0:01You can raise your hand if you have a question, Mr. Goswami. Yes, Vassan.
0:29Thank you, Gurudev.
0:32In regards to chanting the holy name, you tell us that we should mix our mind, put our mind in the mantra and the mantra in our mind and kind of mix them together. and I try and do this before chanting but then I have this sense that if Krishna is non-different from his holy name then I feel so bad that he's in my mind like I feel so bad to call him into my mind because why would he want to be there like it's not a nice place so I feel like I'm chanting with this sense of like guilt in a way more of a sense of honor, and how to get rid of this sense of guilt, and how to reconcile that, so.
1:27Yes.
1:38First of all, in Hari Bhakti Vilasa, it is said, The symptom of Japa, the characteristics of Japa is First put the mantra in your mind. That means you have your conventional experience. Your mind is whatever. Flowing with the akalyan-mayi-cinta-srota, the flow of inauspicious speculations, like the one you were just speaking about now. That's the nature of the mind, to just be a constant flow of materialistic, inauspicious thoughts. So the first thing is to put the mantra in the mind, and then put the mind in the mantra.
2:44To put the mind in the mantra means the mind has no function anymore except for the mantra.
2:54So the mano-mantram samayuktam, the mantra and the mind have become fused into one entity. So there's no room for anything like, oh, my mind is not a pure place that I feel bad about. Who is this I who is feeling bad? And where is the feeling? The feeling is also in the mind.
3:19So, if you say that my mind is not a pure place and I am feeling bad and all of these things, that means that one part of your mind is speculating with this akalyan-mayi-cinta-srota and somewhere else there's a little bit of, you know, vibration of the Mahamantra going on. So it's completely not japa at all. It's absolutely not japa. If one is speculating in this way, there is no symptom. The characteristics of japa are not there at all.
3:59So, first of all, another point is that, yes, the Mahāmantra, the holy name is Krishna, but if we're giving attention to our likes and dislikes and desires and speculations, then this is inattentiveness. So, this inattentiveness, if it's deliberate inattentiveness, then it's nāmāparādha. And if one is really trying to surrender to Krishna and hear the holy name, but the mind flickers and goes here and there, and he tries always to pull it back, then it's actually not that inattentiveness, which comes not by one's will, but against one's will, due to just the still being in an immature stage, that's not actually nāmāparādha, that will be still in the category of nāmābhāsa.
5:01In Jaiva Dharma, Srila Bhakti Vinoda Thakura explains, there are two types of obstacles to chanting, sādhāraṇa-vighna and viśeṣa-vighna, ordinary obstacle and particular or intense special obstacle, viśeṣa-vighna. So if a person is chanting and deliberately speculating at the same time, then this is called viśeṣa-vighna and viśeṣa-vighna is actually a nāmāparādha. So then that chanting, don't worry about Krishna being so pure and coming in the impure place because that chanting is not Krishna anyway, it's nāmāparādha, it's material.
5:45So then if someone has a mood of surrender and they're trying to completely become absorbed in remembering, chanting and remembering the holy name, but due to some anartha, the mind is a bit unsteady and it wanders and then he immediately brings it back. Krishna said in Bhagavad-gītā, from wherever the unsteady mind wanders, one should bring it back under the control of the self.
6:11So if one is sincerely endeavouring and not by one's own volition engaging in inattentiveness, then this is called sādhāraṇa-vighna, ordinary obstacle. And the devotee is not committing nāmāparādha, it is just one aspect of the stages of nāmābhāsa, which lead eventually to pure chanting as well. So, this is a very big problem. This is why we have described in the first aid for chanting the holy name, the first thing, sākṣī. Sākṣī, I am a witness. Witness of what? The senses are seeing the forms, the physical forms of the world. The mind is seeing what the senses are doing, and the soul is seeing what the mind is doing.
