My dear boys and girls, I thank you very much for your coming here and participating with this saṅkīrtana function. The saṅkīrtana function, or . . . it is called saṅkīrtana-yajña, sacrifice. There is a statement in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that saṅkīrtanair yajñaiḥ prayair yajanti hi su-medhasaḥ (SB 11.5.32).
In this age . . . as poet Ginsberg has explained to you, this is called Kali-yuga, or very degraded age. From the spiritual point of view, from material point of view also, people are reducing their duration of life and their merciful tendency, their strength, their stature.
If you study scrutinizingly, you will see that your stature is reducing, your memory is reducing, your duration of life is also reducing in this Kali-yuga. There are many symptoms. So Bhāgavata recommends, "For self-realization in this age, simply by performing this sacrifice of saṅkīrtana."
The saṅkīrtana-yajña is so nice that at once you get transcendental ecstasy, and from spiritual consciousness, you try to join. Even a child desires like that. This is the effect of the saṅkīrtana-yajña. And Lord Caitanya, the inaugurator of this movement five hundred years ago.
He says that if you chant this mantra, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare, then the first installment of your gain will be that all the dirty things in your heart will be cleansed. Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam (CC Antya 20.12, Śikṣāṣṭaka 1).
And when we are in clean heart, then the next stage will be bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpaṇam: "The problems of material existence will be solved." And when you are spiritually steady on the platform of saṅkīrtana-yajña, then your original consciousness, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and its concomitant joyfulness begins.
This thing also is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā:
- brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā
- na śocati na kāṅkṣati
- samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu
- mad-bhaktiṁ labhate parām
- (BG 18.54)
It is said there that "When one comes on the platform of spiritual consciousness, or Kṛṣṇa consciousness, at that time he becomes completely joyful." Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā. Prasanna means joyful; ātmā means soul. And the symptom is na śocati na kāṅkṣati.