Yuvacharya Mahaprajna
One can judge the personality of a man on the basis of his daily routine. Only he who considers time precious achieves greatness in life. A man tends to be drawn to four things, i.e. desire to eat, desire to sleep, desire to know something and desire to indulge in idle gossip.
Acharyashree's daily routine is based on two cardinal principles:
- awareness - one should remain awake to potential evils.
- success - every moment should leave behind a mark of success.
Acharyashree sleeps for a limited time. He goes to bed at about 10 or 11 p.m. and wakes up at 4 a.m. Soon after waking up he adheres to a tight schedule of a series of activities, i.e. meditation, self-introspection, reading or reciting sacred texts followed by arhat vandana (a common assembly to pay obeisance to liberated souls). The evening pratikraman (self-criticism by a careful evaluation of the activities of the day) is followed by an anuvrat prayer. Acharyashree has a stroll in the morning. He used to do yogic exercises and pranayam until a few years back. This practice has now been dispensed with. He did not have breakfast earlier but he has it these days. But it is very light and it consists exclusively of milk or whey. He delivers discourses regularly from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Soon after the morning discourse, he busies himself with editing or writing. He has his lunch between 12 noon and 1 p.m. His diet is extremely simple and consists of limited items. It is the basis of his inner awareness and success. He rests a while after lunch. He utilizes the period from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. in studying, writing essays or poetry and exchanging views with the people who came to pay homage to him. He observed silence from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. for many years but this practice is not a regular feature now. Then he sits down to write his diary and reads newspapers, journals or magazines.
Soon after sunset he has another round of activities i.e. pratikraman in an open assembly along with monks and nuns, arhat vandana, discourses, seminars, exchanging views with others and solving individual problems. He is able to go to bed only after 11 p.m.
A man spends most of his time in eating, sleeping, in showing curiosity to know of things or people and in idle gossip. He thinks that he is a very busy person. We find that every one of us considers himself the busiest man today. But I have never found Acharyashree busy. He does what he deems important and does not waste his time on useless things. That is why he never feels lack of time. Acharyashree has to administer and direct a large religious order based on the exclusive authority of its Acharya and even then he does not consider himself busy. He often says that he has inherited the legacy of an excellent constitution from his predecessors which enjoins a natural sense of obedience on all. It has lightened his task of administration. He does not have 1 j bother himself much. His work is simply to oversee and supervise. This gives him a lot of time to think of new projects for spiritual development.
