Every moment will be joyful in your life. Dedication to the Lord and chanting the Holy Name, the nondifferent form of the Lord, can give us all auspiciousness.
Question: I would really like to hear about Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and how we can serve him.
Srila Gurudev: Mahaprabhu first indicated to beginners that you will get all the benefit of your spiritual life if you can chant the mahamantra properly. Your mind is like a mirror covered with dust, and through chanting that dust will be removed and you will see your true form. The suffering that we experience from so many things in this material world will also reduce and finally go out.
cheto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpaṇaṁ
śreyaḥ-kairava-chandrikā-vitaraṇaṁ
Through your chanting feelings of God will reveal in your heart, you will see your beautiful divine form, and your mood of service will give such happy light in your spiritual environment. You will get very close association with your Lord, like the feelings between a husband and wife.
cheto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpaṇaṁ
śreyaḥ-kairava-chandrikā-vitaraṇaṁ vidyā-vadhū-jīvanam
ānandāmbudhi-vardhanaṁ
When that divine form of the Lord as Harinam reveals within your heart then automatically joy will come, and every moment when you are chanting the Holy Name, the feeling of God’s association will come to you.
prati-padaṁ pūrṇāmṛtāsvādanaṁ
Every moment will be joyful in your life. Dedication to the Lord and chanting the Holy Name, the nondifferent form of the Lord, can give us all auspiciousness.
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu advised the conditioned souls in this way.
prabhu kahe—kahilāṅ ei mahāmantra
Of all mantras this is the best mantram in this age of Kali-yuga. Other practising processes will not be so fruitful. Meditation, chanting, and congregational chanting of this mantram, and service to this mantram, will give all good results to us.
Then if we want to satisfy Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu we will first try to chant the Hare Krishna mahamantra, and if we can do that continuously that is very good.
Be humble, be tolerant and give honour to others
Mahaprabhu gave eight verses as advice for the conditioned souls, and in the third verse He explained how attachment, love, and affection will grow for chanting the Holy Name. He gave this advice: if you can be humble, be tolerant, and give honour to others then you will be worry-free from your circumstances.
You can believe and you can live within the faithful plane. Faith is necessary. That is the first basis of this conception. Not only in the line of Krishna consciousness, but the first advice of all religious conceptions is, “Be faithful”. At first, beginners may not be able to maintain their faith because they are not seeing anything and not getting anything in their hand. They do not have practical knowledge and experience. For that reason strong faith will not come immediately. But through realisation, through association, through hearing, through reading, faith will become more and more strong. In different ways our faith will grow more and more, but the scriptures say that association is the best. If good association is not available then we can practise through reading the books, chanting the Holy Name, hearing from an expert, and so on.
We must try to realise our previous activity, our present spiritual situation, and our future prospect. It is necessary to take advantage of the value of the present time.
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu will be happy if we follow His directive to chant the mahamantra without offence. The mahamantra Himself is Radha and Krishna. Both Their Names are present within this mantra with a calling mood. Even within some processes in this material world we can see that sound can take form: now when you are talking to someone by telephone it is also possible to see their form, their mood, and so on. So, if we can chant properly They will reveal in our heart. We cannot say that it will happen immediately but anyone can get it, and if someone is sincere with their practice they will get some feelings from the beginning.
When Mahaprabhu said that there is no alternative other than chanting the Holy Name of the Lord, then it is not necessary to go left or right or anywhere else. Be steady, be faithful, and try, and success must come to you.
We are trying but not properly trying, because we are always mixing with material things, and it is natural. If we can chant without offence then proper purification will come and we must be benefitted through that. Time is a factor: it is in front of me and must give me some disturbance. But if we can see the eternal time that is nothing by comparison.
When Mahaprabhu said that there is no alternative other than chanting the Holy Name of the Lord, then it is not necessary to go left or right or anywhere else. Be steady, be faithful, and try, and success must come to you. And because “Hare Krishna” is Radha–Krishna then if They reveal in your heart you will automatically join with the Pastimes of Krishna-lila. That is the gift of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu: Krishna-prema, love for Krishna, affection for Krishna, and service for Krishna. When it will reveal in your heart then Krishna will also reveal with that mood.
In this way, many things in many places have given us the clue of practising life. But at first beginners must try with faith.
Srila Gurudev speaking in Italy, September 2000, during his Sixteenth World Tour.
Reference
The mahamantra:
hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare
hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare
Related reading
Discussion of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s Siksastakam verses in Revealed Truth
Article on the mahamantra