In our backyard garden, we installed an automatic watering system invented in Israel. Hoses run underground throughout the garden and, extending from them, smaller tubes tipped with color-coded nozzles terminate near the roots of each plant. The color-coded nozzles deliver a specific amount of water appropriate for each plant.
With this automatic “drip system” in place my plants thrive. They always get the water they need even as I keep up with other duties in my life.
In a similar way, expert spiritual gardens install drip systems in their bhakti gardens, making sure that they systematically get “sravanadi jal,” the nourishing waters of hearing and chanting about Krsna regularly, every day.
In the Upadesamrta, Srila Rupa Goswami recommends that we organize our daily lives around methodically hearing and chanting:
“The essence of all advice is that one should utilize one’s full time—twenty-four hours a day—in nicely chanting and remembering the Lord’s divine name, transcendental form, qualities and eternal pastimes, thereby gradually engaging one’s tongue and mind …” (NOI 8)
To take advantage of Rupa Goswami’s advice, progressive bhakti gardeners take the time to custom design their hearing and chanting watering systems.
Some keep diaries of their daily progress while others meticulously plan their hearing and chanting schedules far in advance. Some daily read a set number of verses, chapters, pages, or astakams. Others like to perform their practices at the same times each day.
When a devotee’s hearing and chanting becomes an unshakable, daily habit, she can be sure that her watering system is nicely in place.
Bhakti gardeners who use a hearing and chanting drip system soon get intimate knowledge of sastra, gain spiritual strength, develop unwavering faith and become invaluable sources of shelter for others.
Have you installed a spiritual drip system in your bhakti garden?
Vaisesika Das
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