In order to improve our practices and to have success with them, it is necessary to polish them in whatever way it takes. This includes length, place, quality, and many other factors that affect how we do our spiritual exercises. When I say exercises, I’m referring to the type of practices that can lead to mystical and revolutionary results, such as meditation, astral projection, mantras, elimination of defects/liberation of consciousness etc. In this post I want to speak about one of such aspects that I found to be important – about different times of day and how such can affect our practices.

Over the years I have noticed that when I do an exercise in certain time of a day, it can affect me more or less in comparison if I do it at another time of the day. I have started to notice this very clearly with exercises such as mystical meditation, where the goal is to reach expanded state of consciousness that leads towards the state of Samadhi (absorption into ones Being) and Illuminated Void (cosmic consciousness). With experimentation I noticed that this type of  mystical exercises are generally very good to be practiced during the night, early in the morning, or in the evening.

When it comes to mantras for development of psychic senses and for strengthening the consciousness and will, it became evident through practice that they can be done more frequently and that their effect will still be the same. However, it wasn’t like that with meditation for dissolution of egos (inner defects) – that one required of me to do it at times of day when my inner state optimal to perform this practice well, which in my case turned out to be early in the morning, evening and late evening.

When it comes to the practice of astral projection, which is to consciously leave (temporarily) the physical body and visit the astral and mental worlds, I noticed that during the day it is best to be done in the early and late afternoon. Nevertheless, the overall results were the best when I applied the tips for having conscious astral exits, in which blog post I already described and mentioned that night time, early morning time, and the time when the physical body is waking up from sleep, are the most convenient for catching that right moment to consciously leave the physical body. But when it comes to actual proper practice of astral projection, it is best to be done when we are slightly tired, like in the early or late afternoon, and also as we go to sleep during the night.

Apart from that, there is a time in the day, such as midday (and a couple of hours before and after), that prompts the body to physical or other similar type of activity. I noticed that at that time it is better for me to do my daily chores and activities, rather than spending time on spiritual exercises.

Early morning

From 5.00 to 7.00 can be a very useful time for various spiritual practices. The transition between night and day generally can have beneficial energies that can connect us to deeper states of consciousness that can have a lot of value when we attempt practices such as meditation, astral projection etc.

Morning

From 7.00 to 10.00 is time when I generally do exercises that doesn’t require entering in any special state of consciousness, but only overall improvment of the system, work on development of psychic senses through mantra sounds, transmutation of sexual energy, pranayama, developing concentration etc. Important to mention though, just because they don’t require a special state of consciousness, it doesn’t mean that they are less valuable. On the contrary, some of them are very important, such as transmutation of sexual energy practice.

Afternoon

Afternoon can be a great time to experiment with various practices. It is when the body starts becoming sleepy, and sleepiness is said to be useful for various practices that, unlike the morning practice, do require a special state of consciousness, which  can be used to enter deep states of relaxation, astral projection, some meditation exercises etc.

Evening

When your part of the world starts to quiet down, it is another interesting time for practices. A special energy is present during this transition from day to night, and some results may be achieved easier as the consequence of that time of day. I personally found evening suitable for mantras, mystical exercises, prayers and reflections, as well as revolutionary practices relating to dissolution of defects (meditation on egos). Again, it comes down to personal research and experimentation.

Night

Night is generally an interesting time for different spiritual practices, such as the one related to mystical and self-knowledge exercises. This is because everything quiets down and energies are suitable for gaining certain experiences of higher consciousness, as well as revelations that may come with it. Some experienced practitioners say that an excellent time for meditation is between 2.00 and 4.00. It is advisable to get at least 4 hours of sleep before waking up at night and starting with meditation.

On the other hand, Sivananda said that the best time to “search for God” is two hours before sunrise until the sun is fully out from the horizon. Prayer, meditation, and reflection before sunrise can be really interesting and strengthening experience, not only because of the energies of the night, but also because of the help we may receive from above for doing an effort to wake up and practice at that time. Bear in mind that if you will experiment with that time of day/night, do make sure you go to sleep after practice, to get at least 6 hour of sleep that night.

Conclusion

It is important to emphasize that different times of day have different psychological affect on us, which is why it is very worthwhile to experiment and find out your own best time to do a practice, whether that is in the early morning, afternoon, night etc. There is no set time for each practice that works great for everyone; it always comes down to individual research and trying to determine what works best for you.

Noting down how well are we do our practices, or in other words, seeing how satisfied we are with results coming from them, can also be of help. If practices don’t yield much results, and yet we are doing our best, it’s good to see if times of day have their effect, and how can we go about it in order to get the results that we are after.

Often time we can simply feel if doing a specific practice is good to be done in this or that time of day. If we cannot feel what is the right time of day for that, then study, experimentation, intention, openness for new and for improving the quality of practices, will certainly take us to the knowledge of how suitable a time of day is for a practice that we want to get results from.

HDP, October 2019.