If chanting Hare Krishna is the only way, what will be the destination of people from other paths who chant other prayers?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, we say Hare Krishna Mahamantra is the Yoga Dharma for this age. What about other religious traditions who may chant other mantras or other prayers? Do they get the same destination as devotees get by chanting Hare Krishna? See, Hare Krishna or chanting Hare Krishna in that there is a principle and there is a practice.
The principle is to chant the names of God, to connect with God through sound. The Hare Krishna Mahamantra is a practice specifically. Now, there can be other mantras also.
There can be Om Namo Narayanaya. There can be Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram. There can be many mantras.
And they also connect people with God and they also help people to get elevated. So, when we say the Hare Krishna Mahamantra is the recommended Dharma, there is a practice over there. This mantra is there.
But there is a principle also. Principle is connecting with God through the sound of His holy names. So, that principle is also potent.
The principle is also important. And so, if people are accessing spirituality through the names of God in their own language, their own culture, Bhaktivinoda Thakur in his book Chaitanya Shikshamrita states that the same truth is revealed at different place according to language, according to culture, according to psychology of people. There are so many factors which determine how the same one truth is presented.
So, people may chant names of God according to their tradition, their language and they can also be elevated. And as far as whether they can attain Krishna or not, we have to know that there is no guarantee that we ourselves will attain Krishna. Just because we are chanting Krishna’s names.
Certainly, we will be elevated. Certainly, our chanting of the holy names will elevate us. But attaining Krishna is not just a matter of change of location.
It is a change of disposition. It’s like say some Indians come to America and they think, Oh, if I just stay in America long enough, I get American citizenship. And then I become American citizen.
So, somehow I get this job, I do this, I pull this string and I get a green card. Then I become a citizen. So, it’s not like that somehow we pass some bureaucratic loopholes and then we are in the spiritual world.
It’s not like that. So, attaining Krishna’s abode is not so much a change of location. It is a change of disposition.
Even if somehow we attain Krishna’s abode. But if we have not developed love for Krishna, we will be bored in the spiritual world. Everybody is talking about Krishna.
I want to watch TV. You know, for a person who is materialistic, the spiritual world, if she tells there is no TV over there, that will seem like hell for them. So, actually chanting Hare Krishna is a very efficacious means for developing love for Krishna.
And the criteria for going to Krishna is not just chanting Hare Krishna. It is chanting Hare Krishna and developing love for Krishna. So, when we develop love for Krishna, we will attain Krishna.
If people in other traditions develop love for Krishna, they will also attain Krishna. Love for God, as they have understood in their tradition, they will also attain God. So, Shri Prabhupada was once on a TV show, a less cringe show with a Christian feature.
And that feature was asked. So, do you believe that these people who follow Bhagavad Gita, I could pronounce it also, they will also attain God, he said. He didn’t answer that question.
So, what do you believe? He said, you know, the path to God is very narrow. The path to God is very narrow. So, what do you mean? Will they attain or they will not attain? No, Jesus is the only way.
He said that. And he turned to Prabhupada. So, will those who follow the Bible, they will attain God? Prabhupada said, yes.
Anybody who follows the path given by God, they will be elevated. If they develop love for God, they will attain God. So, Bhakti is not sectarian.
It is, when we say Hare Krishna Mahamantra is the only way, at one level we are talking about the practice. But at another level we are talking about the principle. And the principle is connecting with God through devotion.
So, if people develop love for God by practicing their particular path, then they can get elevated. See, another example to illustrate this is say there are two universities. One university has maybe very good teachers, very good facility, very good library, very good culture of studies.
And another university which doesn’t have such good facilities, such good teachers, such good library. But if there is an industrial student in the second university and there is a complacent student in the first university, the industrial student in the second university, despite having lesser facilities, may actually learn more and grow more. And the complacent student in the better facilities may also not learn that much because of the complacency.
So, like that even if for argument’s sake we say that, okay, in the Bhakti tradition as we get it from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, there is more mercy available, there is more facilities for spiritual growth. But the facilities have to be utilized. So, if we just become self-righteous thinking, oh, I am chanting Hare Krishna and we become complacent, we may not grow spiritually.
On the other hand, somebody may be in another tradition where there are not so many support systems available. But if they are diligently practicing, they may grow more than us. So, we have to be in that sense broad-minded.
Bhaktivinoda Thakur says in a famous section in Chaitanya Shiksha Amrit, he says that if I go, if we go to a place where God is worshipped in a way different from what we see, now what should we do at that place? We should be in a prayerful mood over there. Thinking the same God whom I worship has manifested himself in a different way. Although I cannot understand exactly how God has manifested, but seeing him manifested thus, you know, my appreciation of his mercifulness is increasing.
And I feel more inspired to devote myself to him in the form that I am familiar. So, for example, you know, if we are traveling and we see some Muslims offering namaz six times. Sometimes, you know, we forget to chant the Gayatri mantras.
But they are timely in doing the namaz. So, rather than saying, oh, they are following some other path, I am following some other path. Because, you know, along their path, they are so diligent.
If we see Christians, you know, they often give, I think, they do very diligently. Or they go to church every Sunday or whatever. We see their practices, we appreciate their practices.
And we try to learn from them. So, that way, we don’t have to see different religions as competitive. It’s not that at the material vision there may be competition.
But spiritually, it’s actually, it is one God who is trying to elevate different people through different paths. So, if somebody’s, if God’s potency is manifesting in attracting people through one particular manifestation, we can become more inspired that that same God is manifesting here for me. Let me become more attracted and devoted to him.
Does that answer your question?