CONNECT WITH THE SUPREME POWER HOUSE – KRSNA!

We had been chanting from some time now and I am happy to see you chanting because I know of “Chant Hare Krishna and be Happy!” When you become happy , I also become happy. When we see so many of us chanting then there is much more happiness! It’s Anand-sagar. We see at 400 places devotees are chanting so in total you are chanting with 700 to 800 devotees.

Chanting is a serious business.Yogi bhava! Krsna wants us to become bhakti-yogis. When we chant, do our Japa, the goal is to become Bhakti-yogis, linking with the Lord with devotion.

kṛṣṇa-varṇaṁ tviṣākṛṣṇaṁ
sāṅgopāṅgāstra-pārṣadam
yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyair
 yajanti hi su-medhasaḥ

In the Age of Kali, intelligent persons perform congregational chanting to worship the incarnation of Godhead who constantly sings the names of Kṛṣṇa. Although His complexion is not blackish, He is Kṛṣṇa Himself. He is accompanied by His associates, servants, weapons and confidential companions.(S.B.11.5.32)

Bhagavatam says intelligent people will perform sankirtana yajna. So this chanting is not the job of the less intelligent. At the beginning of today’s session, we were trying to connect our all apparatus here with power. Externally everything seemed to be intact, the switch was there, the cord was there, and it was connected with the computer, still there was no current. The current was off and on , off and on. Then I was thinking as I am a big thinker – okay we have come, we are sitting down for chanting. We have done yama niyama which are the preparations. Asana is in order by sitting properly. Asana does not mean only sitting, but also where we are sitting and also pranayam. I have talked about this pranayam in the past. You have to take a deep breath and chant the maha mantra. Some devotees chant 5 mantras and then they take a deep breath again. Some devotees chant this way. It’s very helpful. To take a deep breath, you have to sit straight. When we take a deep breath , we become refreshed. This will also help you to stay awake. These are the benefits.

Unless you take in a lot of air you are not going to chant. The tongue must vibrate and the lips must be used. Prabhupada used to say this. Otherwise we will be doing ‘snick snick hare hare’. Some people in ISKCON keep chanting like this. So there will not be any boost. There has to be some vibrations. That won’t happen unless the lungs are filled with air. So try this. A lot of time it’s not clear whether we are breathing out or in. This should be two different acts. Sometimes we are breathing in or breathing out, if it’s not clearly demarcated then as a result we miss out on some of the mantras. We eat it. It goes inside. Take a deep breath and while breathing out say the mantra.

Then it’s clear. Krishna consciousness means clear consciousness. So as I was explaining, we have done everything, yama – niyama , asana, pranayam etc. Then we chant,

HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA
KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE
HARE RAMA HARE RAMA
RAMA RAMA HARE HARE

These are the steps according to patanjali yoga which we accept. Although these first four steps are necessary, still they are external. Your real yoga hasn’t yet begin. This is a kind of setting the
scene in the yoga. After doing all this serious yoga begins from the fifth step. That is pratyahara.

Yesterday we were talking about
atyāhāraḥ prayāsaś ca
prajalpo niyamāgrahaḥ

jana-saṅgaś ca laulyaṁ ca
ṣaḍbhir bhaktir vinaśyati

One’s devotional service is spoiled when he becomes too entangled in the following six activities: (1) eating more than necessary or collecting more funds than required; (2) over-endeavoring for mundane things that are very difficult to obtain; (3) talking unnecessarily about mundane subject matters; (4) practicing the scriptural rules and regulations only for the sake of following them and not for the sake of spiritual advancement, or rejecting the rules and regulations of the scriptures and working independently or whimsically; (5) associating with worldly-minded persons who are not interested in Kṛṣṇa consciousness; and (6) being greedy for mundane achievements. ( NOI Verse 2)

You should not have done it, but you did which is atyāhāraḥ prayāsaś ca prajalpo etc. Eating too much, accumulating too much etc. will lead to destruction. You will lose the devotion. You will not be a yogi. One of those six items were atyāhāraḥ – too much eating, too much accumulation which we have done in past – yesterday or the day before. We should avoid excess. We had been doing atyachar. When we say ahar we think of the food that we eat. In the book Bhaktyaloka Bhaktivinoda Thakura explains that each of our senses have its own aha or object of senses.

