19840701 Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi-līlā 9.49-51

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on July 1st, 1984 in Atlanta, Georgia. The class begins with a reading from the Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Adi-lila, Chapter 9, Verse 49-51.

jaya jaya śrī-caitanya jaya nityānanda
jayādvaita-candra jaya gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-gurum dīna-tāranam

Text 49
mahā-mādaka prema-phala peṭa bhari’ khāya
mātila sakala loka — hāse, nāce, gāya

Translation: The fruit of love of Godhead distributed by Caitanya Mahāprabhu is such a great intoxicant that anyone who eats it, filling his belly, immediately becomes maddened by it, and automatically he chants, dances, laughs and enjoys.

Text 50 - 51
keha gaḍāgaḍi yāya, keha ta’ huṅkāra
dekhi’ ānandita hañā hāse mālākāra

ei mālākāra khāya ei prema-phala
niravadhi matta rahe, vivaśa-vihvala

Translation: The great gardener, Lord Caitanya, personally eats this fruit, and as a result He constantly remains mad, as if helpless and bewildered.

Purport: It is the mission of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu to act Himself and teach the people. He says, āpani ācari’ bhakti karila pracāra (Cc. Ādi. 4.41). One must first act himself and then teach. This is the function of a real teacher. Unless one is able to understand the philosophy that he speaks, it will not be effective. Therefore one should not only understand the philosophy of the Caitanya cult but also implement it practically in one’s life.

While chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu sometimes fainted and remained unconscious for many hours. He prays in His Śikṣāṣṭaka (7):

yugāyitaṁ nimeṣeṇa cakṣuṣā prāvṛṣāyitam
śūnyāyitaṁ jagat sarvaṁ govinda-viraheṇa me

”O Govinda! Feeling Your separation, I am considering a moment to be like twelve years or more. Tears are flowing from My eyes like torrents of rain, and I am feeling all vacant in the world in Your absence.” This is the perfectional stage of chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra and eating the fruit of love of Godhead, as exhibited by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. One should not artificially imitate this stage, but if one is serious and sincerely follows the regulative principles and chants the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, the time will come when these symptoms will appear. Tears will fill his eyes, he will be unable to chant the mahā-mantra distinctly, and his heart will throb in ecstasy. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu says that one should not imitate this, but a devotee should long for the day to come when such symptoms of trance will automatically appear in his body.

(*re-reads translation*)

Jayapatākā Swami: So Lord Caitanya, He showed practical Kṛṣṇa consciousness by His own example. He would personally chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra.

And He was frequently absorbed in so much ecstasy that, that He actually fell unconscious. In fact, in chanting He would chant so enthusiastically that sometimes in the middle of chanting He would become overwhelmed with ecstasy and just fall on the ground with a loud sound, thump. And His mother, Mother Śacī, she was nearby the kīrtana, she would then become very much in anxiety, because mothers are always concerned over their sons bodies that maybe He was hurt. Of course, being in ecstasy and falling somehow one is protected by Kṛṣṇa. So, but because she was being upset and it was Lord Caitanya,

(pujārī rings bell from altar)

Jaya Nitāi Gaura! Jagannātha, Subhadrā, Balarāma kī...!

(Devotees: Jaya.)

Then Lord Caitanya blessed her that whenever He was chanting kīrtana, she could also be in ecstasy then she was oblivious to what was going on. Actually, the real point about this is that by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, one is able to achieve the symptoms of love for God very quickly. It’s described that, it’s kind of like the way you feed a child at a feast, the sweet first, because he is too impatient to wait. Normally everyone will take first the soup, salad, the main course and then have the dessert at the end, but the kids want the dessert right away. So in Kali-yuga, because of, people are not so much interested in spiritual life, Kṛṣṇa has given the dessert, the sweet, right in the beginning. You can experience the ecstasy very quickly. After having experienced the ecstasy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then it’s very easy to control the senses. Thus, we pray to Lord Nityānanda,

hā hā prabhu nityānanda premānanda-sukhī
kṛpāvalokaṇa koro āmi baḍo duḥkhī

to give us His mercy of experiencing transcendental love. Because even a drop of mercy from Lord Nityānanda is enough to carry us completely out of this material world and to the pure consciousness, pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Its enough ecstasy that we can forget about all the material so-called happiness. Actually, these material bodies are machines. But due to an intricate arrangement of the false ego, ahaṅkāra, and the material body and the soul, the soul is identifying with the body, although the body is actually a machine and is simply able to perceive through its senses due to an arrangement by the material nature, still the illusion is so strong that we identify completely with this body.

