Regulated routines are boring...

Ever feel like its just absolutely impossible to get to bed at a decent hour so that you can wake up early in the morning and chant some really good quality rounds?

I'm sure every aspiring devotee has gone through that phase. And that's exactly what it is for some...a phase. But for others (shudder!) it seems like a way of life that they desperately want to change but can't! Or perhaps you don't even belong to that category but belong to the category of "But that means I need to have a regulated routine and that's boring!"

Well....I belong to a bit of all three! For sometime I was quite regulated and even when I was living in Toronto managed to wake up at 4:30am and get at least 12 rounds done before heading off to school. That lasted about 2 months and then I got heavily involved in service and I started going to sleep later and later and later and sometimes got no sleep at all!

Then this horrible thought came into my head and implanted itself there for awhile. "Having a regulated schedule is so boring and it makes one so rigid and unbending. It means that one has to give up service opportunities and just BLAH!" LOL!

Coming to Mayapur, I go to sleep most nights latest 9pm, on average I go to sleep at 8pm! I have NEVER gone to sleep so early in my life! EVER! Sometimes I feel like I've regressed to being a 1 year old or fastforwarded to 80.

But its amazing. By going to sleep so early, I wake up like clock work at 3:30am. This allows me to get ready by 4-4:15am and get some rounds done before mangala aarti. And my biggest worry about boring- YAH RIGHT! Everyday is new and ever-fresh. Each mangala aarti is so unique, each darshan aarti, each Bhagavatam class and each day's events.

Regularity really also does wonders for one's consciousness. One has direct experience of being able to distinguish the mind's crazy demands and use the intelligence to curb its (the mind's) wild antics.

Of course there is always the argument, "But it's so much easier being in the holy dham." Yes, that is definitely true. But there are so many wonderful examples of devotees worldwide in huge metropolitan cities that lead regulated lives. We can take inspiration from all of them. Without good rounds and without regular hearing of Srimad Bhagavatam it's scary to think where our consciousness will be.

So regularity = boring? Not really. It's all a matter of consciousness. I choose to think regularity = a means of preparing my consciousness to think of Krishna as much as possible during the day.