Power of sound. Mantra fest
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Бали · 2024
Главы
Vasudevaya. Vāsudeva. manashapadramba jatta boksha ja,ia no puti, oh Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Briamam Krishna
Power of sound in creation
Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Nam So We have come today to this beautiful house of home to explore the power of sound. According to Vedic scriptures, sound is the most powerful element of creation.
It's the element of creation from which the whole creation started. According to modern science, the creation started with the big bang. But according to ancient Vedic science, the creation started with the sound bomb.
I don't know if sound bomb and big bang is the same thing, but uh it's more believable than this beautiful creation with all its harmony, with all its beautiful structure and complexity, complexity
started not with the chaotic big bang, but with the beautiful sound om. And the Vedic scriptures contain a very deep, profound science of the sound. Of course, the most important thing is to do what you have done, what
you did just recently when we were chanting these mantras. To experience the sound is more important than to understand theoretically what sound is.
But at the same time, if we more deeply understand what's going on when we chant the sound of sacred mantras, it will help us to absorb ourselves more deeply into the sound.
And it will explain to us different sometimes unexpected phenomena which will take place while we chant mantras. Like all of you, I'm the witness, and I can testify it in the court of law.
All of you experience some joy during this chanting. Every time. Repeating again and again and again the same words, the same sounds. And the reason is very important.
First of all, we have to understand why a human being inevitably experiences peace and happiness and that his or her consciousness expands. Or rather, let us put it slightly different.
Every human being, and that's the observation of the ancient Vedic scientists, Vedic sages, experience peace or happiness when his consciousness is focused.
Meditation is the way to focus our mind, but what is the cause behind it? What is the reason why people are doing this?
The reason why people are doing this is because when we're focusing our mind, when we're focusing our consciousness, paradoxically, our consciousness expands.
And vice versa, when our consciousness is distracted, when our consciousness is totally absorbed into chaotic happenings of this world, the opposite process is taking place and our consciousness becomes contracted.
These two processes of expansion of the consciousness and contraction of the consciousness are the regular occurrence which we can absorb ourselves in us.
And the very moment when our consciousness contracts, we feel anxiety, we feel fear. We feel uneasiness. The reason is very simple.
When our consciousness is contracted, then any wave in this consciousness creates huge disturbance. If I take a really small cup of water. It's very easy to disturb this cup of water.
But if you go on the bank of a huge lake and there is no wind outside, and we try to disturb this big lake of water, big body of water, it will be very difficult.
We will throw one pebble after another pebble, but the lake will still remain very peaceful and calm. So, exactly the same thing takes place in our consciousness when our consciousness is contracted.
Any small disturbance will create a lot of problems in our mind, a lot of anxiety, a lot of different unpleasant things.
We all know when we are basically unhappy, any little provocation can completely throw us out of balance.
And when other times we are very happy, and we're very pleasant. Then even if our wife or husband, uh, because the majority in this room are women. Even if they try to disturb us, we will not be disturbed.
So it very much this depends in general on the state of our consciousness. When the consciousness is expanded, we naturally feel joy, we naturally feel happiness.
And this is exactly the reason why ancient sages of Vedic culture recommend meditation, recommend yoga. The goal of yoga is ultimately to bring the disturbances in our mind to zero point when the mind is always calm.
Krishna in Bhagavad-gītā very clearly says, ashāntasya kuto sukham. He asks, where is the question of happiness if you are not peaceful.
The prerequisite of happiness is peace, and the prerequisite of peace is the expansion of consciousness.
So yoga is nothing but a very elaborate and very ingenious technique of expanding our consciousness and bringing our consciousness to a different level.
And by expanding our consciousness, we can experience something which is not possible for us to experience when our consciousness is really contracted.
When our consciousness is in our ordinary state of being when we are usually up.
So the first principle which I wanted to clearly establish in your mind is that meditation on concentration on something bring about expansion of consciousness and expansion of consciousness brings about the experience of bliss and experience of happiness, experience of complete peace.
