02.67: The morning is for mooring our heart to Krishna.
For us as aspiring devotees, worldly temptations pose formidable challenges to our spiritual integrity. The Bhagavad-gita (2.67) indicates that these temptations are like stormy winds that buffet and blow our boat-like heart towards the tempting objects.
To weather such stormy temptations, our noble intentions to love Krishna are not enough. The stormy temptations of the world can slaughter our noble feelings and supplant them with material feelings in just a few moments. Therefore, we need to properly moor our heart to Krishna. For this, we need to go beyond pious sentiment to a daily regimen of philosophical conviction and devotional experience. Let’s take a closer look at these two spiritual disciplines:
- Philosophical conviction: When we immerse ourselves in scriptural wisdom, we get empowered by the conviction that a higher, better happiness awaits us in the near-future provided we don’t let ourselves be hemmed in by petty material desires.
- Devotional experience: When we absorb ourselves in the remembrance of Krishna through mantra meditation, we get animated by a glimpse of that higher happiness –not as a theoretical proposition but as an experienced realization.
Thus these twin spiritual disciplines moor our heart to Krishna. The best time for thus mooring our heart is the morning because at that time our consciousness is uncluttered materially, fresh mentally and receptive spiritually.
When we moor our heart to Krishna, the resulting resolve and taste will enable us to fight off temptations more easily and efficaciously. This in turn will leave us with far greater mental energy for fulfilling our worldly obligations as well as achieving our devotional aspirations.
Let us therefore arrange our daily schedule around the nonnegotiable principle: the morning is for mooring our heart to Krishna.