Doing a lot of japa, but still lamenting that it is kind of a forced thing. I find i prefer to chant nonstop than to chant a set number of rounds, its so mechanical, but that will pass. Sadhana is all about discipline and can lead to authoritarianism and narrow-mindedness sometimes and in some, instead of intense one-pointedness, but you and i know all about that stuff by now.
Bhakti is still yoga, so concentration and breath control and mind control are totally part of it. One who achieves perfection in one or the other achieves the results of both! I once sat on a hotel roof in old Delhi for some days, waiting for plane, and chanting, roughly 1974. The lads there were mostly pranayama practitioners. At one point, one of them said to me, How did you achieve perfect breath control? He saw my chanting was nonstop, so breath was sacrificed into the outgoing and the incoming, perfection of breath control. I then realized that devotion to not stopping or allowing a lot of pauses due to devotion to the sacrifice of japa led automatically to the perfection of pranayama.
Nowadays, I get quite disturbed so to speak when i chant rounds, as i cannot tolerate the impersonal mere sounding of Names without adequate feeling or service, so I can do service in mana mandire, and try to be aware of the benefits of the sadhana. It does require undivided attention for extended periods of time. Once it gets going its nectar of course, but also has the effect of making everything weird as one's residual karma shrinks to a fried crisp and so does the whole world.
Have a GREAT!!! day Ji Ha.
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