I sleep four hours

Expressions researched:
"I cannot sleep more than 3 hours at night, and 1 hour in day" |"I sleep about four hours" |"I sleep four hours" |"So on the whole, three to four hours" |"altogether about three to four hours" |"sleep three to four hours" |"three to four hours total"

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Last night I woke up at half past twelve. (laughter) Yes. So on the whole, utmost, I sleep four hours, two hours at night and two hours in daytime.

Room Conversation -- April 23, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Our engagement. Twenty-four hours.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Every day.

Prabhupāda: Every day. You can see how we are engaged twenty-four hours.

Guru-kṛpā: Prabhupāda gets up at one o'clock in the morning.

Prabhupāda: Last night I woke up at half past twelve. (laughter) Yes. So on the whole, utmost, I sleep four hours, two hours at night and two hours in daytime.

Guest: I must.... Your Grace, I'm most grateful to have seen you. I must depart. Thank you very much for having me here.

Prabhupāda: Why, thank you for your coming. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Give him prasāda.

Guest: Good-bye. (break)

My personal life, I don't sleep at night. And nowadays, at most, one hour. Yes. But I take rest in the daytime, at least two to three hours. So it is not that I am sleeping one hour. I sleep three to four hours total. But if practiced, it can be reduced, practiced.

Conversation with Prof. Saligram and Dr. Sukla -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: So long we have got this body, we require to eat something, we require to sleep sometimes, we require a little sense gratification, and we require defense. But it should be minimized, not increased. That is tapasya. In the human life this is possible, this is possible. Nidrāhāra-vihārakādi-vijitau **. One can conquer over these things, by practice. The more we minimize this āhāra-nidrā-bhaya-maithuna, this means we are advanced in spiritual taste.(?) It is practiced. My, my personal life, I don't sleep at night. And nowadays, at most, one hour. Yes. But I take rest in the daytime, at least two to three hours. So it is not that I am sleeping one hour. I sleep three to four hours total. But if practiced, it can be reduced, practiced. We see in the life of Gosvāmīs. About them, it is said: nidrāhāra-vihārakādi-vijitau **. They conquered over sleeping, eating. If we conquer over eating, then we can conquer over sleeping and other things also. If we can control over this tongue, then we can control over the other senses very easily. That is a fact.

Yes, we see from the behavior of the Gosvāmīs. They practically had no material necessities. This eating, sleeping, mating and defending, practically they had no such thing. They are simply engaged in Kṛṣṇa's business.

Interview with Newsweek -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Interviewer: I understand you sleep very little. You sleep three to four hours a night. Do you feel that this is what any person who is spiritually actualized will also realize?

Prabhupāda: Yes, we see from the behavior of the Gosvāmīs. They practically had no material necessities. This eating, sleeping, mating and defending, practically they had no such thing. They are simply engaged in Kṛṣṇa's business.

Interviewer: Engaged in Kṛṣṇa's...?

Rāmeśvara: Kṛṣṇa's business or God's service.

Bali-mardana: He's setting the example of the previous spiritual masters.

Interviewer: Well, what I was interested in is why... Has he found that three to four hours is the necessary time period to sleep?

Bali-mardana: She's asking why is three to four hours the amount that you sleep. How have you reached that standard?

Prabhupāda: That is not artificially. The more you are engaged in spiritual activities, the more you become free from material activities. That is the test.

Of course in daytime I take rest two hours. So in this way altogether about three to four hours.

Interview with Newsday Newspaper -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Interviewer: How do you spend your days? You do an awful lot of traveling I understand.

Prabhupāda: Traveling is going on throughout the whole world and wherever I go, at night I write books.

Bali-mardana: Translates.

Prabhupāda: Translate. And daytime I meet devotees.

Bali-mardana: Manage.

Prabhupāda: Manage.

Interviewer: You arrange the marriages?

Bali-mardana: Manage.

Prabhupāda: They have to ask me, final decision is taken from me. From all over the world, from all over the world letters are coming some problem, some problem, some problem. Although I have got about twenty secretaries, still they have to consult, I have to give them advice.

Hari-śauri: In the evening Śrīla Prabhupāda goes to bed at ten o'clock and gets up at eleven-thirty to begin translating.

Interviewer: You just sleep a couple of hours, then?

Prabhupāda: No, one and a half hour.

Interviewer: That's it?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Of course in daytime I take rest two hours. So in this way altogether about three to four hours. Our philosophy is not that you sit idly and God will send everything, no, not like that. We know God will send everything, still we work. Without God's sanction nothing can come. But we must be qualified to receive the favor of God. That is our philosophy.

Not two hours, I sleep about four hours.

Interview with Religious Editor Of the Associated Press -- July 16, 1976, New York:

Interviewer: Well I understand you do a lot of work translating and that you only sleep two hours a day. Is that right?

Prabhupāda: Not two hours, I sleep about four hours.

Interviewer: Four hours? Four hours.

Not two hours, I sleep about four hours.

Interview with Religious Editor Of the Associated Press -- July 16, 1976, New York:

Interviewer: Did you work out the spiritual disciplines for the group yourself? I mean about the morning chanting and the recital of the two thousand Hare Kṛṣṇas a day and... Did you work those out yourself?

Prabhupāda: Still I am working.

Interviewer: Still working, on those disciplines.

