Meaning of Each of the 16 Names in the Maha Mantra

Shripaada Jiva Gosvami reveals the meaning of each of the sixteen Names in the Hare Krishna Mahaamantra in his Mahaa-mantrartha Dipika in consecutive order as follows:

hare Krishna hare Krishna Krishna Krishna hare hare
hare Raama hare Raama Raama Raama hare hare

(1-Hare)

sarva-ceta-harah Krishnas tasya cittam haratyasau
vaidagdhi-sara-vistarair ato radha haraa mata

Krishna steals the minds of everyone, yet Radha steals even His mind by Her divine expertise. Thus She is known as Haraa.

(2-Krishna)

karsati sviyalavanya-murali-kala-nihsvanaih
sri radham mohana-gunalankrtah Krishna iryate

He forcibly attracts Sri Radha with the sweet sound of His flute, therefore that Lord of all enchanting qualities is known as Krishna.

(3-Hare)

sruyate niyate rase harina harineksana
ekakini rahah-kunje hareyam tena kathyate

It has been heard that during the rasa-lila, doe-eyed Radha was stolen away by Krishna to be alone with Him in a secret forest bower. She is therefore known as Haraa.

(4-Krishna)

anga-syamalima-stomaih syamalikrta-kancanah
ramate radhaya sardham krsno nigadyate

When Krishna sports with Radha, Her golden hue takes on the dark complexion of Krishna's skin. He is thus known as Krishna.

(5-Krishna)

krtvaranye sarah-srestham kantayanumatas-taya
akrsya sarva-tirthani taj-jnanat Krishna iryate

In order to please Sri Radha, Krishna manifested the most wonderful lake (Syama-kunda) in Vrndavana. He then called all the holy rivers to fill it. He is thus known as Krishna.

(6-Krishna)

krsyate radhaya premna yamuna-tata-kananam
lilaya lalitas-capi dhiraih Krishna udahrtah

By Her unsurpassed love, Radha charms He who performs wonderful lilas on the banks of the Yamuna. Therefore, those who are sober know Him as Krishna.

(7-Hare)

hrtavan gokule tisthann-aristam pusta-pungavam
sri haris tam rasad uccai rayatiti Haraa mata

While in Gokula, Sri Hari (Krishna) killed the demon known as Aristasura. During that time, Radha cried out to Him with great feeling and by doing so, She stole His mind. She is thus known as Haraa.

(8-Hare)

hyasphutam rayati priti-bharena hari-cestam
gayatiti mata dhirair Haraa rasa-vicaksanaih

Filled with ecstatic love, Radha sometimes sings the glories of Hari’s exploits quietly, and sometimes She sings them aloud. Those who are expert in the secrets of divine sentiments call Her Haraa.

(9-Hare)

rasavesa-parisrastam jahara muralim hareh
hareti kirtita devi vipine keli-lampata

Due to the intense love of Sri Radha, Sri Hari becomes so captivated that His flute falls from His hand. With the desire to enjoy in the forest bowers with Krishna, Radha steals His flute. That goddess is thus famous as Haraa.

(10-Raama)

govardhana-dari-kunje parirambha-vicaksanah
sri radham ramayamasa ramastena mato harih

Krishna, who is expert at embracing, sports with Radha in the forest groves or in the caves of Govardhana. Thus He is known as Raama.

(11-Hare)

hanti duhkhani bhaktanam rati saukhyani canvaham
Haraa devi nigadita maha-karunya-salini

That most merciful Radha destroys the miseries of Her devotees and gives them great happiness every day. Therefore that goddess is known as Haraa.

(12-Raama)

ramate bhajato cetah paramananda-varidhau
atreti kathito raamah syamasundara-vigrahah

The minds of the devotees are continuously drowned in an ocean of supreme joy by seeing the beautiful dark form of Krishna. Therefore He is known by the Name Raama.

(13-Raama)

ramayaty-acyutam premna nikunja-vana-mandire
raama nigadita radha raamo yutas taya punah

Radharani is known as Raama because She enjoys loving pastimes with Acyuta (Krishna) in a secret forest pavilion. Since He is always by Her side, He is known as Raama.

