Retreat—04 Chanting with Appreciation and Feeling Level 02

Giriraj Swami: Many years ago, I saw a film about a child prodigy, who was gifted with an ability to play the piano. So, his parents were very ambitious for him to pursue a career, and I guess he was admitted into a special school, and he, I guess, chose to perform a Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto, which is considered the most difficult piece anyone could play. And he practiced, and practiced, and practiced, and finally, he mastered it. It was very difficult, but he mastered it technically. But he didn’t stop, because he felt that the real performance wasn’t to be able to technically play the notes and keep the time, but his goal was to be able to master the technical aspects so well, that when it was time to actually perform, he wouldn’t even have to think about it, and he could put his whole heart into the music, without having to think of the technical aspect.

So, we’ve been hearing how to align our body and mind, the different technical aspects of japa, and then once we’ve mastered, or along with the effort to align our body and mind properly, we want to put our heart into our chanting. Personally, I found the Cathedral of Sound to be very powerful. Just within a short period, we were elevated to really hear the holy name, vibrate with the holy name, and by the mercy of His Holiness Sacinandana Swami and the Cathedral of Sound.

And when I opened my eyes, I looked at Sri Sri Radha-Kanhaiyalal, and I felt a sense of longing for Them, for Their service, and I also felt that by Their mercy, They had brought us here, given us the chance to experience the holy name, and really take up the process that would bring us to Them, and I thought of this longing. Srila Prabhupada said this longing is the price that one has to pay to become Krishna conscious.

Srila Prabhupada often quoted this verse kṛṣṇa-bhakti-rasa-bhāvitā matiḥ. Actually, that phrase, kṛṣṇa-bhakti-rasa-bhāvitā matiḥ, which is translated in Caitanya-caritāmṛta by him as to be absorbed in the mellows of executing devotional service to Krishna. It’s a very rich phrase, kṛṣṇa-bhakti-rasa-bhāvitā. He said, “That is the actual derivation of the phrase Krishna consciousness.” When Srila Prabhupada uses the term ‘Krishna consciousness,’ he actually means kṛṣṇa-bhakti-rasa-bhāvitā. 

TEXT 70

“ ‘Pure devotional service in Kṛṣṇa consciousness cannot be had even by pious activity in hundreds and thousands of lives. It can be attained only by paying one price — that is, intense greed to obtain it. If it is available somewhere, one must purchase it without delay.’ ”

COMMENT

And so many of our acharyas express the mood of longing, and by reading their prayers, we can get a sense of that mood, and then when we chant under the right circumstances, we can also feel the sense of longing.

One of the most famous in our line was the verse that was recited by Madhavendra Puri in his last days.

TEXT 197

“O My Lord! O most merciful master! O master of Mathurā! When shall I see You again? Because of My not seeing You, My agitated heart has become unsteady. O most beloved one, what shall I do now?”

COMMENT

And there is a nice one by Prahlada Maharaja that I thought of. Prayer to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva.

TEXT 16

O most powerful, insurmountable Lord, who are kind to the fallen souls, I have been put into the association of demons as a result of my activities, and therefore I am very much afraid of my condition of life within this material world. When will that moment come when You will call me to the shelter of Your lotus feet, which are the ultimate goal for liberation from conditional life?

COMMENT

And there is a song by Bhaktivinoda Thakura, kabe ha’be bolo se-dina amar, and that’s a sort of longing or hankering that we can experience specifically in relation to chanting, “Please tell me when will that day be mine, when my offenses will end, and a taste for the pure holy name will be infused within my heart by the power of divine grace? Considering myself lower than a blade of grass, bringing the quality of forbearance into my heart, showing respect to all, myself being freed from all false pride, when will I taste the essence of the liquid nectar of the holy name?”

And he goes on expressing many of the same sentiments that we find in the Śikṣāṣṭakam, and just sort of going higher and higher in his mood of ecstatic longing. And then he says, “I shall buy and plunder the mellows of the name of Hari, and becoming thoroughly intoxicated by those liquid mellows of the holy name, I shall become stunned. By touching the feet of those great souls who are able to relish those mellows, I will be constantly immersed in the sweet nectar of the holy name.”