So in fact even the so called religious people of the world, if you ask them, they all admit they have a soul. In other words, their identity they consider it like the body, and the body has a soul. Rather than from the Vedic point of view, like just in normal language in Bengali, someone will come up and say, ‘tomāra śarīra kemana āche?’ That means ‘How is your body?’ Tomara means your and śarīra means body. Tomāra śarīra kemana – how is your body? You see. (laughs) And there is a complete different perspective, that you are soul and you possess a body, you have a body. Not that you are the body and you possess a soul. And your soul is going to go to heaven and you are sitting in the grave, something like that. (laughs) You are the soul; you are the spiritual entity.

Its very scientific, the Vedic understanding has minutely described the size of the soul, the nature of the soul as part of God, it’s a minute particle, its indestructible, its eternal, by nature always happy, it’s by nature filled with knowledge, but that knowledge, that natural happiness has been covered up. So normally people will go through all of the various stages of spiritual development to have self-realization, God realization and so on. And finally come to the level of, ānandamayo ‘bhyāsāt - actual ecstatic existence. But in Kali-yuga, Lord Caitanya is so kind, He is giving us the ecstasy first, much in the beginning of our spiritual progress, as an impetus or as a special benediction because people are very impatient and it’s very hard for them to control their senses without experiencing some more immediate type of spiritual reciprocation.

We should understand that the ecstasies that Lord Caitanya is experiencing, He is fainting or He is crying or He is laughing or the different eight symptoms of preliminary love for God, and the symptoms of pure love for Godhead, that these symptoms are not material. What He is experiencing is not material. It’s not like some mother is crying because her son has gone off to the Navy or something like that, and feeling separation. They are feeling the distance. It’s not that same emotion. It’s a similar emotion but there is a big difference in that, for Kṛṣṇa it doesn’t simply stay on the mental emotional platform but it goes right to the soul, and when these ecstasies are being experienced it’s beyond the mind. At that time, the mind doesn’t know what’s going on.

Those who have scientifically analyzed, the previous ācāryas have analyzed this nature of ecstasy in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and at that time the mind is able to perceive. The mind is very happy, the mind is experiencing but what is the cause and what is the… you know, try to label it or fit it in some category, the mind is incapable of fully comprehending what is being experienced. At that time the mind is just an observer on the side, it goes beyond the mind, and that means it is completely satisfying to the self, but when the self is actually satisfied at that time it is easy to control the mind, it’s easy to control the intelligence. How to get the transcendental ecstasy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, Prabhupāda has advised us that we shouldn’t try to imitate it, we shouldn’t try to force it. It actually comes by placing our self in an intense situation of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Sometimes a devotee feels that there is too much service. But it is actually by accepting in a very intense, unbroken, continuous period of service, that is like putting the iron in a fire. If you put it in the fire and you turn the bellows on and you fan it, and you keep fanning it then the fire gets hotter and hotter and then the iron will start to get red hot. So, it’s like by having ourselves in an intense situation of continuous Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then we start to burn up all the coverings on our consciousness and at a certain point then the actual ecstasy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness we can experience when enough of the crust is burned off.

Sometimes, just due to some very special association of an advanced devotee or some very… Prabhupāda said that when there is some very ecstatic kīrtana, sometimes Nārada Muni or some other liberated soul has visited the temple at that time giving a special boost to the kīrtana chanters, you see. So Prabhupāda advised that one should not artificially imitate this stage but if one is serious and sincere, follows the regulative principles, and chants the Hare Kṛṣṇa, the time will come when these symptoms will appear.