(14-Raama)

rodanair gokule davanalam asayati hyasau
visosayati tenokto ramo bhakta-sukhavahah

When the residents of Gokula were crying due to fear of the forest fire, Krishna immediately swallowed it and gave His devotees great joy. In this way, He is known as Raama.

(15-Hare)

nihantum asuran yato mathura-puram ity-asau
tadagamad-rahah-kamo yasyah sa’sau hareti ca

Sri Krishna went to Mathurapuri in order to destroy the demons. However, due to being captivated by the love of Radha, He later returned. Therefore She is known as Haraa.

(16-Hare)

agatya duhkha-harta yo sarvesam vraja-vasinam
sri radha-hari-carito harih sri nandanandanah

When the son of Maharaja Nanda returned to Vraja, He took away the suffering of all the Vrajavasis. By His wonderful exploits, He steals the heart of Sri Radha. Thus He is known as Hari.

Throughout his Maha-mantrartha Dipika, Sri Jiva Gosvami reveals the meaning of 'Hare' as Haraa until the final verse wherein he says that 'Hare' means Hari – He who has stolen the heart of Srimati Radharani. In the first verse Radha steals the mind of Krishna, and in the last verse Krishna steals the heart of Radha. Indeed, Radha wears a locket with a picture of Krishna around Her neck, and Krishna wears a locket with a picture of Radha around His neck. These Two have stolen each other’s hearts and minds, thus one might suspect that Sri Jiva is alluding to the appearance of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu in his Maha-mantrartha Dipika as the combined form of both Radha and Krishna. In any case, according to Jiva Gosvami, the divine pastimes of Radha and Krishna are written throughout the maha-mantra.

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Re: Offender chanting Hare Krishna

Dear Srinath,

Nityananda ! Gauranga ! Hare Krishna !

Offense to Vaishnavs are of various kinds and they are not necessarily physical. Infact the offense that I want to talk in particular is fault finding with Vaishnavs. Fault finding with Vaishnavs is a vey common offense done and I feel very hard to become free from.

Sincerely,

Mihir.

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Re: Offender chanting Hare Krishna

Dear Srinath,

Nityananda ! Gauranga ! Hare Krishna !

In my previous post I mentioned that fault finding with Vaishnavs is also a Vaishnav Apradha. A good example of this would be vaishnavs criticizing devotees chanting Nityananda Gauranga Naam. I feel they are the greatest offenders in my eyes and believe me when I initially started chanting these merciful names there were so many Vaishnavs who out of ignorance were criticizing me and I feel this kind of offense could be the greatest stumbling block on their goal to pure love for Radha Krishna.

Sincerely,

Mihir.

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Re: Offender chanting Hare Krishna

Dear Swamiji and all Vaisnavas,

     Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna! All glories to the guru parampara! Please accept my respectful obeisnaces!

     I have been following this post and I was very pleased to see the questions and answers posted in the first 4 entries. I too have had the doubt on aparadhas myself and distinguishing between aparadha and normal sin. But to the last post, I personally am not too sure whether anyone has or ever will land up in a situation where one is continuously committing heinious Vaisnava aparadhas every second day and night, non-stop offending with his mind and senses completely out of control and acting by themselves and not being able to stop it no matter what he tries. 

     Continuously offending Vaisnavas I believe is only possible when one is a demonaic person to the very core who continuously desires to offend Vaisnavas all the time. I personally haven't heard of anyone who has suffered from a case like this and I don't know whether such a person can even think of loving the Lord. Even if there is a desire in the beginning, very quickly a Vaisnava aparadha makes the person lose that desire until he is forgiven for the offense committed. 

       Anyhow if someone IS like that, I don't think that person will last for very long....before we know it he may be dead and be born in a tree's body without any brains or memories of his past activities. In effect, that erases his mentality too as that soul no longer has any developed mind or memory and so forgets his demonaic natures. We all have free will to some extent which no one trespasses.

     (Really a person who can't stop himself from doing Vaisnava aparadha ought to consider whether he is possessed by a ghost or something else because unless we want to, our arms and legs and mind can't take a life of their own and act independently!  Without the soul they are actually dead!)

