Austerity

Karthik month started and everyone is busy taking austerities. I enquired few of my god brothers and sisters on their austerity for this month, I heard many of them telling like waking up for Mangala arti, chanting the rounds in the morning, reading bhagavatam, completing a canto within this month, hearing GM lecture every day, one meal a day, no sweets…etc. It striked me in the morning while doing MA, why are these called austerities , when devotional service is suppose to be done blissfully. I explored the meaning of austere and to how Prabhupada  explains devotional service as austerity.

First the dictionary meaning

aus·tere

adjective \ȯ-ˈstir also -ˈster\

: simple or plain : not fancy

of a person : having a serious and unfriendly quality: having few pleasures : simple and harsh

Full Definition of AUSTERE

1

a :  stern and cold in appearance or manner

b :  somber, grave <an austere critic>

2

:  morally strict :  ascetic

3

:  markedly simple or unadorned <an austere office> <an austere style of writing>

4

:  giving little or no scope for pleasure <austere diets>

Srila Prabhupada says

Divyam is explained in the Bhagavad-gita: janma karma ca me divyam [Bg. 4.9]. If you simply take little trouble to understand Krsna... That tapasya required: to read Krsna's instruction, Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam, and try to understand Krsna. Because that tapasya, if you take little painful... It is not painful. It is very pleasing. But we avoid it. We think it is painful. "Ah! Who is going to read books? We are meant for selling books, not for reading books." This is not good. We should read also. That is tapasya. Saddhaya. That is tapasya. Don't think that simply our books are meant for selling. No. It is meant for reading also. If we read regularly, at least two hours, three hours, that is tapasya. Tapo divyam [SB 5.5.1]. To understand spiritual position, my spiritual position, Krsna's spiritual... (aside:) So that is tapasya. These are the tapasyas. To rise early in the morning, that is also tapasya. Not that every day we have to ring bell -- dung, dung, dung, dung -- "Get up! Get up!" "No, I am sleeping." No, you have to accept. These are the tapasyas. We cannot avoid. If we actually want to avoid this body, working like cats and dogs, like animals, then we have to undergo tapasya, a very simple tapasya.

-       Reference http://www.prabhupadavani.org/main/Bhagavatam/423.html

So Krsna consciousness is not a sacrifice it’s the tapasya for our eternal happiness , REAL HAPPINESS . Wish I do some tapasya this month and get multi folded benefits. J