Of course, after experiencing complete peace, you want to experience unusual disturbances. After chanting this beautiful mantra, everyone started talking and everyone was agitated.
But in general, the principle is very important which we have to understand.
Traditional meditation versus sound meditation
The more we concentrate, the more expanded our consciousness becomes, and the more naturally we experience something which we will not be able to experience otherwise.
So now I want to say first a few words about general meditation. Just recently before coming here I gave a lecture on the principles of meditation which helps people to expand the mind.
But normal meditation, not the meditation which we experience now, not the meditation for which we came in this beautiful house of home today, that normal meditation requires a lot of conditions to be fulfilled.
And the reason is very important. It's very difficult for us to concentrate the mind because the mind is normally very volatile.
According to Upaniṣads, the very scriptures which reveal the secrets of the creation, our mind is interwoven with prana. The prana, the channels of prana completely penetrate our mind.
These two entities, the mind or consciousness of the human being and the prana or the living energy within us, are totally together and prana is very volatile, and because prana is easily disturbed by the contact with the objects of this world, our consciousness or our mind also becomes disturbed.
And therefore, to be engaged or to be successfully engaged in meditation, you need to isolate yourself from the disturbances of the external world. You have to really limit yourself.
And therefore, the yogis they would go high up in the mountains, they would sit in the case, they would close their eyes, they would close their ears,
to calm down the mind, to bring mind into a peaceful condition and then to experience something higher.
Ultimately, even the happiness which you experience when your mind is expanded or when your mind is peaceful is not the ultimate achievement.
The ultimate achievement which yogis want to experience is not just ordinary happiness or even extraordinary happiness.
The ultimate achievement which is available to us when our mind is very calm, peaceful, and transparent, is that we can see the higher reality.
Become closer with the reality, become in contact with reality real, not the distorted picture of reality which we have when our mind is distorted. When our mind is distorted, the picture which we see is also distorted.
We don't see reality as it is. We only see the distorted image of reality which filtered out through our mind. So the reason why yogis want to calm down the mind, not Only to experience happiness, that's just a by-product.
The main reason is to experience reality as it is, and ultimately, to see the reflection of our real soul. And that's the highest achievement.
When we see the reflection of our real soul in the calm mirror or in the calm surface of our beautiful mind, which can reflect it, then we become extremely fulfilled because we know who we are.
The problem of our material existence is that we are completely confused. We don't know who we are, and we usually think we are this body and we have to take care of this body.
Yes, we have to take care of this body, but ultimately in the ultimate sense. We are not the body. We are eternal soul.
And all the disturbances which are coming to us because we know that there will be diseases in the body, because we know that there will be old age when you are totally crippled and you cannot even climb up the stairs and ultimately there will be ugly death.
All these disturbances are only coming because of this bewilderment of the mind, because we don't really see, we don't really experience that I am the soul, I am eternal soul.
So the goal of yoga is not just to establish it theoretically. Theoretically I'm sure you all kind of know it with a different extent of certainty. But that's not the goal of yoga.
That you can know very easily, theoretical yoga, that's simple. You have to be established in the eternity of the soul.
And for that, your mind has to be transparent and calm, because only in the transparent and calm mind you will see the reflection of the soul. But even this is not the highest achievement of your will.
Even this amazing achievement when you know that you're the soul, then you're completely free from the fear of death, and you're completely free from the anxieties which are created due to our identification with the body, with this matter.
Even this is not the highest achievement of yoga.
The highest and most important achievement of yoga is that when your mind is completely calm and transparent, you will not only see the reflection of your soul, you will also see the reflection of God within your heart.
You will know God as He is. You will not have any bewilderment or any doubts whether he exists and how he looks like. You will see him as clearly as you can see yourself in a clear mirror.
And therefore, the preliminary goal of yoga is to clean the mirror of the heart, but the ultimate goal of yoga is to see God within your heart.
