19860504 - Cc. Madhya-līlā 24.206-210

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swāmī Mahārāja on April 5th, 1986 in Atlanta, Georgia. The class begins with a reading from the Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya-līlā Chapter 24, Text 206-210.

Translation: “ ‘This land of Vṛndāvana [Vrajabhūmi] is glorified today. Your lotus feet have touched her earth and grass, Your fingers have touched her trees and creepers, and Your merciful eyes have glanced upon rivers, hills, birds and beasts. The gopīs have been embraced by Your arms, and even the goddess of fortune desires this. Now all of these are glorified.’

Purport: This verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.15.8) was spoken by Lord Kṛṣṇa to Śrī Balarāma.

gā gopakair anu-vanaṁ nayator udāra-
veṇu-svanaiḥ kala-padais tanu-bhṛtsu sakhyaḥ
aspandanaṁ gatimatāṁ pulakas tarūṇāṁ
niryoga-pāśa-kṛta-lakṣaṇayor vicitram

Translation: “‘My dear friend, Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma are passing through the forest leading Their cows with Their cowherd boyfriends. They both carry ropes with which, at the time of milking, They bind the rear legs of the cows. When They play on Their flutes, all moving living entities are stunned, and nonmoving living entities experience ecstatic jubilation by Their sweet music. All these things are certainly very wonderful.’

Purport: This is a quotation from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.21.19). All the gopīs were very attracted to Kṛṣṇa when they saw Him wandering in the forest with Baladeva. They thus praised the Lord's activities.

vana-latās tarava ātmani viṣṇuṁ
vyañjayantya iva puṣpa-phalāḍhyāḥ
praṇata-bhāra-viṭapā madhu-dhārāḥ
prema-hṛṣṭa-tanavo vavṛṣuḥ sma

Translation: “The plants, creepers and trees were full of fruits and flowers due to ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa. Indeed, being so full, they were bowing down. They were inspired by such deep love for Kṛṣṇa that they were constantly pouring showers of honey. In this way the gopīs saw all the forests of Vṛndāvana.’

Purport: This verse is from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.35.9).

kirāta-hūnāndhra-pulinda-pukkaśā
ābhīra-śumbhā yavanāḥ khaśādayaḥ
ye ’nye ca pāpā yad-upāśrayāśrayāḥ
śudhyanti tasmai prabhaviṣṇave namaḥ

Translation: ‘Kirāta, Hūna, Āndhra, Pulinda, Pukkaśa, Ābhīra, Śumbha, Yavana and the Khaśa races, and even others who are addicted to sinful acts, can be purified by taking shelter of the devotees of the Lord, due to His being the supreme power. I beg to offer my respectful obeisances unto Him.’

āge ‘tera’ artha kariluṅ, āra ‘chaya’ ei
ūnaviṁśati artha ha-ila mili’ ei dui

Translation: “I have already spoken about the thirteen kinds of meaning. Now there are six more. Combined, these make nineteen.

Purport: So, the different meanings are: (1) mental speculators (vide verse 165), (2) those engaged in different types of endeavor (see verse 168), (3) those who are patient and sober (see verse 174), (4) those who are intelligent and learned scholars (see verse 187), (5) those who are intelligent but illiterate and foolish (see verse 187), and (6) those who are conscious of their eternal servitorship to Kṛṣṇa (verse 201).

Thus end the Bhaktivedānta Purport.

***

Caitanya Mahāprabhu was explaining before how the different plants, or nonmoving and lowborn creatures, beasts could be engaged and elevated in Kṛṣṇa's service. Before, it was mentioned that everyone is eligible for devotional service. What to speak of great sages, the Kumāras, human beings, even the most lowborn. Even the beasts. Even the plants. They could be elevated to devotional service. So, in these previous verses, it mentions how when Kṛṣṇa was in Vṛndāvana, He touched the trees and creepers. How He glanced over the rivers, the hills the birds, the beasts. How He'd milk the cows, and how by hearing His flute, living entities, even immobile entities... There are two kinds of entities. According to the Vedas, you can say sthāvara and jaṅgam. Sthāvara means unmoving. So nonmoving, plants, mountains, jewels, trees: these are considered nonmoving. Generally speaking, they don't walk.

