Understanding how bhakti-yoga and the holy name work

[Bhagavatam class on Srimad Bhagavatam 01.05.37 at ISKCON, Brisbane, Australia]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So we are discussing today from this section of the Bhagavatam which talks about how we can work in a way by which we can all become purified and liberated while acting in this world.
So the previous verse said krishnasyaanusvarantichav that in this way, while practising bhakti, while working in this world, one remembers Krishna. So how does one remember Krishna? That is described that by chanting mantras like this. So this is a mantra which the bhakti sadhaka chants while practising the process of spiritualising one’s life in this world.
And the next verse will say that how itthimurtiyabhidhanena mantramurtim amurtikam that that Supreme Lord who is transcendental, who is not accessible by normal means, becomes accessible to us through the practise of reciting sound vibrations. And the chanting of the mantras is a central part of the process of bhakti. So this is considered to be a part of what is sometimes called in English as sonic theology.
Theology is the study of God. Sonic is related with sound. So how sound can be used to approach God? If we consider the process of bhakti, essentially it is about redirecting our heart towards Krishna.
So we want our heart, which is attached to many worldly things right now, to become redirected towards Krishna. However, the heart does not exist in isolation. Sometimes some people say that there are different people who are of different dispositions and accordingly there are different paths for them.
Those people who like to do physical activities, for them there is a path of karma. So they work with their hands. For those people who are more sentimental, they work with their emotions, for them there is a path of the heart, that is path of bhakti.
And for those people who are more rational, more intellectual, for them there is a path of the head, that is jnana. So in this way, say that actually these paths are for different people with different strengths, different natures, different levels of consciousness. That is true at one level.
At another level, we understand that whatever we do, if we have to do it in a sustainable way, our hands and our head follow the heart. So we may have our hands involved in something, you know, mechanically, maybe rolling some chapati, washing some clothes, cleaning, but our head may be somewhere else entirely, heart may be somewhere else. Even sometimes our head may be involved in something.
There are students who study very diligently for their exams, but their heart is, okay, I’m going to this beach for the vacation and there I’m going to enjoy. So the heart is not there at all, although the head may be there. In the Bhagavad Gita in 5th chapter, 17th verse, Krishna talks about how, in order to attain Him, we have to direct all our faculties towards it.
She says that we will become purified. We’ll become purified out of our contaminations by knowledge. We’ll acquire knowledge, then we’ll become.
We will go on the path from which there is no return. That means we will attain the eternal spiritual world. But for that, what is required? Krishna says four of our faculties, we need to invest in Him.
With our intelligence, we fix ourselves in the absolute truth. Here the word Atma refers to the mind. We fix the mind.
Then we put our faith. And then we make that our goal. So at some level, we may say that there is sentimentality and there is sentiments.
The two are not the same thing. Sentimentality is people who are just driven by their emotions. They are just… Sentimental is actually very similar to being mental.
It’s very much on the mental platform. I feel like this, I’ll do this. I don’t feel like it, I won’t do it.
So our present feelings, they can come from various sources. Our present feelings can come from simply the kind of body that we have and the kind of sense objects we interact with. Or our feelings can come from the soul and who the soul actually is.
So when we talk about the heart, in some cases, people consider the heart and the mind to be the same. But they’re not exactly the same. The heart is the seat of emotions.
And that’s why it is considered to be where the object of love is situated. If you love someone. Along with that, there is the mind.
The mind is the place from which most of our emotions are activated. But we ourselves know that we have certain surface desires, surface emotions. And then we have deep, driving, defining desires.
Very cherished emotions that we have. So for example, we hear some news of some terrorist attacks happening somewhere. We may get concerned.
But if we hear of a terrorist attack happening in our neighbourhood, that’s a matter of much greater concern. It’s not just a matter of physical proximity. That’s one aspect to it.
But another aspect is that this is much more important for us than that. What happens somewhere far away. So just as what happens far away and what happens close, it varies.
Its importance varies for us. Similarly, if you consider our consciousness, our consciousness itself is like a universe in which there are surface desires. So for example, we are just walking along a road and we see, okay, there’s a hotel over here and it has some nice food.
Let me just go in and have a snack. So we just go and eat it. Now, if we did not pass by that hotel, we may not eat that snack.
So on the other hand, we need food. And we are concerned, how do I get food? How do I make sure that I get my meals regularly, that my family members get their meals regularly? So getting a snack is like a surface desire. If it’s fulfilled, nice.
