Harmonium Melodies by Sri Prahlada -- Part 2

So, when you make a mistake in the kirtan, it's not a big issue. As I said in the beginning, we are not professional singers or musicians. Our main purpose is to glorify Krishna, to glorify the Holy Name, and to purify our hearts. We try to present the Holy Name in an attractive way.

But the most important thing is our enthusiasm, our sincerity, our purity. who shouldn't become egotistic, making a big show. It's very important to keep the meditation that we're singing the holy name while we're singing. And also to beg Krishna that we can chant with purity that this holy name, this singing, will purify our hearts and will purify the hearts of the hearers if we put our false ego in the way of that. then we cheat the people of a golden opportunity to get the Lord's mercy of course there's always benefit but there could be more benefit if we were begging the Lord to use us as an instrument for His mercy to be shared and so this is very very important and if we keep that simple humble mood not trying to be too fancy or you know worshipped honored then people won't mind any mistake because that's not what you're presenting yourself as you're not presenting yourself as a great professional musician you're presenting yourself as a humble servant and so mistakes will be overlooked by everyone because the focus is on the holy name.

Once Prabhupada was told in India, Swamiji, you speak Sanskrit with a Bengali accent. And Prabhupada said, that's because I'm a Bengali. And so, in the same way, you know, I try to mainly sing traditional Bengali melodies because that's the culture of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared in Bengal and his associates were Bengalis and Srila Prabhupada also appeared in Bengal and the tradition of kirtan as it was practiced by Narottam Das Thakur who wrote so many of our bhajans and Bhaktivinoda Thakur was again in Bengal.

So I try to keep these traditional melodies. Although sometimes I I may sing, you know, my own compositions, western melodies. Prabhupada also approved of this. He said you can sing melodies, you can sing the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra in your own tune, in your own western tune.

An example of that is the Govindam prayers that we sing each morning in every ISKCON temple by Sri Prabhupada's will, by his desire, by his order. And so sometimes when I find that I'm with a very responsive crowd of people that I could get chanting the Maha Mantra, then I may sing some western tune that I have composed, if I think that that will be the best means at that moment to bring about their participation and their response in chanting the Maha Mantra. So, but generally, I try to focus on the traditional tunes that we receive from Nalivashnamas. The holy name is perfect and pure.

It will purify any conditioned soul who's contacted, who comes in contact with the holy name. This is a fact. Whether people like our singing or not, they will be purified. But it is my strong belief that if they can appreciate the Holy Name, then all the more benefit.

And so I endeavor to present the Holy Name in a way which is attractive to the coming people. This is my motive in playing harmonium or playing the accordion, singing different melodies, so that the people can hear the beauty of the sound and then they can appreciate it. They can appreciate the devotees who sing and they can appreciate the holy name that is being sung. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was so pure that he was able to deliver the monkeys and the bears and the elephants with his singing.

And even the deer and the tigers, they were chanting and embracing one another and kissing. We don't have that potency. But at least we can endeavor to present the Holy Name as purely and as much of an attractive way as we can. So that is my meditation when I'm singing the Holy Name on the street. or even in the temple, to try to present the Holy Name in a very attractive way that everyone can appreciate and be inspired to take part in.

It should be so nice that people want to join in. And so the presentation is important. For the pure devotee it's not important. He's just, he's got Namo Ruchi.

The Holy Name is always attractive to him. But for those who are conditioned souls, then they are judging things externally. So if we can make it externally attractive as well, then all the better for them. And we also get the benefit of having helped them to appreciate Krishna's holy name.

Sometimes people, they think of religion as a very dry and solemn, maybe sad activity. We concentrate on thinking of our sins and our misdeeds and even of death. But Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Srila Prabhupada, they presented spiritual life as something very blissful, very joyful. And this is the way it should be, because Krishna is all-attractive.

Rama is the reservoir of all pleasure. and so it is important for us to get this taste for the holy name we should enjoy chanting and this joy will go from our hearts to the hearts of others and so this attraction should be there within us if we can develop this taste for just chanting Krishna's name with devotees, without devotees alone or with friends, in public or in private, then we will be purified, and we will be saved from being attracted to mundane things, to things that degrade us and drag us down into ignorance and suffering. We will be saved from lust, from greed, from anger. If we cannot develop a taste for hearing and chanting about Krishna, then our taste will be for hearing and chanting about Maya through different mundane means, the media, different forms of media, mundane media. So this is our process, chanting, dancing and feasting.

That's what Prabhupada always said. so Krishna consciousness is a joyful experience and kirtan is one of the ways that we experience this joy that this joy becomes manifest in us Lord Chaitanya would experience so much joy and chanting that he would just dance for hours and hours on end and he would experience different bodily transformations of course we are not on that level but it will come if the process works then it will come so this is a start to sit, to chant Mahamonim can be there to accompany our chanting and to develop the joy of singing Krishna's glories I love to remember one video that is there of Srila Prabhupada he's in the, I think it's the avatar golden avatar recording studios in Los Angeles, and he has, you know, the Neumann microphone in front of him, he has these earphones, maybe not the earphones, and then the merdanga, and he's sitting there playing the merdanga, many devotees around, and then he says, my father wanted me to be like this, just like this, and all the devotees are looking at him, and he explains further, he says, my mother, she He wanted me to go to London and become a barrister, but my father wouldn't have it. He wanted me to learn merdanga and do rathiyatra and chant Hare Krishna and perform such activities.

And so, following in Srila Prabhupada's footsteps, he taught us to chant. He would go to Tonkin Square Park and chant and all the hippies would gather and chant with him. That's how our movement started, but it's also how our movement will be sustained if the bodies can develop attachment for chanting so we hope that this video will aid you in developing some attachment for chanting and some skills to help you share this chanting with others to develop and sustain your own bhakti