      That said, I beg you to excuse me for the joke and pray that no one got offended. But in case one realises that one has been committing Vaisnava aparadha unknowingly, the only solution is to go and beg forgiveness from the offended Vaisnavas who will of course forgive him readily. If one has no physical association, then atleast one must repent by mind and words and actions and pray to the offended Vaisnavas and the Lord to forgive them.

      The most important thing is that there is the hand of the Lord involved in the life of a devotee and if a person is finding himself in a situation where he is being forced to commit offenses, he must surrender to the Lord and his Holy names. The Lord is always there and he knows if a person is truly disgusted at the situation he is put into. None of us who would want to be pure devotees  can tolerate put into such a situation and I am absolutely sure that if we face such a danger all we have to do is chant Nityaaananda! Gauraanga! Hare Krishna!, pleading to the Lord to free us from this trap and he will very quickly release us.

       And another point I'd like to make :  Having taken shelter of the mantrarajas, we mustn't succumb to the fear that we'll be put into such situations because the Lord is always there and he knows your desire. Who can stop Lord Nityaananda Gauranga from having their way? I understand your concern because like you I too had all these doubts, but the more and more we surrender the more we realise that we'll cross over all these problems easily. The permutations of logic can create any number of ghastly and terrifying circumstances distorting small fears to extreme situations, but actually that's just the symptom of an agitated mind and maya trying to distract us by fear. 99.99% of all these thoughts are all irrational and purely imaginary. Like someone had asked in the past what would he have to do if someone came and put a dead body on his plate over the prasada being eaten.

       Irrational fear is THE one thing that stops a person from giving his best, even in devotional service & surrendering to the Lord. The so called, "What ifs?".... The one unshakeable answer to all those agitated questions is this, --- "Lord Gauranga Krishna is there! None of these things can ever happen if we surrender wholeheartedly to the naama prabhus and the Vaisnavas. No need to have all this silly fears, when the Lord is there, how can these ghastly things happen?" You'll find your fears will eventually vanish. Surrender is the key to all these problems.

     PS:  Anyhow Mihir thanks for putting those questions up as I was thinking on addressing the issue on irrational fears for sometime now, but I was unable to get a starting point. The Q&A section is the best place where these issues can be addressed live.

Trying to serve the Vaisnavas,

Srinath.

Nityaananda! Gauraanga! Hare Krishna!    

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NACKLACE OF LORD CHAITANYA’S PURE Devotees Introduction author unknown

A GEM FROM “NACKLACE OF LORD CHAITANYA’S PURE DEVOTEES
BY
PRABUPADA 108 SRILA BHAKTISIDDHANTA SARASWATI GOSWAMI THAKURA
1. Accepting the shelter of the lotus feet of a bona fide spiritual master.
2. Obtaining initiation from him.
3. Rendering service unto him,
4. Enquiring from him about the principles of true (non-sectarian) religion.
5. Following the path chalked out by the great devotees.
In these present estranged days the fashionable, gluttonous ravishing to the limit of fleshy indulgence within the hellish kaleidoscope of steel, rubber, plastic and glass mechanization, hastens the modern Western man-animal to his sordid grave, only to accept repeated births in lower abominable species of life such as pigs and dogs.
Illicit sex, animal slaughter, intoxication, gambling and feverish preoccupation in amassing wealth are the five residences of the devil of this dark-age, known as the Kali.
According to the injunction of the Srimad Bhagavatam, these grossly sinful activities are strictly forbidden for the king, public leader, the religious persons and the spiritual master.
In India there are a thousand and one so-called religions. But the sincere and thoughtful must embrace the highest path of all the path of Gaudiya Vaisnavism, which teaches, simultaneously from the standpoint of ontology as well as full-fledged theism, the attainment of divine love based on the science of faith. The ignorant materialists are engaged in exploitation in the plane of misconception.
Above them the scholars, poets or litterateurs are engaged in the spiritual darkness of renunciation of this misconception, which merely leads them to the non-differentiated marginal condition. But the Vaisnava path is the path of pure dedication, unalloyed by spurious provincial or vested interest and culminating in divine love which is very rarely found within this world. This is completely free from artificial rigid indoctrination and psychological conditioning.
The Almighty never needs to be a slave to our puny austerities and rituals, even if we could move the heavens and earth by them. He never needs to be a captive in our fist of suspicious analytical scholarship, grammar, or curiosity seeking. But if He chooses to graciously bestow His mercy upon any fortunate soul, be they either learned sages or sons of dog-eaters, none can impede the flow of such divine grace, divine love proper.
It is indeed unfortunate for the world that in the very name of such a divine grace so many imposters have sprung up, and just like businessmen they rally the ignorant, like cattle in a stable waiting to be sent to the slaughterhouse.
They are helpless to save themselves from the vicious cycle of birth and death, to say nothing of their blind followers, and what to speak of delivering the supreme perfection of divine love? Still, the rarity of a genuine thing does not presuppose its absence, and we are confident that the sincere aspirants of progress in the devotional line of perfection will hail this collection of authorize scriptural references, “ The truth about Guru,” as a beacon-light for the purpose of conclusively identifying the genuine bone fide and transparent representative of the Supreme Lord, who alone can teach us the mysterious truths of our eternal relationship with the Supreme in transcendental loving service. Furthermore, the accomplished itinerant preachers of the glory of the Lord and His confidential servitor, Sri Gurudev, will find inspiration in these pages which were originally compiled under the direction of the illustrious pioneer and stalwart of the Gaudiya Sampradaya, Prabhupada 108 Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakura, to whom this small effort is a humble offering by the direct order of our spiritual master.
 