If it’s not fulfilled, doesn’t matter. But there is a deeper desire, which is like the need for food. So similarly, for us, the emotions of the mind and the emotions of the soul.
The emotions of the mind are often surface emotions. Whether the emotions of the soul are our substantial emotions. So for example, somebody is born in India, they may love cricket.
They’re mad after cricket. Somebody who is born in Canada, they may love ice hockey. Now that desire is simply a circumstantial desire based on the interaction of the mind of the person with the society that they are in.
But whether the person is in India or in Canada or anywhere else, now everyone wants to love. We all long to love and be loved. That is a universal longing of the human heart.
So the reason I’m talking about this is that here the topic is how mantra chanting and spiritualise our consciousness. And I’m talking about what does spiritualization mean? So I talked about some people say that, okay, there are three different paths for people with three different mindsets. So the point I was making is that the heart is central.
And everything follows the heart. That means our… Now when we’re talking about everything follows the heart, we’re not talking about surface emotions. Surface emotions come and they go.
Surface desires come and go. But we have certain core longings. And our hands and our head follow ultimately the heart.
So the process of bhakti yoga is the process of redirecting our heart. And in romantic movies, sometimes they say that love is in the air. It’s a romantic atmosphere.
Now people are going to propose, date, and have some kind of romantic relationships. In spiritual circles, we could adopt that same statement or adapt that same statement and say that love is not in the air. Love is in the sound.
It is through the sound that we experience Krishna’s love. And it is through the sound that we express our love for Krishna. In every situation, we need often the eyes of knowledge to appreciate love.
Different people may express their love in different ways or different situations may require the expression of affection in different ways. A mother may express affection sometimes by picking up a child, fondling the child, caressing the child. But if the child is playing with fire, touching fire, the mother may express love by chastising the child.
A doctor may express the affection for a patient by staying awake at night or attending to an emergency where they take care of the patient. So depending now, a child who doesn’t understand the gravity of the disease or the need for a surgery may not see the doctor as being benevolent or affectionate at all. Because we don’t just see with our eyes.
We see with our intelligence which enables us to make sense of what we are seeing. Suppose there’s a stock market crash and there is some rural uneducated person who doesn’t know anything about the stock market or anything, doesn’t know much about, say, how financial charts are depicted or how, say, the stock rates are depicted and everything. So he just walks into a stock market and there is a big monitor.
Everybody is watching that with horror. And they see a graph, zoop, it falls down. And as the graph falls down, oh no, everybody catch their head and everybody is dejected.
People are devastated. He’s thinking, what is happening? Just one line went down on one screen. Why are all of you so disturbed? So actually, we need intelligence to make sense of what we see with our eyes.
We don’t just see with our eyes. So I may see with my eyes a line going down. But it is my intelligence that helps me make sense of what I’m seeing.
So this is Krishna says, We see with the eyes of knowledge. So this means that, actually, if we do not have the eyes of knowledge, we will not be able to see. So sometimes people feel that when you chant these mantras, it’s just a mindless repetition.
What are you getting out of it? Uttering the same sound again and again and again and again. No, actually, what is happening to appreciate that, we have to have the eyes of knowledge. I’ll give you two examples for this.
This is the spiritual realm. This is the material realm. And sound is the most effective mediator between the spiritual and material realms.
If we are having, say, a two-story building. But this is not just two continuous stories. There is one story and there’s a lot of space in between.
There’s a second story. And you want to go from one level to another. We need an elevator.
There’s no staircase in between. We need an elevator. The elevator is what will take us up.
So spiritual sound is like the elevator that raises our consciousness from the material level to the spiritual level. And just like if there is an elevator, when we enter into the elevator, then just by entering, the elevator starts moving, and the elevator takes us up. So similarly, when we are chanting mantras, when our consciousness enters into that mantra, then what happens is, it’s like we are entering the elevator, and our consciousness starts rising up, rising up, rising up.
Normally, if the elevator is smooth, if somebody doesn’t know what an elevator does, they may say, I got in this closed room. Nothing is happening. Again, one needs the eyes to see, okay, one, two, three, four, going up there.
So inside, it may appear as if nothing is happening. The elevator is just, we are just sitting in there, standing in the elevator. So like that, externally, many people feel when you chant mantras, what is happening? You sit and utter the mantra, utter the mantra, nothing is happening.
But our consciousness is gradually getting elevated. And if you just chant attentively for some time, gradually start feeling, yeah, I’m becoming more peaceful. I’m becoming more calm.
