Japa realizations that literally have my hair standing on end

I’ve been chanting the Maha Mantra for over 42 years and although I’ve had random occasions in which I experienced the nectar of the Holy Name, it is not until recently that Krsna arranged a series of synchronicities (mystical coincidences) that have catapulted my understanding and appreciation of this most important part of our sadhana.

Advancing, yes: Advanced, no

First a disclaimer regarding what I’m about to share: having these experiences doesn’t mean that I’m presenting myself as being advanced Rather my efforts towards spiritual advancement could be compared to my experiences in understanding horsemanship. When I first started riding horses as a child, I thought I knew how to ride: you kick the horse to make it go; pull in the reins to make it stop and it basically follows its head, so if you use the rein to turn its head, it will go in that direction. While this simplistic understanding of riding horses isn’t exactly wrong, I later understood that a horse is so sensitive that it can be taught to go forward with an almost imperceptible squeeze of the leg and, if trained properly, will stop simply by stopping my body motion. Once I began to understand that there is a whole world of horsemanship beyond the basic kick-and-pull, I was able to learn much more advanced and enjoyable horsemanship skills by practicing the art of classical dressage. Even now, while I have trained a horse to do pirouettes and flying lead changes, I’m beginning to understand that there is yet another level of understanding horses above the subtleties of training the classical dressage that I’ve learned. Similarly, what I’ve learned about japa is just enough to give me a glimpse of the amrita that is possible by associating with Krsna through His Holy Name.

Causeless Mercy isn’t Zapped

I used to think that spiritual advancement occurred when, by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy, he would basically lift the veil of Maya for a disciple and the disciple would suddenly be realized. Now I’m experiencing that spiritual advancement is more akin to learning horsemanship. First a person wanting to learn (spirituality or horsemanship) has to be humble enough to accept instruction. Most people have probably had the experience of trying to teach someone something that would benefit the person, yet the person who needs the help already knows everything and so is unable to accept instruction.

Then even if a humble person wants to accept instruction, he/she needs to be fortunate enough to find a competent teacher. And even if a humble person has a qualified teacher, he has to methodically and patiently apply the lessons given by the teacher. In any discipline, the student should expect to make gradual progress towards his goals.

While I was doing research to write this article, I had a synchronicity that substantiates this point. I was simultaneously editing a video in which I was inserting a clip of Srila Prabhupada . (See video above at 1:17) With my editing program, you just click on the clip and slide the box enclosing it to trim off the portions you don’t want to use. In this case I had the clip trimmed to where I wanted it to start, and happened to listen to the part I was planning on trimming off the end. Amazingly Srila Prabhupada was saying, “…but that will take time. How can you expect, in one minute, everyone will understand everything. It requires education, time.”

Sometimes an erroneous understanding of a point can hamper us making advancement in our chosen discipline. I observed one such error that had hampered a friend who was getting dressage lessons from the same teacher who was teaching me. Jane had a powerful, talented horse, but she wasn’t making progress with her riding. It turned out that this was because she had misunderstood one of the building block concepts in horsemanship: the half halt. In order to do any more advanced dressage moves, a horse has to be taught to shift more of his weight to his hind legs. To do this, the rider, who most of the time balances his body to go along with the movement of the horse, will start to balance his body back, as though the horse was going to halt. Then as the horse shifts his weight to his hind legs in preparing to halt, the rider once more resumes his balance to go along with the movement of the horse. A casual observer might not notice the subtleties
in a rider’s body as he performs the half halt, but the shift in the horse’s carriage can be quite apparent. Jane’s day of enlightenment came when our regular instructor was unavailable and we had a substitute teacher. The substitute teacher noticed that when she instructed Jane to perform a half halt, there was no corresponding reaction in Flyer. She spent the whole lesson working on just the half halt, and later, as we were putting away our tack in the barn, Jane ecstatically expressed her appreciation of her new understanding of a concept that she had erroneously thought she’d mastered.

Similarly, in endeavoring for spiritual realization, I had gotten into a 40 year rut, thinking that I understood japa. I’d chant my rounds, fighting to focus my mind and hear the mantra. Occasionally I’d have wonderful, mystical experiences in chanting, but for the most part, my chanting consisted of fighting my mind and was performed out of duty, not love. But then when I happened to read in the Bhagavatam (2:3:24) that I should be experiencing physical symptoms that were not manifesting, I had choices to make: (1) I could continue chanting as I’d been doing and wait to be zapped with spiritual realization (that I know now will not happen); (2) I could lose faith in the process, believing that it will never work for me; or (3)I could work towards eliminating my offenses and have faith that when I stop offending I’ll experience the physical symptoms.

I choose option (3), and like Jane when she finally understood the half halt and was able to do it on her horse, it was a very sweet realization.

