Question: Who can speak Harikatha?

Answer:

siddha-deha diyā, vṛndāvana-mājhe, sevāmṛta karô̍’ dāna,
piyāiyā prema, matta kôr̍i’ more, śunô nija-guṇa-gāna

“Giving me a spiritual body within the transcendental realm of Vrindavan, bestow upon me the nectar of Your service. Thus I will become madly intoxicated with pure love by drinking the nectar of such service. Just hear about Your own glories.”

We shall have to think very carefully about this. Here Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur has prayed, “O Lord! Please give me a realized transcendental form, in the transcendental realm Vrindavan.” Supreme Lord is transcendental. The word ‘transcendental’ I have explained as per dictionary but there is some difficulty. In material language it very difficult to express the ancient Indian spiritual words. The meaning of the word ‘transcendental’ is beyond the comprehension of human beings, beyond the mind, intelligence, sense organs etc. It will descend to a completely surrendered soul. So, he is praying to Supreme Lord Krishna or Radha-Krishna, “Please give me a realized form, siddha-deha. You are in the transcendental realm and nirgun (beyond the three modes of material nature) and I am in this mundane world with this material body. How can I come in contact with You and speak about You? Please bestow me realized transcendental spiritual form. And also bestow upon me the ambrosia.” The actual ambrosia is the service of Sri Krishna, not the nectar that emerges from the milk ocean. That is worldly nectar but transcendental nectar or ambrosia is service of Sri Krishna. Krishna Himself can give this. So here he is praying, “Please give me that service and make me drink the divine love-prem.” Without prem, you cannot have the realization of Supreme Lord, who is all- existence, all-knowledge and all- bliss, Who is transcendental, beyond this mundane realm completely, by your own capability you cannot know Him. Whatever endeavour you do, everything will be failure.

sevāmṛta karô̍’ dāna, piyāiyā prema,
matta kôr̍I’ more, śunô nija-guṇa-gāna

You make me drink Your prema and You speak through my mouth Your glories and You hear, that is Harikatha. How can I speak? I have got misconception of self, ‘I am this material body’ and material desires. Where there are material desires, material body and material vanity, with that kind of material ego, you cannot have any kind of entrance in that transcendental, spiritual realm. That is the difficulty. Why do we spend so much time to pray the grace of Guru and Gauranga and uttering hymns (before starting speaking)? There is some necessity for that. If I have got the vanity that I can speak, then that is just delivering speech, it will have no contact with Supreme Lord.