video credit: Ralph Laurino, http://protectacow.typepad.com/
Prabhupada, Boston, April 29, 1969: […] My dear boys and girls, I thank you very much for participating in our sankirtana. It is very simple, chanting the sixteen words Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Actually there are only three words: Hare, Krishna, and Rama. It is not difficult.
Everyone can immediately, within a second, can chant these three names, Hare, Krishna, and Rama. But to make it still easier and suitable, they have been arranged in two lines of eight words each line.
That is very rhythmic, and one feels immediately transcendental pleasure to chant. It is not hackneyed. We have chanted about exactly half an hour, but if we chant even twenty-four hours, you’ll never feel tired. That is the significance, practical. You will feel more and more enthusiastic to chant. Our boys and girls do that.
In the beginning, of course, you may not understand, but you take to this practice of chanting, you’ll feel immediately transcendental pleasure. I saw, although some of you could not join us in dancing and chanting, but you were, from your seat, you were trying to dance.
That I have seen. It is practical. We have seen even children, they immediately take to this dancing and chanting. So it is not very difficult. The most easy process of transcendental realization.
We don’t ask you to press your nose, or put your head downwards, or make some gymnastic. No. In whatever condition you are, it doesn’t matter. You simply chant these sixteen names. There is no secrecy. We are not charging any fees, that “You pay me so many dollars, I’ll give you a secret mantra, and you chan…” No. It is open. It is distributed freely.
Simply you have to take it. That’s all. The result will be, oh, great. Make an experiment. You have no loss. You haven’t got to pay anything. But if you take this, the result will be very, very great, which has no comparison in this world. That is practical.
So result is… That is stated by Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, who inaugurated this movement. You see this picture, five learned brahmanas. In the center there is one picture who is Lord Caitanya. He started this movement when He was only seventeen years old, a boy. A boy only—a schoolboy.
He was student, but He introduced this movement five hundred years ago, and some of the elderly men, as you see, one elderly man with beard, He also helped Him, and the others… Actually this movement was originally started by young boys. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Nityananda Prabhu, and Advaita Prabhu, They started.
And there was a great agitation against Them by the brahmanas, priestly brahmanas, at that time. So Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu picked up these sixteen words from Vedic literature. It is not that He manufactured something. No. In the Vedic way there is no question of manufacturing something, religious process. No. Just like you manufacture law. In your state, privately, you cannot manufacture law.
The law is given by the state. Similarly, any process, any process for self-realization, you cannot manufacture. That is to be taken directly from God and His representative. That is the verdict of Srimad-Bhagavatam: dharmam tu saksad bhagavat-pranitam [SB 6.3.19]. In the Bhagavad-gita also it is stated,
yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati… abhyutthanam adharmasya tadatmanam srjamy aham [Bg. 4.7]
“Whenever there is discrepancies in the religious principle, then,” the Lord says that “I appear to establish the real purpose of religiosity.” That is going on.
So according to our Vedic principle, there is no question of manufacturing a new type of religion. No. So Lord Caitanya introduced this Hare Krishna movement, not that He manufactured something.
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