And when you see yourself, and then you see God, and then you see the beautiful relationship of love which are eternally connected you, the soul, with God,
the little soul with great soul, with Paramātmā, with the Supreme Soul, then you may with all certainty say, yes, I am fulfilled. Yes, I know the purpose of my life. Yes, the purpose of my life is now achieved.
And of course, that's not the end.
Achieving samadhi through sacred sound
That's the beginning of the most beautiful journey which we will follow after that, but that's uh too esoteric subject matter for this short lecture.
In this short lecture, I wanted to explain how the sound, how and why the sound comes down the mind and why it is the most easy method of meditation.
As I said, the normal meditation requires fulfillment of a lot of conditions.
You have to really isolate yourself from the world, you have to really block your eyes, your ears, your mouth, and uh you have to perform a lot of austerities. Of course, nowadays yoga is made very easy.
Fifteen minutes of yoga and vihedi, no problem. But that yoga is good for the beginning, but it's not a real yoga.
However, the so that lofty and beautiful goals of yoga, it's achievable even for us. That's the most amazing news which I brought to you today. Why?
Because the sound, when the sound is specific, not just ordinary sound, not just because you heard that mantras can control the mind and all of a sudden you start chanting Coca-Cola Coca-Cola Pepsi Pepsi Cola, something like this. Sorry, this is not a very bona fide mantra.
But anyways, the point is that there are specific sounds revealed in the Vedic scriptures which can control your mind automatically.
There is an artificial method of controlling your mind by doing cumbersome and quite difficult process, specifically through the breathing exercises. It's important to practice. I do it every day.
There's definitely a lot of benefit in breathing exercises for calming down the mind and everything else. But still, as I said, how it works, it works because prana and the mind are interwoven with each other.
And it's very difficult for us to control the mind, but it's easier for us to control the breath. To control prana.
So by controlling prana, by making our breathing regulated and harmonious and peaceful, we calm down the mind. But we also know that sometimes the disturbances in the mind are too strong.
Sometimes people have panic attacks. Sometimes people have depressions and they try to control the mind by doing basic exercises. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Because the disturbances in the mind are too deeply seated.
Because the saṁskāras, the subliminal impressions which are there in the mind are not so easily calmed.
And they're triggered, and because they are triggered by our improper lifestyle or anything else, it's very difficult to control them. They just go out of control.
So what I want to say is that yogic process is a beautiful process. There is no doubt about it. But even yogis say that there is easier process. Patanjali Muni explained this in the very second chapter of his yoga sutras.
Where he says that there are difficult processes to achieve samadhi.
And samadhi is that state of mind where our mind is completely peaceful and not only peaceful, very transparent and not only transparent, is capable of reflecting the higher reality. The reality as it is, not the distorted version of reality.
So first Patanjali Muni explains different stages of samadhi and difficult path to samadhi, but then he starts explaining easier practices for samadhi.
And by explaining this, he says, Īśvara-praṇidhāna, he says that there is a shortcut to this condition of samadhi. When you can remain completely peaceful and happy in any disturbed situation of life.
And he says that the path to this, the short path to this, is Īśvara-praṇidhāna or surrender to God. What does it mean surrender to God?
It basically means that you harmonize your little consciousness, your limited consciousness with the superconsciousness, with the consciousness which is the source of this creation.
Now we are not really exactly in harmony with this superconsciousness of supersoul creation and therefore all the disturbances are there.
But when you try to bring yourself purposefully into this condition of harmony with the higher consciousness, then you will achieve samadhi. But then again, it doesn't explain anything. What does it mean?
How to bring your consciousness into the harmony with the superconsciousness. What is the shortcut? What is the secret behind this?
And therefore, Patanjali Muni next say, after explaining that Īśvara-praṇidhāna is the very easy and direct way to achieve samadhi. After that, he says, Tasya vācakaḥ praṇavaḥ.