Tears will fill his eyes, he will be unable to chant distinctly the mahā-mantra and his heart will throb in ecstasy. And sometimes, in chanting uncontrollably, laughter will come. Again, this is not… just like someone tells a joke, it’s on a mental platform, it seems funny and you laugh. But this is an uncontrollable laughter. At that time the mind is just kind of standing there, doesn’t really know why the person is laughing, because it is not laughing due to any change in the mind. He is laughing right from the spirit, right from the soul. In some kīrtanas, the devotees may experience this spontaneous laughter. It just comes out. At that time it’s just like waterfall, water just going, just completely purifying one. Every chanting, just even smiling, is considered to be very purifying. By clapping and dancing and chanting and smiling before the deities. It is said clapping, just like scaring away birds from a rice field, one’s so many material contaminations are just flying off one’s consciousness.

Actually, of course here, I don’t think many people have experience of scaring birds off a rice field. Maybe off a corn field. But in Māyāpur, after fifteen years, we have plenty of experience that when there is a rice season, everyone grows rice at the same time, it’s like ocean of rice. And when the wind blows, it’s like a sea. And so all the rice normally comes at the same time to seed, to its ripened state. So, at that time there are flocks of literally thousands and thousands of sparrows, maybe millions, I mean they can turn the sky black in a particular area, there are so many. And they come down, whoosh and they just hit a… just, you know (imitates crow sound), and they’re eating the rice as fast as they can and so you have to have boys there with tin cans special thing, bang, bang, bang, bang they hit their tin cans, let off fire crackers, they start screaming (claps) clapping and just by the sudden noise, they come like a swarm of bees, they go off to next guy’s field. (laughter) So when it says like by clapping birds, how the birds come, it’s not just one or two birds but so many sinful reactions are leaving one. So many karmas are being freed, we don’t know how purifying it is, the chanting. Of course, we do have a pretty good stock of reactions from all the births we have taken in this material world, but still those are not more powerful than the power of the holy name to purify.

Here in the West, this artificial imitation, we don’t have too much symptom of. But in India there are people who do imitate artificially to get some cheap attention or thinking that that’s… when you do imitate, like if you are an actor, you have to do a part in Kṛṣṇa-lila, sometimes even by imitating that particular part, you feel some vikāra, some special feeling in the heart through imitating. So, there are some people who, they actually just imitate some great devotees or this ecstasy, and in doing so they do feel something. But because they are actually forcing it by their mind, it’s very temporary, and it’s very detrimental because then instead of developing ecstasy on the, developing one’s devotion and love for Kṛṣṇa in a natural way, instead they learn to dramatize their ecstasy. And after its over, how you can tell about those particular people, is that the symptom is after the chanting, if someone really feels ecstasy they are not going to have the desire to go out and light up a cigarette or to do something else like that. These people that put on the show then afterwards you go and find that usually smoking or they are doing some nonsense activity. They are professional kīrtana singers and they are very expert in imitating the ecstasies.

There is a story about one guru at the time of Bhaktisiddhānta or was it Bhaktivinoda? He was so expert in crying that he would just shake and roll and crying do a whole thing in public so much. They had two people wiping his eyes on both sides, that people were just amazed. They thought that anybody who can do that much shaking and rolling, he must really be in ecstasy. But Bhaktisiddhanta would chastise them very strongly that as a result of all this type of exploitation of the people, Bhaktisiddhānta or Prabhupāda and the previous ācāryas they would… always advised that even if one should feel ecstasy, especially if one is in a public place or where there are any non-devotees, even in the presence of devotees generally, one should try to contain it, allow it to be internalized. There are some times when you can't, when it just overwhelms, at that time one is supposed to try to keep it down as much as possible. So it’s not to… because it opens the door for people to imitate and try to claim that they are very advanced devotees on the basis of some false standard.

Text 52
sarva-loke matta kailā āpana-samāna
preme matta loka vinā nāhi dekhi āna

Translation: With His saṅkīrtana movement the Lord made everyone mad like Himself. We do not find anyone who was not intoxicated by His saṅkīrtana movement.

Jayapatākā Swami: And Lord Caitanya made everyone ecstatic by the sankīrtana movement. This is not the same as like, I heard there is something in the South, the Holy Rollers or something where people like, they chant get worked up into a frenzy. I know that in Iran they have a sect called the Sufis. And they do have some branch in the States too. The Sufis, they madly dance and dance until they get worked up, like some kind of an African voodoo dance or something, where you can go into an actual trance by… it’s not like that. This is something very sublime, the chanting and dancing, then automatically one feels happy, feels light, feels like dancing, and then it just gradually increases without… it’s not a forced thing. It’s something that happens from within, like bubbling spring just coming out, one just starts to feel very transcendentally effervescent, very happy, very ecstatic.

