As in every monastery, this monastery has a daily schedule as well. My day usually starts when my alarm clock goes off at 4.20 am. Time to run to the bathhouse and take a shower. Dress up in devotional clothes and walk to the temple building. A few minutes of meditation before mangala arati, morning prayers and singing, begins. After the singing we read from Caitanya Caritamrta, an important set of books on the life of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. This ceremony starts at 5.00am and usually lasts until around 6.00am. Breakfast is at 8.05am so in between there is time to do individual meditation on prayer beads. It is called a japa mala and is comparable to a catholic rosary in some ways. After breakfast a whole range of activities begin. For me this currently means helping out with cooking and whatever needs to be done. Yesterday Gurunistha and I cleaned out a whole yurt and moved a bed in. When I’m helping with the cooking, I show up around 10 o’clock in the kitchen to help Gurunistha with preparing lunch. Lunch is around 12 o’clock after the food has been offered on the altar. So we have about 2 hours to prepare everything. I’m telling you we don’t eat Dutch sandwiches here. But real food. After lunch I continue with whatever I was doing in the morning. Around 5.30 is time to eat leftovers and at 6.30 is the evening arati with prayers and singing.
This lasts for a little less than an hour and then it is time to go back to my yurt and read some mails, books, write an entry on here and to go to sleep.

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