He says, how you can come in contact or how you can harmonize your consciousness with super consciousness by chanting his name. And his name is vāk, his name is praṇava. What does praṇava mean?
Spiritual meaning of the mantra Om
Patanjali Muni he established this very potent and essential principle, which is the second principle which I want you to take home from this lecture. He says that there is sound and there is sound.
There are names and there are names. Your name is not eternal name. You may be called I don't know John or Jane or Christy this lifetime, but next lifetime you may be called Masha or somebody else.
He says yes, sound is important. Sound which we use in our ordinary life is very important because it helps us to navigate in this life. But there are specific sounds which are eternal sounds.
It says that the name of God, who is the eternal entity is not different from Himself, and this name is own. This praṇava or oṅkāra, this beautiful sound is the sum total of reality. The sound A in all is God Himself.
That's why in every alphabet A or a is the first sound. Because it's God. Everyone knows A means God. U means His energy. When we chant Om, we chant A and U together, and when A and U combined, there is a beautiful sound
When A and U are combined, by pronouncing this, we establish a very important principle. God and his energy are together. They are unity. We can see the energy of the Lord around us.
That the God is there, and by chanting this beautiful Om sound, by establishing that the God is there, and by chanting this beautiful all sound, by establishing this unity between God and His energy.
And then at the end we can beautiful a humming sound. Let's do it again because experience is more important than... let's do again chanting three times this sound Om. So A and U is God the original source of creation?
Om is His energy and the humming sound, the nasal sound mmm at the end is us, the living entity. Tiny little spiritual soul, which is also a part of reality, it's us.
So when we chant these three sounds together in the form of mantra, they are actually invoking the subtle, the totality of reality. And they are coming in harmony, in contact with the totality of reality.
And by coming in contact with totality of reality, very naturally and spontaneously we are bringing our small consciousness in harmony with the superconsciousness of this world. And that's how it works.
And why did I explain to you the theory behind this? Why did I explain to you the meaning of this sound Om? The reason is very simple, because in the next sūtra Patañjali Muni says,
Taj japas tad artha bhāvanā, when we chant the sound Om, it's very important to meditate on the meaning of the sound Om. When we meditate on the sound Om itself, the sound Om itself is very powerful. It's the most powerful sound. It's the most efficient sound in creation and the most important and powerful thing in the whole of creation.
But when we couple it with the understanding of the meaning of all,
when we really understand that by invoking the sound om, I'm coming in talk in contact with the absolute reality. And this absolute reality is God, His energy, and Myself who is included into this creation.
Myself who is there in loving contact with this eternal reality, when the sound, when we chant this with understanding of this meaning, then the effect of this sound will become much more profound, much more deep.
And the effect of this sound will completely eradicate the saṁskāras which is the cause of disturbances in our mind. I said before why it is so difficult to meditate, because there are so many impressions.
Even if we completely block our ears and our eyes, still the mind is disturbed. There is nothing external which is disturbing the mind, but so many memories are coming within our mind.
So many pleasant or more often unpleasant circumstances happening. And they by sitting somewhere in a cave or somewhere
in a some secluded place they think, what am I doing here? Am I wasting my time? Why don't I experience something else, something more exciting?
And this way, the mind which is normally disturbed from outside and from inside is cheating.
So what the sound om does why does it bring us so quickly to this very elevated state of samadhi, it can if we do it properly, if we do this chanting in a very proper way, with understanding the meaning, if we can't with this understanding
then ultimately it will eradicate all the saṁskāras. All the desires which are there, which are disturbing our mind, will be eradicated by the powerful experience of bliss which is coming from the sound.
Now we're experiencing some bliss. When we chant now, we're experiencing some happiness or some peacefulness. But that's nothing in comparison with what real yogis experiencing when they chant om.
Well let's try to do it again and maybe this time it will work.
Let's again try to do it by really understanding that we are invoking the most powerful, we are coming in contact with the original uh eternal source of creation, the truth himself.
