Chantig on Arbat Street in Moscow
Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
FROM AUTHORITATIVE SOURCES we learn that the chanting of the maha-mantra Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare is the embodiment of the perfection of yoga for this age.
Today we have great difficulties living fifty or sixty years. A person may live at the utmost eighty or a hundred years. In addition, these brief years are always fraught with difficulties due to circumstances of war, pestilence, famine, and so many other disturbances. We're also not very intelligent, and at the same time we're unfortunate. These are the characteristics of people living in Kali-yuga, a degraded age.
So properly speaking we can never attain success in the meditational yoga system described by Krsna. At the utmost we can only gratify our personal whims by some pseudoadaptation of this system. Thus people are paying money to attend some classes in gymnastic exercises and deep breathing, and they're happy if they think they can lengthen their lifetimes by a few years or enjoy better sex life.
But we must understand that this is not the actual yoga system. In this age that meditational system cannot be properly executed. Instead, all of the perfections of that system can be realized through bhakti-yoga, the sublime process of Krsna consciousness, specifically mantra-yoga, the glorification of Sri Krsna through the chanting of Hare Krsna. That is recommended in Vedic scriptures and is introduced by great authorities like Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
Indeed, the Bhagavad-gita proclaims that the mahatmas, the great souls, are always chanting the glories of the Lord. If one wants to be a mahatma in terms of the Vedic literature, in terms of Bhagavad-gita, and in terms of the great authorities, then one has to adopt this process of Krsna consciousness and of chanting Hare Krsna.
But if we're content at making a show of meditation by sitting very straight in lotus position, then that is a different thing. But we should understand that such show-bottle performances have nothing to do with the actual perfection of yoga. The material disease cannot be cured by artificial medicine. We have to take the real cure straight from Krsna.
(Srila Prabhupada)