Re: Advice for the Youth and Students

Dear Mihir,

       Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna! Please accept my respectful obeisances!

       I personally do not chant that many rounds as even what you are doing. At the moment I am chanting 16+16 (mantrarajas Nityananda + Gauranga) and I only occasionally chant the maha mantra. Previously it was less than that.

      I personally felt that my maha mantra chanting was so offensive that it was returning negative results. So I am just waiting to advance some distance by chanting the mantrarajas. But very soon I will add 4 rounds of the maha mantra and make it 16+16+4. Perhaps in a few days.

     My chanting has been very irregular till I started chanting the mantrajas. Since the beginning of this year, I don't think that I have missed a single day chanting and I am planning to focus more on quality rather than quanitity. You see, in my holidays I too had big plans to chant 64+64+16 daily. But eventually I realised it was harder than it appeared and day by day it was really an effort so sit for almost 3-4 hours and chant. At that point I realised that the quality of chanting had not improved and I was still highly offensive and things weren't working as they should have.

      Most people taking up the chanting in the first place (including me) initally feel that quanitity is directly related to the results. No.of rounds and time factor are quantitative estimates. But its actually QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY which is the important factor. When you can chant just one name with full surrender and humility with reverence to the naama prabhu, without any inattention and offensive behaviour, it is so much, so much better than having chanted all day fighting all kinds of intrusive thoughts and having committed so many offenses like illicit sex for example.

      I realised that I was not ready to take on a higher quantity of names, so I just reduced my chanting rounds to 16+16 and plan to approach 16+16+4 and let it stay like that. Its better to take up a small doses of chanting and work on chanting properly with full surrender in the beginning. When one becomes spiritually advanced enough, one can take up a higher quantity of names to be chanted.

      Many people including myself try to increase quanitity and fly high, but if there is no qualitiative improvement we'll crash down and hard. The higher you jump, the harder you can hit ground. One of my friends is only doing 10+10 and he is getting incredible improvements and realisations daily and he has totally changed.

       When the quality is really top level, then one will automatically feel like chanting more and more and that's when one should increase the quantity. Chanting large amount of names all of a sudden doesn't make progress rapid, it could make it troublesome if we are not ready for it. Rather we start in small steps and focus on quality before quantity, then it is indeed extremely rapid.

       Although this may sound counter-intuitive to you or other readers, this is the fact. I have seen it myself. When I asked Hadai prabhu the same question, he told me that I could advance right now and taste bliss if I just surrendered. He said that just one name will be enough to reach the Lord when its full surrender. Otherwise it will take more time. See its not just a matter of offenses. An amateur like me chanting Nityananda and an acarya like Swamiji chanting Nityananda -- there is a huge difference.

       I am not being offensive or being discouraging in any way. This question is what I asked the great devotees, this is what they have personally told me and that's exactly the same thing I am trying to tell you. Please forgive me if I sounded rude.

In your best interest,

Srinath

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