# Qualifications for Understanding and Chanting Only the devotee can understand the transcendental nature of Kṛṣṇa's name. The taste of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra can be tasted by one who is free from material hankering. Academic scholars cannot understand the transcendental nature of the holy name through logic—only by regular chanting with faith. --- ## Only Devotees Can Understand **Only the devotee can understand the transcendental nature of Kṛṣṇa's name:** ![[sb/10/2/36#purport|One cannot understand the transcendental nature of the name, form, quality and pastimes of Śrī Kṛṣṇa through one's materially contaminated senses. Only when one becomes spiritually saturated by transcendental service to the Lord are the transcendental name, form, quality and pastimes of the Lord revealed to him]] —SB [[sb/10/2/36|10.2.36]] Purport Only by *sevonmukha*, by engaging oneself in the Lord's service, can one realize the name, form and qualities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. —SB [[sb/10/2/36|10.2.36]] Purport --- **The taste of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra can be tasted by one who is free from material hankering:** Parīkṣit Mahārāja said to the great sage Śukadeva Gosvāmī, "The discourses on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that you are giving me are not ordinary. These Bhāgavata discourses are relishable for persons who are *nivṛtta-tṛṣṇa*, free from hankering." Everyone in this material world is hankering for enjoyment, but **one who is free from this hankering can taste how relishable the Bhāgavatam is.** The word *bhāgavata* refers to anything in relationship to Bhagavān, the Supreme Lord, and **the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra is also bhāgavata.** Thus Parīkṣit Mahārāja said that **the taste of the Bhāgavata can be relished by one who is free from hankering to satisfy material desires.** —*Teachings of Queen Kuntī* --- **We can understand the name of God as much as our spiritual understanding is developed:** Śrīla Prabhupāda: Because God is absolute, His name, His form, and His qualities are also absolute, and they are nondifferent from Him.... Father Emmanuel: But our understanding of the name of God is limited. Śrīla Prabhupāda: Yes, we are limited, but God is unlimited. And because He is unlimited, or absolute, He has unlimited names, each of which is God. **We can understand His names as much as our spiritual understanding is developed.** —*The Science of Self-Realization* --- ## Understanding Through Chanting **By chanting, one comes to understand Kṛṣṇa (and His holy name):** ![[cc/madhya/17/136|Therefore material senses cannot appreciate Kṛṣṇa's holy name, form, qualities and pastimes. When a conditioned soul is awakened to Kṛṣṇa consciousness and renders service by using his tongue to chant the Lord's holy name and taste the remnants of the Lord's food, the tongue is purified, and one gradually comes to understand who Kṛṣṇa really is]] —Cc. [[cc/madhya/17/136|Madhya 17.136]] --- **The holy name can be heard by those who have developed love of Godhead:** [The mahā-mantra] is not a material sound like the sounds we hear on the radio. It is a spiritual sound that comes from the spiritual world. Even in the material world we can release a sound from one place, and it can be heard thousands of miles away. **A spiritual sound can be released from many trillions of miles away, and it can be heard, provided that one has the machine to capture it. That machine is bhagavat-prema.** Those who have developed love of Godhead can hear it. —*Teachings of Lord Kapila, the Son of Devahūti* --- ## Understanding Through Faith, Not Logic **One cannot understand the glories of the holy name simply by logic and argument:** ![[cc/antya/3/206|One cannot understand the glories of the holy name simply by logic and argument]] —Cc. [[cc/antya/3/206|Antya 3.206]] --- **The transcendental nature of the holy name cannot be understood by logic and argument, but by regular chanting with faith:** The holy name of the Lord—Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare—is a transcendental vibration because it comes from the transcendental platform, the supreme abode of Kṛṣṇa. Because there is no difference between Kṛṣṇa and His name, the holy name of Kṛṣṇa is as pure, perfect and liberated as Kṛṣṇa Himself. **Academic scholars have no entrance by means of logic and other argument into the understanding of the transcendental nature of the holy name of God. The single path in understanding the transcendental nature** of Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare **is the chanting of these names with faith and adherence.** —*Teachings of Lord Caitanya* --- **Empiricists who reject the paramparā system cannot understand the transcendental activities of the holy name:** ![[cc/adi/7/74#purport|Although materialists who are addicted to experimental knowledge and the so-called \"scientific method\" cannot place their faith in the chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra, it is a fact that simply by chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra offenselessly one can be freed from all subtle and gross material conditions...Therefore those who are afflicted by a combination of anxieties cannot understand the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, which is free from all anxiety]] —Cc. [[cc/adi/7/74|Ādi 7.74]] Purport --- ## Disqualifications **Being ignorant about and offensive to Kṛṣṇa, Māyāvādīs cannot understand or chant the personal names of the Lord:** ![[cc/madhya/17/130#purport|Because the Māyāvādīs are great offenders and atheistic philosophers, the holy name of Kṛṣṇa does not come from their mouths...Māyāvādī impersonalists are great offenders unto Lord Kṛṣṇa; therefore they simply utter the words Brahman, ātmā and caitanya. The holy name of Kṛṣṇa is not manifest in their mouths because they are offenders unto Kṛṣṇa]] —Cc. [[cc/madhya/17/130|Madhya 17.130]] Purport --- **Although not advanced in purity or Vedic education, the young people of the West could accept the chanting of the holy name because they were not offensive:** ![[cc/madhya/17/145#purport|The spreading of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra in the West has become successful because the young people were not offenders. The youths who joined this movement were not very advanced as far as purity was concerned, nor were they very well educated in Vedic knowledge, but because they were not offenders, they could accept the importance of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. We are now very happy to see that this movement is advancing more and more in the Western countries. We therefore conclude that the so-called mlecchas and yavanas of the Western countries are more purified than offensive Māyāvādīs or atheistic impersonalists]] —Cc. [[cc/madhya/17/145|Madhya 17.145]] Purport --- **[← Back to Śrī Nāmāmṛta](wiki/compile/sri-namamrita)**