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Random thoughts on minor considerations 
related to the mechanics of chanting.

When I was a boy I would go to my Lutheran church early every Sunday and count the people as they arrived. I would have to wait until after the service was going for a while so I could count the latecomers, giving me an excuse to hang out in the foyer, which was more interesting than sitting in the pews. I would count on a clicker and turn it in after I was finished. The next Sunday in the Church Bulletin distributed at the service there would be printed the attendence total from the previous week. So clickers and religion are an old association for me. Personally, I have no problem with people chanting on a clicker if it helps them in the right direction. To me, it is not about some absolute position where you are that makes things right, but rather the direction you are heading that matters. For some, clickers may be a good thing, better to click than to chant less or not at all. For others, especially those demonstrating closerness to the ideal, clicking may not be so good.

In actuality, virtue and fault are not absolute but are relative to one's particular platform of advancement. Remaining fixed in the type of discrimination suitable to one's level of advancement is good, and anything else is bad. This is the basic understanding of virtue and fault. Even among objects belonging to the same category, there are different considerations of their purity or impurity in relation to performance of religious duties, worldly transactions, and the maintenance of one's life. These distinctions are described in various scriptures.

Ref. VedaBase => SB 11.21 Summary

Back in the day, my wife used to care for Tulasi. Many plants were 3 and 4 foot high (big for West Virginia where greenhouse culture is required in the winter) before the life force moved on. She was able to cut and drill the fully dried branches and make japa mala herself. This is very consistent with the ideal of living dependent on the land and the cow which was the desire Srila Prabhupada expressed. To make a clicker requires ugrakarmic activity, smelters and oil wells for the manufacture and distribution (for computers also).

Letter to Hayagriva 14 June 1968 (Montreal):

"As we passed correspondence previously, that we should live together either in India or in this part of the world for publication of so many Vaisnava literatures. But if you want to develop New Vrindaban, I can spare you for that purpose, and it may be that we can live there together. For the time being, if you actually want to develop such ideal asrama, we must have sufficient land, and all other things will gradually grow. For raising crops from the land, how many men will be required— that we must estimate and for herding the cows and feeding them. We must have sufficient pasturing ground to feed the animals all round. We have to maintain the animals throughout their life. We must not make any program for selling them to the slaughterhouses. That is the way of cow protection.

"Krishna by His practical example taught us to give all protection to the cows and that should be the main business of New Vrindaban. Vrindaban is also known as Gokula. Go means cows, and kula means congregation. Therefore the special feature of New Vrindaban will be cow protection, and by doing so, we shall not be loser. In India of course, a cow is protected [Gosh's note– this was still true as recently as when Srila Prabhupada was on the planet] and the cowherdsmen they derive sufficient profit by such protection. Cow dung is used as fuel. Cow dung dried in the sunshine kept in stock for utilizing them as fuel in the villages. They get wheat and other cereals produced from the field. There is milk and vegetables and the fuel is cow dung, and thus, they are self-independent in every village. There are hand weavers for the cloth. And the country oil-mill (consisting of a bull walking in circle round two big grinding stones, attached with yoke) grinds the oil seeds into oil. The whole idea is that people residing in New Vrindaban may not have to search out work outside.

"Arrangements should be such that the residents should be self-satisfied. That will make an ideal asrama. I do not know these ideals can be given practical shape, but I think like that; that people may be happy in any place with land and cow without endeavoring for so-called amenities of modern life— which simply increase anxieties for maintenance and proper equipment. The less we are anxious for maintaining our body and soul together, the more we become favorable for advancing in Krishna Consciousness.

"Hoping you are well.

"Your ever well-wisher,

"A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami"

So Srila Prabhupada is not saying this ideal asrama is required, but it is desired, and for those wishing to set the best example, things like beads which can be made by hand would be closer to the ideal than a clicker, in my humble opinion. For the most of us though, cruel reality may set unavoidable demands, and clickers may be a necessary expedient.

Krsna culture is holistic, and another aspect that someone so inclined to may seek out farther than I care to take the time to, is the acupressure effect of rotating a bead with the face of the thumb on the side of the middle finger. Acupuncture has much anecdotal and even some scientific proof of its effectiveness, and acupressure supposedly works on the same principles of meridians and stimulation and all that. My speculation is that there is some beneficial result of the physical act of chanting with beads that is probably lacking when using a clicker. Even if those particular points aren't currently recognized as anything, maybe they stimulate the higher chakras. Someone could do an experiment. Not that the main reason for chanting is to get physical benefit, but why pass up a perk?

© CHAKRA 8 February 2002