Japa Realizations

My japa catapult experience really started when a close friend introduced me to Ishan Prabhu (of Balaram mrdanga fame). Ishan Prabhu and I started corresponding and he sent me some articles he’d been writing that were mostly compilations of quotes from Srila Prabhupada’s books dealing with opening the heart to love. He asked me to be on the lookout for such quotes and synchronistically, I happened to read the following in the Second Canto:

TRANSLATION

Certainly that heart is steel-framed which, in spite of one’s chanting the holy name of the Lord with concentration, does not change when ecstasy takes place, tears fill the eyes and the hairs stand on end.
SB. 2.3.24

In the purport Srila Prabhupada explains that if those symptoms do not occur, it is simply due to offenses. At that point, I mentally analyzed my offense exposure. For me, the big one was that I was addicted to drinking coffee. I love the taste of coffee, and had been on and off addicted to it for years.

What having breast cancer has taught me

It turned out that giving up coffee was easy. I discovered that I had a potentially terminal illness and if I wanted to continue in this body I had to get very serious about my health. Motivated by my attachment to my body, I gave up coffee and only ate raw food for about 6 months.

Confronting the reality of this disease (breast cancer) was a boost for my spiritual life. I realized that I wasn’t overly attached to my material situation. My main attachment was to my husband. I was unable to tell him about the tumor I’d discovered or the creeping malaise that I was experiencing because he is a problem-solver and I didn’t actually have a proven solution to my dilemma. Telling him about it would have disturbed his mind unnecessarily. I don’t have health insurance and I have negative faith in the medical industry, so I accepted that I could very well be going to leave my body within the next few years. And I was surprisingly alright with that.

Of course I naturally became much more serious about my spiritual life and continued corresponding with Ishan Prabhu who was apparently having enlightening experiences in developing love for Krsna. At one point I wrote to him that I don’t actually know what love is. Here is his reply:

“Now let us get down to business. Now, assume the role of an actress. You are a Hollywood actress. A method actress. Like Marlin Brando and others of that school. Now sit down. Close your eyes. And now we do the exercise. In your mind, say the word, “happy”, and feel happiness. Now. say the word, “sadness”, and feel sad. Now, say the word “mad”, and feel anger. And now, say the word, “scared”, and feel fear. And just see, just recognize, that you can bring any of these emotions into focus in your heart, simply by willing it.

Now, the tasty one. Desert. (When I was a kid, after supper, there was always desert, canned fruit or pie, or cake with milk). Now, close your eyes, be still, and softly say the word………”love”…….and feel love. don’t think of anything else. Don’t think about an object of love. Just …….love. Soften your eyes. Relax your jaw. Softly touch the area of your heart. And feel……love. Now sink into it. Notice that the more you sink into it, the more it expands. It is such a lovely place to hang out in. Notice that when you abide in that love, all your concerns, anxieties, frustrations, complaints……they all evaporate. And that is who you really are. You are love. That is the symptom of the spirit soul.

Get used to going there and for a minute at a time, and taking shelter there. Notice that it is a consistent experience. It never lets you down. and notice that it is not static. It expands. It grows. Feel that love, and while doing so, place your attention also in your crown and feel your sense of connection with the cosmos. Notice how breathing deeply and fully and slowly expands the feeling of love in our hearts. No special gift or ability is necessary. Anyone who is willing can do this.

The next step you already know. while you are feeling love and you feel nicely fixed in that vibration, bring Krishna into your mind, and tell Him that you love Him. And you will see Him smile, in your mind, and you will feel that Krishna loves you.

And when this experience becomes confident, consistent, you can bring it to your japa. Softly chanting, “like the genuine crying of the child for mother”, and with each mantra saying in your heart, “Krishna, please help me to feel love for you.” Ishan Prabhu

I began to use Ishan Prabhu’s techniques and I noticed something amazing: I literally felt my hairs standing on end, with goose bumps over my entire body. All these years, all I had to do was to feel love for Krsna while I was chanting His Name! What a wonderful experience and realization! Except….

…It turned out that there was a lot more to it. Over the last year as I’ve been fighting cancer and trying to make spiritual advancement, I’ve had some accelerated realizations. The bottom line is that I’ve minimized offenses to the Holy Name and I feel that we are getting special mercy because we have taken up trying to implement the second half of Srila Prabhupada’s mission, even though other devotees have not joined our efforts.

Here is an abbreviated list of realizations:
* Krsna is not only present in His Name, He actually is His Name. As such, when we chant, Krsna is right there. Having faith in His presence will naturally cause one to have the hairs stand on end.
* The mind wants to wander, but being inattentive is like giving Krsna a recorded message, rather than rapt attention: “…your call is very important to us…” I’ve found that praying to Lord Aniruddha, the controller of the mind, helps me focus and be attentive.
* I’ve found that if I try to emulate Srila Prabhupada’s mood of devotion, I can usually feel Srila Prabhupada’s mercy. That mercy is so wonderful that sometimes it causes tears to well in my eyes.
* Any lack of humility causes the above realizations to vanish. If I think that maybe I’m becoming advanced or that I am able to focus or feel the mercy is due to my own ability, immediately I’m on the mental plane, chanting like a monkey with neither love nor concentration.

