Chanting of the Holy Name and Emotions
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · 2021
Chapters
Opening prayers and greetings
Namam Vishnu Padaya Krishna Pristaya Bhutades, Srimati Bhaktividanta Swami, Tinami, Namaste Saraswati Devi, Gauravani Pracharini, Nirviesha Sunyavadi Paschatyade Satari Vanchakalpataru Bescha Kripa Sindhubi Vacha Patitanam Pavane Biovai Shnava Bihonamon Maha, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhunaanda, Sri Advaita Gdathara Srivasa De G Na Kavadatu Sankirtanayka Pitarokamalaya Taksa Vishwambarodvi Javar, Yuga Dharma Palu Vandei, Jagat Priya Karov Karunavataru. Yon tahpravišya mama vacha ma prasuptam sandjivaya takila shakti darak swadam
Again, thank you very much, Valla Bahari Prabhu, for your kind words and your introduction.
So I will speak a little bit on a very important topic which with all its importance is not very often being discussed among the devotees. That is the chanting of the holy name and emotions.
It is even sometimes considered to be a sign of a sahajya when we speak about emotions. But at the same time, we know that bhakti means emotions.
Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur in his Chaitanya Bhagavata gives the beautiful definition of bhakti. What is bhakti? He says, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Yoga Dhan. Bhakti e Krishna Nama Smaranakrandan.
He says bhakti is when you chant one name of Krishna, not many names, not 16 rounds, not 64 rounds, just once Krishna. And not even chant. Just remember. And just by remembering this one name of Krishna you start crying.
Bhakti E Krishna Namasmarana Krandana. If by remembering just the name of Krishna, you start crying, then you have bhakti. If you don't start crying, then you don't have bhakti.
Well, you may have bhakti, and definitely we all have some sort of bhakti because even the face of Shraddha it's an atomic particle of bhakti.
But bhakti in a full-fledged form is is when you just remember one name of Krishna and start crying. And Vrindavan Dastakur says, this is the wealth of Bhakti Yoga. Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Yoga Dhan.
This is the real essence of Bhakti Yoga if you have spiritual emotions. And of course, we know that spiritual emotions should not be imitated. We are not talking here about trying to squeeze out spiritual emotions.
We are talking about the importance of emotions and how to come from the realm of material emotions to the realm of spiritual emotions. That's the journey of any devotee who goes or who practice bhakti-yoga.
But to do this journey properly, we have to understand the nature of emotions. What are emotions? What is the source of emotions? Why emotions are so important in our life?
Actually, the scientists who study emotions from their point of view they say that emotion is the main driving force in human's life. They actually equate emotions with the motivation. Whatever moves us is emotion.
The English word emotion is derived from Latin word emovere, which basically means movement. Emotion is an energy.
It's a very powerful energy which moves us, which drives us, which helps us to do whatever we are doing. And in fact, whatever we are doing, we are doing because of the emotions. This is the main motivating factor.
This is the goal of our life. We all know that if we set the goal properly then there will be some emotions. The goal itself has the power to invoke emotions within our heart.
Those people who don't have any goal, they're bored. They don't have any emotions. But as soon as we get the proper goal, and if this goal is very bright and very firmly established within our heart,
immediately we feel the upsurge of emotions which drives us and helps us ultimately to achieve this goal. So that's a very short little introduction of what emotion is.
Emotion is an energy, a powerful energy which takes part within our soul initially. Then from the soul it goes to the heart or to the mind,
from the heart or mind, and mind is actually situated according to yoga psychology, situated in the heart, and we will study it little a more closely a few minutes later.
But from the heart or from the mind, it goes to the brain, and it produces certain reactions in the brain, the brain which is the servant of the heart starts producing certain hormones, and these hormones through the mechanism, nervous system mechanism, they start producing different reactions within our body.
So it's more or less fourfold uh or four-stage process. Starting from ātmā, or if our ātmā or Soul is sleeping as it is usually in our conditioned state of being.
Then it's only three stages: first is the mind, the mind activates the brain, and the brain activates the body.
And when emotions come to the bodily level, when it takes form of different hormones in the body it's already very pronounced or very developed state of emotions.
But initial impulse, initial impetus, emotional impetus, initial energy is there within the heart.
Understanding the nature of material emotions
So let's first, I want to give some little theory, we have to understand what emotions is, how they are produced, and then we can try to figure out what should we do, how to employ emotions in our chanting, how to make our chanting filled with emotions and how to bring us closer to the goal of Bhakti-yoga, which is bhakti-yoga, kṛṣṇa-nāma-smaraṇa-krandana. Yoga, which is Bhakti e Krishna Nama Smaranakrandan.
