My spiritual master… Wonderful thing he said. Many things he said. But he said it so perfectly, “No one can be truly happy nor truly satisfied until they are tasting love for God. And the easiest way to come to this transcendental platform of love for the Lord is by regular hearing and chanting His Holy Names.” The easiest way to come to this platform of love for the Lord is by regularly, regularly hearing and chanting His Holy Names.
These mantras that we offer to people are those Holy Names. They actually make it possible to easily develop love for God. Regular hearing and chanting the Names of God are the secret to the perfect relationship. When I love God I love other people. When I love other people I can have a perfect relationship. When I need other people, when I depend on other people for my satisfaction and happiness, when they are my object of pleasure I cannot have a perfect relationship because that is not love and the perfect relationship is only love. Lust only produces imperfection, pain, suffer.
This is why Lord Jesus Christ said, “My first and foremost commandment…” And he was so strongly putting forth this idea that he called it a commandment, because he was speaking to his followers. A master has the position to command his followers because they have come to him and say. “Lead me.” So he says, “My commandment to you is…” And what was his first and foremost commandment, “Love the Lord with all your heart, your mind and entire being.”
First love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind and entire being. “And my second commandment is, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Then love your neighbor. Then you can love your neighbor.
Why do you think we have all these conflicts on the planet right now? Why are there so many wars right now and people are being killed by the thousands? Why are people lives being destroyed? Because there is no love, you see. It is all conflict.
Love for the Lord is achievable and the easiest way is transcendental chanting of the Holy Names, taking these mantras into our life on a regular basis and chanting these mantras. That is the secret. It is the open secret and it is the only secret that will produce the fruit, called Krsna-prema, love for God. That is the only solution.
That is what we are going to do now. In keeping with this recommendation we are going to chant the mantras. The mantras are:
HARIBOL NITAI GAUR
NITAI GAUR HARIBOL
and
GOPALA GOVINDA RAMA
MADANA-MOHANA.
These are the mantras. To familiarize our self with the mantras we are going to practice saying it. I will say each mantra word for word and then you respond. Good response is always appreciated. Everybody is ready?
HARIBOL NITAI GAUR NITAI GAUR HARIBOL
GOPALA GOVINDA RAMA MADANA-MOHANA
All right, very good. We are going to use the meditation technique called sankirtan, congregational chanting. I will play guitar and sing the mantra while you listen, then you sing the mantra while I listen. So it is back and forward. Do not worry about the quality of your singing voice and all those worries that you may have. Just relax, chant the mantras and you will see there is something special here. When we chant we want to try to chant from the heart, get the mind out of the way, the mind is always trying to block us. Relax, chant the Holy Names, focus on the sound.
Sankirtan-meditation.
All right, thank you very much. That is called sankirtan, congregational chanting of these mantras, the Holy Names. A very wonderful way to come together with friends, family and spend time together in the most productive way. Any nice weekend we like to get together, I mean, really we like friends and family to come together and so on, but it is really nothing productive that comes of it on the level of the soul. But if you get together and chant, now every single person that was included, and even if they do not chant they are still included, gets tremendous spiritual benefit from this.
This is how you can really have the best relationships. Work as a team, whether it is a husband or a wife, whether it is parents and children, whether it is boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever. Work as a team in helping one another to move forward in their perfecting the relationship with the Supreme Lord. That is a friend.