The making of a Sarvodaya Sannyasin

Hi friends,

Wish you all a happy and prosperous new year in 2012! This article is my new year gift for you as it is related to an important spiritual issue of waking up in brahmamuhurta (by 4 am) everyday in a year.

When I wrote my previous article “How to wake up everyday by 4 am?”, I had thought that my technique of going outside for 10-15 min just after waking up is the final solution for all seasons to deal with the problem of laziness, etc. in early morning. The reason for this deception was that this technique worked like a charm during the summer. The joy of walking, running and exercising in cool breeze of early morning was so intoxicating that I used to feel an ecstatic thrill rather than laziness when alarm used to ring in the morning. I had that time thought that even in winter and rainy season, I will follow this technique by using appropriate woollen clothes and using umbrella respectively.

Now, I have no experience of rainy reason yet, but the onset of this winter made me realize that my assumptions were false. In India, winter starts from November and stays till February (almost 4 months). Winter is quite chilly in the north India and temperature reaches even zero degrees centigrade – 5-10 degree is reached almost all across North India (but South India has no such problem as it lies in tropical zone with more annual sunlight).

So, when I continued with my morning routine of going outside for 10-15 min in November also, I started feeling cold. Then, I used woollen clothes, but I noticed that the amazing freshness of air that I used to experience in the early morning during summer was conspicuously absent in winter. It seemed as if air quality in early morning of winter has much less vitality or freshness or probably cold air entering my lungs was enough to give discomfort to my nervous system despite all woollen clothes. As a result, the thrill of waking up that I used to feel everyday in summer vanished in winter. By dint of will-power and force of previous habit, I continued to wake up at 3 am for few more days, but first week of November onward, I eventually felt sick due to early morning cold air.

This disturbed the rhythm completely. Then, I decided to avoid going outside in winter (but, will definitely go in summer as that is amazing joy), but I realized that I had started feeling real problem now in waking up in the morning. The primary reason was not laziness, but lack of sound sleep due to variations in cold on day to day basis every night. So, if I decide that one blanket will be enough today, the temperature at night will fall down so much that I will feel cold and will not have sound sleep. As a result, waking up at 3 am became impossible. My rhythm got broken completely for almost 1.5 months due to this (till mid-Dec, 2011). But, I added techniques after techniques to deal with cold during this period as I did not want to be “early riser in summer and late riser in winter” kind person.

My guru, Swami Sivananda, says that wake up by 4 am and I have to follow this because he was a genius. Following his advice properly has always brought all desired results in my life and I have every reason to believe his assertion that the maximum rate of spiritual progress is possible only when one wakes up and does yoga-sadhana in brahmamuhurtha (which is roughly from 4 am to 6 am). Now, to deal with the problem of cold, I had to do the following things:

1. Put a curtain on glass door because glass conducts cold much more than concrete wall.
2. Close gaps in windows through pasting cello-tape.
3. Shift bed to the sides of conjoint walls (L-shaped wall-configuration) rather than keeping it in the middle of your room. This way, wall protects us from two sides and we feel a bit less cold (we should try to use those L-shaped walls which are away from doors and windows as far as possible as concrete materials of wall conducts cold much less than glass and wood in doors and windows).
4. Buy one more blanket – total two blankets now to be used at night.
5. Use a monkey-cap plus one sweater (more woollen clothes may be tried if needed by readers – like more sweaters, inners, etc.)
6. Use a heater and put it near your head.
7. Of course, I always follow universally valid yogic law of sleep with head in South or East direction (Magnetic axis in our spine should not be aligned North-to-North with the Earth’s magnetic axis, otherwise due to repulsive magnetic force, sleep gets disturbed. This explains the reason for sleeping with head in South rather than in North. On reason behind sleeping with head in East, I did not get 100% clear idea, but it is partly related to Earth’s rotation on its axis from West to East – so, smoother experience with head in East rather than in West).
8. Use a better sleep inducing technique than mantra or meditation technique. And that technique is doing Shashankasana after going to bed till some drowsiness comes – I practice meditation in Shashankasana rather than in sitting posture just after going to bed. Shashankasana cools the nerves and mind very easily and rapidly – that’s why it is called Shashankasana (Shasahank means moon – so, nerves and mind become cool like moon due to relaxation produced by Shashankasana). Within 10-15 min, I feel much relaxed and then lie on bed to eventually fall asleep in another 10 min or so. Please search on internet to learn Shashankasana.

So, I found that my sleep pattern has stabilized greatly after I started following all 8 steps together – all this evolution occurred over 1.5 months’ bitter struggle in which I kept fighting it out by figuring one thing after another.

But, one more master stroke was needed because when I was following this technique, there was always a possibility that one day my rhythm will break and I may sleep a bit more in day-time or even at night due to unexpected mistakes (like forgetting to use two blankets properly, etc.) as humans cannot be expected to maintain perfection every day. In that case, even when I used to go at 9 pm to sleep, I would fall asleep after a long time. That effectively would reduce the actual sleep hours from 6 to less than that. So, at 3 am when alarm used to ring, I would feel disoriented and would fall back asleep again after putting off the alarm.

