One devotee asked me yesterday what is the best way to chant. To hear and think of Krsna or to chant and hear the holy names.
I thought about it and said to chant and hear.
When we chant and hear we are automatically thinking of Krsna as He is non-different from His holy name. So there is no need to tax the brain to think of pastimes of Krsna while we chant.
It is all there in the holy names.
The key is to not strive to add on new thoughts about Krsna but to keep out the old thoughts... "what is the time?", "what will I have for my breakfast?", "look what she is wearing", "got to email so and so" etc etc.
These extra thoughts are like obstacles on the path of attentive chanting.
One way to get rid of them is to turn up the volume of the chanting. Like in a music studio. You have different buttons and levers to turn off and on and turn up and down. In the same way we got to turn the volume of our chanting up so it overpowers the sound of the other thoughts in our mind while we strive to chant.
It is not easy but as Lord Krsna says in the Bhagavad-Gita: "... it is possible by suitable practice and detachment.". Bg 6.35
