When Krishna in the form of sound descends from the transcendental world into the heart, and from the heart, controlling every aspect of the nervous system, comes to the lips and begins dancing there, that is Krishna-nam. The initiative is in the transcendental world. That sound is not produced from the physical plane. The spiritual sound has to come down into this plane; He can come down, but we cannot so easily go up there. He is the Supersubject; we are an object to Him. We cannot interfere with His independence. Only by the negative power of surrender can we attract the Supreme Positive to come down to our level.
And so the Holy Name is not a production of our senses. It can be realised only when we approach Him with a very intense serving attitude. At that time, Krishna Himself may come down by His grace, being attracted by our serving nature. Then, He can influence this element and produce transcendental sound and dance within the mundane plane. That is the Holy Name, the Vaikuntha-nam, the real Name of Krishna. We cannot produce it with our lips. The sound we create with our physical or mental production is not Krishna. He is independent from whatever sound we may produce, and yet, because He controls everything, He can appear anywhere, in any form, in any plane, in any sound.
And this is confirmed in Bhagavad-gita (4.6). Krishna says, «When I come here by the power of My internal potency, I remove the external potency’s influence and appear anywhere and everywhere.» The mundane wave is forced back, just as a plane rides in the sky and pushes back the influence of air and wind as it forcibly passes. By removing the influence of the material waves, He appears within this world by the strength of His own force.
The Lord says, «I have My own potency, and by the power of that potency, I remove this gross material energy. And so I live and move here in this world.» The laws of material nature cannot apply to Him. He has special power. And with the help of that special power, He subdues the laws of material nature and comes here. He does whatever He wants with His own potency. Wherever He goes, the laws of material nature withdraw from that place and give Him His way. In this way, He can appear within the realm of sound as the Holy Name.
The real importance of the Name is not to be found merely in the arrangement of its syllables, but in the deep meaning within that divine sound. Some scholars argue that in the Kali-santarana-upanisad, Lord Brahma says that the Hare Krishna mahamantra is properly pronounced only when the Name of Rama precedes the Name of Krishna: «Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare.»