Chanting the Maha Mantra (the great mantra of deliverance), Hare Krsna Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare, is the best way to bring the mind under control; and chanting is actually ‘declaring war on the mind.’ In the beginning stage of chanting the person’s mind will bombard them with many reasons why they shouldn’t chant the Lord’s names; and when chanting the mind will frequently drift off to think of something else, like a bird chirping or a car going by. When the person finds their mind has drifted from their meditation on the Lord’s names they should immediately bring the mind back under their control and return to meditating on the Lord’s names and pastimes. The frequency that the mind drifts off can be used as a gauge for the person to determine how much control they have over their mind. Practice makes perfect, thus in time the person’s mind will drift off less often, thus the person will be better able to focus on the Lord, as well as better focus on any task at hand. For example, when a person that can control their mind is up against a big job, rather than allow the mind to bombard them with a dozen reasons why they shouldn’t perform the task, they stop any bombardment from beginning by engaging the mind using its energy to manage how to best perform the task, thus they’ve converted their mind from being their worst enemy to their best friend. In this way people just coming to spiritual life are able to divide the devotional process into smaller segments so that changing one’s life doesn’t seem overwhelming. Every big job is only a collection of smaller jobs, hence a person able to control their mind is able to focus on doing one small job at a time until the big job is complete. And to get started in Krsna Consciousness a person need only start with the Maha Mantra and all other parts of spiritual life will just fall into place.

- Nanda Kumar das