humility and the science of chanting

jagatpurush · April 14, 2005

http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/showflat/cat/hinduism/87157/0/collapsed/5/o/1#Post96299

Hare Krishna. Dandavats. Jaya Srila Prabhupada.

quote:

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Actually seven years back when i came in contact with ISKCON i took up

KRISHNA CONCIOUSNESS very seriously and i was even chanting 16 rounds then. Through time one thing i have noticed is this that maintaining stability in KC is very tough and that there are no immediate results when

one takes up chanting seriously.

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My experience is that when one first starts chanting Hare Krishna he feels very happy, and is very fired up to chant. As time goes on his enthusiasm dies down, along with the happiness he experiences from it. Eventually chanting becomes a chore, where one must work hard to chant without actually enjoying it. Without experiencing happiness when chanting Hare Krishna, one's entire spiritual life becomes dull.

Again, from my experience, this loss of enthusiasm and happiness is due to a number of things, but most importantly our cynicism and criticism of other devotees. Once we begin to advance a very little in spiritual life we unfortunately develop pride. Either we think we are very advanced, very pure, or very knowledgeable, and others just don't match up to us.

When we first take to spiritual life we are very humble, and we automatically accept other devotees as very advanced. This is mostly due to ignorance of what advancement is, but in this case our ignorance actually helps us progress in spiritual life. As we develop knowledge and discrimination, we lose respect for those general devotees, who are actually sadhakas, and think that we are further along on the path of advancement then them. Actually what we have mostly gained is academic knowledge, not spiritual advancement. We can test this practically by seeing how much our mind is controlled. See how long we can sit quietly alone in a room. Just sit quietly, even without meditation! This is like kindergarten level that we are talking about, but we fail. Try spending one day observing mauna vrata, don't speak to anyone or make noise for one single day. If we try these simple exercises we will realize how entrapped in the material consciousness we are, and how uncontrolled our minds really are. Yet, in such a pitiful state, we thought small of every single soul who attempted spiritual life. They may have even been less advanced then us, but we failed to realize they were sadhakas, lost souls attempting spiritual life. It must be expected that they will have some flaws and faults. Out of millions of people, there is hardly one sadhaka - so even with all of his flaws and faults he is great.

From Krishna's view, when he looks upon all of us, he doesn't see the flaws, because the flaws are the standard in the material world. He sees the exceptional quality, that we have attempted something.

But from our perspective, when we see other devotees, we see the flaws. "Oh that person is a devotee but still he is like this, still he did that. Devotees are supposed to have all good qualities, but he is acting worse than a nondevotee."

Our mistake was that we failed to see him as a sadhaka, and instead tried to compare him to the standard of bhakta. Bhakta is a very advanced stage. just like we say "Bhakta Prahlada". It refers to the pure devotee. Srila Prabhupada had us call all new devotees as "bhakta" so that we would be offering respect to them, and they would feel themselves as servants of Krishna. He wanted to protect us from criticizing the sadhakas. We should respect the new sadhaka as a bhakta, but we should not try to measure him to the standard of a bhakta, for a true bhakta is a liberated soul.

To further protect us from this most common block on the spiritual path, Srila Prabhupada instructed us to offer obeisances to each devotee every morning when we first see them. But such practices have either stopped or become mere rituals. The use of the words "bhakta" and "prabhu" have become meaningless. Bhakta is now a term used to refer to an inferior class of devotee, and prabhu is just a word we use to address each other.

Humility is the only qualification to advance in spiritual life, but it is the most difficult quality to develop. As we become knowledgeable we begin to think we are advanced. As a result we pose as teachers, gurus, and ever-well wishers. We begin accepting people's obeisances instead of returning obeisances. We should note that the great saint Srila Bhakti Pramode Puri Maharaja, godbrother of Srila Prabhupada, would many times offer obeisances to the new devotees who would come to see him, despite himself being over 100 years old, and he would request them for blessings! This is the sign of advancement. The rest of us, who try to pose ourselves as knowledgeable and advanced, actually lack true devotional substance and practice. We may speak like eloquent scholars, but we are as lost as the rest of the outside world.

Still, an intelligent sadhaka will not even criticize us! The truly advancing sadhaka must be able to analyse the situation in truth and realize that those posing as advanced are also sadhakas stuck on their own level. They must be glorified for being sadhakas, and their faults should be seen as a natural product of this material world.

We are all coming out of the gutter, naturally there will be dirt on us. We cannot be criticized for being dirty, rather we should be glorified for choosing to climb out of the gutter. At the same time, the intelligent sadhaka must relate to each person according to their true level of advancement. He shouldn't blindly follow others despite knowing their aproximate level of advancement. We must adopt a standard of respecting all while following none. Of course this is a very crude way of explaining it. In other words, we must follow the exemplary saints whose life style is perfectly in accordance with the scriptures. Srila prabhupada is our own perfect example, whom we can internally compare others to. This comparison is not to criticize or to belittle, but to analyze. If someone falls short of the comparison, we offer them all respects and in our heart consider them to be a more advanced sadhaka on the spiritual path. But sadhakas should not follow sadhakas! A sadhaka needs a saint, this is the order given in the Nectar of Instruction. We may recieve some comfort and advice from other sadhakas, both beginners and advanced. But true absolute guidance can come only from a saint.

In the Shikshashtakam Sri Chaitanya says:

trnad api sunicena taror api sahisnuna amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih

If you want to chant Hare Krishna constantly you must become tolerant like a tree. Why a tree? Because everyone is offending the tree. Someone is snatching its fruit, someone is pulling its leaves, someone is breaking its branches, someone is taking its flowers. Now we may say, "How can I allow people to walk on top of me like this?" The point is if you want to chant constantly (kirtaniyah sada harih) then you must be on this platform, like Haridas Thakur. He allowed people to beat him with sticks. After beating him, they were unable to kill him, so they requested to him, "You please die, otherwise the king will punish us." So to satisfy them he died, and later came back to life. This is tolerant like a tree. Such a person can chant 24 hours a day. Artificially we cannot become so tolerant, but according to our level of tolerance we will be able to chant. If someone is only a little tolerant, he will only be able to chant a little bit. If he tries to chant more he will find it too difficult to chant.

So we must increase our tolerance and humility, not artificially but naturally and slowly. Once the humility is increased, then we will see that it becomes easier to chant.

In the beginning of spiritual life we have no pride, and due to ignorance we offer all respects to other devotees thinking everyone to be a saint. Thus we have no impediments in chanting. But as we increase in knowledge, our humility decreases and we begin to judge devotees, forgetting that they are in reality sadhakas. At that time we are suddenly faced with a block, it becomes difficult to chant Hare Krishna. Only when we bring our self back to our original level of humility, accepting everyone as more advanced then ourselves, will our chanting again become pure. Devotees are always looking for the 'good old days' of ISKCON, but they fail to understand what made those days good. It wasn't a time period, it wasn't just the presence of the Founder-Acharya, it was our own humility and respect for all. As soons as there is pride, one loses the spiritual taste, and the 'good old days' are gone.

Yours in service,

J.N.Das

mark · April 15, 2005

Haribol !

Many thanks for this post - I really found it interesting and helpful. I have printed it off and will try and read remember to read it every so often to remind myself not to get too puffed up and try and be humble.

Mark