The Red Beads

Although Swamiji had a bead bag, he often chanted on his beads by holding them in two hands.  The boys followed this method, and even when we were not chanting, we would wear the beads around our necks in a double strand.  Swamiji thought this was acceptable; he told us to either keep them in a bead bag or wear them around our necks.  And you can take them on the street like this, “if you are not ashamed.”

Soon after Prabhupada’s arrival on Second Avenue, young men started appearing in public with bright red beads around their necks.  In those days, devotees did not wear dhotis or tilaka or shaved heads, so the main way that you could spot a devotee was by his read beads.  With Gargamuni, it was his Shakespearean locks and his red beads.  We thought wearing the beads was cool, with their clicking noise and red shine.  Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

We learned to finger the beads by watching Swamiji.  You fingered with your right hand and held the other half of the strand in your left hand.  As you moved each bead through the right hand, you moved the strand through the left hand and gradually passed the circle around your neck.  It involved more touch and sight than when the beads were kept in the bead bag.  Besides, bead bags hadn’t arrived yet.

One day I was going to visit welfare clients on Canal Street and chanted as I walked.  I began to feel uneasy that my chanting was not being counted in any way.  I wanted to capture it and get credit for it.  As soon as I saw Swamiji I told him, “My chanting is just going to the wind.”  He instructed me to buy little beads to use as counters.  When I returned with the beads, he said, “You are very prompt.”  Then he showed us how to use the counters.  He said that Vaisnavas in India keep individual quotas for japa.  Some have a thousand beads on one circular strand, and they chant one round a day.

When he held initiations, it was a good chance for us to watch him chant.  He gave us instructions about chanting on our beads at that time.  He told us to chant by starting with the bead next to the “head bead.”  Chant the Hare Krishna mantra on each bead by using the thumb and the third finger.  Don’t touch the beads with the pointing finger.  Go around once, and when you reach the summit bead, don’t cross over, but start back in the other direction.