MIND : ITS MYSTERIES & ITS CONTROL - CHAPTER-32. MEDITATION - 11. Swami Sivananda

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Sunday, August 30, 2020. 5:15.AM.
MIND : ITS MYSTERIES & ITS CONTROL :
Chapter - 32. Meditation - 11.
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11. HOW TO DEVELOP VIRTUES BY MEDITATION :

1.
Examine your character. Pick some distinct defect in it. Find out its opposite. Let us say that
you suffer from irritability. The opposite of irritability is patience. Try to develop this virtue by
meditation on the abstract virtue of patience. Regularly, every morning, sit down at 4 a.m. in Padma
or Siddha Asana in a solitary room for half an hour and begin to think on patience, its value, its
practice under provocation, taking one point one day, another on another day and thinking as
steadily as you can, recalling the mind when it wanders. Think of yourself as perfectly patient, a
model of patience and end with a vow: “This patience which is my true self, I will feel and show
from today.”

2.
For a few days, probably, there will be no change perceptible. You will still feel and show
irritability. Go on practising steadily every morning. Presently, as you say an irritable thing, the
thought will flash into your mind, unbidden: “I should have been patient.” Still go on in practice.
Soon, the thought of patience will arise with the irritable impulse and the outer manifestation will be
checked. Still go on practising. The irritable impulse will grow feebler and feebler until you find
that irritability has disappeared and patience has become your normal attitude towards annoyances.

In this manner, you can develop various virtues as sympathy, self-restraint, purity, humility,
benevolence, nobility, generosity, etc.

Chapter-32. Ends.
NEXT - CHAPTER 33
EXPERIENCES AND OBSTACLES IN MEDITATION
WHAT HAPPENS DURING MEDITATION

To be continued ...

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