7:06So whatever is going on in the waking state when the senses and the mind are active or in the dreaming states when one is disconnected from the external world but the subtle body is still functioning and what happens in the deep sleep state also where there's no perception there's the experience of no perception all of these three phases of consciousness are not the self nothing in these three phases of consciousness is the self at all. And the self has no relationship with anything which is happening in these three phases of consciousness, with the exception of our interaction with aprākṛta-vastu, mahāprasāda, govinde, nāma-bhāminī-vaiṣṇave, the holy name, the Mahāprasāda, the deity, guru and Vaiṣṇavas, those are transcendental, even though we don't necessarily have a direct experience of their transcendental nature in our waking or dreaming or deep
8:15deep sleep state, but they should not be rejected as material. But everything else, everything else is material. And so, first of all, when we chant this sākṣitva, being situated in a state of witnesshood, that I am the pure sense of I-ness beyond the body, beyond the mind, beyond the intellect, beyond the citta even. And due to ignorance, I am, I was identifying with these things, my My consciousness was blended in, and I thought, I am my thoughts. The Jīva is never really bound. Maya gives the impression that he's bound.
9:36svayaṃ bhagavato māyā, māyā is God's energy, yan nyāyena virudhyate, and it has the power to contradict logic, it has the power to contradict reason, īśvarasya, vimuktasya, so even though the soul is īśvarasya, here īśvarasya means the soul has the īś, that means capability, the soul has the capability to be aware of himself as a spiritual being, and vimuktasya, he is always liberated, kārpaṇyam utabandanam, so how can he become the kārpaṇya, that means miserable, how can the soul become degraded in a wretched condition, the body and mind are degraded and in a wretched condition, you can have a sāttvic body that becomes a rājasic body that becomes a tāmasic body, but how can ātma become kārpaṇyam, degraded, utabandanam, what to speak of, how can he be bound,
10:49in any way. But, though the soul is not bound, though the soul is not degraded, but māyā can contradict reason, can contradict logic, and give that conscious transcendental being the sense that he is bound and in this world. So, sākṣitva, this is the first thing. Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī-pāda explains in the Bhagavad-gītā commentary, that sākṣī means witness. So, bhakti, pure bhakti does not begin.
11:30Śaraṇāgati, has not been done, surrender, and tṛṇād api sunīcena, being more humble than a blade of grass, these three things, they have not been achieved, unless one is situated in sākṣitva, the quality of witnesshood, so instead of sitting down completely in the three guṇas, churning with thoughts, I am this and I am that, and I think this and I think that, and this is what I like and this is what I don't like, This is just external mental pollution coming from the three guṇas and saṃskāras of past life and this life The first thing we have to do is surrender, tṛṇād api sunīcena, be more humble than a blade of grass, become situated in sākṣitva, witnesshood
12:21I am not this body, I am not this mind, I am ātma, ātma is transcendental And see whatever is going on in the mind from the objective vantage point of the self And it's easy to do.
12:42In the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha, Sanātana Gosvāmī, also in Bhagavad-gītā, rīti-kāmatā, quotes from the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha. And there, it is said that: As easy as it is To pluck a flower, As easy as it is To close one's eyes, That's how easy it is To give up the false ego. Then do it, just do it.
13:05Because the one thing that the ātmā has Is its own power to desire And draw the senses and mind Towards itself.
13:16So if one hears, "You are not this body, you are not this mind, you are ātmā," which is a pure sense of I-ness, and he is doing sādhana and some sattva-guṇa, a mode of goodness is coming, then just by this ahaṃ brahmāsmi, "I am spirit"—ahaṃ brahmāsmi doesn't mean that you are para-brahma, just means that we are spirit—then he can be detached from these things.
13:55It's true that because the mind is unsteady and the guṇas are there, it can come back. But anyway, just when one sits down to chant, then leave these things behind and surrender to Kṛṣṇa, surrender to the holy name, and then he can be situated in sākṣitva. It's not a difficult thing for a person to do.
14:19The problem is we don't want to do it, because to be situated in sākṣitva means to deny our ability to exploit and enjoy the material world. You cannot have the bhogya-bhāva, the mood that the sense objects are to be enjoyed by me, and be in sākṣitva at the same time. We cannot have the anyābhilāṣa and be in sākṣitva at the same time.
15:01This is why Śrīla Bhakti Sāgara Ṭhākura said: This sākṣitva, it coincides with śaraṇāgati. It coincides with tṛṇād api sunīcena.
