When one becomes devotee, beginning from the tongue, jihvadau, by chanting Hare Krsna mantra, sevonmukhe hi jihvadau, svayam eva sphuraty adhah, He becomes revealed. Yei nama sei krsna. That is the perfection of chanting without any offenses. Then you’ll find the name is not different from Krsna. When you are chanting, you’ll find Krsna is dancing on your tongue. This is the conclusion.

So we have to learn how to chant. Therefore in the sastras, in the Puranas, the ten kinds of offenses are described, and Srila Jiva Gosvami has given very much stress to avoid these offenses. Suddha-nama. In the beginning we cannot chant pure form of the name, because we are accustomed… But still, by chanting process, then it becomes namabhasa, almost pure. Abhasa means just like before sunrise, you find the darkness is off, but it is not sunlight. It is different from sunlight, but still, there is the dawn, you can see everything distinctly.

Similarly, first there is offensive name and, if you avoid, avoid the ten kinds of offenses, then gradually it becomes namabhasa. And Srila Haridasa Thakura has said, Namacarya, that by namabhasa one becomes liberated. There was some argument with Haridasa Thakura and one brahmana in the office of Raghunatha dasa Gosvami’s father, uncle. So there were some high level talks on this namabhasa.

So by namabhasa one becomes liberated. By chanting Hare Krsna mantra offensive, one becomes materially happy or distressed, but when one comes to the stage of namabhasa, he becomes liberated. And when he chants pure name, there is krsna-prema. Just like Rupa Gosvami: he was chanting. We are also chanting. But we are not in the stage of Rupa Gosvami or Sanatana Gosvami and Haridasa Thakura.

Actually, if we come to that stage, then there will be krsna-prema, love of Krsna. Just like Rupa Gosvami said that “What shall I chant with one tongue and two ears? If there were millions of tongues and trillions of ears, I could chant something.” And we cannot finish even sixteen rounds, because we have not created our taste for chanting. Still we are in the namaparadha stage. But don’t be disappointed. Go on chanting. You’ll come to the right position, namabhasa, then suddha-nama. Everything requires gradual development.

From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on The Nectar of Devotion — October 31, 1972, Vrndavana