I’m becoming more composed. This is a gradual transformation. Just like an elevator gradually takes us up.
Similarly, the mantra chanting takes us gradually up. Of course, the mantra chanting will take us up when we are inside the elevator. Sometimes we may chant the mantra, but we don’t take our consciousness into the mantra.
So then it is like our mantra chanting, as long as we are chanting the mantra, our mantra chanting is like powering the elevator. But if our consciousness is not entering into the mantra, it is like the elevator is going up, but we are outside only. So that’s why sometimes we may chant the mantra, but we may not feel any elevation, any upliftment of consciousness, because we are not absorbed in it.
So the purpose is to raise our consciousness. And that’s why our consciousness has to be invested in the mantra. And to the extent our consciousness is invested, to that extent, we start experiencing the elevation of consciousness.
And how do we know the elevation? Actually, we need some reference point different from the elevator. If I’m inside the elevator, I can’t know whether the elevator is going up or not. The elevator is sometimes, some elevators have, they are having glass walls.
And then you can actually see outside. You’re here and you’re rising up, rising up, rising up. You can see, oh, hey, sometimes kids have a lot of fun.
Hey, you’re going up, going up, going up. But sometimes, or most times, the elevators are closed with opaque walls. So as long as we are inside the elevator, we may not even realise that I’m rising, rising, rising, rising, rising, rising.
It’s eventually when the elevator door opens and then we come out. Oh, then you’ll say, this is actually, I started at one place. I’m at a different place now.
So how did that happen? It happened because the elevator was moving all along. Similarly, when we chant the mantras, it appears as if nothing is happening. But with every chanting of the mantra, with every attentive chanting of the mantra, every chanting of the mantra benefits.
But the substantial benefit happens when there is at least an attempt for attention. It’s not possible for us with our conditioned minds to be consistently attentive all the time. There are broadly, we could say there are different levels at which we chant.
There is absorption. There is concentration. There is distraction.
And there is diversion. And these are just words. What I mean by that is, absorption means we are just completely lost.
Concentration means we are exerting. Sometimes when we hear a class and we are worried about this, that, that, then I want to focus. But I thought, okay, I have to do this work.
What is going to happen here? So there’s an attempt to concentrate. But absorption means there’s no attempt. We just absorb in it.
So there is an attempt to concentrate. That’s one level lower. Concentration is there.
In the yoga ladder, in the levels of consciousness in yoga, these are called as various levels. There is absorption is nirodha. Concentration is ekagrata.
Below that, there is distraction. That is vikshapta. So I’m trying to hear, but suddenly I hear some noise below.
So we get distraction. And diversion is even more lower, where actually it’s not… Distraction means we’re trying to concentrate, but we’re going off. Diversion means we’ve gone off somewhere else.
So we just go off somewhere else. And then there is, lastly, is delusion. Delusion means we are just completely lost.
So, for example, right now, there is a material reality around us. We’re sitting in a temple. Of course, the temple is a spiritual place, but it’s in a material location, say, in Brisbane, Australia.
So there is a material reality. Okay, I’m sitting on the floor. I’m sitting on a chair.
The temperature is so and so. There are about a dozen people over here. Whatever.
These are all things which are about our material reality, where our consciousness is here. Now, here, when we chant the mantras, what happens by that is our consciousness, which is at the material level, is meant to go to the spiritual level. But unfortunately, sometimes from our material level, we’re chanting the mantra, but the consciousness goes to a delusional level.
So the tongue is chanting the mantra, but the mind is thinking, oh, I have to do this work. Why didn’t this person speak like this? Oh, maybe there’s a cricket match starting. What is the score? No, I heard there was a terrorist attack.
What happened? Now this, that, that. So our mind goes off into a fantasy world. And that’s why we sometimes find chanting boring.
We find chanting burdensome because we are not experiencing Krishna. So basically, all of us need to feel that we are doing something constructive. Nobody likes to waste their time.
Even when people waste time, they don’t think they’re wasting time. They think that I’m having leisure and I’m having some break, I’m having some enjoyment. So when we are chanting the holy names, but if our consciousness is not rising upwards, rather the consciousness is going wayward here and there and everywhere, then we start feeling, why should I chant? So, actually, for us to take our consciousness upwards, as I said, it’s an elevator, and we are at a material level and we want to go to the spiritual level.
It is important for us to actually understand what is there at the spiritual level. And by that understanding, stimulate the desire to go there. Without that understanding of what is at the spiritual level, the elevator is going to go up.
