Last night's presentation: The Process - Chanting the Holy Name

It was part three of "The 3 Things You Need to Find Your Freedom". This week we were talking about "the process".

I started by reading "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur C. Clarke. I got my supporting visuals from Flickr.com, and marked on the story script where the slide changes were.

Then I compared this to a Muslim saying that when there is no tongue on Earth that utters the name of Allah, the world will end.

Then I talked about the 99 Names of Allah in the Qu'ran, and read some of them out from the list on wikipedia.

Then I talked about the Tetragrammaton of the Jewish scripture, mentioning the loss of knowledge of its pronunciation due to the Babylonian exile and a subsequent language change.

Then I discussed personal and impersonal names (titles), and primary and secondary names.

Then I showed some different pictures of Krishna with His different relationships and talked about those names.

Then I told the story of Lord Caitanya and Prakasananda Sarasvati (there seem to be at least two differing versions, possibly three, in the Caitanya-caritamrita). This involved some explanation of the social and philosophical evolution and differences between Buddhism, Sankara's Vedanta, and finally Caitanya Vaisnavism.

The power of God's name, and the process of glorifying it is not an edge belief / practice - it is a mainstream part of all major religions of the world. Lord Caitanya's movement, however, has really taken it to the next level.

Then I wrapped up by introducing some modern followers of Lord Caitanya and proponents of chanting the Holy Name: Bhaktivinode Thakura, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, and Srila Prabhupada.

I finished by playing the 5 minute track from the Krishna Conscious Happening LP (at least that's where I think it's from). It's the one where Srila Prabhupada explains the chanting and says that it is "not an artificial imposition on the mind".