Bringing It Home

What can you do to insure that you take advantage of these lessons as well as continue to improve your japa?

Improving japa is an ongoing process. Utilizing the tools in this course (and the many other tools offered in The Japa Workshop) is meant to continue throughout your life. If you do this, you will gradually realize dimensions to the holy name you never knew existed.

Many devotees believe that if they focus on improving their rounds, and make good japa a priority, they can improve their japa to the point that they can consistently chant good rounds. They are right.

There are, however, other devotees who doubt they can consistently chant good rounds. These devotees don’t make much effort to follow the principles and practices outlined in this course. They don’t believe that they can actually improve their japa that much.

Why?

They fear that their bad japa habits are so deeply engrained that any attempt to improve or change will only be temporary. Again they will fall back into their old habits. The problem with devotees who think this way is that they are also right! No one is going to improve much if they maintain these kinds of fears.

If we focus on what we don’t want, what we are afraid might happen, then this is what tends to happen. On the contrary, if we focus on our goals, on what we would like to achieve, that is what tends to happen.

What kind of japa would you like to achieve? If you had a wish fulfilling tree that could offer you whatever kind of japa you wanted (in terms of quality and experience), what would it look like? This is what you should meditate on and pray for rather than focus on how bad you think your japa will remain.

Even though you may have chanted poorly for years, you can change this by following the guidelines in these courses (and the other workshops I give) and, most importantly, being determined to improve.

With this kind of determination and effort, Kṛṣṇa will give you a special taste for the holy name. Kṛṣṇa responds to your efforts. It is by your effort that you attract His mercy, and it is by His mercy that you advance.

Hare Kṛṣṇa,
Mahatma Das