Why should I go up? So, unless we hear regularly, this is a section where Narada Muni is speaking to Vyasadeva. And that’s basically, he’s hearing. Vyasadeva is going to write a book in which he’s going to give the message of the Bhagavatam.
Prabhupada told us that, chant Hare Krishna. But then he wrote so many books and he wanted the books to be distributed. Why do we need the books to be distributed? Why did he want us to study the books? Because without the philosophical conviction, we will not get the inspiration to raise our consciousness upwards.
Just like, say, if I have got a very good vehicle by which I can drive to school. But if I have no desire to go to school, then the vehicle will be there but I will not use the vehicle to go to school. So like that, by Krishna’s mercy, by the Vaishnava’s mercy, we have the vehicle to raise our consciousness to spiritual level.
But unless we have the desire to raise our consciousness to spiritual level, the vehicle is not of much use. The vehicle is there and sometimes, there may be other people who are just walking along the road. And we have a vehicle which can go fast.
But our vehicle is outside our house and we are in our house. The person is walking without any vehicle. Actually, that person may come to the school earlier than us because they are moving forwards.
So similarly for us, when we are practising bhakti, we have a very potent vehicle for taking our consciousness towards Krishna. But sometimes we don’t invest our consciousness. And there may be other people from other spiritual paths who may not have the vehicle of the holy name.
But because they are spiritually interested, because they are spiritually inclined, they are taking steps with whatever capacity they have. And they may actually be more spiritually evolved than us. See, we have the capacity to go to the supreme destination in the sense that we have been given the vehicle.
But we have to board the vehicle. If we don’t do that, we don’t get to the destination. And just having a great vehicle is no use.
We need to use that vehicle. So when we try to chant the holy names, what exactly happens? As I said, we start experiencing Krishna. The next verse says that how? mantra-mūrtiṁ amūrtikaṁ yajeta yajña puruṣaṁ sa samyag darshanaḥ pūmān It says that actually mantra-mūrtiṁ amūrtikaṁ It’s interesting here.
Mūrti is normally considered to be form or deity. So amūrtikaṁ, that Lord who is beyond all material forms, that Lord manifests in the form of mantras. So the transcendental Lord becomes accessible to us through sound.
And when yajeta, when we worship him through the practise of bhakti, then we slowly start getting attracted towards him. Presently, our eyes are closed. Spiritually, our eyes are closed.
And that’s why we can’t see the presence of Krishna. We can’t perceive that Krishna is right next to us in our hearts. Till now, I was talking about how the holy name is like an elevator to take our consciousness to the spiritual level.
However, the holy name is also Krishna. abhinnatvaṁ nāma-nāmino So to understand this standard example that is given, I’ll give two examples. First is that once a person, a poor person heard that there is a precious metal called gold.
He said, I want to see it. So he went to a king. And he told the king, can I please see gold? Yes, okay.
Do you want to see it? And there is a staircase over there. Go up that staircase. Turn left.
And then there is a, this is a treasury over there. Open the treasury and you’ll find gold over there. So he climbed up the stairs, went up, and then he saw a shining yellow metal.
This is gold. I saw it. Very happy.
And then when he was coming down, he saw, the staircase is also made of gold. The whole pathway is also made of gold. But because he had no idea of what gold was, so he did not know.
So in a sense, gold was the vehicle for him to go from where he was, was the staircase. But because he did not know, gold didn’t identify it. So at our level, it is very difficult for us to perceive that the holy name is Krishna.
And at the very least, we can perceive that, okay, the holy name is the means to Krishna. But as we keep moving, eventually we’ll realise that actually, the holy name is Krishna. I suppose now, tomorrow, tomorrow say I’m flying from here to Melbourne.
And there I want to meet someone. Some very important person I’m supposed to meet. I’m eager to meet that person.
And I set in the plane, I go there, and I reach Melbourne. And then I go to that person’s house and knock on the door. And that person opens the door.
Hello. And then I realise, this person was sitting right next to me in my flight journey from Brisbane to Melbourne. But because I had not seen that person before, so I didn’t recognise he, the person who was my companion, was actually my destination.
So similarly, Krishna is present in our own hearts. He’s present in the hearts of all living beings. But right now, we do not realise his presence.
But when we come in contact with Krishna, at that time, we understand, oh, Krishna was always with me. So I’m talking about now two different things over here. One is Krishna as the companion, and then Krishna as the holy name as the elevator, or as the vehicle.
