hidden truths of Prabhupada’s instructions.

Thank you all very much. Hare Krishna.

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!