Jaṅgam: Birds, fish, insects, reptiles, beasts, humans. They all fit under jaṅgam. They're moving entities. Then amongst jaṅgam, is further subdivided into plants, aquatics, insects (not the insects in the biological term of six-legged creature, but all form of bugs in the general sense) reptiles, birds and then animals, then human beings. This way, 8,400,000 species of life, broad species of life described in the Vedas.

So, amongst these, they consider that those animals which have four legs are better than those that have no legs. So, like the snakes and other things, those moving on four legs, they're better. They can move faster, they can get around better. Then, those that have hands are considered better than those that have four legs because with hands you can do so many things, even the monkeys have hands of course, and amongst those that have hands of course, the human beings are considered the best.

Amongst humans, there are uncivilized types of human beings: hunters, aboriginals, various kind of people who are not having much of an understanding of God consciousness or very primitive people, rustic. I don't know exactly the right word, but the śabaras and others. And amongst the human civilized type... there's uncivilized and civilized you can divide. And amongst the civilized, then they're categorized first as veda ‘mukhe’ māne... dharma nāhi gaṇe... pāpa niṣiddha kare. That there are certain kind of people who believe in Vedic culture. The uncivilized are those who are not following any spiritual culture. Who are unregulated, meat-eaters. Other form of uncivilized creatures, humans.

Amongst the civilized, those who accept the principles of spiritual life, of Vedic culture, progressive human development, up to God realization, there are those who profess religion, profess God consciousness, but in name only. But actually, in practical life, they commit so many unauthorized activities, so many sinful activities. They're not living up to what they profess. Amongst these, better than that are those that actually practice principles of religion. They follow the rules known as karma. They follow the authorized activities for achieving material happiness.

Most religionists go to the churches to pray for wealth. Wealth is very important in material life because it's with wealth that we can achieve sense gratification. People like to have a lot of money so that they can buy the objects which will gratify their senses. This is the material reason why people are attracted to wealth. So, those people who try to achieve their wealth and their sense gratification by following the religious formulas, rituals given in various religious systems, they're considered karma-kāṇḍīs. They're better than those who just say they belong to a religion, but they don't actually follow it.

The differentiation is made there between those who claim to be followers of religion, and those who actually are following, but for material upliftment, ultimately to achieve heaven, where they can have more sense gratification, more material happiness than they can have here. Higher than them are the jñānīs. The jñānīs are those who want to transcend the sense gratification and actually achieve salvation, achieve liberation. So, it's said, out of millions of such karma-kāṇḍīs, you find one person who wants to achieve self-realization, who wants to really know who they are, "Who is God?" At least want to be liberated from this materaial suffering.

Amongst the millions of jñānīs, then you actually find someone who's perfected, or siddha. And out of those millions of perfected souls, you'll find someone who is actually a devotee, and out of such devotees, to find a pure devotee is very rare.

bhukti-mukti-siddhi-kāmī, sakali 'aśānta'
kṛṣṇa-bhakta—niṣkāma, ata eva 'śānta'

That of all those performing religion for their material happiness, or for liberation, or for achieving perfection and mystic power, all of them are not in the ultimate conclusion. They're not satisfied. They've got some unfulfilment. But, the devotee of the Lord, Kṛṣṇa's devotees, because they are completely desireless, they're without other motive, they're śānta. They're completely self-satisfied.

So, this is the basic division of entities in the world. Of all the entities, the Kṛṣṇa devotee as considered the highest level of evolution. Now in modern society, people talk about how people are evolved. That someone is more evolved than another person. Real evolvement, the basis for judging evolvement is given here in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, especially it is explained in the 7th, 8th and 9th volume of the Madhya-līlā in various ways. The teachings to Rūpa and Sanātana, and these subsequent teachings. The actual standard of evolving in human life, in existence is given.

The culmination of evolution is to become Kṛṣṇa conscious, to become God conscious. To do so, it's not simply some kind of mental, we think, "I'm conscious." Or "I'm aware of something." With awareness comes an evolvement. It's not possible to be aware of God unless you can come up to a basic platform which is at least qualitative wise equal with Kṛṣṇa. That means you have to evolve up to a certain position, a platform wherefrom you can understand, "Who is the Supreme Personality of Godhead? What is God? Who are we? How do we relate with God? With nature? With the entire existence?" So actually it's simply a question of evolution.

Normally, people evolve one birth after the next, one life after the next, and gradually by this process, they achieve to many, many births.

bahūnāṁ janmanām ante
jñānavān māṁ prapadyate
vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti
sa mahātmā su-durlabhaḥ

They achieve realization the Kṛṣṇa is everything, that there's nothing except for God, that everything is an expansion, either of His energy, or directly a manifestation of His own power and glory, His own potency, His own self.