Therefore, there is this standard phrase which you probably have heard om tat sat. All means the absolute reality. That means love. So on that sat, and sat means real.
Om tat sat basically means that Om is the real name of God. Om is God. Om Tat Sat means Om is God, and by chanting Om, I'm in contact with God, even if I don't feel it completely, but still some experience is coming.
So let's try it again. With full concentration on the beautiful sound Om. First, we do very deep breath in and then beautiful sound Om with all three elements in it.
So what happened just now is our mind, is our consciousness, is by coming in contact with the eternal reality in the form of this eternal sound Om, which is the eternal name of God.
We brought the harmony into the prana of our mind because we invoked the transcendental prana, the transcendental living energy, the transcendental prana, the transcendental energy of the Lord was in our mind and our normal prana, material prana, material energy became power.
What I want to say is that yes, there are powerful breathing exercises, but the most powerful breathing exercise is the exercise of chanting the holy sounds of mantra.
And when we chant the holy sounds of mantra with full concentration, naturally, in a very spontaneous way, We are not in the future and we are not in the past. We are in the present.
And when we are in the present, our consciousness expands. Why is our consciousness contracted? Because of some dreams of the future and
some unpleasant events of the past; they all contract our consciousness. But when they are not present in the present, it's very easy to feel happiness because our consciousness is expanded, and the easiest way to be in the present is to chant the beautiful sound of the mantra.
Four stages of sound manifestation
Let's do it again. So let me explain for a few moments some more important points which I wanted to tell about today. How the sound comes.
This, listen very carefully, because it's important for us to make this work of the sound more efficient. In the Vedic scriptures, it explains that the sound first
comes through mūlādhāra-chakra. You are all yogis, and you know that the root chakra or mūlādhāra chakra is the basis of our being.
The more strong and more powerful our root chakra is, the more grounded we are, the more peaceful we are, the more strong we are, the more successful we are.
So initially, in the Vedas, it is said that there are four levels of sound. When we chant the sound, OM, we are going through these four stages without even knowing.
But if we know how these four stages are formed, the chanting would become much more important and much more efficient. The first sound comes through muladhara chakra.
And in Muladhara chakra, it's in a very inceptive stage. It's in the stage of little germ of the sound. It's a very subtle sound in Muladhara chakra. Then it comes to Manipura Chakra, to the third chakra in our body.
And in Manipura chakra, the sound takes the form of image. And therefore the next level of the sound is called Pashyanti. You can see the image within Manipura chakra. And then it comes to anahata chakra.
And it's very interesting because the very word anahata when we translate it from Sanskrit means unstruck. Anahata means this is the place where we can hear the sound which is unstruck.
Usually when we hear normal sounds there should be some sort of strike there. Like if I strike my hands, there will be sound. So the sound which we hear, the audible sound, is the
result of strike which is taking place in our vocal cords. So that's the grossest level of sound which we hear, which which is called vaikharī, which is coming from viśuddhi chakra.
But the most subtle level of the sound is the sound of the mind which we hear in anahata, uh, which is the silent sound. And therefore, anahata is called anahata. It's the place when we can hear silent sound.
So initially when we chant a mantra, when we chant the sound OM, we only chant the grossest form of the sound. We only hear this beautiful sound, OM, but that's a very gross form.
But when the chanting goes deeper than the external sound which we pronounce through our vocal chords combines together with unstruck sound within our heart.
Monks who practice Christian monks who practice the prayer, Jesus prayer. It's a very powerful branch of Christian religion when they constantly chant mantra, Jesus prayer.
They explain a lot of the experiences when the sound comes from the tongue and from the vocal cords, from the śuddha chakra to the level of the heart.
When you hear the sound, not externally, but within the beautiful space of your heart. When you hear all within the space of your heart, then the real miracle starts happening.
And that's only the second level of the subtlety of the sound. Initially, you just draw sound, then if you go deeper with the sound, and we'll try it now.
