0:27Yes, yesterday you were mentioning that there's different names, like root names and different names in the marketplace with the whole name, and today it was mentioned that if you're materialistic and you chant, will you still achieve those higher names if you're materialistic and you chant? That came up in the verse today.
0:50If someone chants the name to try to get some material thing for their body, means the fruit of chanting the name will come, but not quickly, so it will take time. If a person is dedicated and persistent and they just keep chanting, then it is said that namaparadha, yukta-nam, nama-neda, tahantagam, which means that if someone chants continuously, then the holy name forgives one of the offenses to the holy name itself. But generally what will happen if someone is chanting with a materialistic motive, then their namaparadha will fulfill the material desire and then they'll give up chanting because they got what they wanted.
1:41So, and then the other aspect where there's a danger is, if a person is chanting with the material objectives, then they'll tend to be proud and they'll commit other offenses, they'll make offenses to Vaishnavas and things like this as well. And so, due to that, by making offenses to devotees, you can actually become a demon. And then you may be a demon for several lifetimes until the reactions wear off and then again you'll come back to bhakti.
2:12So, we should always try to focus on following bhakti as purely as we can, even though the effects of, say, chanting namabhasa or chanting namabhasa have been given in Shastra, those are not prescriptions. Oh, look at the effect of chanting namabhasa, why don't we try that? It's not a prescription. Even the glories of namabhasa, oh, namabhasa will give you mukti. It's not a prescription.
2:39But it's a way of describing the greatness of the holy name by Kāimutika-nyāya. Kāimutika-nyāya is kim uta. If a person in ignorance is not even addressing God directly but saying his name to refer to something else, he gets liberation from one name, then kim uta, what great thing you receive by chanting the holy name with faith and with devotion.
3:04So it's not meant to be proscribing namabhasa, all the glories of namabhasa, it's meant to be kind of, the glories of the holy name are so great, we cannot fully express them, so let's give a lower glory, which is also above everything else of this world, to give some indication, how great is the holy name, so this is really important, Shastra should be studied under the guidance of Sad-guru, because there are many glories in the scriptures, and people can read them, and just pick and choose whatever glory they like. But it may be that that glory is not a proscriptive statement, it's a descriptive statement. And it has a purpose, another purpose as well. So just as a person, they should not go to the pharmacy and just help themselves to the medicines there. You have to have a prescription from a doctor.
3:58So in the same way, Sri Guru, he prescribes a bhajan-praṇālī, the method of bhajan, based on the Shastra, but that doesn't give a license for random people to just stick and choose from here and say, well, this is the Shastra Guru, and make up their own bhajan-praṇālī, and people are doing that these days, you've probably seen a lot of it around, yeah.
4:20Yes, any other questions?
4:25Yes, now, Chintak-guru. So, what if we can observe that there is some compulsion to behavior that is not conducive to spiritual life, yet we don't find the resolve within ourselves to cut it, like, directly? Yes. What course of action is best so that we don't become despondent in the sinking into that compulsion?
5:19Kṛṣṇa, they're not worshipping Ganesh, Shiva, Durga, Surya, or any planet, like Saturn, Shani Dev, and so on, so they're not worshipping devatā just to get some coming result, but they're just worshipping Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Lord, then that person, he may have some weakness, and he may be overpowered by that weakness, again and again and again, so, should we consider that person a sādhu?
5:46Kṛṣṇa said, sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ, as long as he never gives up the ananya-bhakti, one-pointed devotion to his Iṣṭa-deva, Kṛṣṇa, then one should consider him a sādhu, even if his bad habit falls into the end of his life, but that person will have a characteristic, and that characteristic is that they constantly criticize themselves, now, that's a type of lamentation, but it should not be the lamentation, like, I'm so bad that I'm I'm not going to do any bhakti. No. The person has to be always engaging bhakti and criticizing himself while he's doing bhakti that I have this bad habit. My heart is so black, it's like coal. You know, if you take coal, all the black dust is coming off, so you can let me clean it. So then you start cleaning it. But it doesn't matter how much you clean the coal, there's still black dust coming off. So the devotee says, my heart is like that, it's like coal. It doesn't matter how much I try to clean, but more contamination is there.
6:50and he criticizes himself, but he prays, oh my Lord, though I cannot overcome this obstacle and my weakness, but I may vow, I will never give up your service, and he stays engaged, sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ, and for that person, then,
7:45That means, Kṛṣṇa is not saying, my devotee is never lost, my devotee is never vanquished, Kṛṣṇa is saying, Arjuna, you take mṛdaṅga and kartālas and go in the middle of the marketplace, in Gainesville, and beat the drums, and loudly proclaim, na me bhaktaḥ praṇaśyati, Kṛṣṇa's devotee is never vanquished, you say it, Kṛṣṇa is saying that because, you know, Kṛṣṇa, he said so many things and then it turns out to be not true.
8:16You know, he said that, I will not take up a weapon on the battlefield of Kurukṣetra. But what happened? When Bhīṣma was attacking Arjuna, to save his devotee, he broke his own word to keep the word of the Bhīṣma true. So Kṛṣṇa couldn't break his own word to keep the word of his devotee true. So Kṛṣṇa never said, oh, I declare it boldly, my devotee is never vanquished, because someone has helped Bhīṣma. Some excuse comes.
8:46So he said, you say it, because everyone knows if a devotee of Kṛṣṇa says something, then Kṛṣṇa must make it true, he must make it true, so, but it does mean that the devotee in that life, he cannot attain a very high stage of bhakti, but by criticizing himself again and again, and being humble, and staying on the path of bhakti, then at the end of that life, that obstacle may be removed, and then in the next life, he can go on, without that obstacle.
9:16So as far as possible, we should try to fall at the feet of true Vaishnavas and confess to express our weaknesses and simply the confession. Also, it can go away. My Gurudeva gave an example that when he first came to Mayapur, he used to sleep sometimes in Harikatha. So he went to Sri Lalita-prasada and said, I don't know why, but sometimes I feel drowsy and I sleep in Harikatha.
9:46Srimad Bhagavan Krishna said, because you have admitted your faults, you have confessed your fault to me, you will not be touched by this ever again. And then from that day, he was completely wired. In every Harikatha, completely absorbed, no tiredness at all, for whole life. So like this, we should not hide our faults, we should not hide our weaknesses.
10:07It's like if someone has cancer, but they don't go to a doctor, they're trying to hide it, what will happen? and it will just spread and it will be ruined. So in the same way, if we have any difficulty, any problem, then we should not hide it in a simple way, we should come to Gurudeva and Vaishnavas and open our heart and then they can, by their mercy, can remove it. And then we can attain some high level of realization.
10:34God bring on the day of the Lord.