Every sense has a sense object. The tongue has food. For eyes it’s form. For ears it is sounds – all the sounds, cinema songs etc. For nose, smell. So atyāhāraḥ means uncontrolled feeding of the senses by conditioned souls. We had been feeding our senses too much – eating too much, seeing too much. Or seeing objects which we should not have seen. Thus all our senses have been fed in this way.

nidrayā hriyate naktaṁ
vyavāyena ca vā vayaḥ
divā cārthehayā rājan
kuṭumba-bharaṇena vā

The lifetime of such an envious householder is passed at night either in sleeping or in sex indulgence, and in the daytime either in making money or maintaining family members.( SB. 2.1.3) We are getting up early morning and what are we thinking? How to make money? Money where is money, sweeter than honey. How you can use the money? To feed the family, to feed the senses of the family. Feed all the senses of all the family members. Feed the eyes, feed the nose, feed the skin. This is what we are talking about in atyāhāraḥ. So for yoga we have to do pratyahaar. Counteract. While doing Japa, all that atyāhāraḥ we had been doing have left the impressions upon the mind.

yatato hy api kaunteya
purusasya vipascitah
indriyani pramathini
haranti prasabham manah

The senses are so strong and impetuous, O Arjuna, that they forcibly carry away the mind even of a man of discrimination who is endeavoring to control them. (BG 2.60) Tukaram Maharaja says, “ papachi vasana nako davu dola tyahuni aandhala barach me” which means ‘better make me blind than having various different desires, that I will see some sinful cinema or some sinful acts.’ This is Tukaram Maharaj’s statement also. Better make me blind, if I am going to make use of eyes in such a way. So this is pratyahaar. When we sit down and start chanting,then we have to make sure that the connection is made. We connected those instruments – laptop and cord and this and that. Everything looks intact, but there is no current. Something was wrong. So we have done yama-niyama, pranayam, asana etc. But are we getting connected with the Lord? The power house? He is the Power House, the source of all the power.

So just to conclude, we can say that this is the job of the intelligent. The role of intelligence will now
begin. Before also we have to do all the yama niyam pranayam etc. intelligently. Now we will have to have sharper intelligence, beyond the pratyahara stage. So the further steps of dhyan and dharana can be performed more intelligently. When we sit and chant. Who is going to be active? THE MIND. So now the play will begin. Mind will become active and make you run – where you had gone yesterday. It will bring those scenes of the night before and the day before, two days before, could be of last lifetime. Mind starts functioning. But we want the soul to be active. We want to awake the soul , we want it to feel.

nitya-siddha kṛṣṇa-prema ‘sādhya’ kabhu naya
śravaṇādi-śuddha-citte karaye udaya

Pure love for Kṛṣṇa is eternally established in the hearts of the living entities. It is not something to
be gained from another source. When the heart is purified by hearing and chanting, this love naturally awakens.( CC Madhya 22.107) When we are sitting to chant, we want our soul to be motivated and activated. Soul should experience love for the Lord. Revive our dormant love for the Lord. While hearing

HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA
KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE
HARE RAMA HARE RAMA
RAMA RAMA HARE HARE.

That way we are expressing our affection for the Lord. We want to arouse genuine love in the heart. Mind is going to be active. It can run back or run ahead. I did this yesterday and today I have to do this. Then

brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā
na śocati na kāṅkṣati
samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu
mad-bhaktiṁ labhate parām

One who is thus transcendentally situated at once realizes the Supreme Brahman and becomes fully joyful. He never laments or desires to have anything. He is equally disposed toward every living entity. In that state he attains pure devotional service unto Me.( BG. 18.54) Mind does this śocati, lamentation for the past, something which we were not able to do materially, and then we aspire to do something. This is my goal in this lifetime. I want to achieve this. So the mind goes back and forth between the past and the future. But during chanting we want to be in the present tense with the Lord. This chanting is the practice. We have to do it day in and day out using the intelligence. This is abhyas. Practice makes a man and woman perfect. We have to be alert using our intelligence and watch our mind. Our attention should be on our mind. Where is the mind? What is the mind thinking? Then what does intelligence do. It discriminates. sad asad buddha is the function of intelligence. This is temporary, this is permanent, and so on. With the use of intelligence we keep making those decisions at every step. Not that intelligence has to be applied occasionally. No , intelligence has to be applied throughout the day and night and specially at the time of chanting. You could also pray that the Lord gives you such intelligence. One person’s intelligence may think this is good and another person may think this is not good. My mother would also ask me to pray, “ Oh Lord give me intelligence”. Finally the Lord gave me intelligence and I

became a devotee of Krsna and joined Hare Krishna Land Juhu. Then she started thinking, ‘What kind of intelligence has the Lord given?’ She was unhappy about it. There are two kinds of intelligence – mundane and spiritual. Highly educated, so called intelligence of this world is no intelligence. Maya steals the intelligence. So we have to understand, what kind of intelligence.

teṣāṁ satata-yuktānāṁ
bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrvakam
dadāmi buddhi-yogaṁ taṁ
yena mām upayānti te

To those who are constantly devoted to serving Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me.( B.G. 10.10) We want that intelligence, which brings us closer to Krsna. During our Festival of Asadhi Ekadasi we could also have a Japa retreat. Two three mornings, we can do japa retreat. Chant together and talk together. That could be another feature of chanting. Anyway we will be chanting in our Zoom session. Japa talk has become long as I am talking in two languages. Okay see you in Pandharpur. Radha-Pandharinatha ki Jai!
Hare Krishna!