George Harrison is reported as saying in an interview with Mukunda (1982):
“One of the main differences between silent meditation and chanting is that silent meditation is rather dependent on concentration, but when you chant, it’s more of a direct connection with God.” In my own experience, I have found that chanting the Mahamantra for a couple of hours per day (4 rounds) for a number of years requires concentration on the words or names themselves…Hare, Krsna, Rama… …and that practising Transcendental Meditation twice a day for a number of years does not require concentration but rather the opposite where everything is relaxed and not forced, it is merely an initial direction of focus. I was taught by ISKCON devotees that I was meant to concentrate on the names of God in the Mahamantra with my mind and my tongue, whereas in Transcendental Meditation I was taught to sit quietly and to silently introduce the mantra without being repetitive or exerting effort. Personally, I believe that TM gives me the ability to BE more closely with the Supreme Being and for the Supreme Being to be more fluid within me… …Perhaps for some the Mahamantra vibrations and focus does this too, but I know which practice brings me closer to what or whom I consider to be the Supreme Being. I do not believe that chanting the Mahamantra is the only way to attain freedom in this age as is commonly heard within the circles of ISKCON. The ISKCON movement presents a most beautiful religion as a way of life and can direct one towards a devotional life towards the Divine. It is intelligent and often revealing, but at the end of the day, to me it is dogmatic and therefore limiting and divisive, not particularly comprehending the Spirit Communion aspect of the Divine. The religion is but one aspect of manifested truth – it is a partial layer on a sphere which has access to some of its deeper parts, but only a partial layer and therefore, to me, incomplete. There are different strata to truth. One may say he or she is in a relationship to the Supreme Being whereas another may say, as I do, that he or she is a manifested expression of the Supreme Being who is also expressed through all other manifestations such as the sap in the tree or the crystal in the bud – making everything One where there is no separation. This is what silent meditation along with Self-inquiry has led me to. In my opinion, God is to be lived and expressed in that living – “all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You”. May they also be in Us in at-one-ment and not simply in unity. It is man considering himself separate from the Divine which creates confusion – when in fact the Oneness has always been there.
