Practice Meditation Regulary

(Brief quotes from "The Notebooks of Paul Brunton" - Category 4: Meditation)

"The ego not seldom finds all sorts of excuses for avoiding regular practice of meditation. Nevertheless, such practice is necessary. The ego's resistance is due partly to the difficulty of re-adjusting to new habits and partly to an inherent knowledge that its own tyrannical reign is thereby being threatened. To render the practice easier and less irksome, it is best to start with short periods and to increase their length of time only when an inner prompting to do so comes of its own accord."

"In your attempts at meditation your intellect is still busy; it's hard for you to keep the thoughts out. What you should do is to gradually lengthen the time allotted for practice, but don't overdo this or you will get psychic results. Be patient. The mind will give up its struggle eventually."

"He must let higher matters accompany his ordinary occupation, his family obligation, his necessary worldly activities. For this he needs to organize his time so that a few minutes at least, a half hour (or more) if possible, are surrendered to them, to studies, reflection, meditations, and silences."

"It is absurd to believe that men - except very exceptional ones - can spend all day meditating on God: this is one of the criticisms of monkish existence. For while they are supposed to do this, others have to work to support them."

"Because the most effectual way to learn meditation is to practise it every day, the effort should be persistently and regularly made. Human sloth is proverbial and the time-tested way to overcome it is by sternly using the power of will to set and keep a pattern of daily living. A strict rule must be laid down in this matter, a deliberate habit must be created, an order must be given and obeyed."

"Few have sufficient strength of concentration for exercises lasting longer than twenty minutes."

"We must pay homage to the Overself, and pay it daily. Anything less is at our peril."

"His observance of this self-set daily program for retiring into the solitude of his room will be frequently tested. Unless he forms the habit of promptly withdrawing from work or the companionship of the hour, he may lose the precious opportunity with which time presents him."

"Not by casual meditations can meditation itself be mastered."

"It is very strange how time alters its values during meditation. Twenty-five minutes of actual clock time may feel like a whole hour of meditation time."

"It is most important to practise regularly, for every lapse throws success farther away quite disproportionately to the time lost."

"Experience in meditation confirms this truth, that if the practitioner persists in continuing through the initial phase of fatigue, he will find his "second wind" and be able to remain absorbed for a long period."

"The spiritual hour must be accepted as a fixed part of the daily regime, as fixed as the dinner hour. This is the first momentous step to the restoration of real peace inside man, and consequently outside him too."