15:19So don't speculate, hear the holy name. But it's unbearable. As long as we want to somehow or other lord it over this world and enjoy this world, it's unbearable. We cannot tolerate it. So, this is why in the tenth offence of the holy name, It is an offence to maintain the conception of the material mind and thereby show the absence of affection for the holy name.
16:20nāma-śrutvā, nāmātmā-śrutvā-pi, even though one has heard the teachings about the glories of the holy name—this is important, because let's say for example, someone has not heard about nāma-tattva, someone has not heard the siddhānta, of ātmā-tattva, and all of these things, then, if they were just somehow or other, they see the sign, there's a shop called Krishna's, incense shop or whatever, Krishna's bookstore, and they say Krishna, they chant nāmābhāsa, it's nāmābhāsa, why?
17:07It's not nāmāparādha, they're not committing the 10th nāmāparādha, because there's some condition on the 10th nāmāparādha, that is, even after hearing so many instructions on this matter, you see? So, one who has not heard nāmā-tattva and siddhānta from the lips of guru, they can easily chant nāmābhāsa. But once we've heard this, if knowingly and deliberately we are maintaining the material attachments to "I" and "mine," it shows a lack of love.
17:40Ya prīti-rahitau nāmā, you become prīti-rahita, the absence of love for Kṛṣṇa and absence of love for the holy name. And then this becomes a nāmā-aparādha. So there's a difference between just the general person—they can chant nāmā-bhāsa very easily. But once one has come into Vaiṣṇava association and heard, now you have to—you can't just hear the philosophy and then reject it and then still chant without committing nāmā-aparādha.
18:13Because with knowledge comes responsibility. If a child will go into a shop and grab some pens and pencils and walk out, no one will do it. They'll just give him a slap and take it back. But if an adult will go in and grab a handful of pens and pencils and walk out, he'll be arrested, because he has knowledge.
18:33So with knowledge comes responsibility. So deliberate on these things very carefully. This is why I have written this book, First Aid for Chanting the Holy Name, because the Buddhists, they're sitting there for 30, 40 years, oh, what about this and what about that, Hare Krista, Hare Krista. not going anywhere, going nowhere, in many cases going down, even. So try to be introspective. This is really the power of introspection. If a person is extrovert, but they're forced to sit in one place and not do anything, they'll try to be extrovert while being introvert. You understand? In other words, the soul is consciousness, and it has the energy of consciousness also.
19:36the jnangun, the quality of consciousness that emanates from itself and it extends from the soul into the mind and into the senses and then into the world. So the general person is extrovert and their consciousness is flowing out, out into the mind, into the senses and into the world all the time. So are the extroverts.
20:06So if a person who still has that extrovert mood by force somehow or other, their boss at work makes them go on a Buddhist Vipassana retreat where they're not allowed to speak for whatever, 9, 10 days, then they'll just sit. But instead of being situated in the self and withdrawing the awareness of the self from the external world and the senses and even from the mind, then what will they do? They will sit and they'll go out as far as they can go, which means they go into the mind and then just do the brahmanda parakrama, wonder all over the world but in your mind, you see?
21:00So even though the physical body is parked in one place, but somehow or other, out of the habit, the externalist habit, then somehow or other, I'll just go all over the place in my mind. I'll go to New Zealand, I'll go to Hawaii, I'll go to Russia, I'll go to Loi Bazaar shopping, like this. Just cannot tolerate.
