Starting the Day Right

By Dhirasanta dasa

The Vedic teachings recommend that the early morning hours are the best time for meditational practices, preparing ones self for the rest of the day.
There is a saying “Early to bed early to rise make you healthy, wealthy and wise” It is also common knowledge in the medical field that the more sleep you get before 12 midnight you will have double the sleep. However my experience as been that if I was to reverse this practice by retiring at 3 a.m. in the morning and getting up at 1 p.m. that afternoon is not the same.
In my own daily practice as a Hindu I usually retire at 8 p.m. and get up at 4 a.m. That is to say that I would then get 12 hours resting time. I would also take advantage of the early morning hours for my daily practice of mantra meditation, before starting my days work.
As a local Hindu priest I specialize in giving Hindu Presentations in Primary Schools. From A teacher’s perspective, inviting a live Hindu priest to the school is better than teaching from text books on the subject.
Very often after a presentation I am questioned by teachers who say “What is it with you, it is not what you said but how you said it”. Our “When I came to school today I was very stressed but now I feel very relaxed”. Our even “That was the most difficult class in the school, yet throughout your presentation there was raped attention.
So, I explain that starting the day right with the proper frame of mind will lift one from the actions and reactions of daily living and place one’s consciousness on a higher level, which will in turn affect the people you met during the day.
The example is given that there are two types of bullets - one is the real bullet
and one is a blank bullet. Sometimes in the movies or in the drama set in order to get some effects, they have blank guns and blank bullets and they are shooting each other. It sounds exactly like the real bullet; the only difference is nothing comes out. It's completely harmless.
For me to be a live Hindu priest and be affective in whatever I am doing, I must go to the source of all power which we belief come from God. I can then be a transparent via media and make a difference to the people I meet and to this world.