Question: It is said that if one chants with offenses he may go on chanting for millions of years but he will never get the taste for the holy name. Also, it is said that chanting only gives a taste for chanting. How are both things possible? Please resolve the contradiction?
Answer by Romapada Swami: Offensive chanting is not useless. However, through imperfect chanting flawed with offenses it takes a long time to purify the heart and to bear the fruit of chanting, i.e. developing a taste for chanting, and approaching the stage of love of God. Therefore, in addition to chanting one must make the endeavor to know what the offenses against the holy name are and diligently avoid them. It is only by striving to continue one’s chanting that one can overcome one’s lack of taste and also get the strength to ultimately overcome the offenses.
In other words, if one is committing offenses against the Holy Name, the solution is not to give up chanting, but to quantitatively and qualitatively increase one’s chanting, by endeavoring with great care to remove one’s offenses.
If someone thinks that it is okay to keep committing offenses, because by chanting all of one’s offenses will be effortlessly neutralized, such a mentality is considered to be the greatest offense, and the Holy Name will never bestow His mercy upon one who has such an attitude.
The purification which comes from chanting ‘in the clearing stage’ brings one to the point where one can remove one’s offenses; but if one carelessly and casually remains complacent towards the removal of offenses, then one will not get the full benefit of chanting. This is the implication of the first statement you have quoted. Therefore, there is no actual contradiction between the two statements.
