My vow for Kartika
So Kartika is the time to tighten up the loose screws of all the loose ends and to bring it back to the real standard. Kartika! This is our chance- one month! Only one month- of course after that month it becomes a habit! Habits are like that; that if you do something for one month then it’s easy to keep on doing it. So in this way we can take so much advantage- simple things. I thought my main objective is meditation in this month, to increase my remembrance of Krsna and to increase my service both in quantity and quality. And I thought especially I’ll focus on quality because quantity is not so easy. Already there is so much to do in a day, already such a hectic life, how much more can I physically manage? And I don’t want Kartika to become a total stress situation where I’m just doing these very intense vows, the kind of vows that drive me to the edge and that at the end of the month- if I make it till the end- I just hate Kartika and may be even Krsna! Not that, not that. So, no, I will not make it a month full of stress. Therefore I thought, no, this year I will not do something huge, I will not take one really big vow, I thought that I have a different strategy- I’ll take many little one’s! And also Krsna gave me some idea about chanting. I thought I’m going to chant extra rounds but I’m not going to fix it that every day I must chant so many extra rounds but I’ll just fix a number for the whole month and then I can adjust you know. Like, I’ll have my busy days and I’ll chant less and on days that I have the opportunity I’ll chant more and in this way it averages out. And in this way I’ll survive and I’m still chanting extra rounds. I thought it was a good idea! Really!
And then I thought, many small things…Yes, I’ll read something; I thought every night I will read 5 minutes something about Krsna, Krsna book- 5 minutes about Krsna a night. That’s nice. It’s not a big ‘wow wow’- big Kartika vow. But it’s one of those things that you know is nice but that you just get slack in these kind of things. You know that it is a nice thing to do, but you know…it’s just one thing that you don’t do! But I said, no in this month of Kartik I will do. So many such things…I will not tell you everything that I’m going to do but I told you this much just to kind of inspire everyone of how we can do something. It’s still early enough; after this lecture you can quickly jot down a few things that you’re going to do this month. Just a few things, like that. And if we do that, if we really do it…that’s the thing, you must do it. Don’t say, ‘I will do it’ and then don’t do it- do it, do it for that month! So such a change, you’ll be surprised! You’ll surprise yourself! Really! You’ll find that your Krsna consciousness would have so much increased just from one month like this practising in the month of Kartika.
Full transcsript
(KKSwami, October 2009, Durban, SA)
