I would say that in our movement, one of the great causes why devotees are becoming dry in their spiritual practices is because they don’t get absorbed in reading. Because you see, chanting is something you do because we measure it- 16 rounds- so it is sort of very clear. But we don’t do like one hour of…we don’t vow one hour reading, we just don’t vow it. So we don’t give it the same urgency but it practically has the same urgency. It’s very important- very, very important. If we are not reading, guarantee it that everything will become stale. This reading has the capacity to just sort of change our whole vision back to transcendental. So it’s very important and many devotees will say to you, “I use to read much more before I joined than after…” many devotees would say that, many would agree to that. So we should somehow or other struggle; one has to struggle. I understand that circumstances, the culture in which we live in is not favorable for us but we have to struggle and do it. It’s important, it really is important. And if you have so much service that you never have time to read, then maybe it’s time to speak to the senior vaisnavas and say, “I have so much service, I never have time to read. Please give me the time…” of course I know that when you get that little time then you fall asleep within two minutes. But I knew one devotee then who was really fired up and he had a little bucket with a sponge… and he became very learned! He did! He used to be cleaning with one hand and with the other he was learning slokas! So he was definitely…of course he has glasses now, that’s for sure, that’s what you also get from too much reading but it looks intellectual!(HH KKS, April '08, Amsterdam)
