Welcome back to another episode of the Daily Vedantik, where we are talking, Dat Vedantik Doc. Each and every day, reflecting on one core ideal concept, some principle within this timeless philosophy, that is also known as Sanatana Dharma, which means eternal principles. Today's reflection is on the morning hours, between 4 and 6 a.m. This is called Brahma Mukurtam, which means time of God or time of the gods, this time before the sun, specifically 45 minutes before the sun comes up, and it's just kind of informally proposes 4 to 6 a.m., but 45 minutes before the sun comes up, and finding time to where you can study, reflect, contemplate, it can be anything that you want to reflect on.
It could be Augustine, it could be Seneca, it could be Vedanta, it could be one of these episodes. But there's something I've always found so fascinating about how prescriptive this philosophy is with that early morning time being the best time for reflection, the best time for hearing one of these concepts, perhaps for the first time. It makes a lot of logical sense, right? It is before the rest of your house wakes up, especially if you have kids.
It's before the sun is up, before the caffeine starts kicking, and all of these different factors start to pull you out into the day. Swami at the ashram will often say that everyone, everyone can tap into the peace of an ashram every morning between the hours of 4 and 6 a.m. If you can get a 30-minute nap in the afternoon, great, make it 4. If you can't, for all obvious reasons within a typical Western working schedule, then make it 5 a.m.
But it could sound, I was a crazy, crazy night owl in college, and up until probably the age of 27, 28, when I would sleep in till 8, till 10, till 11, wake up at 8.30, and then wake up at 9, just all over the place trying to get as much sleep as I could, especially on the weekends where I'd sleep in till 10 or 11. In college, I never had a class before 11 a.m., never had a class before 11 a.m. because I knew or I thought I was such a night owl. My roommate in college, Brian, he still tells these stories 20 years later, where he would just be waking up like 4 a.m., and he'd be going to use the restroom and walk by my room with all the lights on, and I would just be playing my keyboard, playing music, or on the computer.
I was a crazy night owl. So when someone said to me, when Joseph, one of my teachers, said to me that the ideal time to reflect this is from 4 to 6 a.m., I thought, okay, well, that might be the ideal. I ain't going to get anywhere close. But slowly but surely, 15 minutes at 7 a.m., 15 minutes at 6.30, 20 minutes at 6 a.m., slowly but surely, I found myself now waking up 4.30 each morning, and it's my favorite part of the day.
This part can't be stressed enough. What seems unthinkable to people when they hear it for the first time, within a few days of this, really within five or six days, it becomes like a best friend to where there's no cost to it. What is the cost to go see and hang out with a best friend, especially when it's already in your home, that quiet time that you can have before the day pulls you out into it? And what is the cost to go hang with a best friend?
It's nothing. It's all upside. It's all reward and benefit. There is no cost to it.
And that is, that's what it feels like every day, every morning that, wake up, have some water, because that is when you're most dehydrated. The ideal in setting your body's 24-hour circadian rhythm is to wake up every morning at the same time, and within a few days, you don't even need an alarm clock. That was some of the best advice I ever got in my professional life was actually from a sleep doctor saying, you are destroying yourself waking up at different times, because your body has no idea when to release cortisol. She used all of these terms that, I had no idea what she was talking about, but she said your body works on a 24-hour circadian rhythm.
Wake up every morning at the same time for seven days, and by day eight, you won't need an alarm clock. And it'll set your whole day into a rhythm within 20 minutes of waking up, instead of sometimes it would take me three, four, five hours, take me until noon until I felt like I was in a rhythm. And that changed massively when I started to wake up at the same time every morning. The next massive leap in flow and productivity and finding a groove in the day was then finding 15 minutes of reflection on these ideals each morning, journaling about them, having that glass of water, and then having a cup of matcha tea or coffee.
And then the next unlock was having it before the sunlight, before I felt just the ticking clock of I've got to start getting things done. And that happens between the hours of 4 and 6 a.m. Swami will go so far as to say that nothing matters outside of 4 or 6 a.m. Nothing matters outside of these two hours to start your day.
It's kind of like St. Augustine or Augustine, for the cool people out there that pronounce it that way. It's kind of like when St. Augustine said, love God and do whatever you want.
First you've got to love God, but then you can do whatever you want. That first part is such a challenge, but if you can overcome that, if you can do that, you can truly love God, then there are no other ethical considerations. Similarly, Swami is saying if you could wake up and study, reflect, and those quiet hours before the day pulls you into it, pulls you into your extroverted involvement in the world, then you are set up for success before the day even begins. But I'm going to end this reflection with the thing I really want to reinforce, and that is when you start to do this, even 15 minutes at 7 a.m., you start to have this kind of grounding wire before the eccentric, frenetic energy of the day starts to take us over.
When you start to do this, it becomes like a best friend. You go one or two days without it, and you miss it. I'll tell friends, try it for a week, and then try not doing it for the next week. And it's almost like you can't, three or four days of not doing it, like, oh, man, things are going so well when I did that, I'm going to go back to it.
So try it for a week, and then try not doing it for a week. Even if you can't make it into that 4 to 6 a.m. window, finding that time to reflect before the day really gets started, try it out. See how much you end up just loving it.
It doesn't feel like any sort of a discipline. It feels like a spiritual indulgence. But it's not. It's the most important time of the day.
And according to the sun, it's the most important thing we do. That's today's reflection on the Daily Vedantic. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Daily Vedantic.
This reflection is part of a free repeating two-year course in Advaita Vedanta, rooted in the timeless wisdom of the Upanishads, arguably the oldest philosophical texts on earth. You can begin with episode one, which gives the 15-minute overview of the whole philosophy of Vedanta, or you can join the journey with any episode at any point. But the critical aspect of this course of understanding and mastering anything is to study and reflect, even for 10 to 15 minutes on the timeless each day, preferably at the start of your day. As is said in this philosophy, reflection is 100,000 times as powerful as listening.
So listen, journal, sit with, discuss these concepts, or ask questions at thedailyvedantic.com with our AI-powered chatbot informed by about 700 episodes here, as regularly as one can if you want to see clarity and peace almost effortlessly unfold in your daily life. And if it doesn't result in a near-immediate increase in clarity and peace, then toss aside and feel free to never listen again. One of the things that you might notice is, after seven or eight days in a row, this doesn't feel like a discipline. This feels like a visit with a best friend to dive into the timeless with daily reflection.
Within a few days, it becomes one of your favorite parts of the day. You can also find out more including news about in-person events in Los Angeles and beyond at thedailyvedantic on Instagram, or through our weekly newsletter at thedailyvedantic.com. Additionally, check out the links in our show notes for more resources like the books that are mentioned most frequently in the episodes, including Vedanta Treatise, perhaps the simplest and most straightforward read on this philosophy I've ever come across. Until next time, and from the entire team that works on the Daily Vedantic Project, thanks for listening.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And for having me, I love you, guys.
Thank you.