21:29You know, in the Brahma guide he said, Om Burbuvaswaha, so Parampujhapad, Srila Bhakti Rakshak, Srila Goswami Maharaj, he said, he said that, of course, this poetry is describing, how Krishna is Shakti man and everything, his is Shakti, si si radha shama, sundar ju ki jae bha, ad bhutu, so even though, that aspect of the poetry is there, he said, another meaning is this, that Burbuvaswaha, means,
22:27I meditate on Krishna, who is like the sun, Krishna, surya, sama, maya, haya, andaka, Krishna is like the sun and maya is like darkness, but the darkness of maya has its phase transitions, it's quantumized, the material energy is one, but it has the phase transitions into the various subtle and gross elements, so here, burbuvaswaha means the plane of the sun,
23:04the senses, the plane of the mind, and the plane of the intellect. So, I am meditating on that Krishna, who is beyond the plane of the senses, beyond the plane of the mind, and beyond the plane of the intellect. So, we have to remember this, that when we chant the holy name, we are not trying to loiter, to hover in the gross or physical plane,
23:48or to meditate on any gross or physical thing. But the holy name, Purna, Sudho, Nitya, Mukta, Abhinatham, Nama, Namino, that name which is Krishna himself is Purna. It is complete. It does not include any of the limitations of time and space. Mukta. It is beyond this world. Sudha. It is not part of the three gunas. It is Vishuddha Sattva.
24:25and the puna, sudho, nitya, mukto, eternal. So, this is the name that we are calling. So, when it is described that, this is why we discussed first, it's just the first part, our soul, when we first come to attend Japa, our habit is always to go out. So, at least, don't let the senses go out into the external world.
24:59the consciousness may go as far as the mind but you have to put the mantra in the mind and the mind in the mantra and by this it will automatically achieve pratyahara. Pratyahara means the withdrawal of the soul's consciousness from the gross and even the subtle, the subtle world of the mind to be situated in the self and then to realize that the self is situated in Krishna and so even this instruction to put the mantra in the mind and the mind in the mantra.
25:43This is just a preliminary thing, to turn back the flow, the external flow, to reverse the extroverted habits.
26:01In Jaiva Dharma also, Srila Bhakti Nautakwa explains this, that if one will just hear the holy name and be absorbed in that, it will turn the tide, the tide of your jnan-gun, the quality of awareness is going out and the sound of the holy name will turn it back in on itself and therefore even especially loud kirtan, loud kirtan is so powerful that even though your eyes are open and you are seeing all the devotees chanting and dancing but the loud kirtan makes the reversal of the flow from extroversion to introversion.
26:40from Vimukata to Krishnan Mukata, from Baha Mukata to Antara Mukata, like that. So the holy name is so powerful. But it will be powerful if we fully absorb ourselves in hearing the holy name. If we're half thinking of the holy name and half on the platform of manas, buddhi, and ahankara, and letting the mind just wander all over the world speculating, then that will be inattention.
27:12chanting and the namabhasa, the first rays of the holy name will not do what they do most effectively and that is obliterate the darkness of ignorance and give some vision of the srupa of Krishna. Namabhasa will achieve all of these things. So consider this. This is very important. Don't come with the baggage of the body and the senses and the false ego and the whole history.
27:52whole life history, and then sit down, and look at all of these things, and chant at the same time, namaha, namaha, obeisances, doesn't mean that I have come here attached to all my worldly baggage, and being stuck in the mud, and the filth of the material consciousness, I will put some tilak on it, hmm, no, namaha, nam means nivriti, give up, ma means aham,
28:31mamati, identification, deliberate on these things. If we associate with worldly-minded persons whose flow is always external, then we'll tend to be like that. And this is why it's so important to associate with advanced devotees who will not pander to our superficiality. They will cut it at every step, at every step of the way.
29:13This is why persons who are not sincere, they don't like sadhu sangha, they want to be with the bahiranga, with the crowds of people who are externalists, because they will tolerate and give excuses and concessions, and even call it spiritual, to be always in a state of a false ego, always manorate in asati dhava tobahi, you know, in Bhagavatam he says,
30:57prakirtita. It's a definition of mantra. The mind is always churning and deliberating on so many worldly samskaras, impressions. That's what the mind does. That's the akalyan, may chintasro, the inauspicious flow of one speculation after another. And so, because tra, it trayate, yasmat, tasman, mantra, prakirtita, because it delivers one from this inauspicious flow of mental interference. Therefore, it's called mantra. So, to take up this path of spiritual life means to kill the mind. Soul is transcendental, physical body is here. What is the interface which is connecting the soul to the body and giving him the impression of the suffering of material existence? That is the mind.
