English
26 SEPTEMBER 2019
TIME TO CONCENTRATE ON THE QUALITY OF OUR CHANTING.
Hare Krishna!
We are getting the whole world to chat, in different forums , different gatherings, in our own gathering here in zoom conference. I think we should be concentrating and working now on reviving our numbers. We had the prerogative of having almost 700 participants. Now we are only 460 so we should do some homework. All of you and all of us have to do it together, to work on increasing the number of participants at this conference. Padmamali Prabhu is giving you the target of 700 participants. Some of you are still in the festive mood, WHNF mood. They are still sending the reports and scores, some of you are doing that. That's nice. Some of you are giving your own personal scores of chanting more than 16 rounds. That's welcome. Minimum is 16 rounds, but the more the merrier. You may report or not report, but more chanting is always welcome. ISKCON Noida is reporting 10 top scores of Harinama bank in their report. There is this Harinama Bank. You could read. But you have to, I may remind you , send all your reports two world holy name conference. Yesterday we were showing the link and for the scores. So take note of that and send all your reports there. The right destination is world holy name conference.
I was thinking during the month of December there is book marathon and devotees do extra effort to distribute books. Not that they don't distribute books in other months. Books are to be distributed every month, everyday, but we distribute more books during marathon time. So likewise we make extra effort of spreading the holy name, get more and more new people, your relatives, friends, neighbours, school children, new devotees new people in the park, get them to chant. But it does not mean that throughout the year such attempts should not be made. We continue to some extent as much as we can manage, throughout the year. So keep doing that. There could be a World Holy Name Festival every month, every week ,every day, and the big one the Grand one will be during the actual World Holy Name Festival, official time when Prabhupada arrived in America. This is just a suggestion that all those who took part in World Holy Name Festival for those who were organising things, gather their team members, their groups , and do the review of World Holy Name Festival. Review of how was it. What were the strong points and what were the weak points. What were the challenges. In future we have to do this next year also. So make planning for next year of how to do it. Oh! We couldn't do this thing this year. Next time for sure we will do this. We will do that. So begin making plans, now itself. Do pre-planning for better success. Plan your festival. For next year make some plans. Some plan not the whole detail plan. So what strategy works and what strategy did not work, like that everywhere you should do you in temple or in bhakti-vriksha, in your own area where you belong. So do the review. Note it down, write it down and preserve the file or minutes of your meeting, resolutions that you will be adopting so that you can find them again for the world Holy Name festival and implement your planning. Work on your resolutions.
While doing marathon we were working on numbers of rounds that you were chanting or you were getting others to chat. That's why the Harinama bank was also there. Lots of deposits are there. I chanted 64 rounds everyday, and I chanted this many rounds on the first day and so many reports like that. So we have worked on the numbers increasing the quantity and for sure the Lord is pleased. kirtaniya sada hari. Some of you took 22 hours to chant the rounds and chanted 192 rounds. So that's the quantity you are working on or focusing on the quantity. That's also welcome. More the merrier as we said.
At the same time the quality is also equally important if not more important than the quantity or numbers. So you could and others also now concentrate on the qualitative chanting. So always do attentive chanting, offence less chanting. Chanting is of three kinds or three phases or stages as explained in the book ' Nectar of devotion'. Offensive chanting, clearance stage, and offence less chanting. So we have to make progress, attempt committing less or no offences. Minimise offences. That is then the clearing stage of offences.
Then there is ruci and then offence less chanting. Out of all these, our goal is to reach at offence less chanting or prem Harinama.
So work on that. You could get together with your team, your friends and discuss the topic. Discuss the topic of chanting without offences. Or how can I achieve this, so that I can chat without offences. Or meditative chanting.
Lovingly chanting the holy name of the Lord, so that can become the topic of our discussion. There is a report that devotees are gathering at Syamalangi Mataji's place and she is also going to serve prasada. So like that there could be gatherings this way. You can have a Japa session like this or it can be separate one, during the day or weekdays or holidays. Get together and discuss how to improve your chanting. How to improve and do quality chanting. How to evolve, improve and chant offencelessly. Counsellors can get together and discuss this topic how to improve the chanting. I am happy to announce that Sacidananda Prabhu has gathered many devotees for his seminar. They are gathering together at the foothill of Govardhan. Beginning from today it will go on for several days. He will be talking and others will listen. Sacidananda Prabhu who is sitting right next to me. He will be talking on 'Crying for Krsna'.
It's a big topic. They are going to learn how to cry for Krsna crash course. So for sure that gathering topic is how to chant better, with attention, feelings, when we are calling out to the Lord. When you are calling out it's not easy.
That's not the first thing you should be learning. There are other things also. But the ultimate stage is how to cry for Krsna. So some attempts are being done, to discuss to improve chanting or chanting with feelings. So we will also make like that for a few days. The purpose of this conference, is to improve our chanting, how to chant better, chant lovingly attentively. so next few days we will make some attempt, of 'Crying for Krsna', during this conference.
I am in Vrindavan and I have Bhagavatam class today , and before that I will be going for Srila Prabhupada Guru puja.
Gaur Premanande Hari Hari Bol!!
