You’ve Got to be Out of Your Mind to Chant
When someone does or says something crazy, we might say, “He must be out of his mind.” To chant well we shouldn’t be crazy but we should be out of our mind. Why? Prabhupada said we don’t need the mind to chant.
Feeling is a function of the heart, not the mind. Feeling is what keeps us in the present; mind keeps us everywhere but the present. The mind doesn’t experience. The mind analyses experience. Therefore, when chanting, rather than controlling the mind just let the mind go. And it will automatically go when you enter the world of experience. Then you will be totally present with the name.
Fully present means there is only you and the holy name. This means just you and Kṛṣṇa. No thoughts of what you have to do later, what you didn’t do yesterday, etc. It is in this plane that you taste the name. It is in this plane that you do not tire of chanting.
Have you ever eaten a meal while absorbed in conversation and when you finish you are surprised to see there is nothing left on your plate? “How did I eat all that?” The same thing happens when we chant and are not present to the experience of chanting. We don’t taste the meal of the holy name.
Be with your experience of chanting. Don’t try to create an experience, just experience what is actually happening when you chant. Don’t try to be an achiever. Be a dis-achiever.
Don’t try to analyze your experience with the name. Don’t ask if you are having the right experience, wonder when the experience will come, or when the taste will come. Just allow yourself to experience the holy names. Feel the holy names and just experience what you are experiencing. Isn’t it strange that we are waiting for the experience, struggling to get the experience, when all we have to do is allow ourselves to have the experience of our chanting?
Experience is not a function of the mind. Indeed, you can’t experience the holy name with your mind. You can understand what the name does, how the name does it, why the name does it, what you will experience when the name does it, etc, but this is not an experience of the name. This is an experience of the mind.
Your mind only gets in the way of your experience of the name. Therefore, you must be out of your mind to chant.