So, that's the ultimate point of evolution. So, you can analyze people. You can see where they are, according to this absolute standard. But normally, people take a long time to come up to that under normal circumstances. But what Caitanya Mahāprabhu has done is He's circumvented all of these standard procedures. Kṛṣṇa had already initiated this program before, whereby He would elevate even plants, beasts and other creatures to the platform of being conscious of Himself.

Normally a plant is hardly conscious of much more than light or touch, a few sensations. Not very highly evolved in their consciousness, but because Kṛṣṇa is so intense, by His presence, they actually became conscious of Kṛṣṇa being present. And being conscious of Kṛṣṇa, although they were plants, that meant they achieved the highest level of evolution. Being conscious of Kṛṣṇa means that one is already above the evolutionary platform of liberation. One is already a liberated soul. So, it's already far beyond the material platform.

So, that means by Kṛṣṇa's personal presence, even someone who's far down on the level of evolution, they can be immediately promoted. Of course, Kṛṣṇa was personally present 5,000 years ago, and only the creepers, and the plants in Vṛndāvana, who had the opportunity of hearing Kṛṣṇa's flute, of being glanced upon by Kṛṣṇa, of being walked upon by Kṛṣṇa and touched by Kṛṣṇa, they got this special mercy. But 5,000 years later, when Kṛṣṇa's not present, then what is the hope for living entities who are stuck within this evolutionary cycle? How can they supersede, get out of the insurmountable chain of events?

Naturally people like to get ahead. No one likes to just, although we are trained now, in the Western world we have to wait in queue, wait our turn, but everyone would like to jump the line. Of course, we don't like to jump ahead of others, but we'd like to because we're conditioned that, "Well, we just can go one at a time." But if all of a sudden, unlimited counters open up at the same time, and you can all be first in line, then it's all right. In this way Kṛṣṇa's unlimited, so we don't have to wait one after another. We can all go simultaneously.

One doesn't have to wait when it's Kṛṣṇa who's personally providing the facility. The point is of course, people would like to not have to wait to achieve their complete happiness or highest perfection for an unlimited period of time. If they could immediately achieve it, anyone who has the ability to comprehend it, they would naturally like to achieve it. But unfortunately, those who aren't evolved don't know about the opportunity. Just like these plants and creepers in Vṛndāvana, they don't know the opportunity that, "You do this." No, they have no alternative. They're simply standing there.

The beasts, or the uncivilized people, they're totally absorbed in simply trying to get something to eat through hunting, or through scrounging, or through some means. Then occasionally they're agitated to have a little sex life. Or they're tired and they sleep. Or they're attacked by something and they defend themselves. This is enough to take up their full occupation. And if they have a little time, then they wander around, and maybe they start to philosophize or something, but it doesn't really get too far.

So practically speaking, in a modern society, when you tell someone, "Why don't you participate in some self-realization?"

"I have no time."

Then you remind them. "If you have no time, then what is the real advancement of civilization? The aborigines have no time. Animals have no time for self-realization. So, if the modern man has no time, then where is the advancement? They're doing the same thing that the aborigines are. Hard struggle for existence."

Civilization in the modern world is supposed to be advanced. That means it should have time saved for some higher pursuit. In any case, actually because in consciousness, not everyone is fully evolved, or even very far evolved. They're just at the basic levels of understanding religion, of professing religion, or some are possibly trying to follow some religious principle for material happiness at best, the real meaning of life, or the higher purpose to understand the Supreme Person, that's not really comprehended by people.

So, just as Kṛṣṇa, personally in Vṛndāvana, by His wandering about and glancing, He would awaken these beasts, the animals, the birds, the plants and creepers, what to speak of others, so, Caitanya Mahāprabhu, when He was personally present, Kṛṣṇa again came as His own devotee, then He also awakened. But He didn't want to simply limit it to His own personal presence because He could only be one place at a time. Of course, He could be everywhere simultaneously, but for practical purposes, since He was playing a particular līlā or pastime, He would only be in one place at a time. But He wanted to simultaneously be everywhere, and let everyone be awakened. So, therefore, He appeared also in His form as the holy name.

nāma cintāmaṇiḥ kṛṣṇaś
 caitanya-rasa-vigrahaḥ
pūrṇaḥ śuddho nitya-mukto
 ’bhinnatvān nāma-nāminoḥ

