(13/15) Pure Sankirtan in Pure Association

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kalarait (Kolkata), 4 December 2020, part 13
Translated from Bengali

We must always engage ourselves in sankirtan: we must chant all together. You must all do this. When you are at home, do not sit at the tea stall in the evening, telling each other stories, do not waste time on nonsense – do your work, do your chores at home and always chant the Holy Name with your mouth (sevonmukhe kahe Krsna-nama). You are cooking, cutting vegetables – chant the Holy Name at this time. What is the problem? Do service with your hands and chant the Holy Name with your mouth. This is what sevonmukhe kahe Krsna-nama is. If you always stay within service (sevonmukhe), the Holy Name will appear on your tongue.

ব্রহ্মাণ্ড ভ্রমিতে কোন ভাগ্যবান্ জীব ।
গুরু-কৃষ্ণ-প্রসাদে পায় ভক্তিলতা-বীজ ॥

brahmanda bhramite kona bhagyavan jiva
guru-krsna-prasade paya bhakti-lata-bija

'Having travelled throughout the universe, some fortunate souls receive the seed of the devotional creeper by the mercy of Sri Guru, who is non-different from Krishna.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.19.151)

Gurudev plants the Holy Name in your heart, but by the mercy of Gurudev it must dance on your tongue and you will be chanting, 'Hare Krishna!'.

You can see that outside people do kirtan (asta-prahar kirtan, etc.) for money – they come with a party and take a fee. Do you know why they do kirtan? To please the minds of people, for their entertainment, and to earn money. Such kirtan can never bring you any benefit. If somebody is reading Bhagavatam for money (if somebody is using Bhagavatam to do business), you must not listen to their reading. If you listen to it, you will not get anything. You know, if you drink milk, you can get benefit from milk vitamins, but once a snake takes a sip of some milk, that milk will be poisonous and you will die, even though it still looks the same. So, if you hear the Holy Name, you will get benefit, but if you hear Nama-aparadh, you will invite inauspiciousness to your life. All 'Hare Krishna' is not the Holy Name. There is Nama-aparadha (offences to the Holy Name), Nama-abhasa (shadow-chanting of the Holy Name) and Harinam (the Holy Name). But the sound is the same.

অসাধুসঙ্গে ভাই কৃষ্ণনাম নাহি হয় ।

নামাক্ষর বাহিরায় বটে তবু নাম কভু নয় ॥

asadhu-sange bhai krsna-nama nahi haya
namaksara bahiraya bate tabu nama kabhu naya

'Brother, the Name of Krishna cannot be chanted in bad association: it will no doubt sound like the letters of the Name, but it can never be the Name proper.'

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 7.1, Sri Jagadananda Pandit)

Chanting in bad association may sound like the Holy Name, but such chanting can never be the real Holy Name. Brother, if you want to chant the Holy Name, then you must have good association.

'সাধুসঙ্গ', 'সাধুসঙ্গ'–সর্ব্বশাস্ত্রে কয় ।
লবমাত্র সাধুসঙ্গে সর্ব্বসিদ্ধি হয় ॥

'sadhu-sanga', 'sadhu-sanga'–sarva sastre kaya
lava-matra sadhu sange sarva siddhi haya

'All scriptures keep saying, "Good association", "Good association". You can attain all perfection even just by a drop of good, saintly association.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.22.54)

If you just chant this Holy Name, you can attain all perfections.

একবার কৃষ্ণনাম যত পাপ হারে ।
পাতকীর সাধ্য নাহি তত পাপ করে ॥

eka-bara krishna-name yata papa hare
patakira sadhya nahi tata papa kare

'A sinner cannot commit more sin than once chanting Krishna's Name can remove.'

If you chant the Holy Name just once, all your sins will be removed. If that is so, why then do we no get the result although we chant so much? Because what we chant is not the Holy Name. Because it is all coming out as Nama-aparadh. That is why we must chant the Holy Name living in good association. You can never chant the Holy Name in bad association – you may pronounce the letters of the Name, but it can never be the real Holy Name. These things are written in the scriptures, in Chaitanya-charitamrita, Chaitanya-bhagavata. I am telling you what is said there in a nutshell.

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READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Demolish Wall of Ego
2) Live in Hari-Katha
3) Do Not Waste Time
4) Waiting—Not Wanting
5) Focus on the Lord
6) Stepping over Liberation
7) Beyond Karma-Misra Bhakti
8) Evading Maya's World
9) Descend of Scriptures
10) Please Come Home!
11) Do Not Live Like Outside People
12) Fruits of faith
13) Pure Sankirtan in Pure Association
14) Covet All, Lose All
15) Kali-Yuga Brahmans