Stop by and visit if you come to NV if you have time.

>but I was actully underestimating my catch-up rounds, because I forgot the nine months I was in my mother’s womb!

But I don’t think my catch-up rounds idea was based on fear, and I never thought it might be a good idea to decrease quality in favour of quantity. My general goal is to improve quality and quantity in my chanting. The idea in this post just happened to focus on the quantity part.

“Have you ever thought for one day not to count the number of rounds you do? ”

No. I like counting rounds. Maybe it is the mathematician in me.

I never heard that quote about quality coming from quantity before. Thanks for that. I think it also works the other way round too: from quality comes quantity, because the more we chant purely, the more we relish chanting and the more we want to chant.

Thanks for your comment - it gives me lots to think about.

Have you ever thought for one day not to count the number of rounds you do? Maybe focus on the quality regardless of the quantity. I did and found it liberating. You would have to overlook Prabhupada’s statement of, “from quantity comes quality”. However, you could refer to the Lord himself, “there are no hard and fast rules to chanting these Holy Names”. A bit of a dichotomy I know and of course you have made vows. Right?

Anyway this is just a little prompt to ask you to perhaps entertain something new and get off the mental platform. You are a cool super-intelligent turbo PHD devotee, you will work it out I’m sure. Please remeber regardless that Krishna loves you. Rely on his Karuna-shakti, we all fall short somewhere, just do your best and surrender the result.

I would hate to see you as one of these devotees who modifies the Maha-mantra just to get their rounds done. Of course in the end what they are chanting does not even resemble the Maha-mantra. But of course they are happy feeling that they are being somewhat dutiful, “Got my rounds done regardless of them being crap”. I wish you luck and Krishna Prema, happy chanting! : ) Sorry if this sounded offensive, I had no intention of it being. Just sharing.

Caitya-guru dasa

Tulasi-priya: I emailed you

Madhava Ghosh: Thanks for the comment. I like your blog and plan to visit New Vrindaban later this year.

Re chanting from 5: I am not chanting to negate karma - I am chanting to become Krishna conscious. The idea was to chant for every day of this lifetime so you are right that my calculations were off, but I was actully underestimating my catch-up rounds, because I forgot the nine months I was in my mother’s womb!

Srila Prabhupada set a standard of 16 as a minimum, so you can feel fulfilled doing that, but chanting more is recommended, so no loss doing more.

I would take issue with your calculations though

Somewhere SP talked about that a child doesn’t create any karma, that that aspect of life doesn’t start until age of 5.

“In the beginning of life, the children, beginning from five years old up to twenty-five years, they are trained up as brahmacari.”

Bhagavad-gita 16.10 — Hawaii, February 6, 1975

So I would start you “makeup rounds” calculation from age 5 and not from birth.