32:38So, but we don't want, we identify with our minds, and the mind is screaming and kicking and resisting. No, I don't want to die. I don't want to go in the fire. How will I enjoy the world?
33:02But Prabhupada Bhaktisana Suttako gave a beautiful example. He was quoting from an English poet, Lord Byron, you know, very famous poet, Lord Byron. So there he wrote a poem saying one phrase, like a scorpion geared by fire, that means it's old English, a scorpion surrounded by fire. If a scorpion is surrounded by fire, then do you know what he does?
33:52He turns the sting of his own tail on himself and he bites himself because then he'll die quickly from his own poison and will not experience the slow agonizing being burnt to death. So, Bhaktistan Suttaka said, if a person is wandering within this world, and, of course, he is suffering so much, and he sees that everything is bleak, there is only death, old age, disease, destruction, and this will go on lifetime after lifetime, and there is no escape, he has no shelter anywhere, then that soul will queave.
34:41He said, then, Bhaktisthan Suttaka was quoting from the Psalms, I believe, Psalm, from 6th, 6th Psalm, and he said, then, he will wet his couch with the tears, and he will cry so much, and the Lord in his heart will arrange for him to meet Guru, and then, when he meets Guru, and learns that, oh, you can surrender to the Supreme Lord by devotion, Then he said, then his own mind becomes like a scorpion girt by fire. So just as the scorpion turns on himself and finishes himself, because he sees fire everywhere and there's no escape.
35:33So, in the same way, your mind, realizing that there's fire everywhere, samsara, dava, nalalita, loka, there's fire everywhere and there's no escape, then you have to, the soul has to order the mind to bite itself, and that is what japa is. japa, japa is the process whereby the mind becomes digested by the fire of bhakti, gone, dead, ram nam satyahe, and then when there's no more mind, material mind, material functioning mind, then soul is liberated in this life, so that's jivan mukta, that's why a pure devotee, even though the pure devotee looks as if they are here, but they are not, they have awareness of what is going on here, but they're not bound, They have divine experience, their kripa-bhaktilatras pierce the covering of the universe so they have vision of the spiritual world
36:39And for the sake of preaching, Krishna, his kripa-shakti adjusts the vision so they see the world through the eyes of a Madhyam Bhagavat He's not Madhyam, he's Uttam Bhagavat, but the kripa-shakti adjusts the vision that he can see through the eyes of the Madhyam Bhagavat So that devotee can discriminate because uttama-bhāgavata will see everyone's a pure devotee except for me.
37:08But when the Kṛpā-śakti comes and adjusts the vision, then he can recognize this person is a non-devotee, this person is a neophyte devotee, this person is more advanced, this person is perfect devotee. He can see these things and interact with them accordingly like this.
37:32So, no, be aware of what we are doing. It's very serious. When we sit to chant every day, then our mind is like that scorpion. The mind is being engaged in such a way to extinguish itself. That's the meaning of nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa means to complete extinguish, the extinguishing of the fire of material existence. But the Buddhist idea of nirvāṇa is speculation.
38:02Meditation. But we are burning and digesting the subtle body. So the soul becoming free from the influence of avidyā realizes that he is transcendental. And by the process of dīkṣā, the soul, he receives a spiritual body and spiritual mind and senses, which are always kṛṣṇonmukha. They don't have that spiritual body, mind and senses don't have any material engagements at all. So pay attention.
38:42to be very deliberate in asserting the desire to serve Krishna. Otherwise, one will live in a state of just mental interference all the time, with the faint sound of Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna going on somewhere in the background. No, we have to be completely āviṣṭa, completely absorbed in the holy name, and then the pratyāhāra will take place, and when we become introspective, then that is the bird in the tree, turning to his friend, the bird that was eating fruits, sometimes sweet and sometimes sour, then that bird is turning and we say, ah, Krishna, you are there, you are always there, you are my best friend, you are my mother, my father, my everything.
40:14It's amazing, by the influence of māyā, we think, oh, how can I do this, it would be terrible. Everything's already terrible. If you do this, it will be, everything will be wonderful.
40:27But the influence of māyā makes everything inverted, upside down.
40:34Śrī Hari-nāma Prabhu kī jaya!
