How can a practitioner's daily routine be uniform while living in a family?

In Shri Hit Radha Keli Kunj, Vrindavan, an intimate conversation with Pujya Shri Hit Premanand Govind Sharan Ji Maharaj. Practitioners ask questions about their lives and sadhana, and Maharaj Ji provides answers.

The Complete Discourse

Shalini Shukla from Kanpur - Guru Dev, I offer countless prostrations at your feet. Guru Dev, you said that a practitioner's daily routine should be uniform. But Maharaj Ji, because of my duties to family members, and the fact that I also have to do Shri Ji's mangala and shringar, I want to ask about this. There is satsang that is public and satsang that is intimate - this is for personal questions. You can ask your personal questions about your own sadhana here. Now, what was said in satsang was that a practitioner's daily routine should be uniform all eight hours of the day. This applies to those practitioners who have given their entire lives to the path of renunciation - to God.

There are two paths. One is the path of renunciation, and one is the householder's path. In the householder's path, it can happen that you wake up and your husband has to go to work immediately. Now, should we see Thakur Ji first or should we see our husband first? If we start Shri Ji's mangala, then our husband's routine will be disrupted, and if our husband's routine is disrupted, then Shri Ji's mangala will stop later anyway. You have to understand this point. In our household, obstacles will arise. Our husband will look at us with anger, thinking: we have to go to work and you are doing this? Our first duty is to wake up and take care of our husband's entire routine. When he leaves for the office and goes to his work, then we have free time, and then we can engage in serving our Thakur Ji. The householder and the renunciate have different daily routines.

A householder's daily routine can never be uniform. Suddenly some work comes up. You spend the whole night at a wedding. Now you will sleep in the morning. How can your routine be eight hours then? You spend the night watering the fields, or you go somewhere for work, or you have to go abroad for four days. There are many tasks in a household. So this teaching is for the renunciate practitioner - for one who follows the path of renunciation, whose only task is God's worship from morning to evening and from evening to morning. That person should have a uniform daily routine, because they have no other work and no other duty except the worship of God. But householders have many, many tasks.

Now there is a small child and you are going to do mangala. The child is crying. First you have to comfort the child. Feed the child milk. The small child has soiled itself. Now the service to Thakur comes later - first do that service. Then, purified, do the service to Thakur. In household life, there are many such tasks that come before Thakur Ji, and we must give them priority first. Only then will your household function. When you have free time, then pick up the mala. Recite the naam. Complete the mala of the guru mantra. In free time, do service to Thakur. But no - see God in the husband, see God in the son, see God in the family members. Now if the husband says: "I need to go to the office," and you are refusing to step back from your service, then enmity and opposition will arise. And the family members will go hungry. Their routine will be disrupted. So which Thakur are you serving? The Thakur dwelling in your husband is leaving unsatisfied. So I think that if we understand the dharma of the household, then our daily routine will be different from what is described. The path of renunciation has a separate teaching for this reason - that is why the teaching is being given publicly in satsang. Principles are being laid out for both householders and renunciates. If something is not clear, then ask personally: is what you said for me or for the renunciates? It is not the case that householders must have a uniform daily routine always - that is not possible.

They have many tasks. There are many events. We never know when something might happen or what circumstances might arise. We handle those circumstances, and while reciting God's naam, whenever we have time, we serve Thakur Ji. Only then will the household function. The household has one set of rules. Renunciation has a different set of rules. Do you understand? Yes, Baba. Oh, please accept our prostrations. You have come from Navadwip Dham. Yes. Siddha Jagannath Das Baba does all the service work in that samadhi temple. You have come from there. May his grace continue. In serving Siddha Baba, in serving, the only obstacle is ego. If this pride were to be abandoned, then serving anyone in the moving and unmoving world becomes service to God. And the service of saints is an extremely rare thing. Service to the guru's lotus feet is the third bhakti - without pride, without ego. This ego, this sense of our own superiority within ourselves - this is what does not allow us to gain. We must abandon this in those close to us. The acharya says: तृणाद प सुनीचे तण की नीचै अपने को समझे - To consider oneself lower than a blade of grass - but to bring down this ego will take an entire lifetime, or perhaps not. This ego is what does not allow us to attain God. This ego does not allow divine energy to awaken. संसति मूल शूल प्रद नाना सकल शोकदायक - Ego is the root cause of all suffering and pain, the source of all sorrows. Service to saints, service to society in devotion to God - it is only with great difficulty that we have been given this opportunity. We are not caught in the entanglements of maya and material pleasures. God has given us the opportunity to serve. Now we must destroy the ego. Let there be no pride within us - humble and humble always. The name in the mouth and considering oneself the smallest of all - this is how he appears as great. Always be absorbed in the meditation of the lotus feet of Sri Krishna Chandra Ji.

Are we serving a sant or serving God? The one perspective we must maintain is this: let ego not awaken in us. Let pride not awaken in us. If pride has arisen, then it will not work out. Even while living in the company of great mahatmas, those who have ego and pride in their hearts remain empty. They could not drink in love. This is pride, and this is humility—when one thus drinks such humility, ego spills over; one cannot grasp it; one cannot attain the rasa. Therefore, Mahaprabhu Chaitanya Dev Ji said: Give respect while being without ego; remaining without ego, give respect to all; and consider yourself lower than a blade of grass, patient and tolerant like a tree, lower even than the grass itself. Let ego not awaken; give respect to others; remain humble yourself; and at all times do naam kirtan, chant the name. Through this alone comes bhagavat prapti. One verse alone is sufficient for attaining God: Remain humble, give respect to all, endure like the earth and grass; always sing the kirtan of Hari.

This text is taken from automatic captions of the video—there may be transcription errors. For the authentic teaching, please listen to the video.

Original video: Bhajan Marg (YouTube)