Kṛṣṇa's holy name, nāma. Nāma means name in Saṅskṛt. English comes from the Saṅskṛt language originally. Nāma is the Saṅskṛt word for name. The similarity is unmistakable. nāma cintāmaṇiḥ kṛṣṇaś: That the holy name of Kṛṣṇa is a desire tree. It's a touchstone. It provides complete fulfillment of all desire. It is spiritual. It is cit, or conscious. caitanya-rasa-vigrahaḥ. It is living, and it is the form of transcendental ecstasy, mellow. pūrnaḥ śuddhaḥ: it is completely pure. nitya-muktaḥ: it is eternally liberated. abhinnatvān nāma-nāminoḥ:  And there is no difference between the name of God, and God Himself. They're the same on the absolute platform.

In this material world, the name and the named are different. The substance water is different. You can call water in different names. In Italian it's aqua. In Spanish it's agua. Hindi it's pānī. In Bengali it's jāla, or Saṅskṛt jāla. Tamil, it's taṇṇīr. Like this, it has so many different names, but the substance remains the same. But these names, although there are various names for water, but if you call out whatever name you call, you'll still be thirsty. You need to drink the water. But in the absolute platform, everything is by definition, is totally one, connected, so therefore, there's no difference between the name and the named.

Maybe a difference in form to our perception, but in substnace, but in spiritual force, in spiritual potency in potential, there's no difference. There's no separation of time and space on the absolute platform. Just like if I call out Reagan, president of America, sitting here in Atlanta, he's in Tokyo, he won't hear me because there's a separation of time, of space. We can bridge that through our telephones, and other methods of telecommunication, by sending that vibration through various means, but still there's a separation. We have to bridge that by various mechanical systems.

But, in the spiritual realm, time, space do no separate one thing from the next. How they are separated, that is something inconcievable to us. How things are existing, but you can say that on that platform, there is no such thing as separation as we know it in the material world. Therefore, when we call God, immediately He's present. Of course, He's present everywhere anyway through His omnipotent, omnipresent feature, so by calling His name, He's personally present.

Reagan is not God, therefore you call his name, it falls on deaf ears unless he's within a certain audible range. But Kṛṣṇa being everywhere simultaneously, you can call on His name in another... just in a very simple basic understanding. Although there's a higher conceptions behind it, because He's everywhere, He can hear you. He's present. But of course, it's said, the name and the named are the same. That's very inconceivable. That's the difference between a name of God, and a name of anything else.

So Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu wanted that the people, the living entities should be awakened, should be brought to that plane, platform of Kṛṣṇa consciousness that Kṛṣṇa personally gave when He was present, when God was walking on this Earth. The Supreme Person was glancing over the trees, was walking on the grass, everything that came in contact with the Lord, immediately became ecstatic, became evolved to the highest level irregardless of the body they were in, whether it was a plant body or a beast body, or aboriginal body, or whether it was a most highly civilized human body.

Everyone became conscious of the Lord, and thus they became immediately evolved to this highest level, especially in Vṛndāvana where immediately, they responded to this consciousness of the Lord with a devotional attitude. They reciprocated to the best of their abilities. This reciprocation is very important. How you reciprocate with Kṛṣṇa when He gives us consciousness of Him. If we reciprocate with Him in a favorable way, an unmotivated way, in an unbroken way, if we reciprocate to Him with love, with devotion, with service, then He immediately also responds and reciprocates with us, giving us His unlimited love.

The demons, when they become conscious of the Lord, they reciprocate with fear, anger, hatred, violence. The Lord is capable of also reciprocating with them. This is the difference between devotees and demoniac entities. Those who have been conditioned in a certain way, when they become conscious of God, they become envious of God. While devotees, when they become conscious of the Lord, they become in love with the Lord. So, there are creatures or entities in this world who have the covering of being demons. So, when they become conscious of the Lord, then their love manifests in a negative form as hatred or envy. This is described in the Bhagavad-gītā, that there are two types of entities.

