Praising The Lord Before Japa

I was thinking today about what should be our state of mind when we pray before Japa....listening to a lecture I found out that we should first of all praise the Lord while praying, recognize that He is superior maybe even quoting the sastras and Brahma Samhita.

In the Brahma-sa���hit�� (5.33) we have information of many, many incarnations of the Lord. It is stated there:

"I worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda [K���������a], who is the original person ��� absolute, infallible, without beginning. Although expanded into unlimited forms, He is still the same original, the oldest, and the person always appearing as a fresh youth. Such eternal, blissful, all-knowing forms of the Lord are usually understood by the best Vedic scholars, but they are always manifest to pure, unalloyed devotees."

After praising the Lord we should state our disqualification towards Him and pray for mercy. Here is another example by Narottama dasa Thakura:

" The treasure of divine love in Goloka Vrndavana has descended as the congregational chanting of Lord Hari's holy names. Why did my attraction for that chanting never come about...Day and night my heart burns from the fire of the poison of wordliness, and I have not taken the means to relieve it."

Ista-deve Vijnapti -��Verse 2

The best prayer is the one that comes from the heart and it's important to have some feeling with it, then we can be prepared to chant with feeling, with our hearts opened to hearing the names and experience the bliss we are looking for.

Hare Krsna

Aruna dd

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