How can we inspire ourselves to chant when we don’t feel any immediate benefits?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So how can we inspire ourselves to chant when we don’t seem to get the benefits of it, at least not immediately. Actually, the process of chanting is a part of bhakti yoga.
And bhakti yoga involves redirecting our heart from the world to Krishna. So this process requires, we can’t reduce the process down to chanting, nor can we remove chanting from that process. Sometimes chanting can get overemphasized, and it can just become uttering of some words without understanding the context, the purpose.
So when we understand chanting as a part of a whole process, which has a whole philosophy behind it, then it has more meaning to it. So chanting itself is always powerful, but we don’t feel inspired to absorb ourselves in it, and so we don’t benefit from it. So that’s why, as you rightly said, coming in association and hearing about the philosophy of bhakti and hearing especially about Krishna and how He manifests through the Holy Name, that will inspire us to chant.
Jiva Goswami is one of our prominent acharyas, and he says in one of his books that for those who love Krishna, for those who have developed priti for Krishna, they will stay at the spiritual level because of their priti, because they have love. But for those of us who are sadhakas, we are not siddhas, we are not perfected beings, we are seekers. So we will stay at the spiritual level not because of our priti, but because of our buddhi.
So regularly intellectually nourishing ourselves is important. And a part of the intellectual nourishment is that chanting is often working at the subconscious level, not always at the conscious level. Just like sometimes if you clean a room which has been lying unclean for a very long time, then actually the dust has settled so much on the floor.
Once you start cleaning it, all the dust comes up, and the room seems to become more unclean at that time. So like that, when we chant, sometimes far from becoming peaceful, we start feeling more distracted, more agitated. But through that process of unsettling the dust, we are actually moving towards cleaning the room.
So sometimes chanting may not seem to have an effect of making us peaceful at a conscious level. But at a subconscious level, it’s happening. And by consistent chanting, we will see that we may not immediately feel peaceful during the chanting or after the chanting.
But we will find that our capacity to respond to disturbing situations will be improved. When we think, we will face some problem and we will say, you know, six months ago when I faced this problem, I would have just got so disturbed. Now I’m not feeling that disturbed.
What’s happening? So the difference may not be miraculous in terms of sudden visible changes. But we will see that in the overall capacity to respond more maturely. So this kind of understanding of the effect of chanting and how to discern it, that also comes through buddhi, that comes through philosophical understanding.
So association is also important, no doubt, to be inspired. But in association, if there is specifically discussion that nourishes our buddhi, strengthens our intelligence, then we can feel inspired to continue our practice of chanting vigorously. Thank you.