EVERYTHING IN THE NAME

"By the power of the Name one will know what cannot be known, one will see what cannot be seen, one will speak what cannot be spoken and one will meet what cannot be met. Incalculable is the gain that comes from repeating the Name of God." - Tukaram Maharaj.

In this world, we are all looking for happiness, peace, joy and abundance. We are all searching for nectar in life. This is the sole purpose of everyone in this world. We are searching for it in relationships, in places and in things. We do experience some happiness in these things but it is very fickle. The experience of material happiness and joy slips away like a drop of water slips away from the lotus leaf. But there is one place in which we can experience everything we are looking for in life - that is in the Holynames of God. This is not just dry theory and philosophy but it is a matter of practical experience.

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Supreme Lord who appeared in Kali yuga to inaugurate the chanting of the Holynames as the process to attain the Supreme. He gave eight verses called "Shikshashtakam" which explain the entire science of chanting. The first of these eight verses explain all the benefits we stand to gain from chanting the Holynames. Each of this verse is subject matter for a PhD thesis. Our aim in life should be to be a scientist in chanting the Holy names. There is no subject better and higher than this.

Without further delay, let's try to see the benefits of chanting as mentioned in the first verse Shikshashtakam and how it can provide whatever we are looking for.

Verse 1
ceto-darpana-marjanam bhava-maha--davagni-nirvapanam
shreyah-kairava-chandrika-vitaranam vidya-vadhu-jivanam
anandambudhi-vardhanam prati-padam purnamritaswadanam
sarvatma-snapanam param vijayate sri-krishna-sankirtanam
"Glory to the Sri Krishna Sankirtana, which cleanses the heart of all the dust accumulated for years and extinguishes the fire of conditional life, of repeated birth and death. This sankirtana movement is the prime benediction for humanity at large because it spreads the rays of the benediction moon. It is the life of all transcendental knowledge. It increases the ocean of transcendental bliss, and it enables us to fully taste the nectar for which we are always anxious."

CLARITY
The first benefit of chanting is clearing of our contaminated consciousness. Lord Chaitanya in this verse compares cleansing our consciousness to the cleaning of a mirror (ceto-darpana-marjanam). What happens when the mirror is cleaned? Everything becomes crystal clear. You at once see yourself, others and the surroundings with clarity. The reality does not change, just that now you know what is the reality. What is obvious becomes obvious.  That's precisely what self-realization is. Realizing what we previously didn't notice. Clarity is power and this clarity is achieved by sincerely chanting the Holynames of God.

PEACE
The next benefit of chanting is peace or mitigation of anxiety in our hearts. This verse explains it as - bhava-maha-davagni-nirvapam or the extinguishing of the blazing fire of material existence. This material world is compared to a place that is always ablaze with miseries both internal and external that keep burning our heart and thereby our very peace. The chanting of the Holynames acts like a transcendental cloud that pours cooling waters to extinguish the forest fire of material miseries.

GOOD FORTUNE
The next benefit of chanting is good fortune. Who doesn't want good fortune. Lord Chaitanya mentions it as - sreyah-kairava-chandrika-vitaranam. That means chanting the Holynames acts like the cooling moon which helps blossom the white lotus flower of good fortune in the lives of those devotees who take up to this process. Sukadeva Goswami when explaining the entry of the demon Putana in Vrindavan guesses that Parikshit will be wondering how can such an inauspicious event happen in Vrindavan. In order to mitigate the King's anxiety and highlight the glory of chanting he mentions this verse in Srimad-Bhagvatam 10.6.3 - "My dear King, wherever people in any position perform their occupational duties of devotional service by chanting and hearing, there cannot be any danger from bad elements. Therefore there was no need for anxiety about Gokula while the Supreme Personality of Godhead was personally present."

WISDOM
Chanting the Holynames is like a password that opens the treasure house of wisdom. How? By connecting us to our very nature. One of the quality of the spirit soul is "cit" which means "knowledge". That means as spirit souls we are full of knowledge. True education is about creating the right environment to connect us back to our inherent wisdom. In fact the word education comes from the Greek work "educare", which literally means - to bring forth what is within or bringing the inside, outside. And this is where chanting comes in a big way. Clear chanting is like a powerful torchlight that at once cuts through the dense fog of ignorance to give us access to the higher truths of life. How chanting can award us wisdom is something that can't be fully explained - one needs to experience it.

