How can we overcome laziness, especially wrt waking up in the morning?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. How can we overcome laziness while practicing devotional life? Especially in terms of waking up in the morning and general laziness also.
Answer. Laziness can be because of three different causes and we have to address them accordingly. First is physically.
If we are not providing enough rest for our body, then it is natural that we will feel lazy and not want to do much activity. So different people may need different amounts of rest. Some people may need 5-5.5 hours.
Most people may need around 6 hours. Some people may need 7 hours. That will vary.
So over a period of time we come to know how much is the rest that we regularly need. And once we understand that, then we have to make sure that we do give ourselves that much rest so that we are rejuvenated. If we are expecting that we will be able to do with less rest than what we now actually need, then we are making our life unnecessarily difficult and miserable.
So first of all, make sure that we do get enough rest and that will make sure that physically there is no reason for us to be inactive and lazy. Secondly, the laziness is also caused not just by physical circumstances, but it can also be caused by psychological incompatibilities. When we are asked or expected to do things which we just don’t like to do, we have no interest in doing those things, but we are forced to do those things.
Then at that time, the instinctive self-defense mechanism of the mind is that it becomes super lazy. It’s like if a child doesn’t want to go somewhere and is forced to go, then the child drags its feet along. Child doesn’t want to go and the parents have to pull.
A child is trying to hold back and is pulling. So then the progress is very slow. So like that our mind drags its feet and we can’t move forward.
So if we are having that situation where we are told to do things which we are not interested in, then we have two options. Either is that we change our situation so that we do activities which we are interested in. And the whole principle of Varanashram of engaging people according to their Varna was that people get to do the things that they’re interested in.
A Brahmana is interested in study. A Vaishya is interested in money. A Shudra is interested in physical work.
So people when they’re engaged according to their natures, then the psychological tendency to drag the feet becomes much lesser because one likes to do those things. So now in today’s situation it’s not always possible for everybody to have a job which they like to do. But still it is not feasible if one is doing something in which one has no interest at all.
So either one has to do something which interests one or one has to cultivate interest in what one is doing. So that cultivating interest can come by seeing connections. So if the laziness is about our spiritual life, then we can think about how we can interest ourselves in what we are doing.
So we can think of whatever we are doing, how it is going to benefit us, how it is going to benefit others and contemplate on it and write it down and periodically read it. So for example, if we feel lazy about waking up in the morning, then we can write down how it is, why is it important to wake up in the morning. The Brahma Murtha is such auspicious period.
I have written an article here about on this website called morning is the best time for moving our heart to Krishna. So physically there are less people who are likely to interrupt us. Emotionally there are less things that are pulling at us.
Do this, do this, do that. And spiritually, the Brahma Murtha is a very conducive time for receiving Krishna in the form of Shabda Brahma as a divine sound. So like that we can contemplate for various activities.
I am just giving an example for the morning program. But for other activities also one can contemplate how one can strengthen oneself, why one should be doing what one is doing. So the intellectual conviction, now we may have to hear it sometime and remember it.
But afterwards we may forget it. And especially when the mind is making us lethargic, at that time if we forget it, so at that time we are more likely to forget it. That’s why writing it down and keeping it available for quick reference is important.
Because then we can use our intelligence to fight the tendencies of the mind. So that way we increase our appreciation for what we are doing and get the desire to do it. And beyond that a third factor for laziness could just be the influence of the moods.
Tamoguna can make us lethargic. So at that time we have to fight the influence of the mood by distancing ourselves from the mind’s emotions. So just like sometimes when we see some friend who is suddenly becomes, he snaps at us and we understand oh this person is in a bad mood today.
So we have to separate the mood of that person from that person actually and similarly we understand that okay whatever lethargy I am feeling, if I have adequate rest, if overall I like what I am doing or at least I know that I value its importance and therefore I am ready to do it and still I am feeling lazy about it. Then I have to recognize that this is simply the influence of Tamoguna and Tam’s Diksha Subhava, tolerate it and get over it. So how do we get the strength to tolerate it? Generally speaking if we say example if waking up in the morning is concerned then we can try to plan our day by which we as soon as we wake up we do something which we like to do for at least a few minutes.
For example you know hearing some Kirtan or singing some song or doing something relishable like that which we look forward to which may take only a few minutes but if we keep that as the starting of the day then we have something to look forward to when we wake up and it’s always very helpful to pray to Krishna for help. So the previous actions that we do by all this we are showing Krishna that we want his help and along with that when we pray to Krishna specifically that also helps us to get his empowerment by which we can overpower the influence of laziness. So by giving ourselves adequate rest physically by doing work that interests us psychologically or creating interest in the work that we are doing and by recognizing that the mode of ignorance is influencing us and distancing ourselves from it and doing some activity which gives us a higher taste by which we can fight off the influence of the modes and also through prayer getting the strength to fight off the modes we can combat and conquer laziness.
Thank you.