Re: Entry 03 Nitaai Naama Miracle

Srinath

Nityananda! Gauranga! Hare Krishna!

I offer my obeisance to you.

The important thing in chanting is QUALITY before QUANTITY. Even if one can chant fewer than 64 + 64 + 16, nevertheless one must ensure that quality is always at the top. One name chanted properly is way better than a thousand chanted without any quality and you have perhaps seen it by now.

Indeed, this is a universal fact, my friend.

The other thing is do not neglect chanting of Hare Krishna as well. Gaura naama and Nitaai naama are included within Krishna naama and Krishna naama is also included in Gaura naama. By chanting Hare Krishna we are obeying Lord Gauranga's desire which is to chant the maha mantra and by chanting the Hare Krishna maha mantra, Lord Gaura Nitai are very pleased.

Improvement should be steady. For the moment, do not subject your rounds to excessive variations. It is good to refer to Swamiji's japa chart to see the different levels. Or you may stick to any alternative what is optimum for you.  One should increase quantity only when quality is improved and also when one has been able to do a lower stage of japa steadily without a problem for some time. Abruptly increasing it might create some difficulties because it is a different matter to sustain a higher level of japa continuously and that is done when your quality is that high.

I will not neglect the Mahamantra, it is Gaura's order that we chant it, and I am suddenly getting a taste for it.

The thing about the rounds, yes, I am very aware. I am a foolish person and what I decided to do yesterday is to return to chanting at the 10-10-10 level until I am ready for 16-16-16. Previously, I was being too enthusiastic and probably unrealistic about the bigger numbers. Please, Swamiji and Devotees, forgive me for my foolishness. And thank you for your advice, it is much appreciated.

Do not worry about committing offenses like what you face because it is not entirely in your hands to avoid certain things right now. As an example, I am 18 and in a college hostel where the food has all onion and garlic and even otherwise is not always even satisfactory to be in the mode of goodness. Nevertheless if we leave the Lord to have his way, he will protect us. But we must be careful not to take advantage of that to eat more garlic to satisfy our senses. Then we might have to learn the hard way that we should not take the Lord's protection for granted.

Thank you, the first sentence in this quote is comforting.

The only food that I offer to the Lord before consuming is vegetarian and in the mood of goodness. Garlic, onions, olives, eggs, and caffeine are never offered. Prasadam is the best food that I consume because it makes me feel like I had a bath but in a spiritual sense.

I say that because every devotee practitioner in the beginning does get some thoughts like that once a while. But we must just ignore the weeds and let them die and water the real creeper of bhakti. Please do not consider me offensive. I say that because we all had a great start in the beginning just like this, but I and a few others did lose the initial momentum and have fallen behind. So we have to regain that. So please be careful to see any weeds before they grow and cut them before they slow you down.

I do not consider you offensive at all my friend. If anything, I have sympathy for you and your situation.

Your advice will always be appreciated, Srinath.


Swami Gaurangapada

Nityananda! Gauranga! Hare Krishna!

Please accept my obeisance to you.

You can follow this sequence. 32-32-4 -> 64-64-4 -> 64-64-8 -> 64-64-12 -> 64-64-16. Four rounds of Hari Naama is one granthi and the process of beginning the chanting of Hari Naama with 4 rounds is described in Hari Naama Chintaamani by Shrila Haridasa Thakura and Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura. Thus it is authorized. Try to give up eggs first, even before caffeine, as eating a fertile egg amounts to taking a life and eating an unfertile egg is in the mode of darkness and ignorance.

I decided yesterday to return to the level of 10-10-10 which is what I was keeping up with before. I wrote to Srinath in this same post I am a foolish person and what I decided to do yesterday is to return to chanting at the 10-10-10 level until I am ready for 16-16-16. Previously, I was being too enthusiastic and probably unrealistic about the bigger numbers. Your words are always appreciated.

I will try to give up eggs before caffeine, like you advised. Unlike most Westerners, I do not eat eggs like they do for breakfast which is to have them on a plate. Its just that eggs are the ingredients in so many foods today and my mother constantly buys for me so many food products that contain eggs such as sweets, ice cream, and so on. What I will do today is ask her to no longer purchase these for me. There are only two other foods that I know of which contain eggs and they are the "vegetarian eggrolls" that she buys and at a local Chinese restaurant they put eggs in their rice. I'll turn down the eggrolls and I will stop eating at the restaurant since all other foods they give just have to contain meats.

In the Vedic times, no one would even dream of eating such an excreta. But in Kali Yuga, so many unimaginable excretory items and edible things in the mode of ignorance are being accepted as a staple diet by the human beings due to a lack of desire and knowledge to avoid painful reactions in this life and the next. Many people in this world seem to like the taste of these things like eggs, fish, meat, insects, worms, reptiles, mammals etc., and absolutely anything else under the sun. No wonder the Lord will given them a suitable animal body in their next lives by which they can unlimitedly fulfill these cravings of eating these kind of foods in the mode of darkness which involve killing of other animals and life.

The worst part of it, to me, is when people force others to consume these things. And they get very defensive when a person simply says "I do not eat meat." Like as if we are trying to change their diet.

It is, to me, really something, that few people are fortunate to have the knowledge that we have.

Few people in this Kali Yuga do not desire to be part of it (the aeon).

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