1. Early rising, a very simple tapasya

    Just a year ago it was my duty to wake everyone up at 4 A.M. by running around the brahmacari asrama and guesthouse banging a gong. Srila Prabhupada had been visiting during Janmastami and had inquired from his servant, Upendra prabhu, what was going on. When Upendra had told him that it was me waking everyone up for mangala arati, he had shaken his head and commented, "They have to be woken like a bunch of cows!" So now in class he continued, "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.

    (Hari-sauri Prabhu, in Transcendental Diary 5-3: Sri Vrndavana Dhama)