So we have, we are talking about three distinct manifestations of Krishna over here. We’re talking about Krishna as he’s present in the spiritual world. Talking about Krishna as he’s present in our hearts, in the material world, as a super soul.
And we’re talking about Krishna as the holy name. So Krishna in the spiritual world, we can’t perceive much. Krishna as a super soul in our own hearts, also we can’t perceive much.
Sometimes we may just get some brilliant idea, brilliant insight. And then if we understand, yeah, where is this insight coming from? This inspiration has come from Krishna, from the super soul. We might get that understanding.
But usually we can’t perceive the super soul. So the holy name is the means by which our consciousness gets tuned to Krishna. And as the consciousness gets tuned more and more to Krishna, then gradually we start perceiving Krishna’s presence.
So I said our eyes are presently closed. We are like in a spiritually, spiritual infancy right now. So when say a baby is very small, baby is newborn, the baby does not even understand that the person who’s holding me is my mother.
Baby just thinks that, okay, you know, this is a nice cosy place I am in. Even the baby is drinking milk from the mother’s breast. Baby doesn’t understand.
Hey, this is a nice thing from which a nice thing is coming. But as the baby starts growing, and then you say, oh, this is a person and this person loves me. This person is my mother.
Suppose that baby is sleeping at night and it’s very cold, it’s trembling. And then the mother sees, oh, the baby is trembling. Mother comes and puts a comforter, a nice thick blanket over the baby.
Now the baby’s eyes are closed and the baby has not opened the eyes to see the mother. But at one moment, there was the discomfort, the distress of the cold. And the next moment, there is the comfort and cosiness.
So by that, the baby understands that, oh, this is my mother. Must have come here and she must have put a blanket over me. But similarly for us, at our level, we are, the eyes are closed spiritually.
So we can’t perceive Krishna. Krishna is present with us, that Krishna is caring for us. But often when our mind gets agitated and it’s like we are discomfited, say like cold or distress is agitating us.
And somehow, if we just remember Krishna, chant his holy names, pray to Krishna, focus on his deities, that remembrance of Krishna becomes like a blanket on our consciousness. And as the blanket comes, immediately we start feeling relief. Krishna says that, although the distress has come upon everyone in existence, but those whose consciousness is invested in me, they will not be distressed.
So for us, when by remembering Krishna, we experience relief, we need to see with the eyes of knowledge that this relief is evidence of Krishna’s love for me. Krishna is here, Krishna cares, and that’s how I’m getting this relief. So when, invest our intelligence, invest our mind, invest our faith, and invest and make Krishna our goal in life, then we get this absorption in him.
So chanting is not just the uttering of the mantras. It’s basically a reorientation of our own worldview. It is a redefinition, reconceptualization of what life is all about.
And the process of chanting alone is capable of doing that. But quite often, we don’t invest our consciousness enough to do that. Like the elevator is capable of taking me up.
But if I’m not convinced of getting into the elevator, then the elevator will go up, but I will not go up with it. So that’s why we need to, when we are focussing on chanting of the holy names, we need to reconceptualise our worldview. We need to understand, okay, this material world is there, but there’s a higher world.
That is where I belong. That is where my aspirations for love and joy and peace will be fulfilled. And that is where I want to invest my consciousness in.
So if we try to do kirtan without chiravanam, then it’s very difficult to sustain the kirtan. The kirtan means speaking about Krishna, chanting his holy names. We will often see that if we hear the philosophy regularly, especially hear about the importance of fixing the mind on Krishna, then our conviction to focus on Krishna will increase much, much more.
And we will be able to invest our consciousness in chanting, and then we’ll experience the purification and elevation of consciousness and the satisfaction thereof much more. So here, Narada Muni is talking the whole process of bhakti in which he is giving one verse when he talks about one mantra. And the devotee is Krishnasya Anuswaran teacher.
They remember Krishna and they devote their life to Krishna and they chant this mantra. So when we see mantra chanting as the vehicle for the overall redirection of our life, then when we have the inspiration, the conviction to redirect our life, then mantra chanting becomes efficacious. It becomes transformational.
And its potency starts becoming accessible to us. Not just accessible, but it starts becoming relishable. Because when we connect with Krishna, it becomes relishable.
If we’re not connecting with Krishna, then it is no longer relishable. So I’ll summarise here. I spoke today about how does mantra chanting actually work.
Here, they say that the devotees, they chant this mantra and they worship the Supreme Lord. So I talked broadly in four parts. First, I spoke about how the sonic theology is about how sound can act as a means for approaching God, for taking our consciousness from the material level to the spiritual level.
