Satsvarupa dasa Goswami - Free Write Journal #393: Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook (part 6)
REFLECTIONS/JAPA MEDITATIONS
Krsna appeared in the womb of ISKCON. Although the chanting of the holy name is absolute, if chanted by someone performing sinful acts, then the full effect is not there. Allen Ginsberg went to India and brought back the holy name even before Prabhupada, but how effective was that marijuana-homosexual chanting? The holy name has to be chanted by one who is serving Srila Prabhupada in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Then the chanting is pure. Then the full effect is there.
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There is no “secret” to japa; it is a struggle. There is no easy shortcut. The secret is to surrender to the struggle. The secret is to be afraid of death and to take it as very urgent that you must chant Hare Krsna. We used to have a slogan, “Chant while you can,” on some posters and show a scary picture of a graveyard. So we have to think like that: “Chant while you can.” That is the secret.
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You develop love of Krsna by crying as a child cries for the mother, “Krsna, son of Nanda, I am stuck in this ocean of birth and death. Please save me and fix me as one of the atoms at Your lotus feet.”
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The best thing is that you just pray to the holy name and hear the sound. The stage of thinking of Radha and Krsna and Their forms will come automatically. It cannot be so much forced. When the mind wanders, bring it back in a mood of prayer and supplication, thinking, “O holy name, I want to chant, I want to hear, I want to be engaged in Your service by chanting and hearing.” Then simply practice the mantra yoga of vibrating with the tongue and hearing with the ear.
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Don’t make interpretations or imaginations on the holy name. As far as the love Krsnadasa Kaviraja speaks of in Caitanya¬caritamrta, that is the highest stage. We should aspire to that and make endeavor.
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As far as controlling the mind, two senses engaged are sufficient. If we engage the process of hearing and the process of chanting with the tongue, then these two senses can capture the mind on the Hare Krsna mantra.
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We have to invest more and more our thinking, feeling, and willing into our chanting, not thinking that we will surpass this chanting or that the chanting will lead to something different from chanting. I told this several times to one devotee who said he chanted sixty-four rounds on Janmastami. As he chanted he had this feeling that something was going to happen, that if he chanted enough, “it” was going to happen. But his conclusion at the end was that he was still a rascal, even after chanting sixty-four rounds. Another conclusion is that it’s not by chanting that “it” happens but “it” is happening while we chant. What we have to do is just invest more of our consciousness into it.
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There is a pseudo-spiritual hippie impersonal philosophy that what’s really happening is whatever is happening now. It’s summed up in that phrase, “Be here now.” I had a friend who used to say, “As far as eternal, there’s no afterlife. But there is eternal—eternal means now, what’s happening now.” Actually that philosophy leads to hedonism—the moment, whatever is happening, is all there is, so you have to really get into it. And sometimes they try for spirituality that everything right now is holy, and this is what is transcendental. You just invest yourself, invest meaning into the temporary life, and that is religious. But that’s bogus because there is another life; there is Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, beyond this world. It’s not that this is all there is, so you have to invest everything here. We don’t subscribe to that philosophy. But we can take that mentality. We can apply it—”Be here now”—because we have got eternal transcendental life given to us in Krsna consciousness. The chanting is Krsna, so for us that is true, that everything is here. “Be here now”—Kona is actually here in His name. All you have to do is get into it or get with it, that this is Krsna’s name.