So, I used technique 9 now to deal with this:

9. When your total sleep becomes more than 6 hrs, but less than or equal to 8 hrs due to extra sleep that day due to whatever reason, next day, set waking up alarm at 3:30 am (9 pm to 3:30 am) and when total sleep becomes more than 8 hrs, then next day set waking up alarm at 4 am (9 pm to 4 am) rather than usual 9 pm to 3 am. Once I started following this technique, I was very happy because one day’s mistake would not break the rhythm for 3-4 days like in the past – now, I was able to recover the very next day. Other thing was I was still waking up by 4 am even in the worst case in this routine (as per the sage advice of “wake up by 4 am” of Swami Sivananda). Though staying on bed awake for 30 min or even 45-60 min was not a pleasant experience, yet I was able to wake up in the morning at the scheduled time because I was still having 6 hrs of my sleep need fulfilled after following this technique. Also, this unpleasant experience of staying on bed awake for 30-60 min due to extra-sleep made me so alert that extra sleep also vanished almost 100% eventually.

All these 9 techniques worked fine. But, I felt the need for one more refinement. I found that getting off blanket was a bit harsh experience due to sudden cold that body gets exposed in winter. The nervous system and hence, mind gets a rude shock. And this is obviously due to biological reason rather than any psychological reason like laziness etc. So, I added 10th technique:

10. Just after putting off the alarm, come under the blanket on bed, sit and set timer for 5 min and do internal breath retention with one gayatri mantra chanting during each breath-retention (one gayatri mantra chanting takes around 10-12 seconds – chanting can be skipped or replaced by any other mantra; its function is mainly to keep track of timing so that one internal breath retention does not become too long and next one too short). Set the timer again and again till total 15 min internal breath retention is done. This produces good warmth in the body as internal retention produces lots of inner heat (technique is simple – just inhale deeply and hold breath as long as possible and then exhale completely to finish 1 round of internal breath-retention). And then getting off blanket to go to bathroom to wash face does not give any rude shock as my body is warm due to inner heat generated by internal breath-retention practice. So, I put off alarm, do 15 min internal breath-retention on bed in sitting position under blanket, then go to wash my face and then start my daily routine with 1 hr meditation practice and some more asanas (details of my yoga routine given at the end of the article).

Thus, above 10 techniques together fully solved my problem. Do not get mistaken by 10 number as once I got habituated, I do not feel at all any problem in following these techniques (in fact, many of them are once-in-winter technique like shifting bed to conjoint walls, etc.)

This is the first winter when even when temperature is as low as 5 degree centigrade at night, I am able to wake up at 3 am in the morning. The problem of not able to wake up during winter was due to a host of biological reasons and I have fixed them all, thanks to good fortunes and resolute, persistent application of mind.

Since I have struggled for almost 8 years in developing “wake up by 4 am” routine, I feel at the top of the world now after vanquishing this chronic problem. During this period of struggle, I suffered a lot as extra sleep or lack of sound sleep was very disorienting to mind, usually accompanied with lack of freshness or headache (sometimes migraine) or both during day-time, affecting both my mood and over-all efficiency by a huge margin. But, spirituality is what I am sure leads to the highest peace, joy and wisdom. So, there was no question of compromise with the goal even in face of failure-after-failure for not mere 1 or 2 day, but 8 years!

I am very happy to taste full success at last. During last 8 years, due to endless disappointments in achieving success, I used to blame my Guru, Swami Sivananda, for not giving more details on how to develop early morning routine in face of so many problems. But, probably he never faced any problem in developing such a routine himself and it was very easy for him to do so. In some sense, it is good that for me it was very difficult to develop brahmamuhurta routine because it led me to discover so many effective techniques which will surely be of immense benefit to other aspirants who are aiming to develop a brahmamuhurta (early morning waking up) routine.

On the whole, I enter 2012 now with this amazing habit of “wake up by 4 am” – this is a watershed in my whole life so far. I am sure to go miles and miles deeper and higher in future due to amazing spiritual energy generated by brahmamuhurta sadhana which also aids tremendously the growth of mind power by producing more inner peace, intuition and focus.

I hope, you all also develop “wake up by 4 am” routine and enjoy the peace, joy and wisdom of spiritual sadhana of brahmamuhurta whole life like many wise people have done in the past.

Just for sake of information, my full early morning routine for winter (in summer only change will be – I will directly get up and do all pre-meditation exercises and pranayama practice on the roof of apartment in open air to enjoy cool breeze, but thoughtless awareness meditation will be done inside room only) is:

8:30 pm – 3 am: go to restroom + Go to bed and do thoughtless awareness meditation in Shashankasana for 15 min + lie on bed on left side with head in South/East and doing thoughtless awareness meditation, sleep.
3 am – 3:35 am: put off alarm + come to bed and under blanket, in sitting position, do internal breath retention for 15 min (set timer for 5 min and set it again and again till 15 min is over – I hold the breath for 1 chanting of gayatri mantra which is around 10-12 seconds) + now, get up & wash your face + come to room and do 5 min physical exercises
3:35 am – 5 am: On ground with heater ahead of you, on a wooden plank put on newspaper, do the following in Sidhasana: 1 hour thoughtless awareness meditation (begin with 5 rounds Shunya Pranayama which is similar to Kapalbhati) + 5 min Sarvangasana + 10 round “Simha Garjanasana”
5 am – 7 am: Self-studies for civil services (I am doing fulltime preparation for it in New Delhi – please pray for my desired success in this immensely complex and challenging exam)
7 am onward : bathroom, etc and day begins (whole day only studies and studies – enjoying it a lot)

Thanks,

Gopal