CONSISTENCY IS THE KEY TO THE CONQUEST OF KARMA
No time for spiritual practice?
For spiritual unfoldment, we must perform sadhana. Sadhana is a repetition; time and time and time and time and time again of the same spiritual practice. §
The spiritual practice should be reasonable, should not take up too much time, and should be done at the same time every day. Often seekers who become associated with Hindu sadhana go to extremes and proceed with great vigor in an effort to attain results immediately. Sitting two or three hours a day, they wear themselves out and then stop. Here’s a formula for beginners: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, twenty minutes to a half an hour of sadhana at the same time every day; Saturday and Sunday, no sadhana. §
A question came up about meditation. “When is the best time to meditate?” Well, the best time to meditate is before dawn, but there are several other times to meditate too. Just before you go to bed at night, read some scripture. Sit and meditate and lift your energies into the head before sleep. If you wake up during the night, sit and meditate for a few minutes, then go back to sleep in higher consciousness. Upon awakening in the morning, again sit up in bed and seek higher consciousness and visualize a wonderful day ahead. This is a standard practice of meditation that keeps life’s karmas smoothed out in a most wonderful way. §
MORE TOOLS TO ENCOURAGE
SPIRITUAL EFFORT§
- Find a time each day that works for you, and faithfully perform your spiritual exercises at that same time. Good daily habits are a powerful force.
- Don’t be extreme in your striving. Steady progress is the goal. Expect the process to take years, not months.
- Cultivate friends who support your spiritual goals and share satsang with them regularly.
Then of course, for longer meditations, before sunrise is the very best time. It is the time when earth is quiet. It is the time when the inner worlds connect with this world in a natural way and you can tune into higher consciousness. Of course, any other time is good too for meditation. It is good any time, 24 hours a day, but these are the best times. §
Generally people start meditating and do fairly well in the beginning, for their great desire to unfold spiritually propels them within themselves. But when the subconscious mind begins to upheave its layers—as it naturally must for the unfoldment process to continue beyond an elementary stage—meditators become afraid to look at the subconscious patterns of their seemingly not-so-perfect past. To avoid facing themselves, they stop meditating, and the subconscious subsides. The once-meditating seeker returns more fully to the conscious mind and becomes distracted again in order to forget “all those terrible things.” At the time, the remembered past seemed to be terrible because the impressions were strong, magnified by sensitivities awakened through meditation.§
For many years thereafter the one-time meditator can be heard to say, “I’d like to meditate, and I do sometimes, but I don’t have time, really, to meditate.” What he is actually saying is, “Most of my time is used up distracting myself so that I won’t have to meditate anymore and won’t have to face my bothersome subconscious.”§
On the path to enlightenment, you have to face everything that has gone into the subconscious, not only in this life, but what has been registered in past lives. Until you do, you will never attain Self Realization. Your final obstacle will be that last subconscious area that you were afraid to face, looming up before you in the form of worries, fears and repressions that you will wish to push away, hide from, so that neither you nor anyone else can see them.§