Text 53
ye ye pūrve nindā kaila, bali’ mātoyāla
seho phala khāya, nāce, bale — bhāla bhāla

Translation: Persons who had formerly criticized Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, calling Him a drunkard, also ate the fruit and began to dance, saying, “Very good! Very good!”

Purport: When Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu started the saṅkīrtana movement, even He was unnecessarily criticized by Māyāvādīs, atheists and fools. Naturally we are also criticized by such men. They will always remain and will always criticize anything that is actually good for human society. But the preachers of the saṅkīrtana movement should not be deterred by such criticism. Our method should be to convert such fools gradually by asking them to come and take prasādam and chant and dance with us. This should be our policy. Anyone who comes to join us, of course, must be sincere and serious regarding spiritual advancement in life; then such a person, simply by joining us, chanting with us, dancing with us and taking prasādam with us, will gradually also come to say that this movement is very good. But one who joins with an ulterior purpose, to get material benefit or personal gratification, will never be able to grasp the philosophy of this movement.

Jayapatākā Swami: Hmm. I personally realized this last point. In India we… because labor is relatively cheap so, you know the monthly wage is usually around thirty dollars a month for skilled labor, and for just ordinary labor its maybe half that. And you can have, like all the gṛhasthas there ,everyone says how difficult it is but all the grhasthas they all have a girl that takes care of their babies, that washes all the clothes, cleans the house, does all the work but they have to pay twenty rupees a month. That’s two dollars a month plus food. Here you will probably get, child labor (laughs) because they have big families they can’t afford it, if you take the daughter, feed the daughter, clothe her and pay her twenty rupees a month. pshew That’s really… they are really happy with that. Because they have to feed the daughter, clothe her, take her… you know they have to do everything and she doesn’t earn a dime. So here she is completely maintained in a nice family, better than what they could feed her and they are very happy.

So the gṛhasthas, they actually they have much more time for doing their service, it’s not actually a problem. But one thing we know because the labor is cheap, we hire drivers for the car, we hire gatekeepers and so many different people that free the devotees for works that only the devotees can do. So what happens is when they come they always say “Oh I love your philosophy, I like devotion so much.” They are always you know very, very devoted. But not one of them you know, I don’t think one of them in so many years ever became a devotee. Because they are coming out of some material motivation. Very, very rare. If somebody comes as a devotee, they become devotees. When they come to get this job or something. I have also seen people who have come simply to steal. In India, you have to be very expert to find those people. And they also, they don’t make an advancement.

There was one devotee, he used to visit all the temples, not only ISKCON, but all the Vaiṣṇava, he knew all the Vaiṣṇava ślokas, he knew the Bhagavad-gītā. He studied it just so that he could go to these different temples and pose himself as a very advanced person. He assumed sannyāsa, called himself Sāgara Mahārāja, and you know when we first came to India we were a little bit raw, we didn’t know all these things. So I remember one time I was with him and we were coming back from the, from Māyāpur, and in the train station, there was another Gauḍīya-maṭha, that means another temple from another branch of Lord Caitanya’s tree. From the same branch, but a little bit separate. Suddenly this sannyāsī jumped behind a taxi, crouched down, “What?” and just “Shh!” Said, “Whats going on?”

And later on, we found that that was one of the other groups that he had stolen from and so he had to do a whole you know “Shh.” So someone told us that this person is a thief. At that time Madhudviṣa was there, I told him, “Don’t give the person any money, he is a thief. All the other temples have told us.”

He said “No, he’s a sannyāsī. He is very nice! How could he be a thief? He is chanting!”

In India there are people that they only are going just to steal. That’s, and there are people out here in America, the Christians, just they haven't caught on yet, because the Hare Kṛṣṇa’s, they don’t have any money. But there are plenty of people like the Evangelists, different people, their purpose is probably only to just get money. So in India, because that’s the religion. So there are people like that they are going just to exploit. But our devotees are normally so sentimental, they treat the servant as if he was a devotee. And they spoil the servants, they spoil the paid people, they are not devotees unless they actually want to be. If they want to be spiritually advanced, then they work on a different level, they wont work just for money.

