Śrīla Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswāmī Mahārāj summarises the beauty of the path given by Śrīman Mahāprabhu.
Kṛṣṇa’s Name, Kṛṣṇa, and Śrī Kṛṣṇa Chaitanya Mahāprabhu are nondifferent and transcendental. There are many verses in the scriptures for glorification of Kṛṣṇa’s Name, but this verse is very nice:
nāma-chintāmaṇiḥ kṛṣṇaś chaitanya-rasa-vigrahaḥ
pūrṇaḥ śuddho nitya-mukto ‘bhinnatvān nāma-nāminoḥ
(Padma-purāṇa)
[“The Name of Kṛṣṇa is a wish-fulfilling jewel and an embodiment of spiritual rasa. The Name is complete, pure, eternally liberated, and non-different from whom He names.”]
This will be revealed in your heart if you can give your mood of devotion fully to the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa. Then, you will be worry free.
ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ
sevonmukhe hi jihvādau svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ
(Śrī Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, 1.2.234)
[“Although Kṛṣṇa’s Name, Form, Qualities, and Pastimes cannot be grasped by the material senses, they manifest themselves to the material senses in response to one’s service attitude.”]
When you take Kṛṣṇa’s Name, Kṛṣṇa will reveal Himself in your heart if it is kept very clean. Clean means free from offence. Offence is a very dangerous thing. Mahāprabhu described the result of chanting Kṛṣṇa’s Name in the first verse of Śrī Śikṣāṣṭakam:
cheto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpanaṁ
śreyaḥ-kairava-chandrikā-vitaraṇaṁ vidyā-vadhū-jīvanam
ānandāmbudhi-vardhanaṁ prati-padaṁ pūrṇāmṛtāsvādanaṁ
sarvātma-snapanaṁ paraṁ vijayate śrī-kṛṣṇa-saṇkīrtanam
Here within one verse everything is expressed by Śrī Chaitanya Mahāprabhu. Cheto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ: dirtiness, all the undesirable things in your mind and heart, will go away by chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahāmantra. Bhava-mahādāvāgni-nirvāpanaṁ: all the suffering you are experiencing in this mundane world will also leave you. Śreyaḥ-kairava-chandrikā-vitaraṇaṁ: you will get good nourishment, the nourishing rays of Kṛṣṇa’s Name will be revealed in your heart like moonlight, like the full nectar of the moon. Vidyā-vadhū-jīvanam: you will enter first into rāga-mārg. It is not that you will come from vidhi-mārg to rāga-mārg. No. As the direct source, you will start from rāga-mārg. This is the process: chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahāmantra with hankering. When hankering comes into your heart, you will not be satisfied with anything except the ecstasy of Kṛṣṇa’s Name, and you will get everything through that.
There are ten kinds of offences to Kṛṣṇa’s Name, however, and especially three or four of them are very dangerous. First, you should not abuse any sādhu. You should not criticise Guru, the Sādhu, or the Vaiṣṇava; you should not make any offence to them. Also, guror avajña and śruti-śāstra-nindan: you should not criticise anything in which there is glorification of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahāmantra. You should also not take any unnecessary facilities from Kṛṣṇa’s Name. The only thing you need is Kṛṣṇa-prema; that is your life’s goal, and you should think, “The mercy of Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa’s devotee, I need only this to attain my life’s goal: service to Kṛṣṇa in the transcendental world.”
Śrīman Mahāprabhu has given us a very nice process:
nācha gāo bhakta-saṅge kara saṅkīrtana
ākaṇṭha bhariyā kara prasāda bhakṣaṇa
“Chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahāmantra, take mahāprasādam, and dance with the devotees.”
Go where the sādhus are glorifying Kṛṣṇa, hear from the sādhus, and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mahāmantra without making offence to the sādhus, Guru, or the Vaiṣṇavas. Through this process, your mood of devotion will develop, and through that you will get everything.
harer nāma harer nāma harer nāmaiva kevalam
kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nasty eva gatir anyathā
In this Age of Kali, you can get everything through the Name. Śrīman Mahāprabhu has given only this process to satisfy Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa’s devotees: chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahāmantra without offence.
Reference
Spoken 23 January 1993.