Realizations on 64-Rounds Day

Giriraj Swami: [beginning of recording] . . . the easiest. I think it was just the easiest. Usually as I chant more rounds, the experience gets deeper, but this time it was actually the middle sixteen that was the best, but that could be related to what could have been a mistake I made which I’ll get to. Usually my principle would be to chant forty rounds before lunch and twenty-four rounds after lunch. Yesterday I thought, I’ll chant forty-eight before lunch. And I had a thought, I’ll still do twenty-four after lunch, do an extra eight.

So I did the first sixteen in the temple. Often when I really do one mantra at a time and really concentrate on the pronunciation and focus, I take longer. After a while I saw I was taking nine minutes a round. Then I got a little nervous [laughter]. Then I did pick up the speed but still I kept that focus—one mantra at a time—that’s all right.

Then I went outside for sixteen. Those were good but within that I came to a dialogue with the holy name of Krishna—that’s a polite word—argument might be more precise, because something came up. As Dravida Prabhu was saying, things come up, and it wasn’t going away. The thing about KC is that the real principle is yukta-vairāgya so you can never really know if the attachment is material or spiritual. But I felt there was a material element to it which I wanted to have purified or I wanted to know in essence it was spiritual. But I wasn’t getting any answer. It was that and then it was, “If it is spiritual let me know that and if it is material just flood my heart with mercy so it goes away.” That wasn’t happening either. It was like, “You just can’t leave me in the middle. If it is spiritual let me know then I’ll pursue it. If it is material then give me some mercy so I let go of it.” And I wasn’t getting either.

But then I came to a point which I think was good, “Okay, I don’t know what’s best for me. You know what’s best for me. So You just do whatever is best. I’ll just depend on You and accept whatever You do.” So that was the middle sixteen in the morning.

Then I got the inspiration, “Now I have to go back. I have to take shelter of Haridasa Thakura.” So I came back and those rounds were pretty good for a while. Then I took prasāda. I must say being on the receiver’s end that was some of the best prasāda you’ve cooked [laughter]. I was thinking, Wow! I was very enlivened and also feeling strong and healthy and energetic. I think this is where I might have made a mistake. I didn’t take rest. I usually take rest after lunch and my vaidhyā says, “At least twenty minutes, just relax. You don’t fall asleep. It is just relaxing.” So I didn’t do that. I came back to the temple and I didn’t have the usual edge that I have when I get close to the last rounds because I felt it was because I hadn’t taken that rest. I felt that was a mistake. As far as an insight, I think that is one insight: I have to stick to my regulation. Although I was enlivened—I wasn’t falling asleep or anything—but I just didn’t have that freshness that I would have had.

So then I went back and took a little rest after sixty-four. Then I came back and I actually felt better. The sixty-fifth was great and I thought, Wow! These last eight are going to be wonderful. But then kirtan began. That was one insight.

Later, and I guess there are different secondary benefits, I thought of a verse, very important verse and purport. I think I’ll read the verse. The translation is so nice.

This is SB, Canto Eleven, Chapter Twenty: “Pure Devotional Service Surpasses Knowledge and Detachment.”

TEXT 27

vanaukasaḥ pramuditā
vana-rājīr madhu-cyutaḥ
jala-dhārā girer nādād
āsannā dadṛśe guhāḥ

TRANSLATION

The Lord saw the joyful aborigine girls of the forest, the trees dripping sweet sap, and the mountain waterfalls, whose resounding indicated that there were caves nearby.

TEXT 28

kvacid vanaspati-kroḍe
guhāyāṁ cābhivarṣati
nirviśya bhagavān reme
kanda-mūla-phalāśanaḥ

TRANSLATION

When it rained, the Lord would sometimes enter a cave or the hollow of a tree to play and to eat roots and fruits.

COMMENT

On that point of yukta-vairāgya I felt there was some material contamination. That was a separate question whether it was essentially spiritual and I should pursue it but I did feel there was some subtle contamination, some selfish desire to enjoy. So I was relating to this. I wanted to give it up but it didn’t seem I was able to give it up within that period of sixty-four rounds.

So that was the verse and I knew these verses and purport very well. It is very significant. And then I had two thoughts, first is the different gates: the setting, the body, the mind, the heart. And then the last is grace. That’s not in our hand. So I was thinking, Is it right for me to be demanding? And then I thought of the purport to this verse and in the purport, I believe it is from Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, he says that, “Even if Krishna does not remove my material attachment, still I will not give up my service to Krishna. Even if He does not take away my material attachments but rather gives me trials and tribulations, still I will not give up my service to Krishna.” This feeling happy, “My devotee should remain happy and worship Me with great faith and conviction,” he feels happy because in a way he expects Krishna’s mercy in whatever form Krishna sends the mercy, but he is happy because he is under Krishna’s protection and he is happy because . . . not only does the devotee think, Even if Krishna doesn’t take away my attachments, still I’ll worship Krishna. There is another line, “Even if I have to go to hell to suffer for all of my offenses, still I’ll continue to serve Krishna.” So in that way the devotee is happy.

