With the onset of my addled old age I am losing my ability to count. I posted Questions from the CIS #5 before I posted #4. My apologies. Here’s the missing question and answer:

Question 4.

Tell me, please, did Prabhupada mention that it is possible to chant the rounds instead of someone? Or in the time of chanting to pray for someone? Is it authoritative to give the results of oblations, for example ekadashi fast, to someone? Thank you! Hare Krishna!

Answer:

I think you mean, “Is it possible to chant rounds on behalf of someone else?”

Chanting rounds is something we do for our own advancement, so its difficult to think that someone could chant rounds on behalf of someone else. However, if when we chant our rounds, we pray for the benefit and purification of someone else, certainly that person will get great benefit.

The results of oblations can certainly be given to others. The great example is Dadhici,

who gave his bones to the demigods for their benefit. That means he voluntarily sacrificed his own material body for their benefit. Similarly, a devotee can fast and offer the results of their austerity to the credit of someone else, and that person will definitely get the benefits.

Krsna is very merciful and He especially likes to please His devotees. If a devotee prays for the welfare of another living being, Krsna is eager to fulfill His devotee’s request. He does so out of love. So even if a person is not deserving, if a real devotee prays for that person, Krsna will help them because of His love for His devotee. He does not take into account the disqualification of the recipient, only the love of His devotee.

We were not at all qualified to worship Krsna but because Srila Prabhupada requested Krsna to benedict us, we were able to come out of very dense ignorance very quickly. Krsna responded very powerfully to Srila Prabhupada’s request because Srila Prabhupada was so intensely eager to please Lord Caitanya and his spiritual master.

Prahlada Maharaja was able to save his demonic father Hiranyakasipu simply by his own devotion to the Lord. When Lord Nrsimhadeva had killed Hiranyakasipu,

He asked Prahlada to ask for any benediction he liked:

SB 7.9.52

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: My dear Prahlada, most gentle one, best of the family of the asuras, all good fortune unto you. I am very much pleased with you. It is My pastime to fulfill the desires of all living beings, and therefore you may ask from Me any benediction that you desire to be fulfilled.

PURPORT

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is known as bhakta-vatsala, the Supreme Personality who is very much affectionate to His devotees. It is not very extraordinary that the Lord offered His devotee all benedictions. The Supreme Personality of Godhead said in effect, “I fulfill the desires of everyone. Since you are My devotee, whatever you want for yourself will naturally be given, but if you pray for anyone else, that prayer also will be fulfilled.” Thus if we approach the Supreme Lord or His devotee, or if we are blessed by a devotee, naturally we will automatically achieve the benedictions of the Supreme Lord. Yasya prasadad bhagavat-prasadah. Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura says that if one pleases the Vaisnava spiritual master, all of one’s desires will be fulfilled.”

Prahlada Maharaja immediately rejected any benedictions for himself. Rather, his only request was for the welfare of his murderous father:

SB 7.10.15, SB 7.10.16, SB 7.10.17, SB 7.10.15-17

Prahlada Maharaja said: O Supreme Lord, because You are so merciful to the fallen souls, I ask You for only one benediction. I know that my father, at the time of his death, had already been purified by Your glance upon him, but because of his ignorance of Your beautiful power and supremacy, he was unnecessarily angry at You, falsely thinking that You were the killer of his brother. Thus he directly blasphemed Your Lordship, the spiritual master of all living beings, and committed heavily sinful activities directed against me, Your devotee. I wish that he be excused for these sinful activities.”

Lord Nrisimhadeva not only obliged, but revealed that He had already benedicted Prahlada’s father, and not just him:

SB 7.10.18

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: My dear Prahlada, O most pure, O great saintly person, your father has been purified, along with twenty-one forefathers in your family. Because you were born in this family, the entire dynasty has been purified.

Purport

“The word trih-saptabhih means seven multiplied by three. In one’s family one can count back four or five generations — to one’s great-grandfather or even one’s great-grandfather’s father — but since the Lord mentions twenty-one forefathers, this indicates that the benediction expands to other families also. Before the present family in which one has taken birth, one must have been born in other families. Thus when a Vaisnava takes birth in a family, by the grace of the Lord he purifies not only that family but also the families of his previous births.”

SB 7.10.19

“Whenever and wherever there are peaceful, equipoised devotees who are well behaved and decorated with all good qualities, that place and the dynasties there, even if condemned, are purified.”

PURPORT

“Wherever exalted devotees stay, not only they and their dynasties but the entire country is purified.”

So if you want to benefit any family member, just become a good devotee. And if you want to benefit someone who is outside your family, just become a good devotee.

Your humble servant,

Hari-sauri dasa

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