And then after expressing all of these wonderful sentiments to relish the nectar of the holy name, to relish the nectar of Krishna consciousness, he concludes in verse eight, “When will there be an awakening of compassion for all fallen souls, and when will this Bhaktivinoda Thakura, forgetting his own happiness, with a meek heart set out to propagate by humble entreaty the sacred order of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu?”

So, that’s part of the awakening of Krishna consciousness, part of the relishing of the nectar of the holy name, that one feels compassion for the fallen souls, and one expresses one’s appreciation and love by wanting to bring others to the holy name, to Krishna, and that pleases the holy name more, pleases Krishna more, Srila Prabhupada always told us. I was a little intrigued by Mahatma Prabhu’s story, which I had never heard before. But one day, about six weeks ago, I woke up, and I couldn’t chant japa. What happened was that I think I got arthritis in my right wrist. My right wrist was swollen, but I did chant, but the gout got worse, and it was becoming very painful.

So, I went to a rheumatologist, and he said, “You have to give your wrist a complete rest.” And I couldn’t imagine not chanting japa. So, I said, “Well, what will happen if I don’t give it a complete rest?” He said, “It’ll get worse and worse and worse.” He said, “You don’t want to do that.” And he suggested I get a splint at the pharmacy and put it in the splint and just don’t move it.

On another occasion, Mahatma Prabhu said that when we go to sleep at night, we tend to think that when we wake up the next morning, everything’s going to be the same, but it isn’t always the same. And we know it’s going to happen, as Maharaja said, we know the waves of maya are there and they are going to push us somewhere that we don’t want to be or push someone else somewhere that we don’t want them to be.

So, we can’t really take anything for granted. I mean, I took it for granted. I mean, every morning that I’ve woken up for the last thirty-two years or whatever, I’ve been able to chant japa, but one morning, I woke up and I couldn’t, and then I really appreciated it. What a little thing your right wrist is, how important it is. And I realized, as Srila Prabhupada said, “We are completely dependent on Krishna for everything.” Even the atheists, they are dependent on Krishna for the power to think of their atheistic arguments, and the ability to articulate them.

So, we are completely dependent, just to move our finger, to move our tongue, to move our lips, to hear, to think, to feel, we are completely dependent on the mercy of the Lord, and we should be conscious of it. We are dependent on Him for the air we breathe, the water we drink, for the food we eat, for everything. But not only does He give us all of the elements we need to sustain ourselves physically and spiritually, but He is ready to give Himself to us, and He does give Himself to us as the holy name, but the degree to which He reveals Himself to us depends on the degree of our surrender.

So, Krishna, as we know, is not different from the holy name, or the holy name is Krishna. We know in theory, and when we approach the holy name as Krishna, as our best friend, as our guide, and try to revive our relationship with Him, deepen our relationship with Him, He will reciprocate. But in that process, when we see how incapable we are, how far we are, that’s when humility awakens. Dainya, humility is very necessary for any progress in devotional service.

If you read the description in Antya-līlā, Chapter Twenty, at the end of Caitanya-caritāmṛta about Śikṣāṣṭakam, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself reciting and tasting the Śikṣāṣṭakam, He would recite one verse, and think of Krishna, and humility would awaken. And that humility enables us to really take shelter.

At the japa retreat in Joshua Tree, as I was approaching the end of the sixty-four rounds, I was really feeling insignificant. I mean, understanding that I was just an insignificant living entity, which according to shastra, the tip of the hair is a point, you could say, and if you take that point and divide it into a hundred parts, then you take one of those parts, and divide it into another hundred parts, that’s how big you are. That’s how big the living entity is.

So, I was thinking, Boy, a blade of grass is really big compared to what I actually am. I’m nothing compared to a blade of grass, I hardly exist. And then one can be in that mood. But the association of devotees is also so important, because we are so insignificant, and the waves of maya are so strong, we really need the shelter of the association of devotees.