Then we know that Ajamila he was chanting for his son Narayana. He called his son Narayan and somehow or the other just by chanting, his son’s name at the time of death, that brought a recollection of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and from that he became purified and .. the Vishnu dutas took him back to deliver him from the hands of the Yamadutas .That was also not intended chanting although one could say that was offensive – he was chanting very enthusiastically at that time because it was the fear of death .

Then of course in the past times of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu….. one time Lord Chaitanya , it is mentioned in the Chaitanya Bhagavat ,……one time Lord Chaitanya was walking through Navadvipa with some of His associates and even at that time there were a group of drunkards! Of course that they probably took wine and palm wine – another type of …they didn’t have whisky so they had their own country brews and things . So this is not anything new even 500 years ago people were also getting drunk !

 So there were a group of people who were all drunk …. drinking their wine … when they saw Lord Chaitanya , then they started to joke …." hey here comes Gaura Hari –samasta dayal and these are the people who dance and then someone started- "Hare Krsna Hare Krsna" and started to you know, make fun dancing!

Then 2 – 3 drunkards started following behind Lord Chaitanya . So a little group of kirtan party and they started to dance and .. – "Gaura Hari – Hare Krsna " they are just making in a stupid dancing – they are drunk, they don’t know what they are doing .But they are somehow chanting Hare Krsna and following .

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that anywhere else in the world ! So I have heard –here in America there is a repeatation of that past time !

So then the devotees- the very conservative devotees feel very awkward – they don’t know what to think that here we are chanting the holy name of the Lord – these people are following and making kind of fun and they are drunkards. So whether that’s offensive on their part or what ? - they are a little bit doubtful .

 At that moment and Lord Chaitanya could understand that they had some doubt. So then the drunkards don’t have much attention so they went off and did their other business and Lord Chaitanya continued, but after sometime Lord Chaitanya knowing the mind of His devotees He started and he explained to them that these people they are drinking alcohol – this made them intoxicated, the intoxication is going to wear off by tommorow. Somehow or the other they are chanting Hare Krsna that by the chanting of Hare Krsna - that effect will give them eternal benefit – that will not go in vain. May be they are chanting not very seriously but they may not also be chanting offensively either –in most cases there is – previously chanting so that will be considered nama bhasa .

From a lecture spoken in

Atlanta Oct 91

By preaching we can burn up the effects of our offenses. By helping others to be Krishna conscious , we attract the mercy of Krishna in a very quick manner and we can advance very quickly..... and those who are liberated, there is also a special rasa --- they go out to preach and that is what the Lord wants ---- So whether one is very neophyte or one is a liberated soul, they can all engage in preaching.

 Only the liberated soul can engage in nirjana bhajana, that is only the nitya sidhas; but preaching can be done by everyone... it is not that you have to be a neophyte in order to preach.

Preaching becomes more effective when someone is advanced in Krishna consciousness.

So all of our Acharyas in our disciplic succession, they were  engaged in this preaching activity.

there were few nitya siddhas who were engaged in bhajan, but they were writing. They 're also preaching in their own way.

so the offense is that if some neophyte is thinking that I am on the same level as Rupa Gosvami in Vrindavana....imagine that' "I am a liberated soul", imagine that "I am being with Radha and Krishna".

In this way it is an offense to those Nitya siddhas.

When through one's devotional service one is so purified and Krishna reveals , the Guru reveals one's own eternal relationship with the Lord, then internally one can start to worship the Lord following that revelation. Still externally one would go on with one's devotional service.

Q: I have a friend to whom I am preaching and is chanting two rounds since 15 days. He wants to wear the neck bead but is a non-vegetarian. Can he wear or not?

 A: We cannot give nor prohibit anyone from wearing neck beads.  It is their own free will to do so.  I have heard that if one wears tulasi neck beads he is to maintain his body in a more pure manner and avoid eating non-veg.  I haven't seen it written anywhere as a rule. In Bengal this tradition is largely followed so people wear Bael fruit beads if they are non-veggies.

 However, I know people were non-veggies who have worn tulasi purchasing the beads themselves and after wearing the beads they lost the taste for eating meat.  Can this Bhakta take the risk of wearing tulasi and not eating prasadam?  It is his own risk.  Don't give him free tulasi beads. Whatever one buys for himself is his own risk / responsibility.

A Traveller’ Preaching Dairy by

Taraganj; Syedpur, Bangladesh  26 May 97 Mon

Before arriving in Syedpur village yesterday evening, I had been assured and reassured that the initiation ceremony there would be very well organized and everyone would be tested prior to my getting there, and only qualified people would be brought before me.