Talk about the example of the elevator for that purpose. So when our consciousness enters into the elevator of the holy name, our consciousness rises upwards. And it can take us to lofty levels of consciousness till we attain Krishna.
But to enter into that elevator, we need the desire, the conviction that I want to go to that higher level. And we may utter the mantra as a ritual without investing our consciousness. To prevent that from happening, we need the eyes of knowledge.
The eyes of knowledge come by studying scripture, by hearing. And the more we appreciate that chanting is raising us up, but it’s not immediately visible on many occasions, like the elevator gradually moving us, moving up. And we can, to get the eyes of knowledge, we talked about how we don’t see with our eyes, but we see with the intelligence that helps us make sense of what we see with our eyes.
So like a stop, market crash, simply a line going down. Stop, people, educated people understand what is happening, or an uneducated person doesn’t understand. Similarly, we need the eyes of knowledge to understand how the holy name is working in our life.
Otherwise, you won’t get purified. I talked about how we have the vehicle to move fast. But are we moving? Somebody may not have the vehicle, but if they are walking along, they will get to their destination earlier than somebody who has a very fast vehicle, but is not getting into the vehicle and moving the vehicle.
So chanting has to be infused with the desire to know Krishna, desire to serve Krishna, desire to love Krishna. Then that chanting transforms us and takes us towards Krishna. And then lastly, I talked about how the Krishna is our companion, our destination and our vehicle.
Krishna as a super soul is our companion. If we are travelling by plane, we meet a person and we understand that person was sitting next to us. Like that, when we realise Krishna, we understand that he was always there with me at the super soul.
Krishna is the vehicle as well as the destination. Like going on a gold staircase up to see gold, then realising the staircase is also gold. So like that, we chant the holy name to feel the presence of Krishna and then we understand that holy name itself is Krishna gradually.
And to the extent with philosophical understanding, we invest our consciousness in Krishna. Then as we redefine our whole worldview by hearing regularly, then chanting will raise our consciousness and help us to experience the spiritual level of reality. So the hearing gives us a new worldview and chanting raises our consciousness so that we can get to view that world.
We can experience that spiritual level of reality. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So are there any questions or comments? Yes, Pramila. I understand that the heart is important because the heart is where we decide where we want to apply our energy. And when we are chanting, so when we are going up the elevator, would it be enough if we have the heart to chant, but we don’t actually chant? Is that also part of chanting in the elevator? Okay.
So if you have the heart to chant, but we don’t actually chant. Yes, so we have to implement the idea. Yeah, I understand your point.
So basically, see that in every activity that we do, there is an external and there is an internal. So the external alone is not enough. But at the same time, in many situations, the external is very difficult to develop without the internal.
Suppose, say, you know, I lean back on this chair like this and I put my seat, legs over here. And then I say, I’m feeling very humble right now. But it will be very difficult.
It’s possible. But that very posture is a bossy posture. At least a relaxed posture.
And that plus to feel humility is difficult. So basically, our externals affect our internals. So we may want to move towards Krishna.
We may have the intention to chant Krishna’s names. But if you’re not chanting, then that intention will be difficult to sustain. So in some cases, chanting may be impossible.
Say, for example, if somebody can’t speak, if they’re dumb, they can’t speak. Then for them, they can’t chant aloud. They can chant in the mind.
Krishna is never inaccessible to anyone. But there are channels by which he’s most easily accessible or he’s more easily accessible. And if you don’t use those channels, then we can’t access him so well.
So the intent to chant internally needs to be coupled with the action of chanting externally. And if it is not possible for some reason, Krishna is an understanding God. That’s fine.
But if we ourselves, for some reason, don’t chant the holy names, I think I have the intent. The intent, if it is not translated into action, then that is not considered a very serious devotion. So of course, there may be people who may practise bhakti by other means.
They may worship the deities. They may go and go on pilgrimages. They may serve in the temples.
All that is good. In this age particularly, the holy name is the Yuga Dharma. So that’s why it’s important to chant.
Not just have the intent of chanting, but actually chant. Once there were three frogs who were outside a well. So two of them decided to jump into the well.
How many remained? Outside? Decision is not enough. They had to jump. They decided to jump into the well.
Did they jump? Not yet. So the decision alone is not enough. The action has to be followed by decision.
The desire to chant is good. The intent to chant is good. But it has to be executed.
So thank you very much.