Can the higher taste through chanting be experienced even on a neophyte stage?
Blue Bay Senses. Question from Jugal Prabhu.
Can a neophyte devotee get taste in the holy name and Krishna consciousness? Answer. Yes, certainly. Without the taste, the person would not even become a neophyte devotee.
The person would just stay a non-devotee. At one level, it is the philosophy and the logicality of Krishna consciousness that attracts us at a head level. But what inspires us to transform our lives is the taste that we get.
Now, the taste may sometimes be even visible to our gross senses when we see devotees dancing, singing wildly and ecstatically during kirtans. But along with that, there is a subtle taste that enables us to become satisfied and that enables us to resist temptations. So if there had been no taste, we would not even have been practicing devotional service at all.
At least not in a sustainable way. At an intellectual level, we can practice devotional service for a short while, but we cannot sustain it for long. The very fact that we are steadily practicing it indicates that we do have some taste.
And the taste will increase as we keep practicing Krishna consciousness. There are three stages of bhakti. There is sadhana bhakti, there is bhava bhakti and there is prema bhakti.
So Bhakti Rasamrith Sundhu is a book by Rupa Goswami which systematically compiles the various references to bhakti in various Vedic scriptures and puts them in one coherent, progressive structure. So there, Rupa Goswami describes that in the sadhaka bhakti sadhana bhakti, which is the stage which all of us are practicing, he says that there is pleasure in sense gratification and there is pleasure in devotional service. And even in the sadhana stage, the pleasure in devotional service is greater than the pleasure in sense gratification.
And as one moves from sadhana bhakti by diligent practice for a sustained period of time, one comes to bhava bhakti. At that stage, the pleasure of Krishna consciousness becomes so great the pleasure of sense gratification becomes insignificant. And then as one moves forward further to prema bhakti, then the pleasure of Krishna consciousness becomes so great that the pleasure of sense gratification is not just non-existent, not just insignificant, but it becomes non-existent.
So these are lofty stages when the pleasure of Krishna consciousness will not only be the superior reality, but the only reality for us. So at our level, the pleasure of sense gratification does seem to be a reality for us. That's why we need to have ourselves philosophically equipped to know that material pleasures are temporary and spiritual pleasures are actually sustainable and real and eternal.
And that's how we can persevere. But even in our stage, surely we can have taste. And that taste is what we get when we try to remember Krishna even at the sadhaka level.
And we all can find out which are the activities that give us taste. And stick to those activities consistently. And by that, we can slowly but surely transcend the material temptations.
So although even the sadhaka stage, the pleasure of devotional service is higher than the pleasure of sense gratification, but our past experiences and our current culture flood us internally and externally with memories of sense gratification. And that's why we get prompted by the desires for sense gratification again and again and again. Although if we think objectively at our experiences in sense gratification and in Krishna consciousness, we can see that the pleasure of sense gratification is so meager, so measly, so pathetic, so tiny at best.
And on the other hand, the pleasure of Krishna consciousness is so rich, so fulfilling, so uplifting, so satisfying. So although even in our short practice of Krishna consciousness, we can get the experience that the pleasure of devotional service is superior to the pleasure of sense gratification. But still our mind internally and our culture externally keep flooding and bombarding us with material desires.
And that's why sometimes when we let ourselves be subject to these influences, then we may start feeling that sense gratification is such a great pleasure that I can't resist it. But if we don't let ourselves be influenced by these external and internal influences, then we will ourselves, by objective analysis as well as by personal experience, realize that the pleasure of Krishna consciousness is higher than the pleasure of sense gratification, even in the sadhaka stage. Thank you.