So sometimes, Kṛṣṇa would meet up with entities who would respond to His presence with hatred. No one could ignore Kṛṣṇa's presence because when He's present, He's so intense that immediately one becomes conscious of Him, one becomes God conscious. But those who are innocent, or who are already slightly religious, they immediately become situated to the highest point of evolution, and develop love of Godhead, and those who are offenders of the Lord from before, offenders of His devotees, then they develop fear and hatred by being conscious of Him. So, these two responses were seen, but nobody could ignore Kṛṣṇa, just like someone can't ignore the sun in the daytime. It's there. You can't say that it's not there. You can close your eyes maybe to the sun, but they couldn't close their eyes to Kṛṣṇa.

They would immediately be polarized. So, Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, He's very merciful. He never took offense from anyone, even if people responded in a negative sense, He would still want to deliver them. He knew that this was simply due to previous offenses they had committed, and a slight adjustment in their consciousness could again bring it around. Hate is the opposite side of love just like negative attachment, and with a slight adjustment it can again reverse and become love.

So, Caitanya Mahāprabhu was willing to make that adjustment to reverse people's even negative attitude. That we cannot imitate. It's not easy to do. But for Lord Caitanya it was possible. For His empowered pure, great, liberated devotees, it's also possible to do. Normally for the preaching devotee, we ignore the demons. It's not easy to turn around their attitude. But sometimes it's possible by the mercy of great devotees of the Lord. In any case, Caitanya Mahāprabhu, He wanted to bring everyone to the platform of being conscious of Kṛṣṇa, not only where He was, but everywhere at the same time.

So, therefore, He told His followers, "You chant the Lord's name." Because wherever the Lord's name is, Kṛṣṇa is. And thus people will be conscious of Kṛṣṇa. And by being conscious of Kṛṣṇa, immediately they will become evolved. And gradually they will become up to the level of Kṛṣṇa conscious, or God conscious. Thus they will be situated in their constitutional eternal position As eternal servitors or lovers of God. Thus Lord Caitanya sent out His chanting parties to give the consciousness of Kṛṣṇa to everyone.

Thus He circumvents the normal tedious, cumbersome, lengthy process of evolution of consciousness, and immediately awakens people to the higher levels of consciousness, opens the door for them to become fully evolved as completely God conscious entities. And once you are fully God conscious, Then at the end of this life you can go back to home back to Godhead. You become liberated from the material world. You become situated in your complete perfectional status. 

So there are many examples of this. This is confirmed by Haridāsa Ṭhakura. He instructed a devotee who wanted to know whether it's better to chant softly. He said it's 100 times better to chant loudly, because by chanting loudly all the creepers, all the animals, all the birds and other entities that hear the vibration, they're benefited. They're uplifted. Similarly, Haridāsa Ṭhākura also, when the Lord expressed His intense desire how to deliver all the conditioned souls.

He said, "I flooded the entire world. Everyone is chanting the holy name, except there are these few types of people who are escaping Me. How to get them also?" He said, "The Yavanas, the meat eaters, they are avoiding this mercy." And he said, "The students and the mental speculators, scholars, academicians who are so proud of their false understandings and their mental concoctions and ideas, isms, they're somehow or another also, many of them are avoiding this mercy, due to their various mental blocks that they've constructed." And a few other categories of hard nuts, fishermen and hunters, people that escaped. He thought how to get them also.

Then Haridāsa Ṭhākura said, "If You flooded everyone else, Some people are swimming in the  water, and some people are just being swept away. They're floating in the waters. Somehow or another, everyone will be swept away whether they like it or not." In the floodwater, some may be swimming, and other things maybe floating. Somehow or another, everything gets swept away. Haridāsa Ṭhākura also said that, "By Your mercy, even accidentally if people chant the holy name of Kṛṣṇa, that will help them to spiritually evolve by accident." He gave an example, the Muslims, they have a word which means offender, blasphemer or something like heathen, it would mean in English. The word is called ḥarām, say if someone were to bring pig meat into the mosque or something, "Ḥarām, ḥarām!" Horrible, paganistic, or heathenistic. So, Haridāsa Ṭhākura said, "Somehow or another they are saying Rāma." Ḥarām.

Even by accidentally saying Rāma, They're getting what's called nāmābhāsa, it's a shadow or reflection of the holy name. That also is saving them from repetition of birth. So here even in America we find the Ramana Inns, and different Land-O-Rama, Walk-O-Rama, at least Rāma is quite prevalent. Somehow or another people are getting contact with the Lord's name, even accidentally. Of course people in general Hare Kṛṣṇa has become a household word. So at least some time or another in their life, they may say Hare Kṛṣṇa which also takes its effect in helping them to evolve spiritually to this perfectional platform. It already puts them on the track.

