So it is a package which offers everything I need: Protection, shelter, strength to carry on, and happiness right here in the mantras: Gauranga, Nitai Gaur, Mahamantra, Haribol. It is all right there. All I have to do is believe it. Not blindly believe it, add it to your life, and you will see. This is the solution.
We all have our problems, and we all need a solution. This is the solution. When the difficult times come, that is the solution. When the good times come, it is still the solution. So a wise person acts wisely. An unintelligent person …, well, you know the story there.
So that is some very valuable information for you. A lot of people might say, oh this is some religion, your religion. No, this is absolute truth for everybody. And we can take that truth, allow ourselves to go beyond any of our doubts and scepticism, whatever is in the way, non-interest, all that, and simply just take the gift. There is no bigger gift, there is no better gift.
I tell you one last story. A true story of course.
There was a great devotee of God, who was pure in every way. A man went to see him. And this man knew, that ‘he is a special guy’. So he thought I will go to him and I ask for a gift.
Now in the modern times, in the Western World especially, or you know, West meaning all this area of the world, we have no knowledge of this, but there is something called a touchstone. In alchemy it is known that you can take a touchstone, touch it to metal, and it will turn it into gold.
So this man had heard that this great devotee had a touchstone. He thought, I am going to go to him and ask him to give me that touchstone, the most valuable thing of course. So he went and tried to do it in a nice way. Give me something of great value, and ‘maybe a touchstone’. So the great devotee went and in his trash there was this touchstone. So he took it out of the trash and said ‘ok, sure’.
Oh, I am so happy. And so he took this touchstone, and he said thank you, thank you very much, and he went away. And he is walking along, oh he is so happy, oh I have got this touchstone, I will be rich. Then he started thinking, you know, this touchstone was in his trash. I wonder why it was in his trash. Maybe he had something more valuable.
So he goes back. And he says, you know, I have a question. You immediately gave me this touchstone, and it was in your trash. Do you have something more valuable? And he was told ‘yes’. If you want me to give you something that is really valuable, I will gladly do so.
He gave him the Holy Name. And because of the association with this perfectly pure great devotee of God this person was purified, and he understood, and he also saw the touchstone as something of no value. He took the Holy Names.
So the most valuable gift is right here.
Ok, so what we are going to do is ‘chant these Holy Names’. We will do the technique of kirtan, sankirtan, that is congegrational, I chant, you listen, you chant, I listen. We will use Gauranga Nitai Gaur, and then the Mahamantra, Hare Krsna Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. And then Haribol. So I may say Haribol Nitai Gaur, Haribol Gauranga etc. And then we have one more, Gopala Govinda Rama, Madana Mohana.
All you have to do is just listen and repeat. And try to actually enter into the sound a little bit, enter into the chanting. I understand that in the beginning it is … , for many people in the beginning it is new, it is unfamiliar, we are a little shy, afraid to let ourselves go etc, all kinds of restrictions. So we can gradually just let the mantras clear that away, and just chant the mantra. Do not think about this and … just chant the mantra. Listening to the sound as much as we can, and that is all, easy. Ok?