John, the Baptist Minister,
came yesterday, Friday. His usual day.
In his private talk with me,
he expressed that he is realizing
that japa is the foundation for
Krishna consciousness.
He has increased his rounds from 4,
then 8, and now he is chanting 12.
He says for the next week, he is
determined to increase the quota
to 16 rounds.
I am very impressed with his progress.
He also quoted a line of mine
from one of my books. I stated
that I wanted to bring the mantra
down from the mind into the heart,
as the Hesychasts do.
Then I wrote: “But where is that mind?
Where is that heart?”
He said that when he read those lines
he felt they were personally directed
to him. He keeps a notebook of
quotes and notations from
reading Prabhupada’s books and
my books. After our talk,
he went downstairs to cook lunch
from a recipe in the diabetic
vegetarian cookbook. Kirtan Rasa
was also present. Ananda Kishor’s wife,
Linda, read from the _Srimad-Bhagavatam_
Tenth Canto, while we honored our meal.
It was a very nice occasion. After the reading
it broke up into informal talk.