We have one great Acharya in our Vaishnava parampara, Gaur Kishore Babaji who was an illiterate by mundane standard but spiritually he was the most enlightened and knowledgeable. In fact without knowing reading or writing and without reading the scriptures, he knew all the scriptures perfectly. What was his secret? He incessantly and continuously chanted the Holynames. That was his only education - education in chanting. This education is the king of all education. This verse gives an apt analogy to explain this. It says - vidya-vadhu-jivanam, that means just like a bride follows the bridegroom similarly knowledge automatically follows one who is sincerely engaged in chanting the Holynames.

BLISS
We are all pleasure seeking. Who can deny it. In fact, this world is compared to a pleasure hunt game and we - the players are desperately looking for pleasure everywhere. Every activity we have done, are doing and will be doing is motivated by this single drive for pleasure. We do get pleasure in this world but it turns out to be too meager to satisfy our quench. Just imagine a person lost in a desert deeply thirsty, looking for water to drink. What do you think will happen if you give such a person one drop of water? As you rightly guessed, it will not relieve him but make him more miserable. That's exactly the experience of pleasure in this world - makes us more miserable than before.

But the pleasure experienced by chanting the Holynames of God is completely on another level. The happiness experienced is not like a drop of water but an ocean of water. The comparison is drastic and so is the experience. It doesn't end here. It's not only an ocean of bliss but an ever expanding ocean of bliss - anandambudhi-vardhanam. Where have we experienced an ocean that keeps increasing in size? No where, because this is not a phenomenon of this world, it is a phenomenon of the spiritual world. And chanting gives access us access to the spiritual world even though we may be in the material world.

NECTAR
It is not that only one who achieves perfection in chanting experiences spiritual bliss. No, this verse mentions - prati-padam purnamritasvadanam - that one experiences full nectar at every step in the chanting process. Nectar in the beginning, nectar in the middle and nectar in the end. Wow, isn't it amazing! The process of chanting is simply joyful (kevala ananda-kanda). Just imagine, achieving God - the most difficult object through such a joyful and simple process. What more can we ask for?

PURITY
It completely bathes one's soul - sarvatma-snapanam. Just like we bathe regularly to keep our body clean or we broom and mop regularly to keep our house clean similarly we need to chant regularly to keep our hearts and conciousness clean and pure. Our hearts are filled with unwanted dirt in the form of lust, anger, greed, envy, pride and illusion. By chanting the Holynames one gets gradually freed from all these misgivings (anarthas).

Srila Prabhupada writes in the Srimad-Bhagvatam, "The Personality of Godhead and His holy name, qualities, etc., are all identical. The personality of Kali (sin personified) was not able to enter the jurisdiction of the earth due to the presence of the Personality of Godhead. And similarly, if there is an arrangement for the constant chanting of the holy names, qualities, etc., of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, there is no chance at all for the personality of Kali to enter. That is the technique of driving away the personality of Kali from the world."

In conclusion, we saw how one is given access to clarity, peace, good fortune, wisdom, bliss, nectar and purity just by chanting the Holynames of God. The benefits is far more than we can imagine and there is no need to endeavour separately for all of  these benefits. All this is achieved in one single stroke by chanting the Holynames. Shouldn't we try to devote our life in experiencing these transcendental symptoms of ecstasy in our life. This is the real excitement, the real adventure and the real nectar of life.

There was one advanced saint in Vrindavan by the name, Sanatan Goswami. He was well known in that region to possess a touchstone (parasmani) which could fulfill anyone's desire. Once a person travelled a long distance to meet him and ask him for that stone. To his suprise Sanatan Goswami nonchalantly told him to pick it up from the garbage bin outside his little hut. This person ran to the bin and desperately searched for the stone. When he finally found it and tested it to be working, he was super elated. As he was walking away, he started to wonder, "If this saint has thrown this touchstone in a garbage bin, surely he must be possessing something much higher than this." Inquisitive, he approached the Goswami and asked him if he had anything more valuable. Sanatan Goswami smiled and said, "Yes, I have something far more valuable than this parasmani. I have the chintamani - the Holynames of God." That's why the scriptures mention - naam chintamani krsnas - the Name of Krishna is a transcendental touchstone that fulllfils all desires. After all what can be lacking when God is in one's life. Sanatan Goswami and all the great saints knew this secret of all secrets that - Everything is in the Name.

- Achyut Gopal Das