Do You Actually Want to be a Disciple? (10/27/13)
Dear _____ Dāsī,
Regarding your email, i have spoken to _____ about this matter also. The thing is we have been there and done that before… meaning both you and _____ have in the past asked me for instruction, etc but it was not followed thru.
So if your email represents a sincere desire to be a devotee of Kṛṣṇa, then the first step is to stay where you are and take shelter on the holy name of Kṛṣṇa. Here is a quote from Śrīla Prabhupāda:
“The process of chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra with a vow before the tulasī plant has such great spiritual potency that simply by doing this one can become spiritually strong.”
This means to chant non-stop at least 16 rounds everyday in the morning in front of tulasī. This takes about 2 hours. That is the minimum time spent with the japa-mālā to assure that one is attempting to seriously take shelter of the holy name. Anything less than that is NOT a serious attempt.
So everyday you should sit with tulasī and chant the holy name 16 attentive rounds. No disturbances while chanting. Then everyday you should ONLY eat food offered to Kṛṣṇa. And then you should devote at least 30 minutes or 1 hour everyday to reading our books. I doubt at this stage that you could answer even the most fundamental questions about Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy.
I also doubt that any of you kids know even 3 Sanskrit ślokas or maybe you don’t even know all the praṇāma-ślokas for your guru. In other words, besides just vaguely believing in Kṛṣṇa and eating prasādam when it is convenient, you haven’t really done much in this life to qualify yourself as a devotee of Kṛṣṇa, much less as a DISCIPLE!
Take what I have said above about chanting seriously and when I get to ___ in December we can talk further. If you are chanting, reading, learning some ślokas etc, as I have directed then at least I think you will be able to answer my first question – “Do you actually want to be a disciple and a devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa?”
Your call.
SN