You get these people who are coming for some material reason, you have to deal with them as material people, fairly but strictly, not as a devotee, not as Godbrother, guru-bhai, but you know. In the beginning no one understood these things so he was treating this person like, no no, he is a very good person and he gave him money. And he stole Prabhupāda’s typewriter, and he stole some money from the first Kumbha-mela, ran off with two, three thousand rupees. I tried to cut it off, hit it off as much as possible but by that time I got to the Kumbha-mela, he had already ran off with some things. Even we told him, Madhudviṣa, not to give him any money but they didn’t believe us till he learned firsthand.

So like that you learn a lot of things but actually one who joins with some ulterior purpose, you can see they don’t actually, they can’t understand what’s really happening. So even some one’s negative, like we have heard that Jesus apparently said, 'You be hot, you be cold. But if lukewarm I spit you out'. Hot water or cold water you can drink, just completely tepid its uncomfortable you don’t like it. It’s not nice. So if a person even negative, “I don’t believe your movement, I don’t…” you know, just completely even just… but not motivated. He is just a negative person “Alright I will try it out. Just to see you people are all…” just from a negative aspect. But his actually interest is to become spiritually advanced, if it was bona fide. That person he can change his heart. Because he is sincerely negative. (laughs) He is sincere. Any sincere person chants Hare Kṛṣṇa, takes Kṛṣṇa prasāda, and it will have effect because this is a bona fide process. And if a person is sincerely positive oh, it will work even faster.

But if a person insincere, that means a person is coming for some other motive, you see, that person might be weak, that doesn’t mean a person is insincere. But if a person is coming for another motive, just like you know come to steal or something like that, you don’t really have so much, I don’t think of that in the West, so guards are pretty much down. But if there is such a person that’s coming for some other motive, then you find that they don’t understand the philosophy very well even after a long time.

So, to make up for that, they have to imitate as if they are very devoted. That’s why there is a saying in Bengali – ‘ati bhakti corera lakṣaṇa’ – too much devotion is a sign of a thief, too much bhakti, that means a person normally if a person comes he is going to have difficulties, he is going to have certain problems, he is going to have certain attachments, which are going to come up, which is expected. It’s not expected that one comes, immediately he is a superstar. That’s very rare. But one will have to go through certain, like pay the dues and go through the preliminary purification, until one comes up to the level of experiencing this ecstasy. Now someone may be very fortunate and experience it right away. Doesn’t mean, it’s not…. every person is an individual. But that’s more rare. If a person comes and immediately, everything is perfect, you have to watch out. How can somebody be so good? It’s very rare. That’s kind of just more, less from the Bhāgavatam, more a practical realizations.

The point that we should understand from this is that Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, even in India, even in India, He wasn’t understood. The Māyāvādīs, the athiests and the fools, they used to criticize Him unnecessarily. Why? Because everybody was chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, but they were doing it in a very mechanical way, in a ritualistic way, only the priests, only the brāhmaṇas. Lord Caitanya came and He said, “No this chanting is for everyone.” And He showed in the Vedas that in the past it had been chanted by various types of people and that it’s not restricted but in the perverted caste system that had developed in India, it had become an exclusive thing, just by birth. And Lord Caitanya smashed that whole illusion and reopened it up to the mass of people and he inaugurated the congregational chanting.

So in the initial stage, all these caste conscious people, they all started thinking “Whats going on here?” You see, as much as maybe in the Roman Catholic church only the priest would chant the Latin hymns when they used to do that. Not everybody would chant. So it’s like that type, people couldn’t understand why everyone is chanting the Sanskrit song,

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare,
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

Why people are chanting and dancing? You see because they didn't take the time to try to understand the philosophy behind it, to hear. It’s not that there isn't a philosophy, there is a very deep philosophy and it’s completely bona fide. But they just didn’t take the time to understand. So initially, they would criticize. When they criticized, some devotee would hear and then preach to them, somehow or another they would convince him “You take some prasādam, you try chanting. Why you are criticizing?”, and then in this way if they were sincere, and they would try it, then they would have the effect and they would themselves become followers of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. This happened so many times.

