The Glories of Chanting

 

Podcast, 2007-06-04 

Link: https://sivaramaswami.media/audio/SRS_20070604_TOR.mp3/ 

 

Japa was extraordinarily wonderful experience this morning. I have not completed all my rounds and I did not really want to stop, then this podcast would have gone up really, really too late. So I did. Still chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa is so wonderful, so much the only real activity that we have, everything else being complementary to it, secondary to it, meant to help us increase our attachment for it, calling out, like Śrīla Prabhupāda would say, as a child calls out to his mother, we are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa.

But what does it mean, chanting Hare Krishna like a child? Because there is Caitanya Mahāprabhu who says,

 ayi nanda-tanūja kiṅkaraṁ patitaṁ  

[Cc. Antya 20.32, Śikṣāṣṭaka 5]

 that I am fallen.

We are fallen in this material world. We are in this material condition. And like a mother, when she sees that her child has fallen on the ground and is crying, what does she do? She does not leave him there, but she opens up her arms, she bows down and she lifts him up. She lifts that baby up to where she is, places her to her breast and embraces her.

So when we are also chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, we are crying out for Kṛṣṇa, begging for Kṛṣṇa. I am also patitaṁ, I am also fallen here in this material existence. It is not a place that I like, it is a horrible place. Although there may be so many nice facilities, but it is a place where I am separate from Kṛṣṇa. Please lift me up.

We want Kṛṣṇa to extend his hands. We are looking upward to him. Upward means not particularly in a direction above our heads, but reaching out rather with our hearts to Kṛṣṇa in that place, where he is.  And we are asking him to lift us up, to bring us close to him, to embrace him, to lift us from this material platform, and bring us up to the spiritual platform.

And in the same way, Caitanya Mahāprabhu says,

sthita-dhūlī-sadṛśaṁ vicintaya [Cc. Antya 20.32, Śikṣāṣṭaka 5]

 Please make me situated like a particle of dust.

 So once again, we want to be situated in a different place. We do not want to be here in the material world. We want to be situated at the lotus feet of the Lord. We want to be where he is. He meaning Kṛṣṇa is always transparently situated. It means that he has lotus feet. As that he is always above the influence of matter. We want to always so be spiritually situated on the same spiritual platform as he, and that is called samadhi, samādhi, samadhi. That we are dhī, our consciousness, our mentality should be situated in the same place as his is.

This desire to be spiritually situated, to achieve the spiritual platform, to be free from the fetters and miseries material existence. But better yet, to actually be able to render pure devotional service with spiritually enlivened, purified senses in knowledge of, as Lord Caitanya says,

ayi nanda-tanūja kiṅkaraṁ [Cc. Antya 20.32, Śikṣāṣṭaka 5]

Kiṅkara means to actually be a servant. Kim kara, it is such a beautiful word. Kim kara or kim kari. Kim means what, and kara - do. So – “what can I do?” Is it not a wonderful world? When you are just in that mentality, what can I do?

As Śrīla Prabhupāda also wrote to his guru maharāja in his last letter, he says:

- What service can I render?

When one has no other identity other than this, kiṅkara, what can I do? Then he's called a kiṅkara or a kiṅkarī. So, then he is situated in his original spiritual position. Being situated in an original position with purified senses, we want to be able to render service to Kṛṣṇa like that. It is not suitable being in this material world, even if we are fortunate enough to be situated in the mode of goodness. Still, the distraction of happiness that comes from transcendental knowledge of being freed from material miseries and peaceful, that is also not a spiritual platform. Because, although it may be a peaceful situation, it is still foreign to our real spiritual identity.

So, in this way, our japa is for real. Our chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa is calling out to Kṛṣṇa:

-  Please, please, lift me up to that place where you are.

And it requires him to lift us up. Just like a child cannot, on his own, climb up into the lap of his mother. A little baby cannot do that. It requires lifting up, and that is called sādhana. So,

 kṛti-sādhyā bhavet sādhya-

 bhāvā sā sādhanābhidhā (CC, Madhya 22.105)

Rūpa Gosvāmī says:  This is sadhana. When your mentality, the mood of devotion by which one is chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, you are doing everything, is just to come to that really satisfactory place of rendering the original service, which is the spiritual platform.

This type of abhimān, or identity, conception, absorption is what we want. Japa is not just pacing back and forth to finish our round, to get things finished so we can actually get on with the important thing of our service, but rather being absorbed in a certain mood.

This morning, while chanting, I was also meditating or thinking upon wonderful verse of Raghunātha Dāsa Goswāmī, where he is also lamenting or rather praying for that time, when he will be able to see Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa as they are scrolling through the forest of Vrindāvan arm in arm, singing songs of each other's glorification, while the flowers, or rather the trees shower flowers upon them, and perhaps other gopīs also scattering flowers in their way. The birds are also singing in chorus and accompaniment to their songs. In fact, everything - the leaves, the rustling of the trees by the wind, everything is also participating in the glorification of the Divine Couple. And as they are strolling along with radiant smiles, side-long glances, and all those who see them, become overwhelmed with bliss, and even those who are absorbed in thought of them, feel a great art-search of emotion within your heart.

But still, I am unfortunate, because I am having to think about this, I am having to try to be absorbed in such thoughts, rather than actually be at that place where those things are taking place.

So we cry out, Hare Kṛṣṇa , Hare Rama! Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, Lord Krishna, if perhaps while they are strolling like this, they actually hear such real heartfelt call, that heartfelt call, which rises above the rustling of the leaves of Vrindāvan and the sounds of musical instruments played by their associates, and perhaps they will also look down and reach up and also lift up those souls, who sing with loud enough spiritual emotion to attract their attention.

Then, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa  will be for real, and meditation will not be long longer a exercise of the mind, but it is simply the natural perception of the senses that our eyes are able to see the form of the Lord, our ears hear their voices, our nose - the natural fragrance of Vrindāvan Dhāma, perhaps one day that wonderful opportunity will come. All we can do is simply chant.

 Hare Krishna.