It was so well organized. A list had been sent to Mayapur, but they didn’t thoroughly test them according to my system. Some people had been waiting for initiation for years together. So they were anxious to get this chance. Some wanted their wives to get initiated, even though they weren’t yet qualified. All kinds of things. So we set up emergency testing system and worked through the night. Hundreds of candidates came forward with recommendations. It was a very stressful situation. The devotees who came with me worked so hard. New people kept coming with recommendations.

The program of interviewing and testing began. I had given a check list system so that from the time of people taking guru Asraya (shelter of the guru), they could already get prepared and approved. But somehow this area hasn’t started the new system. The same old begging for mercy. I had to get heavy with the local leaders and inform them what mercy really meant. Giving unqualified people initiation isn’t mercy. Neither for them nor for me. Initiation means I am taking the commitment to get them back to Lord Krsna.

If they aren’t qualified for initiation, then how will I be able to get them back? I wont be able to fulfill my side of the contract, and neither will they. So giving cheap initiation is no solution. Apart from that, it isn’t allowed in ISKCON.

They give me the stories on how different gurus from Gaudiya math come and give shelter, harinam (first) initiation and gayatri (2^nd) initiation, all the same time, for anyone who agrees to accept them and they don’t ask for strictly chanting 16 rounds and following all the principles. My reply is, so what? That requires they be trained not to go for some cheap things. Even now in the west, people go for the cheap initiations and high profile Gaudiya Math preachers, only to find that they have left the transcendental shelter of Srila Prabhupada. People need to be trained in the glories of Srila Prabhupada and his divine grace’s mission. If they understand that by following Srila Prabhupada’s system they will be guaranteed success, then they will wait and accept the ISKCON spiritual master’s initiation. So these are the basic things, but again I have to explain all this since it seems the local pressures make people lose their wider vision.

Okay, everyone is in tune and working now in harmony. The program however goes the whole night. The interviewers work in shifts while I have no time to sleep. After Mangal arotik, everyone took their seats around the fire sacrifice and again began the ceremony.

I was on a marathon to pick out all the names and it went on for hours. Aja-Lakshmi dd had picked out some sample names in Mayapur but somehow the list wasn’t in alphabetical order. It was ordered like the original list they sent to Mayapur. Now the local leaders had changed the order of the names and made the earlier lists irrelevant. Jagannivas das was searching the list of 150 names to find which name corresponded, but the Bengali spelling and the English rendering also didn’t always match. In the end, we got one-third of the names from the Mayapur list and the rest I had to pick out again.

The ceremony was finally completed before 9am. I had actually wanted to leave by 2am so that I could reach Dhaka for important meetings about land and legal matters. I hadn’t slept the whole night. So we raced off to go the 480km to Dhaka and cross the river ferry, hoping we could reach by 7pm in time for the meetings.

As we were leaving, it turned out one lady had been cooking and hadn’t gotten initiation.

An over-sight. When she saw me driving off, she rolled on the ground in anxiety, crying. We have to make some arrangement for her.

We only get 15 kilometers and the van’s tire is punctured. We have to stop. It takes almost an hour to get the tire fixed. No sooner do we stop and about thirty people gather around the windows looking in. I’ve lived in this part of the world for 27 years, but still it is unnerving to have 30 people surround you and stare at you like you were in a zoo. I went in the Rupa Sanatan Mandir van that happened to be and drove off to a quieter place to take some breakfast. Dasavatar Das from Australia drove me and we chatted. He seems happy to preach in Bangladesh. His family is in Mayapur.

All the Prasadam was fried again. What to say? Why can’t the disciples understand that I can’t eat fried food and need a simple diet? One vegetable, dal and rice and some litchus and a mango was breakfast. Even though we were in an open place with no people, by the time I finish, 10 people had gathered.

Srila Prabhupada, he mentioned... I forget the exact context, how one devotee asked one time, "what are you praying?"

I think Prabhupada was praying to the Deities. Sometimes, devotees kind of unconsciously would ask Srila Prabhupada in innocence.

 So one devotee just asked Prabhupada, "what are you praying to Krishna?"

 which is kind of...... "what right do you have to ask what Iam praying to Krishna?"

But the devotee just asked in complete innocence. Just like, "Prabhupada, what are you praying to Krishna?".

So Prabhupada looked at him, and saw that it was very innocent. Normal, foolish kind of thing.