So let's first consider material emotions because material emotions is something which we are all familiar with.
And Krishna deals with this subject matter of material emotions very elaborately in Bhagavad-gītā and also in the 11th canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
And there are you know there is a wide spectrum, wide variety of different material emotions.
They are mostly stressful emotions, emotions of fear, emotions of anger, emotions of survivor, emotions of boredom, different, different, different emotions we may name some of them.
But there is three basic material emotions. And Krishna is very clear about this. The most fundamental material emotion is raga.
Krishna very beautifully describes these signs of emotions in Bhagavad-gītā where he says: rāga, bhaya, and Krodha. This are the three fundamental material emotions which we all very well know.
Raga means attachment, and if I have attachment, if I have this basic material emotion of attachment, this material emotion of attachment basically drives me to establish myself as the center of the creation, I am attached, I want something.
So, this is, you know, we can all see when a little child is born, already this little child who has actually not much developed yet. Still, nevertheless, he already has this attachment. I want. This is what I want.
And everyone and the whole environment has to fulfill my desires. So this is raga. I want. I am the main here. My desires should be fulfilled.
And then when we meet and we inevitably meet with some impediments because we are not the supreme, not all of our desires are being fulfilled. Not all of our attachments are you know take place so smoothly.
And I guess that by now everyone can confirm that not all his or her desires are being fulfilled. Then there are two basic reactions. If there is an impediment on the way of my desires, to fulfill my desires, we feel fear,
bhaya, or if this impediment is very strong, if something is threatening our existence or the fulfillment of our desires, the fulfillment of our goals, if something really powerful threatening it, then the reaction, emotional reaction.
Very strong and very powerful emotional reaction which we all experience is fear.
And if the impediment towards our goal or towards our you know desire, fulfillment of our desire is not so strong, to remove this impediment, we experience the emotion of anger, krodha. So raga, bhaya, and krodha.
That's basically, you know the wide spectrum of material emotions has this basis. These three basic emotions, they are the main emotions.
And then scientists who study emotional reactions they say, yes, this is the basic emotional response to different situations. Fight or flight? You may fly, that is fear, or you may fight, that is anger.
But before that, there is raga, there is attachment. I want my way, I want it to be like this. So that's basically the material emotions which we have.
And in the 11th Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that's the 28th chapter, 15th verse of the 28th chapter
of the 11th Canto, there is a very beautiful verse which explains different material emotions: shoka, which means lamentation, grief, harsha, elation,
jubilation, bhaya, fear, krodha, anger, lobha, greed or attachment, moha, illusion due to some emotional condition which we experience. spṛhā, very strong desire or hankering, ādayo dṛśyante
they all appear from ahaṅkāra, they all appear from our false ego, janma-mṛtyoś ca. And as a result of these emotions, it's very interesting how it is explained in this verse.
As a result of these emotions: śoka, harṣa, bhaya, krodha, lobha, moha, spṛhā, etc. All these material emotions which are born from false ego, ahaṅkāra. We have janma- mṛtyoś ca, we have birth and death.
We actually being born to experience all these emotions. The soul is carried away by all these material emotions in the whirlpool of this material world,
and as a result of it, the soul experiences janma and mṛti, birth and death, birth and death, birth and death.
Always we have certain emotions and sometimes we feel that we are fulfilled, sometimes, oftentimes, most of the time, we feel some sort of negative emotions, lamentation, but always we have hope and we think that next lifetime I will be more successful. If I only achieve this goal or fulfill this desire, I would be happy.
And in this way, we experience deaths and new births, and so on and so forth. And Kṛṣṇa says, nātmanaḥ, this is not coming from the soul.
The whole verse is: śoka-harṣa-bhaya-krodha-lobha-moha-spṛhādayaḥ, ahaṅkārasya dṛśyante janma-mṛtyoś ca nātmanaḥ. This is not the experience of the pure soul.
So the most important point which I want to make here is that we are born to experience emotions.
We are experiencing emotions, but because our initial initial desire is to experience material emotions, they're all born from the false ego and ultimately, they're all material emotions which create stressful situations in our life.
Ultimately, we want to become happy but because we are looking the happiness in the wrong place, we are trying to achieve happiness through the experience of material emotions, fulfillment of our material desire and subsequent experience of our material emotions, we ultimately become frustrated, totally frustrated in our life, and as a result of it, we experience birth and death, birth and deaths, birth and death, and unlimited, endless frustration.
