Let verses be intellectual templates for meditating on Krishna

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. Hare Krishna.
This is a beautiful verse that gives… that meditates on the darshan of Krishna in Vrindavan. Mandara Mule under the shade of a mandara tree. Near its root, Krishna is standing.
Vatana Abhiramam Vatana is his face. Abhiramam Vatana Abhiramam His face is full of joy. He is the giver of joy.
Vatana Abhiramam Vimba Adhare Poortavenu Nadam Vimba Adhare With his lips, which are like Vimba fruits, Adhare, Venu Nadam He is producing the sound of the flute. He is surrounded by cows. Cows, Gopas and Gopis.
Madhyasamstham He is situated in the middle. And such a lord, Govinda Damodara Madhaveti On that lord, let me chant, let me meditate by chanting his name, Govinda Damodara Madhava. Normally, when we go to the temple, we take darshan of Krishna, and that darshan is usually a function of his how beautiful we take darshan and at that time we see how he is dressed, how he is standing, who all he is with, how his expression is and normally that is what we look at whenever we meet any person.
Many times famous people, if there is somebody famous, people want to see how they walk, how is their carriage, how is their overall countenance, how do they comport themselves. So all that is what inspires, that’s what we observe and then it inspires us, that is attractive. So just as we can have darshan of Krishna by going to the temple and meditating on his form in the temple, we can also let verses like these become the intellectual templates for our meditation on Krishna.
That means that we let these, let verses like these become the basis by which we can internally meditate on Krishna. So Krishna is beautiful, is loving and his love is not just an abstract conception, but there is a tangible demonstration of that love in the way he reciprocates with the cows, with the Gopas, the Gopis and by meditating on that we can take our attraction to him to a more tangible level. Just like we, if we love someone, we may say okay, I have a very close relationship with my friend, we have some friend, but then if we that feeling of affection which is there within us, that if we suddenly get a phone call and it’s from an unidentified number and we pick up the phone and say it’s our friend calling from some new number, just the perception of that friend, here we are getting audio perception by hearing the voice, that itself brings pleasure.
Oh, hello, how are you? We often see that when we call someone or when someone calls us, initially we do not recognize the caller, the tone of the voice is maybe official, maybe to some extent even suspicious, but as soon as the caller is recognized, the voice immediately changes to pleasant and pleasant and joyous. So in the same way, when we are chanting the holy names, although we conceptually understand that the holy name is not different from Krishna, still, it is not easy for us at our level of consciousness to always remember that and to base our bhakti on that intellectual understanding. But, thankfully for us, Krishna also manifests in ways that we can perceive more recognizably.
So, sometimes when we are unable to feel Krishna’s, when we start chanting, we may not immediately feel Krishna’s presence, we may not identify that this is Krishna. Not in intellectual terms, intellectually we may know, but emotionally we may not be able to connect with Krishna. So at that time, meditating on verses like these is like taking darshan of Krishna and that darshan will bring then of course that inner darshan which is based on an understanding, a recognition of who this is.
We chant the holy names at the same time, we, or before we start chanting the holy names or while we are chanting the holy names, whichever way, we meditate on verses like this and such meditation triggers our inner recognition. Oh, this is Krishna. The same beautiful Krishna with his loving devotees is the person who is manifesting as the holy name.
And then with the warmth and the pleasure of recognition, animating our chanting, we can chant much more effectively. We can, our prayer becomes more devotional, heartfelt and fulfilling. Thank you.