Why do we feel sleepy during chanting but not kirtan or prasad?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Why is it that during chanting we feel sleepy, but not during kirtan or not during prasad? Yeah, that’s because the mind doesn’t find chanting that interesting. Basically the mind always looks for the path of least resistance.
So whatever activity you are doing, the mind just looks for the path of least resistance. So now if something is interesting, the mind goes towards that. So for example kirtan, there is Krishna, but there is also music, there is also maybe dancing, singing.
So what happens? Because of the music, because of the singing, because of dancing, the mind gets some things by which it can get stimulated. Then prasad, then there is food. Whatever level of consciousness we aspire for, all of us have the level of consciousness of food.
So it’s very easy. It’s almost, so many times when we are tired, but it is very rare when somebody is tired, I want to sleep, you offer them food. No, I am so tired, I will take food afterwards.
I want to sleep now. It’s rare. It happens sometimes, but it’s very rare.
So actually much of the tiredness that we feel is not physical tiredness, it’s mental tiredness. Sometimes it can be physical also, but often it may be mental. So what we need to do when the mind tends to doze off is, we have to find some stimulation to keep the mind.
So if you feel like sleeping, you can stand up, you can walk. Or we can give the mind some other intellectual or devotional stimulation. You can give a picture of Krishna in front of us.
We can have the Hare Krishna Mahamantra written in front of us. Or we can have some words glorifying the holy name. We can have some thought about the importance of the holy name.
And basically stimulate the mind. So when the mind is purified, at that time the mind will realize that Krishna and his holy name are not different. And at that time the holy name itself will be the stimulation.
At our stage, we don’t see the holy name as Krishna. And that’s why we don’t feel stimulated in the presence of the holy name. So then we have to find out some other stimulation that will keep us awake and aware.
So without the stimulation, the mind says, oh this chanting is going on, what can I do now? Just go to sleep. That’s the path of least resistance it appears to be. So when there is stimulation, then the mind is ready to resist its default tendency and do something which involves a little application.
So we need to create some stimulation. That’s why many times before chanting, we hear a little bit or contemplate a little bit about the glory of the holy name. And that gives us some intellectual stimulation.
And then we can resist the mind when it goes off on the path of least resistance.