kirtan or japa?

Question: Often there is more attention in kirtan rather than japa chanting. Which is more important?

Response: Kirtan and japa are both essential for our spiritual life. We take a vow when we receive initiation to chant at least 16 rounds of mala every day, and that is very, very essential for our own personal, private purification. We need to regulate our chanting to where nothing else around should in anyway disturb us. We should actually chant our japa in such a way that we have nothing else to do during that time otherwise you cannot chant attentively.

Krishna reveals Himself according to how we approach Him. If you are doing so many other things while you are chanting your japa, then Krishna’s name will be doing so many other things besides revealing Himself to you. But if you really want to show Krishna that you are serious, you will be in a place with the right people where you can just chant. No phone calls, no fax messages, no managerial decisions to be made. You should just sit and chant. We should really make a time of the day when that is the only priority; that is very important.

But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also taught the process of dancing and chanting; that is equally important. Which is more important to your health?

Let me ask Radha Rajya Prabhu, he is our most illustrious health expert. May I ask you a health question? What is more important for your health, eating or sleeping? Both. Can you live without eating? Sometimes. But you can sometimes be a devotee without chanting [laughs] but it doesn’t last very long. Can you live without sleeping? For some time; but then you go crazy. Prabhupada said who is crazy? The whole world is crazy because they have forgotten Krishna.

So similarly this chanting and dancing, and this japa; they are both very essential for proper spiritual development. The chanting and dancing - not only do we personally benefit but we present the name in such a loud way that even the neighbour and the police benefit, even the trees benefit and it creates a unity within society which is so pleasing and joyful.

So really there is no difference between japa and kirtan and bhajans. They are there for the same purpose and we make the best spiritual advancement when we accept the guidance of our great spiritual masters who teach us how to balance our life, like a good natural doctor. Similarly, Srila Prabhupada has taught us how to balance our life: have kirtan in the morning, have kirtan in the evening, and chanting japa in this way is very important. We should chant with the congregation, and we should chant our japa everyday. It is very nice if we have kirtan with our family at home or if we come to the temple on the regular basis and have kirtan with devotees. This is the sublime form of purification.

the magnanimity of srila prabhupada

Srila Prabhupada was such a devotee; he was an intimate associate of Lord Krishna. How do we understand Srila Prabhupada’s special, special, special position?

Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami said that Lord Chaitanya is the most merciful and is the supreme amongst avatars because of His magnanimity; because He wanted to give Krsna consciousness to everyone and anyone without discrimination through the chanting of the holy names. Of all great personalities, Lord Chaitanya especially selected and empowered Srila Prabhupada to manifest his magnanimity to the highest extent, to travel on every continent in the world, giving Krishna’s name with no consideration of who we are or where we are coming from. Srila Prabhupad saw every living entity potentially as a pure saintly person, just with a little covering of maya over us.

So Srila Prabhupada, without any discrimination, he gave this Hare Krsishna mahamantra. He would sit in a little park in New York City called Tomkins Square Park. This is where Srila Prabhupada started the Hare Krsna movement in Tomkins Square Park. And some of the people in India were saying, "Why is he preaching to these lowest of uncivilised people in the West?"

But those people do not understand what Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami said, that the supreme quality of Lord Chaitanya is His magnanimity and that He makes no discrimination. The Lord would give Krishna consciousness and the holy name to everyone.

So Srila Prabhupada was the manifested representative of that most illustrious quality of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. How dear he is to the Lord, and how fortunate are all of us to have the opportunity to be connected to such a special personality who is revealing the glorious opulences of the Lord in such a merciful and compassionate way.

But Srila Prabhupada explained that this verse; to be more humble than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, to be willing to and ready to offer all respects to everyone and to expect no respect from anyone else - that is the quality that will keep us always under Krsna’s divine protection, that is the quality by which Krsna would be pleased to reciprocate and manifest Himself in His holy name to us.

So we should chant very sincerely and very attentively every day to purify our consciousness, and simultaneously we should sincerely be a humble servant within our life.

lord chaitanya is the most magnanimous

When we chant the holy names of the Lord, we are crying out for Krishna to save us. And how does Krishna save us? Because He is non-different from His name; because He is all pure, when we chant attentively within our heart, the name cleanses all of our illusions and all of our attachments. The holy name awakens the pure state of our original consciousness, and we are liberated form the web of material existence.

So Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, He came to give this name of Krishna without discrimination to everyone and to anyone. In fact, in the Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita it is described by Sri Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami, the author, that Lord Chaitanya is the topmost of all incarnations of God, that He is Krsna Himself from His original form.

But Lord Chaitanya is acting in a superior way, in the sense that He was magnanimous. This magnanimity is the special feature that makes Lord Chaitanya the most merciful of all incarnations. Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami explains the meaning of Lord Chaitanya’s magnanimous nature: He is giving pure unalloyed selfless love of God, the ultimate happiness of the soul, to anyone and everyone without discrimination. He does not consider who is qualified and who is unqualified, the only qualification to receive the mercy of the Lord is simply the eagerness to accept it; that’s all. Whether you are sinful, whether you were born in kind of adverse conditions, it doesn’t even matter, what you have done or what you haven’t done.

Are we eagerly willing to accept the mercy when it comes? And what is that mercy?

To associate with the Lord and His devotees and to chant His holy names.