I’m also realizing that this simple living, high thinking lifestyle is essential for becoming Krsna conscious. In the Bhagavatam, even the ksatriyas, necessarily influenced by the mode of passion, would retire to the forest to immerse themselves in satya guna before leaving their bodies. We can’t expect to jump to vishuda sattva from raja and tama gunas.

Billy and I are protecting cows and producing most of our necessities without the support of a community. We formerly lived a middle class lifestyle with a mortgage and regular income, and circumstances allowed us to gradually take up this lifestyle. Right now we are barely keeping our heads above water financially. In fact we are behind with our property taxes and are unable to afford basic necessities such as a much needed trip to the dentist for Billy. Any income we have goes towards taking care of the cows. We have faith that Krsna is pleased with our efforts, but suspect He wants to give others a chance to participate by helping financially, even if they are not able at this time to join this or a similar project.

We’ve just started a Patreon account so that interested people can easily support our project. Please consider helping:
www.patreon.com/Simplelivinghighthinking

More from Ishan Prabhu:
newnandagramcowprotection.wordpress.com/you-are-not-this-mind/

Fortunately it looks like I’ve found a solution to my health issues. For about six months I did a daily regimen of taking chlorine dioxide, calcium chlorite and DMSO. My symptoms have vanished and I seem to have regained my health.

One more note about offenses:

While researching for this article, I naturally came across a list of the ten offenses. Here is that list, from the Nectar of Devotion:

1) To blaspheme the devotees who have dedicated their lives for propagating the holy name of the Lord.

2) To consider the names of the demigods like Lord Siva or Lord Brahma to be equal to, or independent of, the name Lord Visnu.

3) To disobey the orders of the spiritual master.

4) To blaspheme the Vedic literature or literature in pursuance of the Vedic version.

5) To consider the glories of chanting Hare Krsna to be imagination.

6) To give some interpretation on the holy name of the Lord.

7) To commit sinful activities on the strength of chanting the holy name of the Lord.

8) To consider chanting of Hare Krsna one of the auspicious ritualistic activities offered in the Vedas as fruitive activities (karma-kanda).

9) To instruct a faithless person about the glories of the holy name.

10) To not have complete faith in the chanting of the holy names and to maintain material attachments, even after understanding so many instructions on this matter.

The first offense listed here, “to blaspheme the devotees who have dedicated their lives for propagating the Holy Name of the Lord” should be examined with an open mind and heart. The policy of the institution, ISKCON, is to forcibly remove any devotee who does not agree with the GBC’s interpretation of Srila Prabhupada’s books, especially in regards to guru tattva. Booting someone out of the association of devotees is very similar to blasphemy. Is it possible that the ISKCON policy to remove devotees who dissent with the GBC;s interpretation are being offensive to sincere devotees who simply have a different understanding of Srila Prabhupada’s instructions? If that is the case, the GBC members and any ISKCON members who support that policy are committing an offense that will impede their spiritual progress.

The real issue here is about who has the ultimate authority in our spiritual life. Is the final authority Srila Prabhupada in the form of his instructions in his books? Or is the final authority the GBC and their interpretation of Srila Prabhupada’s instructions? It seems to me that no one has the right to tell a devotee how to understand his spiritual master’s instructions. That understanding is the foundation of faith and it should be a taboo to tamper with it in any way. As I’ve learned in my journey to understand horsemanship, there are many levels to realization, and each person’s journey is unique and personal. Having an institution dictate realization makes a mockery of spiritual life and turns a spiritual revolution into a mundane religion. The spiritual society of the International Society for Krsna Consciousness should welcome many diverse understandings of Srila Prabhupada’s words and should only accept Srila Prabhupada as the final authority.

Additionally, the fourth offense, “to blashpheme the Vedic literature or literature in pursuance of the Vedic version” might include making changes to Srila Prabhupada’s words in his books. The idea that Srila Prabhupada’s books have “mistakes” or “warts” seems to me to be blasphemous. Srila Prabhupada’s books were lauded by numerous scholars, so what could be the possible reason to need to change his words? Changing the books sets up a very dangerous precedent.

I hope any devotee reading this will review his/her possible implication in any of the ten offenses with an open heart.

Letter to Madhuvisa:
“Perhaps you know that there are 10 (ten) kinds of offenses in chanting the Holy Name. The first offense is not to obey the order of the Spiritual Master, and the second is to minimize the authoritative value of the Scriptures. These things are infiltrating within you as I see from your writings that Vedas or Bhagavatam or Gita seem not so universal.”