So, this is what we want, we should know about material emotions. And actually, there is a very beautiful verse from Padma Purāṇa, which Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī quotes in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu.
So it's one of important verses or Pramans from Vedic literature which states the following: śoka-marṣādibhir bhāvair ākrāntaṁ yasya mānasaḥ kathaṁ tasya mukundasya sphūrtiḥ syād bhaved vā na bhavet, sphūrtiḥ syād bhaved vā na bhavet? Very beautiful and very important verse for our discussion this morning or whatever time of the day is now.
It's not such a morning in India, but I believe it's morning in America. So this is a beautiful verse which we all should very clearly understand.
Śoka-marṣādi-bhir bhāvaiḥ. When we experience all these bhāvas, by the way, uh emotion in Sanskrit is bhāva, which uh Which Amarkoṣa dictionary translates as manovikāra, the transformation of our mind.
Basically, the same conception that the mind is being transformed, the transformation of the mind brings reaction within our brain and that in turn makes the chain reaction within our body, preparing our body for certain activities, either to fight or to fly or to do something else.
So in this verse from Śoka from Padma Purāṇa it is said Śoka Marṣā, this two basic again material emotions, Śoka lamentation or grief and amarṣa means anger.
Śoka-marṣādibhir bhāvair and ādi means all other material emotions. ākrāntaṁ yasya mānasaḥ, those people whose mind is ākrāntaṁ means attacked by these emotions, whose mind is uh totally absorbed in this emotions. And that's practically about all of us.
śoka-marṣādibhir bhāvair ākrāntaṁ yasya mānasaḥ kathaṁ tasya mukundasya sphūrtiḥ syād bhaved vā na bhavet? How is it possible that in the mind of such a person the sphūrti or the momentary appearance of Mukunda, the Lord of Liberation, the Lord of spiritual emotions, how his image, his rupa or even his name, how he can appear within such a mind.
In other words, what is being stated here is very important is that unless and until we experience all these material emotions, unless and until we are preoccupied with all these emotions, we will not be able even to chant the holy name properly.
Mukunda, the Lord of spiritual emotions, the Lord of liberation, the beautiful Lord of Vṛndāvana will not appear within our mind even in the form of the holy name.
Because we will always be distracted by the emotions which are born from the false ego. Oftentimes we think that the main destruction which we all experience is the destruction of different thoughts.
But actually, it's not the thoughts. The thoughts are in turn the product of emotions. And because we have material emotions, we have material thoughts which are actually depriving us from this real spiritual experience.
The real spiritual experience, even of remembering Krishna's name, can only come when we tune our mind in a different way.
So that's another point about material emotions, what are they and you know how we should actually try to fight with them. When we experience all these negative emotions and material emotions are mostly negative.
Even so-called positive material emotions, they have the downside, they have the opposite side. The opposite side of the same coin.
And basically what they, the effect which they bring within our mind is that it's a very distracted consciousness. It's very chaotic consciousness.
And we feel that we are useless, we feel guilt, we feel all kinds of you know all these negative material emotions which are there uh and um uh sometimes we feel totally hopeless uh we're completely concentrated self-centered and concentrated on our problems, and moreover, and
this is a very important effect of this absorption in material emotions: is that we feel lonely, we feel that we are separated from other people, that we are not needed, and on a bodily level we feel a lot of tension and a lot of stress and ultimately all kinds of disease and so on so forth.
Function of the heart in meditation
So that's the material emotions which are created by this ego. Now, a little bit about the heart and the role of the heart, which I said we will study.
It's interesting because sometimes, and oftentimes people think, and even devotees think that the mind is in the brain.
No, brain is just a machine of the mind, uh, the computer which the mind uses, but the mind is located within the heart. And within the heart there are neurons. We all know there are billions of neurons within our brain.
Something like 80 billion neurons uh or 800 million i i don't remember now but it's a tremendous amount of uh nervous cells within our brain and within our heart, there is also a hard brain.
And it's a very small hard brain. It's only, according to the scientist, 42,000 cells, neurons within the heart. Well, Upanishads say that there are 72,000 Nadis or 72,000 nervous channels which are coming from the heart.
But whatever it is, it's relatively a small number of the cells. But the amazing thing, please listen very carefully The amazing thing is that this 40,000 or 72,000 cells,
nervous cells within the brain, within the heart control billions of neurons within our mind, within our brain. Sorry.
