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Japa Mala, chanting the Hare Krishna Maha-mantra

How to properly chant the Hare Krishna Maha-mantra – Japa

” Nish, nish, ram, ram, nish, nish, ram, ram .” Srila Prabhupada once imitated how we sometimes chant without focus, without concentration, without proper pronunciation – how we chant when we dd this type of chanting; “I have to chant but I’d rather be doing something else.” And in our minds we are thinking, “I can’t wait to get these rounds out of the way, when shall I be finnished.” We all do this. And it can get pretty bad. I know devotees who chant rounds while watching football games on TV.

Srila Prabhupada explained that this type of chanting is more or less useless because it will not produce the desired result, love of Krishna. To even call this chanting is a stretch. It is closer to a ritual. But Prabhupada acknowledged the value in the ritual by saying that although this kind of chanting is not very productive, at least those who are chanting this way are keeping

The spiritual or eternal self is not the sensations which the soul experiences within and from the body. “yantra rudrani mayaya”. What we directly experience is not actually the external hard physical material world, but a REPRESENTATION built by the mind, within the networks of the body’s brain, nervous and glandular systems, life air, etc., but primarily the brain, of the occupied body, exactly like a person experiencing the holo-deck from Star Trek fame. Subject, also, to defects. “.. the soul … sits as if on a machine built of material energy.” Lord Sri Krsna, Bhagavad Gita As It Is, by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada Thakura. We are, indeed, ghosts within the machine. But as aspirants for spiritual emancipation, we are actively working to fix that. When we meditate, if we are inclined to remember, we may wish to occasionally remember that we are the ability to sense, not exactly the sensations themselves, which are but the mere elements of the repre

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Japa Mala, chanting the Hare Krishna Maha-mantra, by Mahatma Das (ACBSP)

The Brain as Holodeck

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