Title: How to Deal With Boredom?

User: Neil LA Date: 2007-06-16 00:12:10

 

Nityananda! Gauranga! Hare Krishna!

All Glories to Swami Gaurangapada, the Gurus and the Vaishnavas!

 

I have reached the place in my practice that always seems to come after a couple of months.

 

I try to chant and I must say that I get absolutely no taste of it.

 

Its gotten to a place where I find chanting at all to be excruciatingly boring and I'm not sure how to get through it.

 

At this point, I've stopped chanting and am thinking about returning to other spiritual practices that I've done. But I know that those too will get boring and I will want to go back to chanting after a month or two.

 

This feels like a vicious circle for me and I don't think I can make any real spiritual progress until I am able to choose a practice and stick with it.

 

I've never been able to stay with one practice for longer than a few months and all my life I've been switching back and forth.

 

Any suggestions that Swami Gaurangapada or other members of the group can make would be valued

 

Thank you,

 

Neil

 

Title: Re: How to Deal With Boredom?

User: Damodara Svarupa dasa      Date: 2007-06-16 11:54:23

 

Nityananda, Gauranga, Hare Krishna!

Jaya guru parampara, jaya Swamiji Gaurangapada!

Dandavats to all the Vaishnavas.

 

Dear Neil,

 

If chanting your rounds feels more like a tedious mechanical process, and you feel no real progress (what is this anyway?) and you feel the need to switch to some other practice, well, it gives me the impression that your mind has taken control again and is looking for yet another way to enjoy itself...  Perhaps an article on mindfulness might help you out, as it will show you how our mind plays various dirty tricks on us. Perhaps you want to accomplish too much in too little time?  Give yourself the time and try some reading. If this is hard, well try listening to various lectures, bhajans, courses, narrations...  Or look again at the videos which Swamiji has published recently. Try chanting half of your rounds, but this time fully focussed, with full concentration. The taste for the Name is our spiritual thermometer. So dear Neil, I hope these words bring you some insight and some happiness as well. I'll pray for you...

 

Humbly trying to serve the Holy Names,

Damodara Svarupa dasa

 

Title: Re: How to Deal With Boredom?

User: Swami Gaurangapada Date: 2007-06-16 16:41:15

 

Nityananda! Gauranga! Hare Krishna! Jaya Guru Parampara! Pranams  and Blessings ! That's your test Neil. These testing times where we have a lack of spiritual taste are a good chance to show our sincerity and determination to Lord Gauranga Krishna. It is our chance to show Him, we are chanting to please Him only, even if our consciousness is not enlivened. If we please Him in this way, then there will surely be a miracle and we will progress to the next higher step in Bhakti and Naama Bhajana where we will get so much spiritual taste which we never had before. We just have to stick to it. One life is nothing.

 

Regarding pratical tips, Damodara Svarupa dasa has given some nice ones. I also suggest you watch the nice devotional Gaudiya vaishnava videos for a few hours daily for a few days and you will get back the taste. Spiritual videos have a very effective power to rejuvenate our spiritual endeavors.

 

Daaso'smi, Swami Gaurangapada.

 

Title: Re: How to Deal With Boredom?

User: hadai   Date: 2007-06-16 19:27:49

 

Nityananda! Gauranga! Hare Krishna!

All glories to Srila Prabhupada. All glories to Srila Gaurangapada. All glories to the Guru parampara. All glories to Sri Sri Radha Krishna!

 

Dear Neil,

 

All the sincere Vaisnavas will never give up on you. It is like a father or a mother to their child who is learning to walk. Is he or she ever to give up when the child falls over and over again? No their love for their child is unbounded and persistent. In the same way our Lordships will never give up on you, neither will the Vaisnavas who represent Them.

 

It seems to me that your life is driven by emotions. You go up and down like a yo-yo. You love chanting. You find it boring. You want to increase your rounds. You want to decrease it. You want to be a Vaisnava. You want to be something else. At least you do recognize the pattern. Now reflect a bit deeper on yourself. When a child of 1 year old and is falling and walking it抯 normal development but when the child is 10 years old and it is still learning to walk it needs special attention.

 

The yo-yo character of the emotion driven mind can be controlled by the use of intelligence. I strongly advise you to read attentively the holy literature like the Sri Chaitanya Bhagavata before you chant. When you would read just one verse and meditate on that during chanting how can you be bored? How can you miss the transcendental nectar in the Holy Names? Only when you don抰 contemplate while you are chanting and when you outwardly murmur the Names without any attempt of inner connection. Again this requires intelligence. You have to establish an inner connection with the Holy Names by reading sufficient holy literature. This is a part of (spiritually) growing up. Somebody else can not do that for you. They can assist you, give you direction, encourage you when you fall, but it is you, and only you, who has to stand up. Nobody else can walk your life. You have to take 100% responsibility.

 

Please understand I am not blaming you. We all have a wiggly and wobbly mind. We all have to deal with it. We all can become totally overweighed when we eat too much. But some people actually become overweighed and some do not. What is the difference? Discipline! The emotional driven mind doesn抰 like discipline. It wants to act on every wimp. But with your intelligence you can tame the uncontrolled mind. And what is that intelligence? Following in the footsteps of those who have done it before you. Our Acharyas and all the sincere Vaisnava devotees are living examples of how to control the mind, how to properly chant the Holy Names and how to become close to God. Just follow those footsteps. It抯 that simple and it is that complicated at the same time.

 

You have occupied thousands and thousands of wombs卆nd evidently you are still not bored with that. So maybe you want to be in the recycling process a little longer? I am kidding. But do you get the point?

 

Your servant,

 

Hadai Nityananda dasa

 

PS: Visit my website www.be-pure.info: "http://www.be-pure.info" and do the treasure hunt. That抯 an adventure in itself. Also find the Authentic Silent Meditation area and learn how to contemplate deeper on the Holy Names. Maybe you just needed to refresh