I found the reading after the rounds went very deep. Even this morning before I came to the temple I read some more in the same vain and it related to other realizations that came during the chanting. It was so deep, some of the best. I don’t know if there is such a thing as reading reform but it was natural. It was just some of the best reading. Some of the purports from the BG. Yesterday it was the BG. Some purports from the BG were just really speaking, just exactly. It is amazing.

Dravida dasa: I had a similar experience. I am in the middle of book production with this thing and I brought my computer and I hadn’t chanted sixty-four rounds before lunch. So I said, “I have to get back to chanting my sixty-four rounds,” and everyone was busy with their chanting. So I went back to my working on the BG, resetting the BG, and while I was doing it I was listening to SNS. It was incredible. He was speaking right to me. He went through these four qualities that LC [mentioned to His disciple]. A devotee is sarvata (simplicity), humility, forbearance. The mind was just clear from all the chanting and receptive and I had this experience. It struck very close. I think what it means is that all this chanting . . .

Also, during the chanting I had a similar experience with chanting. “It is dry but okay, I am just going to chant. I made this commitment to chant. There is no question of stopping the chanting.” And so I said, “HK HK . . .” It is like the same thing, whether you get it, you don’t get it, you continue the service.

I thought of RG’s example of the catakā bird that he just stands under the cloud waiting for the rain and even if the cloud doesn’t give rain—it gives thunder and lightning—he still doesn’t go anywhere else. He just waits.

Dravida dasa: I put that in a poem [recites Sanskrit]

“The catakā subsists on rain it catches in midair,
And so he is praying to the cloud to send its fair
Though that cloud may send the thunderbolt instead of rain
That bird continues praying fervently despite the pain

Just like the catakā I have fixed my mind upon one goal
And that is You, O Lord, who is kind to every fallen soul
So whether it is punishment you give or mercy sweet
I will always pray to You for service to Your lotus feet”

Giriraj Swami: Beautiful. I have one more point. I was thinking about what you said in relation to the question about humility and self-esteem and I thought your answer was really apt, but there is another phenomena which might not be exactly the same as humility which is called repentance and it is very much part of KC, very much part of spiritual advancement. And in repentance you do think about yourself. That’s true, generally humility means not that you think less of yourself but you think of yourself less, but in repentance you do think of yourself. I didn’t read the last sentence of this but it mentions that, “Even though he is sometimes engaged in sense enjoyment, My devotee knows that all sense gratification leads to a miserable result, and he sincerely repents such activities.” It comes up again and again, the verses and purports about repentance. In those two verses, api cet su-durācāro and kṣipraṁ bhavati dharmātmā, a devotee repents and that is just an aside.

Again, coming back to this purport and it is so applicable to chanting, the purport makes the point that if you become too preoccupied with wanting to give up sense gratification—it could be subtle. In most cases with devotees it is, but whatever, subtle or gross—if one becomes too preoccupied with giving up sense gratification or the enjoying spirit, then it becomes more in the mode of negation. Like the Mayavadis, they want to negate, whereas our process is really to serve Krishna, and in particular, chant the holy name. Even if all that is there, we perceive it, the enjoying spirit is there, and we repent, we regret it and we want to renounce it, but ultimately we just go on with our service. We go on with our chanting but we leave the rest to the Lord. He can do with us what He wants and we just continue our chanting.

Devotee: What was your last point?

Giriraj Swami: If we become too preoccupied with renouncing sense gratification in the spirit of enjoyment then we become like the Mayavadis more preoccupied with negation whereas our process is to serve Krishna.

Devotee: How then do we understand laulyaṁ because that desire has to be very, very strong. So that means we have to always be thinking how to get free from sense desire or sense gratification. We have to strengthen that intelligence.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, we want to do that, but it is not in our power. That is the point of the purport: it is not in our power to remove the enjoying spirit from within the heart. That will be done by the mercy of the Lord.

Devotee: I understand that but just within our power to desire strong desire. That’s the price we pay.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, we must.

Devotee: So then that has to be there, doesn’t it?

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Devotee: So what I am saying is that don’t we have to always have to be desiring really strongly, working towards freeing ourselves from the idea of sense gratification? We have to actually work really hard at it.

Giriraj Swami: Yes but what is that work? What is that work that you do to get free from it?

Devotee: Engaging in KC.

Giriraj Swami: Yes. That’s the point.

Devotee: Then you get purified and then the mercy comes.

Giriraj Swami: Yes. Hare Krishna.