Just for curing our ordinary disease we have to pay to the doctor, pay for the medicine, and then we have to starve also. We cannot take anything. So many things forbidden. So this austerity is called tapasya, denial, self-denial. So we should learn it. If we want to utilize this body sane, like a sane man, then we should learn tapasya. Tapo divyam (SB 5.5.1). And this tapa, what is the purpose of tapasya? Tapasya, everyone goes. Just like a man walking on the street, pulling a ṭhelā. What is the purpose? He'll get five or ten rupees, whole day working like an ass. That is also tapasya. Tapasya means labor. So he's thinking, "I'll get ten rupees by working." He cannot pull it, the load is so heavy. Still, some way or other . . . That is also tapasya. A scientist discovering something, he has to work very hard and make experiments, so many things. That is also tapasya. But not that kind of tapasya. That kind of tapasya is not required. Tapo divyam. You are working hard for maintaining your body and soul together. You have to work hard. But here, that hard work should be for self-realization, divine contact. That is called divyam.
Divyam is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā: janma karma ca divyam me (BG 4.9). If you simply take little trouble to understand Kṛṣṇa . . . That tapasya required: to read Kṛṣṇa's instruction, Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and try to understand Kṛṣṇa. 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. To understand spiritual position, my spiritual position, Kṛṣṇa's spiritual . . . (child making noise) (aside:) Stop that. So that is tapasya. These are the tapasya. 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 tapasya. We cannot avoid. If we actually want to avoid this body, working like cats and dogs, like animal, then we have to undergo tapasya, a very simple tapasya.