NITAAI-Veda.nyf > Spiritual Questions & Answers > 2007 QnA Swami Gaurangapada > Re: How to Deal With Boredom? |
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