Vaishnava texts state that just as a sleeping person is awakened by the calling of his/her name, similarly that chanting of the Holy Names of God can awaken us from our dream of material life. There are many names of God. Secondary names of God describe the Lord’s majesty, compassion, omniscience and mercifulness. Whereas primary names describe the Lord in His full personal aspect. Chanting the names of God is a practice that exists in all religions.

Mohammed, for example, exhorted his followers to, ‘Glorify the name of your Lord, the most high’ (Koran 87.2); Saint Paul wrote, ‘Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved’ (Romans 10.15); Buddha stated, ‘All who sincerely call upon my name will come to me after death, and I will take them to paradise’ (Vows of Amida Buddha 18); King David preached, ‘From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised (Psalms 113.3); and the Vaishnava scriptures say, ‘Chant the Holy Name, chant the Holy Name, chant the Holy Name of the Lord. In this age of quarrel there is no other way, no other way, no other way to attain self-realization (Brihan-naradiya Purana 3.8.126). There are many wonderful descriptions of the value of chanting in the Vaishnava literary tradition. Chanting is a meditation, a religious practice and a way of life.

Chanting Hare Krishna Hare Krishna/ Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama/ Rama Rama Hare Hare, is the process of awakening our spiritual identity. We are not these bodies which are made of matter. We are the life or soul (atma) within the material body. Our spiritual identity is eternal and it is realized through pure chanting of the Holy Names of God. This chanting can be performed as a meditation on prayer beads or japa mala. Japa beads are something like the Christian rosary or Muslim zikr. The maha-mantra can also be sung. Such congregational chanting (where one person leads the chanting and others follow in unison) is called kirtan. Kirtan is usually accompanied by traditional drums called mridangas, cymbals called karatalas and various other instruments. Kirtan is spiritually enlivening.

The Vedic literatures recommend the chanting of Hare Krishna in this modern age. The chanting purifies the heart or consciousness and evokes spiritual realization. The word ‘Hare’ refers to Lord Hari – a name of Krishna that indicates His ability to remove obstacles from His devotees’ path. ‘Hari’ means ‘He who takes away all inauspiciousness.’ ‘Hare’, in a higher sense, is a vocative (ie. that which calls out) form of ‘Hara’. Mother Hara or Srimati Radharani embodies the Divine Feminine energy. ‘Krishna’ means ‘all-attractive’ and refers to the original form of God.

Krish means the attractive feature of the Lord’s existence and na means spiritual pleasure. The combination of these ‘krish’ and ‘na’, krishna, means, ‘the absolute person who gives spiritual pleasure through His all-attractive qualities’. In the ancient Sanskrit (the language of Ancient India) language, na refers to the Lord’s ability to check samsara, or the cycle of repeated birth and death; and krish means sattartha, or ‘existential totality’ ie. ‘the Lord who embodies all of existence and who can help the living entities overcome the repeated suffering of birth and death’. Rama is a reference to Krishna’s older brother, Balarama and Lord Ramachandra (an incarnation of the Lord). ‘Rama’, however, refers to Radha-Ramana which is a name of Krishna meaning, ‘the one who brings pleasure to Radharani’. This mantra contains confidential names of the Lord that embody the essence of the Divine. It is a prayer, spoken from the core of the heart, that means, ‘O Lord, O Divine energy of the Lord! Please engage me in Your service!’

(from Steven Rosen’s The Hidden Glory of India)