“The key word here is responsibility. Conditioned souls are lazy. They have an inborn tendency not to accept responsibility. Specifically there is a tendency in the conditioned soul not to accept responsibility for his spiritual growth, for improving himself. A person may be busy, busy, busy, doing so many tasks, putting in a 70-hour week, but if by doing so he avoids the work of improving himself, or refining his character, he is lazy.

One symptom of such a person is that when he succeeds at something he thinks, “I did it.” But when he fails he thinks, “Someone did it to me. I am a victim”. This mindset will not make anyone successful on the path of perfection. One way to determine whether you have taken responsibility for your life or not is to take inventory. If you find that you blame someone else for your failings or setbacks, you are not yet a responsible person. You are not a responsible person until you can say to yourself, “I am cent-percent responsible for who I am and all I have done in my life up to today and it is my choice what I will make of my life from this day on,” and mean it. Once you have accepted responsibility like this, you are ready to move away from being a victim. Your are ready to be a success in life, even if by all all other counts you fail.

This kind of thinking is not an artificial imposition. It’s not a psychological trip. It’s reality. You alone are responsible for all you are and where you are in life. What you have made of your life and your karma is entirely your doing and what you make of your future is also a matter of your choice. In the end, you cannot blame your parents, your kids, your spouse, your teachers, your guru, your temple president, the GBC, or anyone else for the outcome of your life. You will stand or fall solely on your merits of lack of them. No one will take the stand and be judged in your place. Either you took advantage of the human form of life or you blew it. In that case better luck in your next life.

But next life you can get caught up in the same useless “I-am-a-victim” trip again under the spell of the modes of nature. It can be tricky. How many lifetimes are you prepared to go on like this? Until you accept full responsibility for what you make your life and take a stand, you can take birth over and over and do the same useless program of laying blame elsewhere for lifetimes. What’s the use? Why not shake off all this ignorance in this life, tighten your belt face the music? Make a decision that no matter what, I am going to mold my life to Krishna consciousness. This is success thinking in spiritual life.

Such success goes only to those who accept full responsibility and who make a firm, non-negotiable, non-retractable decision to do whatever it takes to become Krishna conscious. Starting today. Starting this minute. This willingness to do whatever it takes includes understanding clearly what is mixed devotional service and what is pure devotional service and having the willingness to do the work of discriminating between the two."