(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Melbourne, Australia, October 2011)
(Transcribed by Smita Krishna Devi Dasi)
Some things we have to fix, not just a quota but may also be the time. Some say:
‘Ok! I chant everyday at this time.’
That we fix and you build your life around it, so it does not mean for example, if you say:
‘Every day I chant from five to seven in the morning.’
Some days you will be exhausted obviously but you already knew that the night before you were exhausted. So if we need extra rest then let’s put it before Five o’clock and not after Five o’clock.
We keep that Five to Seven as a sacred time so that nothing can touch it.
The result is that we built our strength over the years but if one day you chant sixteen rounds here and next day you chant it there, it is also the sixteen rounds but it will not have the same momentum, it will not have same power, and it’s not a matter of:
‘I am not just speaking about determination, if it was only a matter of determination, then I am going to chant those sixteen rounds from Five to seven, I shall, and so on.’
I have a story for you:
It is a story about Karna, and we may remember how Karna was the son of Kunti and was given up at birth and put in a basket, which floated down the river. So a chariot driver found him and therefore he was not considered a ksatriya and it was very painful for Karna, because by nature he was very much a ksatriya, so he was refused by Dronacarya, who would not accept him.
As a student he finally went to Parasurama who was the ultimate warrior but Parasurama was against the ksatriyas. So Parasurama enquired from him:
‘So are you a ksatriya?’
And for the first time in his life with pleasure he could say:
‘No I am not a ksatriya.’
So he was accepted by Parasurama as a student and he served him very nicely and learnt everything. Parasurama was very pleased with him.
One day the Guru was resting with his head on the leg of his disciple, just then this nasty insect (some sort of insect with the drill on his nose) came and sat down on Karna’s leg (the leg where the head of his Guru was resting) and he started systematically drilling serious hole in his leg and blood started gushing out and Karna didn’t know what to do, since his Guru was sleeping on his leg. He just bit his teeth, sat there tolerated the whole thing and never moved. He did not even flex his muscles, so Parasurama slept very nicely and woke up after some time then he saw the blood on the leg of Karna and asked:
‘What is this?’
Then Karna replied:
‘Oh while you were sleeping this insect attacked me and stung me in the leg.’
Then Parasurama smelt a ksatriya and he said:
‘You know how you could tolerate this? No ordinary person could tolerate such a thing, you are ksatriya, you have cheated me and you have stolen all this knowledge from me but I curse you that at the time you need it most, you will forget!’
Okay so you remember the story now, it’s very interesting because we are dealing with the determination of ksatriya and that Parasurama recognised the determination of a ksatriya and the tolerance of a ksatriya. That tolerance of ksatriya was greater than the tolerance of brahmana in the moment, but not in the long run. In the long run the tolerance and determination of the brahmana is greater, because in the long run brahmana does it with knowledge. So he sees no alternative:
‘What else shall I do?’
But ksatriya does not understand like that, ksatriya just thinks:
‘I shall do it. I am going to do it and somehow or other I will do so.’
If we in our chanting have that kind of mood:
‘I shall chant every day from five to seven.’ 
Then the result is that we will not be well; we will get tired after some time; we will run out of steam, but the brahmana remains refreshed because his knowledge is there, his understanding is there:
‘This is the best thing I can do.’
Therefore when I say we fix it between five and seven I don’t mean it in a stressful way based on:
‘I must I shall and so on.’
But just on understanding if I do this everyday then my chanting will become very strong and powerful, then it will have much more potency so I can just chant here and there!