According to the scientists, the 90% of the channels are coming from the heart to the brain, and only 10% of the channels are coming from the brain to the heart.
So the heart is a Actually, the center of our mind, and we know that the soul is ultimately there in the heart, and the heart is controlling the brain.
Whatever impulses are there in the mind, they are through through this very small mechanism, neurophysiological mechanism which is there in the heart, are going to the brain and control the brain, and the brain controls the body.
Therefore, Upaniṣads say, now we come to the main topic of our discussion, which is chanting.
Therefore, Upaniṣads say that while meditating and chanting of the holy name is the meditation, we should be concentrated on the heart.
When it comes to the negative emotions, we also have to locate the negative emotions of anger, of stress, of guilt or of you know of fear, we should try to locate it within the heart. And ultimately our goal is to purify our heart from these negative emotions because, as I said, quoting this verse from Padma Purāṇa, we will never be able to chant properly unless we purify the heart from all these negative emotions.
So, what to do? You know, we uh and yes, uh again uh stressing this point, uh Upaniṣads and Yoga Upaniṣads particularly uh they say that we should meditate on the heart, on the lotus of the heart.
The heart is a lotus, and this lotus has the capacity of blossoming, expanding, and subtracting or shrinking. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains this that this is the movements of the heart.
And what is negative emotions from this point of view? The negative emotions are the emotions which make our heart shrink.
We all even feel it, even physically, we feel it when we have stress or when we have fear or when we have anger, we kind of uh we feel the tension within the body and we kind of you know uh our body shrinks and vice versa the positive emotions, even if it's material positive emotions, we feel some sort of expansion.
And due to this movements of the heart or movements of the mind. The waves which are there created by these emotions have different patterns.
The waves of material emotions are very chaotic and and they are very I mean they're very unpleasant because like if you imagine a little cup and in this little cup it's very easy to make the agitation. To agitate the water within the cup is very easy because it's so uh it's so congested uh within the ha within this little cup.
But if we take a big expanded body of the water, it's very difficult to agitate this water.
So the calm heart is difficult to agitate and uh the uh because it's expanded and uh the heart which is which shrink due to these emotions, uh negative emotions is easy to agitate and all these negative emotions are harassing us.
Cultivating gratitude to elevate chanting
So, but anyway, I wanted to say something more.
So, what to do? You know, again, as I said in the beginning, it's not a question of trying to imitate the spiritual emotions, but it's a question of purifying the heart from the negative emotions by the sattva emotions.
The path of bhakti-yoga is that we go from the lowest modes of material nature, Rajas and Tamas, through sattva to the pure sattva, to Sudha sattva, which gives us the real spiritual experience.
And the sattvic emotions, the very The most elevated sattvic emotions, which are there, is the emotion of gratitude.
So if we make a scale and we try to imagine the spectrum of the emotions, the realm of emotions, we will start on the lower end of this spectrum where we have very basic material emotions like anger and grief and fear and attachment which create all these negative conditions within our mind and within our body and ultimately cause of all diseases and deaths.
And then on the other end of this, we have beautiful spiritual emotions described by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, like sthāyi-bhāva, permanent emotion towards Krishna in a certain mood like dāsya-bhāva or sakhya-bhāva or vātsalya-bhāva or mādhurya-bhāva. And then conjunct to this is sañcāri-bhāvas and sāttvika bhāvas and anubhāvas, all these beautiful spiritual emotions.
So exactly in the middle, which is like a transition point, is the emotion of gratitude.
You know, and if the emotions of material emotions they have very chaotic brain wave pattern which are reflected in our electric wave pattern of the brain. There is a very chaotic wave pattern of electric work within the brain.
When we are under the stress, and of course, spiritual emotions we cannot really electrically measure. But in the middle point, there is this beautiful emotion of gratitude. Beautiful emotion of the sense of duty.
Because gratitude and the sense of duty are similar and they are more or less synonyms. So that's the sattvik transition: this transitional point from the realm of material emotions to spiritual emotions.
Therefore, the goal of our chanting if we want to go from the absorption in these material emotions which actually distracts our consciousness from the Holy Name.
To the complete absorption to the Holy Name, which is there in the realm of spiritual emotions, when we are so emotionally involved that we cannot even think about anything else.
The transitional point is this emotion of gratitude. And emotion of duty, emotion of like kartavya buddhi, this is beauty in Sanskrit. So this is what we should try if we don't experience spiritual emotions.
