Commitment

You need commitment! So to be committed you need to be focused. You can’t get chanting, you can’t get hearing, you can’t get desire, you can’t get serving, you can’t get any of it unless you’re committed to do so. That means we put our attention—we consciously become committed and focused on getting those things. And when you’re the strongest in Krishna consciousness, you’re committed and committed means, “I’m going to do it. Whoever I am, at this moment, I’m going to do this and nothing’s going to get in my way of doing it.” That’s how you chant your rounds; that’s how you relish kirtan; that’s how you do anything from waking up to going to sleep. You become committed. Srila Prabhupada came to the west in his last years, but on the order of his Guru Maharaja. He could not have done what he did if he was not cent-per-cent committed to following the instructions of his Guru Maharaja. Anything that you do in Krishna consciousness that becomes powerful is because you’re committed to doing it. If you don’t get behind commitment, it won’t be done. You can go on someone else’s coattails for a while, but that isn’t what self-realization is about. Somebody else’s self-realization is not your self-realization. Your self-realization is self, it’s Krishna in your heart, and the only way you get there is by commitment first. And the next thing is follow-through. What you’re committed to do, you do. You don’t just say, “I’m committed,” and it’s over. It means constant follow through. So today at this moment these are the things that I’m thinking are some of the most powerful tools you can use in your spiritual life, and it’s what Prabhupada came here to do: to give people a taste of Krishna consciousness and give them a sense of commitment to do it. Start thinking about it in this way. In everything you do, whether you’re speaking to someone, or hearing someone, or reading, or chanting, or serving a devotee, or singing the prayers of Bhaktivinoda Thakur–become committed to being fully engrossed in that activity. That commitment will bring us to consciousness, and consciousness will bring us to real access to Krishna consciousness. Otherwise, there are more or less just shades of dullness. And we do it without feeling, and without commitment and focus. You don’t become physically fit by vegetating; you become physically fit by movement of that muscle. So commitment is something that just by doing it, you get more strength. By chanting you get more strength, just over and over and over.