What is the consequence of the offense of inattentive chanting?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
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so chanting inattentively is an offense so what is the consequence of that so actually when we talk about offense we have to understand that again krishna is an understanding god there is there is inattentiveness that is just involuntary the mind is so turbulent that it doesn’t stay at one place in general we should know that prabhupada writes in one first canto purport that when things are beyond human control then there is nothing to regret sometimes we do our best you know we are going for a particular program on time but there’s a traffic jam and we get late nothing for us we did our best something’s something’s beyond our control went wrong but sometimes the mind’s force of wandering is so great that we just can’t do much we try to focus but the mind wanders but when we are we are knowingly intentionally inattentive let me say somebody is chanting and they’re watching tv now okay that is not see sometimes the mind starts a tv inside us it is it is difficult to close that we may try to close that but the mind just goes on here and there but the outside tv it’s very much in our power to close that if we can’t close that somebody is watching we can go to some other room and study do and chant so when we are knowingly intentionally inattentive then it is a problem and anyway there is another principle somehow or other fix the mind on krishna sometimes the mind is wandering so much that we just can’t focus so inattentive chanting is better than no chanting but when inattentive chanting becomes a habit and when we stop making an effort to connect with krishna see again when we talk about the offense we have to understand everything in its purpose see a purpose is that we want to develop a relationship with krishna say now if if we want we go to talk with someone and then uh they are you know they’re just when we are talking with them they are looking at their phone when they’re checking their messages typing something i’m talking with you pay some attention to me so when we are not really developing the relationship so relationship is developed through attention now but sometimes it may be that that other person is very busy and we want to meet them but you know they’re walking along from one meeting to another meeting and then in between you just grab and talk two minutes at that time that is a situation where they are also bound they are helpless so that time we also understood okay at least they could have said i could not meet you only but that person met for two minutes so the point is we appreciate that okay you really did not have time but still you made two minutes made out two minutes for me so like that we should not just say see inattentive chanting as an activity or chanting as an activity chanting is an activity not in isolation but it’s a part of our relationship with krishna so in that sense if sometimes it’s just a mind is so while we just can’t chant our life is so busy that we can’t we can’t really focus at one place and chant some of the other but if we have a choice we try to reorder our schedule we try to reorder our circumstances by which we can focus in general so we again should never have this conception that krishna is a fault finding god krishna is a vindictive god because i chanted attentively krishna is punishing actually by by being inattentive in our bhakti we are punishing ourselves it’s not krishna who is punishing us we are depriving ourselves of the shelter of krishna that shelter can protect us that shelter can strengthen us and we are depriving ourselves so it’s not that krishna is punishing us we are depriving ourselves this answer your question