So of course, here we are finding in the West, that the more impious the people are, the more they are Māyāvādīs or impersonalists, the more they don’t want to accept God as a person. And actually, relate with God as an individual. And thus, be forced to surrender to God, because the individual means then as a person, we have to understand that we are subordinate. If you just kind of keep Him vague, something in the sky, doesn’t relate with you, that’s impersonalism. Then you can just kind of go on, do whatever you want. So the more that that’s prevalent, the less that people relate with God and His devotees as persons and the more they just put them off in some kind of abstraction. Then the more that they are critical of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. They don’t understand why someone would sing and dance the names of God, why they are doing all these things.

Relatively speaking, it seems that the Roman Catholics relate with God more as a person, just superficially. Not absolute understanding but in general we find that in the Latin countries the people the Roman Catholics do seem to take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness relatively easily, even in North America they seem to be able to relate somewhat easier with our philosophy, although we have plenty of Protestants and Jews who join. But to some extent, we have seen that they are able to relate with it. Or at least even if they don’t become devotees in every case, they appreciate some of the things that we do, general people. At least in South America, we find that the general people do appreciate quite easily. Possibly, it’s because they may have more of a personal concept. But this impersonal concept was what Prabhupāda had to deal with. That’s why we say a prayer to him, that, māyāvādī (nirviśeṣa) śūnyavādi pāścātya deśa tāriṇe, he has come to deliver the impersonalists and the voidists from the Western countries.

So these Westerners they are actually thinking that God is zero, there is no God or that if there is a God, He is completely impersonal and doesn’t care, doesn’t have to do with anything, anyway. He is just some kind of abstract thing up there. Up somewhere, down, whatever. They don’t know who is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, they don’t know have any factual knowledge. And to try to explain to them is also quite difficult, because they are already prejudiced. They don’t want to. Just like there was some person last night saying that his girlfriend didn’t want to know God. She is quite satisfied with God being just kind of in an awesome position far, far away. Don’t have to deal with that. This is the basic kind of thing. People don’t actually give a place for God in their lives in a personal way because they don’t have that understanding.

So to try to preach to them, there are very few people that can really relate with the philosophy on that level. If we talk about self-realization, karma, yoga, they can relate with it. When you start talking about the Personality of Godhead, many people start to become frightened. So for those people, better to get them to chant. Better to get them to dance in ecstasy, get them to take some Kṛṣṇa prasādam. And then automatically when they start to feel this ecstasy this love for Kṛṣṇa in his preliminary stages they feel so good, then they become receptive to why this is happening. Then you explain about the Personality of Godhead, they understand that it’s not something to fear, it’s not something strange, its actually what we are missing in life. We are all looking for a friend, we are all wanting a friend, our real friend is Kṛṣṇa. Our real friend is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He is with us in every life, in every circumstance. But we are turning our face away from Him.

So by Lord Caitanya’s mercy, we can experience what is association with Kṛṣṇa, because what is actually happening… we are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, the vibration Kṛṣṇa, is non-different than Kṛṣṇa Himself. Because on the absolute platform, the platform of God realization, there is no duality. So the name of God, the person God, the form of God, the knowledge about God, the service to God, I am having to use the word God, but Supreme Personality of Godhead, is all one. It’s all on the same transcendental platform, there is nothing material in connection with the Supreme Person. So as a result, the person who is doing this service, who is chanting, he is getting direct association with Kṛṣṇa. And that association is where the ecstasy comes, we feel ecstatic simply by associating with Kṛṣṇa. Simply by His presence, by His nearness, our natural happiness is coming out. That happiness is love, love for our most dear loved One, who we have forgotten, who we have got separated from so long, we turn our self away from. Instead, we are misdirecting our affection. We are directing our affection to His material energy, to dead matter. That is the illusion. So naturally if people can chant, take prasādam, get purified and they start to feel the presence of Kṛṣṇa that is making them feel happy. And when they understand that, then their fear for Kṛṣṇa goes away. Then they actually become more and more advanced as devotees.

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare,
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare