Poem for Jul 12



Japa Poem

I remember in 1966 I once walked out of a kirtana engagement we devotees held at a public hall. I wasn’t yet committed to being a devotee, to restricting my association solely to devotees. I walked out of the building and wandered into the streets of the Lower East Side, observing the lights and the people. But then I felt a strong sense of estrangement from everything in the streets and a pull to go back and join my new devotee friends. I walked back to the hall and met them just as they were leaving. They joked with me about my walking out, but welcomed me back to their group. That was maybe the last time I did anything like that. From then on, I always stayed exclusively within the ISKCON group.

You want to be on the side of good and free of maya. Some taints remain until you are perfectly pure. By hearing and chanting, which are pious acts, Krishna in the heart works to cleanse out the remaining dirt. Prabhupada once said, “When you are seventy-five percent pure, you can go back to Godhead.” He said that immediately after saying you had to be a hundred percent pure. Krishna decides.

(_Japa Transformations_)

JAPA POEM

I recall a time in 1966 when I walked out
from an engagement
with the devotees, but then
had the good conscience
to rejoin them. “By
hearing and chanting . . . Krishna
cleans out the remaining dirt.”
Prabhupada once said a devotee
has to be 100% pure
to go back to Godhead.
The devotees became dejected.
He then revised his statement:
75%
and the devotees became encouraged.