His chanting

Like Prabhupada’s preaching, his chanting was constant. While talking in his room with professors in Toronto, Prabhupada silently chanted the Hare Krsna mantra in between their academic words.

When Prabhupada encouraged his disciples to chant Hare Krsna while sitting with them during a prasadam feast, one of his disciples replied, “But Swamiji, how can we chant and eat at the same time?”

“Chant in between bites,” said Srila Prabhupada.

We can hear Srila Prabhupada’s japa on a recording: he chants quickly and he said that sixteen rounds of japa could be done in one and a half to two hours. During an initiation lecture, he commented that it should take five or six minutes to chant a round, although he admitted that it might not be possible in the beginning.

When a devotee said that it was hard to chant and keep awake, Prabhupada replied that they should then do as he does, as he walks in his room in the afternoon while chanting japa.

In the early morning, after completing his dictation of Srimad-Bhagavatam translations at maybe 4 or 5 A.M. , Srila Prabhupada would sit back and chant japa. He did not chant very loudly, but from the other room one could sometimes hear, especially the words, “Rama, Rama”. Then in the afternoon sometimes he would remark that he had a few extra rounds to chant, and he would move the counting beads. We took it that Prabhupada’s statements about his own chanting of prescribed rounds were for our benefit, but it was encouraging for our own regulative habit.

Often he would spontaneously utter the words, “Hare Krsna”, or he would state harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam, with great feeling and expression.

When in the course of a lecture Prabhupada would say the words of the Hare Krsna mantra, the whole audience of devotees would repeat it word for word in unison with him. He did not ask them to do this, but it was a spontaneous response. The devotees could not resist the chance to chant along with him. On airplanes he would often chant for long periods, silently or barely audibly moving his lips, and intently fingering the beads, sometimes shaking them within the bag. Or sometimes during morning walks, instead of talking he would chant, and everyone would eagerly join with him.

Prabhupada’s speaking about chanting was also another type of chanting. He recommended the chanting of Hare Krsna, and sometimes he would become surcharged with emotion and his voice would rise in volume: “We are simply asking everyone ‘Please chant Hare Krsna!’” At times like that, when Srila Prabhupada put all his energy into the request that everyone should chant, we could understand that the Hare Krsna mantra was the summum bonum of life. Therefore, often in a lecture he would state it loudly, “Please chant Hare Krsna!” And yet he would often follow this by saying that people were so unfortunate that they could not do this simple thing. (He recalled a cartoon where a man asked his wife, “Chant, chant, chant,” and she replied, “Can’t, can’t, can’t”.)

Srila Prabhupada’s japa beads were brown tulasi. He asked that his saffron beadbag be changed and a clean one given to him regularly. He gave his servants the blissful service of changing his counter beads and transferring them to the new bag. He was certainly a master at chanting Hare Krsna, and Prabhupada’s followers were always eager to take part with him in his pure, empowered activities of chanting Hare Krsna and distributing it to others.    (Prabhupada Nectar, Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, p. 208)

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Once at a lecture in the temple room in Los Angeles in 1970, just after moving into the building, Srila Prabhupada asked the assembled devotees, “Is anyone not chanting 16 rounds?”  Only one boy raised his hand. It was Bhakta dasa. Prabhupada said, “You are not finishing sixteen rounds?”

“Well Srila Prabhupada,” he said, “I’ve been working until late at night and only sleeping four hours, so I haven’t had time to finish.”

Srila Prabhupada replied strongly, “Then sleep only two hours, but you must finish sixteen rounds a day.”      (Prabhupada Nectar, Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, p. 210)