(Click to enlarge painting of Srila Prabhupada hearing from Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, Radha Kunda)
"Saṅkīrtana does not mean simply chanting the holy name of Kṛṣṇa. Saṅkīrtana means you discuss Kṛṣṇa's activities, that is also saṅkīrtana. That is not different from saṅkīrtana. It is clearly stated here that bhagavato guṇa-karma-nāmnām. Nāma means name, and guṇa means quality and karma means activities. That is not ordinary karma. Just like when we read Kṛṣṇa book, Kṛṣṇa is killing so many demons, He is kidnapping somebody, He is . . . So many things. It appears just like ordinary, I mean to say, malpractices in the material world. It appears like that. 'So what is this God? He is killing so many persons, He is kidnapping some woman. What is this God?' they may say. But they do not know that that is also transcendental. That is as pure as chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. It is as pure as. Otherwise, what interest we have got to read Bhagavad-gītā? It is in the battlefield. Senayor ubhayor madhye (BG 1.21). Combination of two parties, soldiers, and they are fighting, they are killing.
Therefore those who are sahajiyās, they simply go to the pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa with the gopīs. Other things, 'Oh, no, no. That is not Kṛṣṇa's pastime. That is not Kṛṣṇa's pastime.' That is, they differentiate the absolute activities of the Absolute. That is called sahajiyā. The sahajiyās will never read Bhagavad-gītā, will never read. (sarcastic:) Because they have been elevated to the mellows of conjugal love. Therefore they have no interest in Bhagavad-gītā. They say. Or when you discuss Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam on the philosophical point, janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1), they also do not attend. If you discuss on the philosophy of Upaniṣad and Vedānta, they'll not attend. I have seen it. In Rādhā-kuṇḍa, sometimes in 1934, my Guru Mahārāja was living, and he was discussing Upaniṣad. He was discussing Upaniṣad regularly. And the bābājīs—there are many bābājīs in Rādhā-kuṇḍa—first of all they came, that 'Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura has come, such a learned scholar and the establisher of Gauḍīya Maṭha.' So out of curiosity they came. And when they saw that he was discussing Upaniṣad, gradually they stopped coming. So my Guru Mahārāja recommended that 'These people are not living in Rādhā-kuṇḍa. They are living in Nāraka-kuṇḍa.'* I have heard it personally."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, Gorakhpur, February 14, 1971)
*Nāraka — hell.
.