It may not work, but maybe if you're pure enough, you will not only hear the external sound, but you will also feel the deeper vibration within the heart chakra, anāhata chakra, which is the silent sound in this level.
Let's try to do it again. We'll pronounce the gross sound, but the idea is not just to pronounce the gross sound with our lips and tongue and vocal cords, but the idea is to try to hear deeper sound within our heart.
Let's do the... Did you manage to hear the more subtle sounds in the heart? Very little bit. I did little experience or little vibration on the level of the heart.
So when you master this, the yogis say there are miraculous events which will take place, you will hear amazing transcendental sounds in your own heart.
You will always feel or you will always hear the sound of Om, even if you don't pronounce it audibly within your heart. The sound will always vibrate at the level of your heart.
And you will feel an amazing emotion of love and unity with all creation.
Because it's the love which is coming from the heart. Because it's the connection which you establish within your heart on this level with the sound OM.
So when it comes to this level, you become completely totally blissful and you see the unity of reality. You don't see yourself separate from reality.
You don't see yourself as limited anxieties and interests and desires and problems and future plans, you see that you are part of this beautiful reality and you're connected with it.
And the feeling will become so strong that you will be able to you basically will feel that you love everyone. You will you may or may not express it externally, but this feeling of complete deep emotional involvement with everyone in this creation will come just because you achieve the second level in the experience of your sound.
And then there is even higher level when you bring the sound on the level of paśyanti, on the third level of the sound skin, so to speak.
When the sound becomes so subtle that you feel the vibration of the sound in the area of your navel at that point, you will be able to see God.
The unity of creation, this creation is established on the level of the heart, but the image of God, the beautiful image of God, the most beautiful person in creation, with beautiful lotus eyes, looking at you will come as a reality, not as imagination,
not an not as an object of your meditation, not as some, uh, forced uh, yeah, imagination within your mind. It comes uh as reality due to the sound.
What I want to say is that when we chant the sounds, when we chant mantras, then the level of this chanting becomes deeper and deeper and deeper,
and the experience which is brought about by this chanting also becomes more and more profound.
And ultimately, as I said, according to Patanjali Muni, just by chanting some old, or just by chanting some other names of God, which are eternal names of God and which are ultimately no different from Him.
By doing it properly, in a proper association and by bringing ourselves into the present moment by this process of meditating on the beautiful sound of the names of God, you ultimately will be able to see God.
Invoking God through sacred names
And you ultimately will be able to enter into samadhi in the most natural way, in the most easy and spontaneous way. So that's the science, the very brief description of the science of sound.
That the science of sound is based on the very important principle that the sound which designates the Lord, the sound which from which Vedic mantras are composed are not different from the Lord Himself by bringing us in contact with this sound, we are bringing our little consciousness, completely disturbed consciousness, into the harmony with the beautiful super consciousness of creation and ultimately initially experience bliss and joy but ultimately don't see the person who is behind the skies.
Just a few minutes ago you were chanting He Govinda, He Gopāla. And He Govinda, He Gopāla, Gopāla and Govinda are the names of God. The most beautiful form of God who is the most loving God.
Different people have different conceptions of God because God is inexhaustible.
It has so many different dimensions and so many different descriptions are there and they're all true. He can be very powerful, He can be judged, He can punish you, but there is a very loving and vulnerable original person who created this beautiful world and he is the source of all beauty.
And when we chant Govinda, Gopala, we address the Lord in this form. We say, Oh my Lord, I don't want to see your frightening, powerful thoughts. I don't want you to see us a judge.
I want you to see as a beautiful, loving person. Because ultimately I know I am yours and you're mine. Ultimately I know that love is the supreme.
Your energy of love is the supreme energy, and even yourself you lead into this energy of love. And by changing these names, we are invoking this image of God.
