The essence of all advice.

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

Source:http://www.dandavats.com/?p=35365

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  • So true. I am reading lila amrita Prabupada ji's biography and feel so lucky that I can get messages from desire tree right in my inbox. Like a blessing in my inbox. All I have to do is select the type of bhakti I would like to associate with. I also see people around me who are perfect in their jobs. Due to hard work, putting many years, interacting with many people. People become perfect in whatever they put their mind to. I see bhakti as the in the same way, the only difference is that it is permanent, the truth and once you reach that stage you don't need other people to tell you how good you are, you have that feeling inside you where no other feeling is needed. The feeling of interacting with the supreme.
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