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Re: Offender chanting Hare Krishna

Dear Swamiji,

Nityananda ! Gauranga ! Hare Krishna !

I heard chanting of Nityananda Gauranga Naam burns all offenses except for offenses created in offending Vaishnavs. What if a person who very helplessly keeps on offending vaishnavs every moment due to habbit since millions of years but also wants love of God, what should he do ?

Sincerely,
Mihir.

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Gaura-Narasimha

Dear Swami Gaurangapada Maharaja,
Nityananda! Gauranga! Hare Krishna! Please accept my humble obeisances.

i have the following question: Many devotees, as a part of their daily sadhana, worship Lord Narasimhadeva for protection from outer enemies as well as inner enemies in the form of material desires. Me myself am not so much attracted towards the worship of Lord Narasimha, though i do so anyway as a matter of respect and appreciation for this particular Incarnation of the Lord. i feel like better worship the Original Incarnation Lord Gauranga-Krishna, Who can fulfil the same purpose as any of His other incarnation (being His Expansions) can. For example: when i feel being in some danger, i remember the Pastime of Lord Gauranga protecting His Dear Lord Nityananda by invoking His Sudarshana Chakra, when He was attacked by Jagai and Madhai and i pray for His protection.

So my question is: What role does the worship of Lord Narasimha play in our Sampradaya and in the spiritual life of a devotee of Lords Nityananda Gauranga and Radha-Krishna? Why not to pray always to the Fully Complete Original Lord Gauranga-Krishna for some special function of His Other Incarnation, when in Himself is all included?

Thank You very much,
Matus

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Re: Offender chanting Hare Krishna

The ten offenses in the chanting of the Hare Krishna Mahaamantra are not exactly in the category of the mundane sins included in the cycle of kuta, bija, aprarabdha and prarabdha. They fall into a separate category since they are directly related to the Holy Names and their cause is directly due to the avidya (ignorance) and ahankara (false ego) in the embodied state of the soul. Offensive chanting of Hare Krishna cannot remove these 10 offenses immediately. The purification from these 10 offenses during the offensive chanting of Hare Krishna is almost nil or very slow. Thus, making our chanting of the Hare Krishna Mahaamantra offenseless should be our first goal in life. And that is only possible via the chanting of Nityaananda Gauraanga Naama, which everyone can easily do, or/and, by the chanting of Hare Krishna Naama (constantly) which everyone may not be able to do in the conditioned state.

Daaso'smi, BR Sadhu Swami Gaurangapada.

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Re: Offender chanting Hare Krishna

Dear Swamiji,

Nityananda ! Gauranga ! Hare Krishna !

You said that Hare Krishna burns all our past sins. If all our past sins are burnt then don't the tendency to do the 10 offenses stop automatically as the person becomes pure ?

Sincerely,

Mihir.

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