Of course, if you're already capable of experiencing spiritual emotions, if just by remembering one name of Krishna you start crying, then this is not for you.
But if you are not yet on this stage of spiritual development, then we should try to really develop this emotion of gratitude. And the beauty of this is that we can work on it.
And this emotion of gratitude is capable of negating all the bad negative material emotions, purify our heart from the absorption of these emotions, and ultimately will give us genuine spiritual experience through the medium of the holy name.
So, what I want to do because I was asked to speak approximately 40-45 minutes and then have some practice. To chant at least one round of japa because this is supposed to be japa workshop, not just lectures on this.
Guided meditation and japa practice
What I want us to do, whoever is listening this class, I want us to chant one round of Hare Krishna mantra together. But before chanting, I will give you a little guided meditation.
Please take your chanting beads and follow my little guidance and meditation. Please sit in your posture. It's very important to have the proper posture for meditation.
Meditation is a very specific process, and actually, our bodily posture I couldn't talk about this, but I mentioned about this connection, interconnection between the body, the brain, the heart, and ultimately the soul. So we want to invoke the soul.
We ultimately want to involve the soul in the process of the chanting. But for that, we have to bring our body and our brain and our heart or our mind into the conducive state.
And the meditation is a specific process which helps us to get treated from this tension which is there and which is created by the material emotions. There is a very strong feedback mechanism.
I also mentioned this not so elaborately, but still I mentioned this: that emotions which are there already in the body in turn, influence our brain, and brain influences our mind or our heart. And our heart involves our soul in this.
So it's not one way thing. It starts from the soul, goes to the body, but then body influences the brain, the brain influences the heart, and the heart influences the soul. So, we want to reverse this process.
And for that, first of all, we have to really relax our body because the result of our tension or of our stress or of our negative emotions is that our body is always tensed.
So meditation is only possible when we are quite relaxed. Of course, the spine should be very straight, and we should try to meditate upon the heart as I say. So we should sit, we should try to relax for a few seconds.
Please close your eyes, make your spine straight, and do a deep breathe in and breathe out a couple of times. This deep breathing helps to calm down the mind.
And when the mind calms down, we feel the expansion of the heart. We feel a very pleasant sensation within the heart and within the body. This sort of expansion of the heart, expansion or relaxation of the heart.
So please try to concentrate upon your heart, upon the lotus of your heart. And in the lotus of your heart, the soul is there within this lotus and Krishna is hidden there also.
But we will now, while preparing for chanting and concentrating on the heart. Let's remember all those people who played a very crucial role in our life. Who manifested selfless care?
Who helped us in the very critical moments of our life. Without any expectation from us. Who touched or moved our heart by their selfless love and selfless care
It may be our spiritual masters, it may be our parents, our mother, it may be our friends who helped us. All these people they are our gurus. They teach us how to love, how to live the life of love and devotion.
And let's try to by remembering them and by remembering their role and their involvement in our life, let's try to feel the gratitude towards them.
And with this feeling of gratitude, gratitude to Śrīla Prabhupāda, gratitude to our spiritual master, and ultimately gratitude to Krishna who actually sent Śrīla Prabhupāda, who sent all these beautiful devotees, who sent our parents, us two loving parents, and who sent all these people in our life, whoever you remember most strongly, let's try to chant the holy name in this calm condition of our life when we feel protected by the love of other people and ultimately by Krishna's love within our heart.
So let's try to chant one round with this emotion of gratitude.
Concluding reflections and question session
Sri Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Prabhu Nityānanda Śrīv Advaita Gadādhara Śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda So I guess our time is over. It's already one hour.
I don't know if we have Albuquerque, please let us know what shall we do Uh Maharaj, I um I'm I don't have words right now. We are really emotionally powerfully moved. Thank you so much.
As as Maharaj was mentioning, that uh uh you know, till the time if we chant even one name of Krishna and if we cannot cry, then we can definitely practice the emotion of gratitude and the best part is that we can practice about it, we can do something about the emotion of gratitude.
And with that gratitude, Maharaj, very, very, very thankful to you for this wonderful japa retreat and making devotees across the world on this platform come together and chant in the mood of gratitude.
Thank you so much Maharaj and from and once we all will say the Hare Krishna Mahā-mantra and have a full gratitude for Maharaj in thanking him for giving this job a retreat. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Ram, Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare.
Thank you so much, Maharaj, thank you so much.
