One method of allowing Srila Prabhupada's books to help us become devotees is by aspiring his devotees of attitude. Devotees have an eagerness to hear the Bhagavatam in itself favorable, because eagerness is added to inspirational reading of Krishna.

Sri Krishna, the Personality of Godhead, who is the Paramatma in everyone's heart and the benefactor of the truthful devotee, cleanses desire for material enjoyment from the heart of the devotee who has developed the urge to hear His messages, which are in themselves virtuous when properly heard and chanted. The goal of prayerful reading is less an intellectual gathering of information and more an attempt to allow scriptures to affect us.

It is an attempt to gain association, to listen carefully to Krishna's message, to let potent transcendental words sink deeply into the core of our consciousness. When reading in this way, you will not attempt to read a specific quantity. That goal is superseded by a desire for depth of purification through associating with Srila Prabhupada, our acaryas, and Sri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Even a small step toward such a lofty goal requires a correct attitude when approaching the book.

An essential attitudinal element is to approach Srila Prabhupada's books as being non different from Srila Prabhupada. When he returned to Sri Vrindavana Dhama in ill health in 1977, he gravely said, "So there is nothing to be said new. Whatever I have to speak, I have spoken in my books. Now you try to understand it and continue your endeavor." Prabhupada once said that he would never die but would live forever in his books.

In addition, Krishna Himself is fully present within the Bhagavatam. Indeed, the sages of Naimisharanya asked, "Since Sri Krishna, the Absolute Truth, the master of all mystic powers, has departed for His own abode, please tell us to whom the religious principles have now gone for shelter." Srila Suta Gosvami replied, "This Bhagavata Purana is as brilliant as the sun, and it has arisen just after the departure of Lord Krishna to His own abode, accompanied by religion, knowledge, etc. Persons who have lost their vision due to the dense darkness of ignorance in the age of Kali shall get light from this Purana."

Another specific description here is shrinvan bhagavato 'bhikshnam avatara-kathamritam. It is not that because one has once finished the Bhagavad- gita he should not hear it again. The word abhikshnam is very important. We should hear again and again. There is no question of stopping: even if one has read these topics many times, he should go on reading again and again because bhagavat- katha, the words spoken by Krishna and spoken by Krishna's devotees about Krishna, are amritam, nectar. The more one drinks this amritam, the more he advances in his eternal life.

In the shastras there are so many narrations describing the transcendental activities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and everyone should hear them again and again. For example, even if we read the entire Bhagavad-gita every day, all eighteen chapters, in each reading we shall find a new explanation. That is the nature of transcendental literature.