Mechanical Chanting & Speaking In Tongues

[Gauracandra]

This week’s Srila Siddhaswarupananda television program is a continuation of a Philippino lecture series.

 

Audience Member: How do we chant the mantra so that it doesn’t become mechanical. Also, how would you relate this chanting to the Christian charismatic movement with speaking in tongues.

 

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: Your first question is a good one in terms of chanting the names of God without being mechanical. Everything is a repetition unless you only say one word once in your life. We only have 3000 to 5000 word vocabularies. The New Testament is a repetition. So it is not just this one mantra. What is that Christian prayer? The one about give us our bread…

 

Audience Member: The Lords Prayer [starts reciting it]

 

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: That’s the one. See he started mechanically reciting it because he learned it as a kid [laughter] I was brought up in an atheist family, so I never learned it. So there are all sorts of prayers. The key is that you have to make an effort. Sometimes you will catch yourself doing it mechanically other times not. But when you come to love God you will not take God’s names mechanically. You must consciously choose to make an effort to chant. Even if 90% of the time it is mechanical there will still be an effect. The power of the Holy Name is not dependent on you. The power is there. Like fire. If you stick your hand in fire, mechanically or not, it will burn. It is not you who will purify yourself.

 

There is a stage in chanting where a person is cleaning. You have material desires. You lack faith in God’s names. You get beyond this by chanting God’s names. An important thing to understand is that right now you are hearing “Gopala Govinda Rama Madana Mohana”. It seems flat. It is just sound. So the tendency is to just slide along. I’m not sure I’m explaining or expressing to you my view. But the more you become purified the sound takes on dimensions. God appears as His name. Ultimately you experience God in all His beauty, glory, and love. It is no longer flat. This is the point one comes to.

 

Concerning your second question, about the connection between the Charismatic movement and speaking in tongues. We don’t find this in the teachings of Lord Jesus Christ. That the names of God will come in foreign sounds in ascending sequence. We accept the names of God in descending sequence through disciplic succession.

 

Audience Member: Speaking in tongues allows the Holy Spirit to take over and speak words you may not understand.

 

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: What is the value if you don’t understand.

 

Audience Member: It is a deep union with God. Like when Christ called out “Abba”.

 

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: But he says “Abba” so it is a descending name of God. The problem with speaking in tongues is that you don’t know who is speaking. It could be all sorts of ghosts. There was once a man speaking in tongues who came to convert me, asking me to surrender to Jesus through him. Because I am a devotee of God he became an offender. Within 45 minutes he went insane. This is a fact. Isn’t this a fact Tusta? He started preaching from the Bible. Then he attacked me as a demon. But he had this power in him. There was one Samoan boy, named Bill, who was following me. He was brought up in the Assembly of God churches and so was familiar with this speaking in tongues. This man had this power in him and started speaking in tongues. He started rolling around on the ground, making crazy sounds. Finally, he converted Bill who became his disciple and left.

 

Later that night Bill came back. He said this guy went crazy. This guy had the spirit in him, and later that night he picked up a knife and started stabbing the door screaming “Come out, come out”. He went totally nuts and the cops had to come. He was possessed by a spirit. But how holy was that ghost? How do you know the spirit comes from God.

 

Audience Member: By the fruits you will know. The person you say, I don’t think that was the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Ghost can heal people of emotional hurts.

 

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: This process we don’t need to follow it. It is for those who don’t have a disciplic succession. The whole Christian world is looking for something. Some get into Transcendental Meditation, others yoga. They want a personal experience and speaking in tongues is the only one they have in their tradition. Ours is descending from spiritual masters. The Lord speaks but not in gibberish. He is in your heart. IF I ROLL ON THE GROUND RIGHT NOW AND START SPEAKING GIBBERISH THAT DOES YOU NO BENEFIT [crowd erupts in applause]. If it is to be truly done, then do it in private.

 

Audience Member: Paul says also to do it in private. But sometimes you need someone to translate.

 

Srila Siddhaswarupananda: [a look of stunned amazement on his face] Oh my God! [he can’t believe what he is hearing] Oh, my God! What does this guy have a book for translating tongues? Can you honestly say this is a good process? I’m not saying everyone is a charlatan. But it is very dangerous. You don’t know who this person is possessed by. The whole problem is that we want an experience that looks far out. “What did he take? Wow, let me do some of that.” Spiritual life is more than just a good trip. It means surrender of your time, money, energy, to Him. Speaking intelligibly. You are not the center of so many transcendental experiences. Some people want to chant “Gopala Govinda Rama Madana Mohana” hoping to squeeze out bliss. “Oh, I did it for one week and got 1 pint of bliss. Now I’ll try speaking in tongues and squeeze out 1 quart of bliss.”

 

No. Why do I chant? To please God. God is the Supreme egotist. You know that little speck in us that likes to hear our name? God has that in full. Don’t try to become zero and let some spirit take over you. There are a lot of ghosts out there.

Everyday I chant on my beads. Sixteen times around. Why? Because my spiritual master, who is a pure lover of God, has told me to do it. I don’t chant trying to get the bliss. “Where is the bliss? Where is the bliss?” There are pitfalls in all spiritual life. But this approach is very dangerous. You need a spiritual master to guide you. We have a triangular system of scripture, the Lord in the heart, and guru. The guru can let us know when it is actually God. The three harmonize. This system of the Charismatics is dangerous. They have scripture and Holy Ghost, but no spiritual master.

[Tarun]

Once, while TripurAri Swami was visiting us, I invited one born-again Christian friend.

As they volleyed arguments back & forth, all of a sudden Mike spurted out with a bunch of... sound... ?

Sounded a little like 6th Canto "manye kunjara-saucavat" over & over again.

Later Mike claimed he was speaking in tongues, which raises the burning question:

In tongues? Is there any other way to speak?

[Gauracandra]

This week's episode is a repeat of this lecture.

[gHari]

http://www.kentaxrecords.com/iaca/php/item_display.php?id=1066100187&type=news

[Guest guest]

"The problem with speaking in tongues is that you don’t know who is speaking. It could be all sorts of ghosts."

 

right said... i have seen it from evangelists, it is extremely weird and made me chantink "namaste narasimhaya..."

 

definitely.. sahajia.. imitation.. i practise from one or two days and i want to be already in contact with god

 

the funny thing is that they say that if you speak incomprensible things .. it is god.. if it happens that you say omething in a language you do not know (i have heard of a boy speaking in sanskrit...) this is satanic

 

 

we have our problems in the west with some abuses and so on, very bad, but they have theirs with priests and leaders "incarnating" jesus and doing "sacred sex" with female adepts... or studying their problems, all comes from this over sensual (=sahajia) mentality

 

i do not say that our abuses are more nice than theirs (actually it is maybe the opposite... abusung childs is absolutely hellish), i am only saying that this behaviour admitted by the doctrine is the main source of their problems