And ultimately, initially it may become just imagination in our mind, but ultimately it will become the reality, the real experience of this God. And that's why we can't in our tradition the
person who introduced me, the person who introduced me, he said that I'm chanting this mantra for 40 years. Actually, I'm chanting this mantra for 44 years.
And when I started, I didn't know anything about this, I didn't I didn't have any faith in it.
And my resolve and the moment when I started chanting was that the very moment when I became bored by repeating the same stupid thing, I will give it up. So for 44 years I've been doing this, I never became bored.
It works. There is a very beautiful experience and there is a very beautiful life which is behind this. And you feel the awakening of your consciousness every time when you chant.
And the mantra which we chant, we chanted with you this beautiful mantra poem, which is very powerful description of creation.
Power of the Hare Krishna mantra
Before that, we chanted Govinda, Gopala, Keshava, Madhava, Dina Dayal, we chanted different names of God which are the original names of this original person.
And now I believe is the time when we will chant the beautiful Mahā-mantra, the great mantra, which is composed of three names of God, Hari, Krishna and Rama.
So among all the mantras, this particular mantra is called Mahā- mantra. There's a beautiful story from the life of Yogi Shivananda. Once a person, a curious person, seeker came to him and he asked him, Svamiji,
can you please show me how you enter samadhi? Please show me your samadhi. And Śivānanda said, okay, sit down, I will show you how to enter samādhi. And he took his chanting beads. And he started loudly chanting.
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma, Rāma, Hare Hare, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Rāma, Rāma, Hare Hare.
So the person was sitting and looking at Śivānanda and he was thinking, okay, Śivānanda is warming himself up. He's preparing himself for something. He is just chanting some bhajan or some mantra to enter it or something.
So he's patiently waiting. For a few minutes, Śivānanda is chanting. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma, Rāma, Hare Hare. person is still waiting.
The sound becomes more and more powerful. He sees that Śivānanda is shedding tears. He sees that the hairs on his body stand on end and he looks at him and he still hears the same sound.
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma. Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma, Rāma, Hare Hare. So for two hours, non-stop, Śivānanda was chanting this mantra.
And then he opened his eyes and he said, did you see? He said, Swamiji, where is samādhi? And Śivānanda says, didn't you see it? I was in samādhi. I was in samādhi, I was nowhere else.
I was in the sound of the holy name, and nothing has happened. And I was completely absorbed in the sound. And the proof of this is all these signs of spiritual ecstasy.
When the tears are flowing from the eyes, when the hairs are standing on end. And even we, we can, vulnerable as we are, can experience this very easily when we chant wholeheartedly this beautiful Hare Krishna Mahā-mantra.
It's a very powerful experience, and if we really understand that this is the way to achieve the higher states of consciousness where the higher reality becomes open to us, then this chanting will become extremely powerful.
The Hare Krishna Mahā-mantra is revealed in Kali-santaraṇa Upaniṣad.
And in Kali-santaraṇa Upaniṣad, the question was asked, how for disturbed, short-lived people in Kali-yuga who are prone to have all kinds of diseases, who are completely unhealthy because of the lifestyle and because of the pollution in the environment. How is that that these people can experience the transcendental reality, achieve the highest realization? And, uh, Lord Brahmā, the creator of this universe, he answers this question of
Nārada Muni, and he says, in this Kali Yuga, people will be able to achieve this highest realization by chanting these 16 words.
Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare, Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare, Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare, Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare, and that's—so Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare—so
that's a beautiful experience and ultimately this experience will free yourself from all the constraints and from all misconceptions which you may have.
As I said, the main problem is within our mind, within the mind which is polluted by all kinds of previous conceptions, previous impressions, previous experiences, which may not be complete.
But by chanting this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, we are bringing ourselves to the present moment.
We are expanding our consciousness and by bringing ourselves into the contact with the higher reality, and ultimately this will give us the highest possible realization and every one of you will be able to experience it right now.
So thank you very much. That's all I wanted to say anyway.