How to chant early in the morning?

Nuria, 26 April, 2019

Hare Krishna

Please accept my humble obeisances

All glories to Srila Prabhupada

I ask guidance to the group for a personal advice on the spiritual journey of Krsna consciousness. Sometimes I have doubts and I feel guilty for every mistake…I am quite new in Krsna consciousness but sometimes I wake up in the early morning and I feel shy. I would like to get up to start chanting but somehow my body is stucked and there is a struggle with the mind so I cannot move. What to do? I tried to relax and breath but it seems it does not work…

Hare Krsna

Nuria

Sudarshan Das, 26 April 2019

Hare Krishna Nuria,

Sorry to see that your sincere question got missed.

I had a similar feeling and got the opportunity to ask the same question to Srila Gurudev in-person when He was giving a lecture in Vrindavan. He replied saying that it was a good sign. If you feel guilty of the mistakes then you are for sure progressing in Bhakti. If you feel fear of the mistakes done and feel bad inside then that means that you are managed to purify yourself to an extent where the false ego is going down, the ego which makes us feel that we have not done any mistake 🙂 So congratulations. What is important to realize is that the process of chanting has helped us reach so far. This is despite the fact that we don’t chant without offenses and not full of love. So, we should not get demotivated and try to chant more both in quantity and quality. Just imagine how much more progress can we make by doing so.

your Servant,

Sudarshan Das

Bhakta Sunil, 9 May 2019

Hare Krishna Prabhu

The point about early morning waking for chanting is in the wonderful audio, in the question-answer part, at the following link : http://www.ultimateselfrealization.com/Lectures/2018/2018.01.10_SB.5.5.1_Toronto_Canada.mp3

Hope this helps

Sincerely,

Bhakta Sunil

Mahabhagavat Das SDA , 11 May 2019

Dear Mother Nuria,

Hare Krishna!

Great question and great answers too!

Having doubts means you are a jiva, congratulations. Feeling guilty means you know you have made a mistake, so that meter is also working. The test is, “is this increasing my desire to hear/chant/read about Krishna, serve Krishna’s devotees, or is this decreasing my desire”. If it is increasing, it is good, if is decreasing, it is not good for us – we should ignore it.

Personally, for me, I always have trouble rising early in the morning whenever I have done one or more of these things:

1. Eaten too much too late at night before going to bed. What is the optimal time varies from person to person, for me it is eating less than 2 hours before going to bed

2. Going to bed too late at night – again this is a personal thing, but anything past 10 PM for me tends to reduce the efficacy of morning meditation

3. Planning to rise too late – the recommendation is to rise well before sunrise. Rising too late clouds my consciousness with “do this do that read this send that remind so-and-so, etc.”, all necessary, but not while I’m chanting

4. Not getting enough rest. I need around 6-7 hours of rest every night – I can push on for 3-4 nights with less rest but after that I start to decline in my ability to function

5. Been too active, either with a lot of people or with computers, Internet, social media, or even preaching before going to bed. I tend to sleep better with a quiet zone between the end of my day and the start of bed-time, usually with reading about Krishna, hearing a class about Krishna, or reading about Krishna

6. I have failed to pray the previous night – something like “My dear Krishna, I have come to this material world trying to usurp your position. Now I realize how foolish I am, but tomorrow morning, in the grip of sleep, I may not realize this. Please save me, please protect me, please allow me to come back to you by chanting your Holy Names”

Over the years I have evolved all sorts of rituals to help me chant – perhaps you should evolve your own, no hard-and-fast rules, just doing more of whatever makes chanting better and doing less of whatever makes chanting worse.

I hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Mahabhagavat Das

dasadas.com

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