Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura has made a reversal of the ten offenses and taken them all in a positive way. As an example, instead of the first offense being, “Don’t blaspheme devotees,” he says you should always be happy when you see the devotees. I haven’t achieved all his positive reversals. I don’t chant fully from the heart. I don’t manifest any bodily symptoms of ecstasy. So I still chant out of duty, not spontaneity . . . Don’t be disappointed, but don’t think you have reached the stage of bhava. Keep chanting like a workhorse. “Giddy-up!”
O pitiful chanter, when will you reach the grace of ecstatic mantras in the footsteps of the acaryas, who have won this race? When will you chant with happy face?(_Japa Transformations_)
Please give me
a happy grateful heart
to accept whatever You
give and to work
for You in whatever capacity I have,
to preach Your message
give me a tongue to
chant Your holy names
and I will give You my
guarantee to try my best
to give You loving service.
All my day, all my
remaining months in
this life and all the future and all
the future . . . whatever it is.
I guarantee . . . I hereby
pledge and accept
the guarantee that
comes upon
my death to live with
it in blissful surrender.
(_Soul Eyes_)