SB 01.05.26 – The holy name offers the same potent mercy as the mahaprasad of the Vaishnavas

Transcript

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Shreemad Bhagavatam 1525 Here Narada Muni is telling Vyasadeva about how he came to Krishna’s lotus feet in his previous life as a maidservant’s son. So he was serving the Bhaktivedantas, the great devotees who had been staying near his house during the Chaturmasya and while serving them faithfully and pleasing them with his respectful and inquisitive and submissive attitude he once asked them for their Mahaprasada and with their permission he took it and when he took that an extraordinary change happened. That Uchishta was remaining, he once took it and then evam pravrttis vishuddha cetasas.
So vishuddha cetasas. Actually our consciousness when it is pure it has a pravrtti towards Krishna. We often talk about anarthani vritti giving out the giving up the undesirable things in our heart like lust, anger, greed.
Yes that is important but along with that and in fact more important than that is the artha pravrtti, the attraction towards the meaningful towards the valuable that is Krishna and that attraction comes by associating with those who are attracted to Krishna. So that devotional attraction to Krishna becomes transmitted from Krishna through his devotees heart to our devotees heart whenever to our hearts which are trying to become devoted and this happens when we associate with and contact those devotees. That contact doesn’t have to be physical.
So here the contact happens through hearing. In Narguni’s case he had heard from those Bhaktivedantas and that he had heard attentively and he had been influenced by that hearing. It was not just ritualistic that will be seen in the next chapter when he will actually act according to their instructions and seriously meditate leaving home and going towards the north in pursuit of God.
So this sort of renunciation and this sort of commitment to a well-defined process of sadhana cannot come without attentive hearing. So his hearing was not just culture based. Oh my mother is doing so let me do it that sort of service is good but it will not be as transformational as when one hears because one wants to apply one has the intention one has the interest and the intention in Krishna interest in Krishna and the intention to go closer to Krishna to do what it takes to go closer to Krishna and tad dharma eva atma ruchi prajayate so ruchi means attraction the attraction to Krishna prajayate and tad dharma eva atma actually that is the atma dharma the typical intrinsic characteristic of the soul is to love Krishna and love includes within the attraction so ruchi taste attraction that awakened so here we see that Narada Muni is making tremendous spiritual advancement by serving the devotees and by taking their maha prasad now these specific forms of devotional service may or may not be possible for us that we may or may not get the maha prasad of devotees and even for Narada Muni his taking of the maha prasad would not have been as effective as it was if he had not served the devotees so taking maha prasad is the act of submitting oneself of humbling oneself into the devotees and desperately longing for what they have and that is what will actually transmit the devotion from their heart to our heart it is not just the ritual of taking their prasad that will benefit it no doubt but not as transformational as when we actually admire their transformed hearts and want to emulate it and are also striving to follow the instructions so through our spiritual master through Srila Prabhupada through the great acharyas we have got the instruction to chant the holy names and when we chant Hare Krishna attentively we are showing Krishna by our intense chanting our eagerness for him our eagerness not just for him but our eagerness also to follow the instructions of our spiritual master so by attentive chanting of the holy names we are both serving Krishna and serving our spiritual master we are contacting Krishna and we are contacting our spiritual master also through the instructions that have been given to us and in this way the devotion that is there in their hearts will get transmitted to them through them to us so the same astonishing purificatory potency that was available in the Mahaprasad is of the Bhakta Vedanta is also available for us through the spiritual master’s instructions to chant the holy names attentively thank you