In this age, in this Kali-yuga, you cannot perform . . . you cannot accept this tapasya; you cannot perform the celibacy, life of . . . you cannot practice yoga, you cannot control your mind, you cannot control your senses. This is your position. Therefore Caitanya Mahāprabhu says:
- harer nāma harer nāma
- harer nāmaiva kevalam
- kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva
- nāsty eva gatir anyathā
- (CC Ādi 17.21)
Simple method: simply try to pure . . . purify yourself by this transcendental vibration, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare . . . try to chant always, kīrtanīyaḥ sadā (Śikṣāṣṭaka 3). This is the beginning of spiritual life, and this is the end of spiritual life. Not that at the end we shall have to give it up. No—the same method. It is so perfect that it is in the beginning perfect, and at the end it is also perfect. It is not that . . . there are so many means that you accept something in the beginning, but when you are perfect you give it up. Just like the Māyāvādī philosophy, there . . . just like the yoga system. When you are not perfect, you accept this yoga system of āsana, aṣṭāṅga-yoga system; prāṇāyāma, sitting process, controlling the breathing exercise. But when you become perfect, you need not. You give up. But this process, chanting process, is so perfect that in the beginning of the chanting and when you are completely perfect you are transferred in the spiritual sky, there also the same process will go on—chanting. Hare Kṛṣṇa!
So Śukadeva Goswāmī recommends that those who are very intelligent, instead of taking to so many processes—tapasya, brahmacarya, yama, niyama, satya-śauca, so many things—then they will automatically come, if you take to this devotional process. Just like our all students, say one or two years before, they were not like this. They were taken to so many sinful activities. But since they've taking to this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, now see their features, see their behavior, see their character, and you will be astonished. One press reporter, I think in Philadelphia, they saw our students, one, ah, she . . . responsible press reporter. She simply inquired, "Are you American boys?" She was astonished by seeing our results.