“Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kīrtana Standards,” installment 19
The question “What should we think of while chanting?” often comes up. So let me give some attention to it here.
One instruction from Śrīla Prabhupāda that I remember came to me from a German godbrother named Uttamaśloka Dāsa. Sometime in the early days when our New York temple was at 61 Second Avenue, Uttamaśloka came from Europe and stayed at the temple for some days. And he repeated an instruction he had heard from His Divine Grace about how to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa: “Just try to hear yourself chant sincerely.”
For all the years since, that instruction has stuck with me. It is not that while chanting we are meant to focus on some particular picture or pastime. We simply have to chant and hear.
As Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote to Jagadīśa Dāsa:
When we chant, we must concentrate our mind on the sound vibration and in that way everything will be revealed one after another[:] the form, qualities, pastimes, etc. of the Lord. And this is the way of cultivating spiritual realization.1
Just concentrate on the sound, and everything else will follow.
Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote to Rādhāvallabha Dāsa, “Concentrate fully on the sound vibration of the mantra, pronouncing each name distinctly. . .”2
Of course, in that letter Śrīla Prabhupāda was speaking about chanting japa, but the same instruction is relevant for kīrtana. Our practice is to concentrate fully on the sound vibration of the mantra.
Someone once asked me in a class, “Is it offensive to think of Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes while chanting?”
Of course not, I said. It’s not that we should worry, “Oh no! I’ve become distracted and thought of Kṛṣṇa!”
Some days later, I saw that answer confirmed—and amplified—by Śrīla Prabhupāda in letter excerpts collected and published in the newsletter Sri Krishna Kathamrita Bindu.3 The excerpts provide balance and further insight for the instruction “Just try to hear yourself chant sincerely.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote:
While chanting Hare Krsna Hare Krsna you should always feel the presence of Krsna in Person and as soon as you remember Krsna in Person you can remember also about His talks with Arjuna. If you cannot remember Krsna in Person you should try to hear attentively the word Krsna, Hare as you go on chanting.”4
And, more directly about “offensiveness”:
Regarding your first question, is it offensive to think of Krsna’s Pastimes while chanting, I think you should know that it is not offensive, but rather it is required. One must try for the point when he simply hears Krsna and immediately all of Krsna, His Pastimes, His Form, His Quality, are in his thoughts. So to always be immersed in thoughts of Krsna this is our process. When we are full in Krsna then where there can be any chance for maya in us? So this is our duty to remember Krsna’s Pastimes. One who cannot remember Krsna, let him always hear Hare Krsna and then when he has perfected this art, then always he will remember Krsna, His Activities, His Qualities, etc.”5
The chanting is not simply mechanical, nor does it involve any sort of artificial imagination. We chant, we hear, and we feel the presence of Kṛṣṇa, all at once, as we make progress more and more.
Though not mentioned in the newsletter, another letter (to Satsvarūpa, April 10, 1969) makes the same point again. Through Satsvarūpa, Jadurānī too had asked what she should think of while chanting:
Srila Prabhupada, you are now sending your Krsna book tapes, full with Krsna’s sweet pastimes, for typing and editing, and I am regularly reading the manuscripts. Should I meditate on the pastimes I’ve just been reading about? Or should I meditate on your transcendental instructions? Or should I think of Krsna’s form? Or on His instructions to Arjuna in Bhagavad-gita? Or should I just try to blank out all thoughts and just hear?6
Śrīla Prabhupāda replied:
Regarding Jadurani’s question, hearing the vibration of Hare Krsna automatically reminds one of Krsna’s Pastimes. So both of them arise simultaneously in the mind when one is sincerely chanting. So you cannot make any distinction between listening to the sound and thinking of the Pastimes. But the process is to hear, and then Krsna’s Pastimes, Form, Qualities, etc. will automatically come to mind: That is very nice.7
So: “Just try to hear yourself chant sincerely.”
Notes:
1 February 27, 1970. In the book Amṛta Vānī (p. 4) Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura is quoted as having said, “When all anarthas are removed while chanting the holy names, then the form, qualities, and pastimes of the Lord automatically manifest. There is no need to endeavor artificially to remember the Lord’s form, qualities, and pastimes.” The book (originally in Bengali) was compiled from Śrīla Sarasvatī Ṭhākura’s teachings by one of his sannyāsī disciples but does not mention the specific sources from which the quotations it gives were drawn.
2 January 6, 1972.
3 May 6, 2017.
4 Letter to Ballabhi Dasi, May 5, 1967.
5 Letter to Sivananda Dasa, December 4, 1968.
6 The Art of Spiritual Life, p. 197.
7 Letter to Satsvarupa Dasa, April 10, 1969.
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