So then Prabhupada answered , it is interesting that the devotee brought it, because I never could forget the answer..... "I am praying to Krishna as I do every day, not to allow me to be separated from the devotional service of His lotus feet."... something like that.

 He was praying that he would not fall away from devotional service!!!

So here is a nitya siddha devotee, preaching all over the world and he is praying to Radha and Krishna, Gaura Nita, "Please don't let me be separated from your devotional service." When we get devotees who start telling that, "I have no sin. I am a pure devotee. I can never fall down". We see the paradox , the contradiction.The pure devotees, they are very concerned about Maya and they are praying to Krishna for shelter. That's their humility.

Even offensive chanting in many ways is more effective than not chanting at all. But certainly the privileged chanting or accidental chanting or inattentive chanting is far better than not chanting at all that will purify them and eventually that will bring them to the platform of pure chanting in due course of time. So although their brain may not be able to remember what they did or that they chanted Hare Krsna, but it is …has an effect on their consciousness.

  Of course remember that one devotee called Budhimantakan? He was trying to get one Mohammedan magistrate to chant Hare Krsna and he kept requesting this Kazi that you should please chant Hare Krsna and the Kazi would keep saying , "I have no time"… give some excuses .

So finally one day the kazi said … when he requested , "please take up this chanting of Hare Krsna" , he said, " Well I’ll chant Hare Krsna tommorow" .Then he – Budhimantakan started to jump up and down , " HARIBOL HARIBOL HARIBOL HARIBOL!!! …. you chanted Hare Krsna today !!! .You just said Hare Krsna.- thank you very much ! Now your spirituaL life is assured. You already began chanting – now don’t stop keep on going – you already said Hare Krsna . So Budhimantakan was so happy because the person even one time said Hare Krsna !

So certainly the seeds that are planted they will take their due course whether at this immediate moment or in 1 year or 10 years or even in the next life time – but they are being placed in the orbit of Lord Krsna. May be a person is too entangled in various situations, they may not see the full effect even in one lifetime . But if we remember the past times of the Kazi we can see that in some cases … that the chanting for those who chant even unintentionally, is able to change their life even in this one lifetime.

For instance the – you know the past time – how the brahmanas came and complained about Lord Chaitanya’s movement……they were very critical …. they were offensive and then some Mohammadens came and they were also saying that Lord Chaitanya – if he’s not stopped then every body is going to be chanting Hare Krsna .

And then while they are talking he could see that they are also chanting. So he said why you are complaining I can understand, but why you are chanting Hare Krsna and Lord Chaitanya’s name? So they said then….this is explained in Chaitanya Charitamrta…… that sometimes they used to kid with the devotes of Lord Chaitanya that they all had Krsna’name like Hari Dasa.So,Hari means Hara. Hara means to steal – so they are saying, "So you are Hari dasa - - that means you are going to try and steal us away or what ?"

Different jokes they would make .They knew the sanskrit meaning .Because Bengali and Sanskrit are very similar -about 60 % of Bengali language is Sanskrit .So they could understand some of the meanings and they would make different kinds of off interpretations of the name .Different joking interpretations - they joked with him and chant Hare Krsna with him and so on in a mimmicking way . So as a result in a sense they were chanting even in a joking way.

" Then after that ..either the mantra didn’t leave our mind….it kept coming back again and again .So now we can’t stop. We don’t know what magic it is, they are playing with us ! We keep remembering this Hare Krsna mantra – we keep remembering these names of Krsna!". .

So if we can get many people to chant , many people to read Srila Praphupada’s books many people to somehow chant …. better than in an offensive way if they can chant in a light hearted way, even in an accidental way – that will be more effective than chanting in an offensive way. That is, we should encourage the people this way. But if they …. Even in a joyful way – if somehow kidding around even if they chant they will they will definitely have its transcendental effects and there are so many evidences of that .

 Just as these Navadvipa vasis who were joking with Lord Chaitanya’s Sankirtana party they couldn’t themselves stop chanting Hare Krsna in the future .So, this kind of devotional service of chanting is considered very confidential by Lord Chaitanya .

Just as these mothers of Krsna offered their spontaneous worship, if somebody spontaneously sees a Sankiratana party and feels some happiness- or if they jump up or if they participate – that little spontaneity is accepted by Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.He does not see the bad part . He only sees the good part . Just like Lord Shiva he only sees the good part in every one.

It is said that the qualities of a real vaisnava … which naturally the vaisnava has got the qualities .. atleast part of the qualities of Krsna .The good qualities in a vaishnava are remarkable .One of the qualities of the vaisnava is- they always see the good even if there is a small amount of good ,he sees that .