In fact, uh the topic Maharaj uh emotion, which is considered to be so sahija, which is considered to be so subjective, to be dovetailing that and explaining uh that sp that spiritually, you know, emotionally, spirituality with the science.
I was so made to know certain facts today, how uh scientists say that emotions are movements, energy which drive us and they're a powerful energy and explaining that fourfold process of In
fact, Ben Maharaj mentioned that uh you know uh in our brains we have billions and billions, about eighty billions or eight hundred millions of the nerve cells compared to just 42 nerve cells which are present in our heart as per the scientists and 72,000 as per the Upaniṣads. But these small amount control the 80 billion nerve cells off our brains and while meditating we should be meditating from our heart.
And how uh Maharaj explained the entire process.
So Maharaj I I I wouldn't have the right words to thank you and and please I I apologize uh to be not been able to uh put the right words exactly to be you know to be enough thankful to you. That is what I can say to the least right now. So thank you so much, Maharaj.
In fact, we are on the last second last day of our uh you know the World Holy Name Festival. And to have your association on these last days. We all know the last days are so crucial, right? The last night before an examination, the last day of uh doing anything that
we do. We are always so much of tension and nervous. But to be starting with um Maharaj Japa retreat has definitely been so blissful and so powerful. Thank you, thank you so much, Maharaj.
I seek your blessings with my uh humble folded hands. Thank you, Maharaj. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you all of you. Um I I'm not sure if we have questions.
I there are definitely questions, but if if there are uh would the organizers allow us to take few questions right now? Can we ask few questions from Maharaj?
Because I was getting few of the chats that uh we can ask you questions.
Uh we have, meanwhile we have, uh Hare Krishna Prabhu, Deen Bandhu Prabhu I'm looking at the I'm looking at the time and Deen Bandhu Prabhu is here as well. Um if we want we could take maybe max two questions
and that's it and then we could move on. Yes, yes Mataji thank you so much. And uh Deen Bandhu Prabhu is here. So thank you so much, Deen Bandhu Prabhuji for being with us.
It's nice to see you and uh Prabhuji is here with us definitely. So we'll take the uh the two questions, the quick two questions that come to us firstly, and uh let's's see who there.
Anyone here who would want to ask the question can put it on the chat box, can ask us.
I know we have a lot of platforms where this has been live streamed, so if there are questions on the other platforms and I would request the organizers to put it here and uh we would take it.
Otherwise we have uh Deen Bandhu Prabhuji there and we can do it. So uh we have Simran Counsel who has raised the hand. Uh would you want to ask the question directly? Similar. She can just unmute herself.
Can you can you unmute yourself please? And ask the question. You'll have to unmute yourself.
I was wondering if there's a daily gratitude practice that you practice yourself other than this one that we just did of thinking of the people that have influenced our lives.
Can you repeat because I didn't hear everything? Yes, Art. Is there a gratitude practice that you personally personally do yourself yeah
I definitely do it I first of all I pay obeisances uh on a daily basis uh we know that Ragunat Das Gaswami was paying basis to 2000 devotees.
And while chanting, I first chant I tried to chant first rounds of my Japa with the gratitude towards my spiritual master towards Śrīla Prabhupāda and then after that I move on.
But I usually start with this by involving my heart in this, you know, grateful emotion. And paying obeisances every day is also very important. Thank you, Maharaj.
Uh Suran Mataji a question has been answered and definitely that's a takeaway for all of us. When we start chanting arounds the first round can definitely be in gratitude towards a spiritual master and Śrīla Prabhupāda.
So thank you so much. One last question we can take if there's anything. Otherwise we have the next speaker ready and I'm so happy to uh see him here. So we should be just continuing to the next speaker.
Do we have a question?
I'm also seeing all the other platforms just in case we get another question because sometimes we get uh devotees on YouTube, on you know, Hare Krishna TV, on Facebook pages, we have questions all over the devotees joining all over places and they might have few questions but if I I if I can see that on the chat box I will be able to take your questions.
Okay anyone else who wants to raise the hand here? Perfect, fine. So uh thank you so much, everyone, and thank you so much, Maharaj.
Once again, thank you very much for this wonderful uh one round of chanting that we started on the Japa Retreat.
And uh that really really powerfully moved us and uh we are all looking forward for more of your association uh and but in these uh you know covert times and in these times where all of us are based in different time zones uh to be getting your online association was definitely worth hearing each and every minute and each and every second.
Thank you so much Maharaj thank you so thank you all Hari Prabhu thank you everyone thank you thank you Maharaj and as I mention