Prabhupāda: Yes, you see, I have got, these men, they have got.

Bali-mardana: He's saying did you think of these things yourself, to chant on the beads and follow the program in the morning, have you made these up yourself?

Prabhupāda: No, this is the disciplic process.

Bali-mardana: Disciplic process.

Interviewer: Yes, who originated those steps?

Prabhupāda: It is since time immemorial.

Bali-mardana: Time immemorial.

Prabhupāda: Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā you'll find, satataṁ kīrtayanto māṁ yatantaś ca dṛḍha-vratāḥ (BG 9.14). Find out this.

Interviewer: Well I understand you do a lot of work translating and that you only sleep two hours a day. Is that right?

Prabhupāda: Not two hours, I sleep about four hours.

Interviewer: Four hours? Four hours.

Rādhāvallabha: ...verse Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Satataṁ kīrtayanto mām.

Hari-śauri:

satataṁ kīrtayanto māṁ

yatantaś ca dṛḍha-vratāḥ

namasyantaś ca māṁ bhaktyā

nitya-yuktā upāsate

(BG 9.14)

"Always chanting My glories, endeavoring with great determination, bowing down before Me, these great souls perpetually worship Me with devotion."

Prabhupāda: So this was spoken five thousand years ago and we are doing the same thing.

Interviewer: Now what's your, what's your...?

Prabhupāda: Now your answer is there, it is not that I invented something.

Interviewer: Yes, you didn't invent it, I get the point, that it derives from the Vedic scriptures.

Prabhupāda: Whatever we are doing, it is authorized. That is the principle for spiritual understanding.

I take little rest during daytime. So on the whole, three to four hours. But actually I do not like to sleep.

Conversation with George Harrison -- July 26, 1976, London:

Mukunda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, you're going to outdo Shakespeare soon. You'll have written more English words than William Shakespeare. (Prabhupāda laughs) Maybe you already have.

Hari-śauri: I don't think Shakespeare's brought out fifty-six books.

Mukunda: The Encyclopedia Brittanica wrote to us asking for...

Prabhupāda: They have said...

George Harrison: These books are such a lot of work. I don't know how he did it all.

Gurudāsa: While everyone else sleeps, Prabhupāda...

George Harrison: Yes.

Prabhupāda: At night I don't sleep. Not that because I am nowadays sick. But generally I don't sleep. At most two hours. At most.

Hari-śauri: I think it's a long time since you've taken any rest at night.

Prabhupāda: I take little rest during daytime. So on the whole, three to four hours. But actually I do not like to sleep.

George Harrison: No, it's a waste of time.

Prabhupāda: I think it is, when I go to sleep, I think that now I'm going to waste my time. I actually think like that.

George Harrison: What's the word for..., the call it a little, little death. Sleep is the little death.

Prabhupāda: The śāstra also, Prahlada Mahārāja describes the sleeping is waste of time. You find out that verse.

Hari-śauri: It's in Seven, Two?

Prabhupāda: Seventh Canto. He's estimating you have got hundred years at most. Out of that, fifty years lost, sleep. And then twenty years playing as child, a boy. And in old age, another...

Hari-śauri:

puṁso varṣa-śataṁ hy āyus

tad-ardhaṁ cājitātmanaḥ

niṣphalaṁ yad asau rātryāṁ

śete 'ndhaṁ prāpitas tamaḥ

(SB 7.6.6)

"Every human being has a maximum duration of life of one hundred years, but for one who cannot control his senses, half of those years are completely lost because at night he sleeps twelve hours, being covered by ignorance. Therefore such a person has a lifetime of only fifty years."

Prabhupāda: Fifty years immediately minus. Then out of the fifty years?

Hari-śauri:

mugdhasya bālye kaiśore

krīḍato yāti viṁsatiḥ

jarayā grasta-dehasya

yāty akalpasya viṁśatiḥ

(SB 7.6.7)

"In the tender age of childhood, when everyone is bewildered, one passes ten years. Similarly, in boyhood, engaged in sporting and playing, one passes another ten years. In this way, twenty years are wasted. Similarly, in old age, when one is an invalid, unable to perform even material activities, one passes another twenty years wastefully."

durāpūreṇa kāmena

mohena ca balīyasā

śeṣaṁ gṛheṣu saktasya

pramattasyāpayāti hi

(SB 7.6.8)

"One whose mind and senses are uncontrolled becomes increasingly attached to family life because of insatiable lusty desires and very strong illusion. In such a madman's life the remaining years are also wasted, because even during those years he cannot engage himself in devotional service."

Prabhupāda: So hundred years finish. (laughs) Fifty years, twenty years, twenty years and ten years.

1967 Correspondence

I cannot sleep more than 3 hours at night, and 1 hour in day. So if it continues like that, and if I keep fit, I think I shall have ample time to work writing books.

Letter to Jadurani -- San Francisco 16 December, 1967:

Please convey my blessings to Satsvarupa and Pradyumna. Inform Satsvarupa that very soon I'm going to overload him with tapes for typing. My dictaphone is a little out of order (Gargamuni has taken charge of repairing it) and as soon as I get it back my work on Srimad-Bhagavatam will begin. At the present moment, I have got some difficulty in sleeping. I cannot sleep more than 3 hours at night, and 1 hour in day. So if it continues like that, and if I keep fit, I think I shall have ample time to work writing books.