So in this way Haridāsa Ṭhākura tried to comfort and reassure Lord Caitanya, To appease His anxiety. Prabhupāda explained this is the mood of a devotee is that to satisfy the desire of the Lord. If the Lord is having an anxiety, the devotee wants to end that anxiety. So therefore, we are all following in the footsteps dāsānudāsānudāsa, The footsteps of the great devotees like Haridāsa Ṭhākura. We want to satisfy Lord Caitanya's desire.

He wants that all of the living entities, not only the highly evolved great spiritual awakened sages, munis, priests, so on, but even the common man, even the uncivilized people, even the beasts, the plants, the trees, every entity. He wants to see them all given the highest perfection of God consciousness. Therefore this ātmārāma verse that how the bondage of all living entities is broken, He's explained by giving these various meanings of the ātmārāma verse, and He's showing different kinds of people who can be liberated by the Lord's holy name.

Some of the different types are expanding. Mental speculators. Those engaged in different types of endeavor. Those who are patient and sober. Those who are intelligent and learned. Those who are intelligent but illiterate and foolish. Those who are conscious of eternal servitorship of Kṛṣṇa. In other words, from the mental speculator, to those who are just active, all of the various kinds of people and entities are all eligible to become God conscious.

Those who are already somewhat conscious, who are already conscious that the duty of an entity is to serve and love God, they're the top of the level. And the bottom, you have so many other varieties. But Lord Caitanya wanted all these entities to be awakened to full God consciousness. To be completely evolved. So in this way Kṛṣṇa conscious movement is meant to revolt against the evolutionary process and to immediately promote all forms of entities to the top rung of evolution. Real evolution is not Darwin's theory. Real evolution is evolution of consciousness.

Darwin's periods of speculation which is not a fact and will never be proven because it doesn't have basis in reality. It's similar to the actual reality. There is evolution of consciousness, there is the development of species but in a different way than what he's understood. This is explained in the Vedas, and ultimately it can be understood through this evolution of consciousness. One soul transmigrates to the next body, to the next body, and there's naturally a link. Why one entity goes to the next form of body? It's a progression. A development of desires, of aspirations, of necessities.

Just as if you crawl around as a caterpillar, you desire to move at a little bit faster pace so much that in the end you turn to a cocoon, and turn into a butterfly, even in the same place. So, the will is so great. So in this way, life after life a person can evolve. That's a long, tedious process. We want to circumvent all that, to transcend it, to immediately take people to the highest level of spiritual evolution. So when we preach to different people, we recognize that, "What level are they on now? Are the mental speculators? Are they jñānīs? Are they yogīs? Are they people who are believing in a religious process, and practicing? Or are they just people who are doing lip service? Or are they people who are basically uncivilized in terms of spiritual values?" What level are they on?

Accordingly, somehow or other, we engage them Being conscious of Kṛṣṇa, through whichever of the various means that we have, especially chanting the holy name. The more that this vibration spreads, it makes entities conscious of Kṛṣṇa. It polarizes people. We've seen in Harināma, sometimes people walk by, and they just hold their ears. They don't want to hear it. They run away. That made such a strong reaction. Somebody sits on the street and sings any other song, you never find such intense emotional reactions from people. Why would people cover their ears and run and become excited? Or some people, they become enraptured. Because it's Kṛṣṇa. You can see Kṛṣṇa working. And if someone will chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, they will also see how Kṛṣṇa works in their life, how the Lord is present in His names.

Teachings of all great religious teachers. In the Bible, it says that the name is holy. The name is powerful. One should chant the name of the Lord. In the Psalms, it's said how chanting the names of God with cymbals and drums. They used to dance in the street. This is Lord Caitanya's process, singing and dancing the names of God in the streets, everywhere. In the Qurʾān, it glorifies the name of Allāh, the name of God, the one without a second. In other teachings, like Guru Nānaka, or other various teachings, it also glorifies chanting the name of God.

So, Lord Caitanya gives the process of chanting the holy names of the Lord in a very systematic way, and His advice is kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ, or rather, order, that, "Constantly chant the holy names of the Lord, of Hari." He will uplift you immediately to His transcendental platform. There is no higher form, no quicker form of evolution. People like to evolve their personalities, their existences, their entity, their self to the highest potential, then this is the method for doing it. Practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Thank you very much.

Transcribed by Jagannātha dāsa
1/2/2019
Columbus, Ohio