MEDITATION.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1415, 13 October 1923, Page 2

MEDITATION.

Meditation is an art almost unknown in our western world.

About the only meditation we indulge in is the kind induced by an imagination overheated by some strong desire; as when we revel in visions of gratified appetites, of success, or of good fortune. This is not true meditation; it is a sort of drunkenness. Real meditation is where the intellect is liberated and goes over our whole self, inspecting, setting all things in order. It is an art. It cannot be done with good results except by practice. Most people are forever doing, doing, doing. When they are not doing they want to be amused. Every minute must be full. We cannot ride on the cars without a newspaper. We will not sit quiet for half an hour without some person to talk to or some periodical to read. To commune with one’s self is the height of boredom. The person we least know, and most dread to be left alone with, is ourself. To acquire skill in meditation, set apart a half hour every day. Be alone in your room. Be physically still, absolutely. Read nothing. Look at nothing. Concentrate on your own thoughts. Fix in your mind that you are thoroughly to take stock of yourself; your mind is to go all over your body and soul, to see clearly what you are, to avoid living in a fool’s self-delusion. Take up your body. What habits are you dropping into? Have you any rational plan of exercise? Is your eating haphazard or intelligent? Whatever you do, at least it will not hurt you to know. How about your principles? Have you any? And are they intelligent? Or are you just floating along in the current of other people’s ideas. You have your enemies; your own ignorance, your own inertia, the opinions of other persons, and the power of custom. Only by meditation, frequent sessions with your intellect, can you clean yourself of these cramping forces. Investigate the things you are In the habit of saying you believe. Decide on what you know and what you don’t know. Be intellectually honest with yourself, which is something few can achieve. Find out what you want. A lot of things you think you want you do not care for at all; you are only swept on by habit or by the mob. Find out whom you like and whom you don’t like. You need not tell it, but you ought to know. See how many things y,ou are doing that are not worth while. Look into your relations with other people. .Decide on some sensible programme for dealing with your children, your wife, your social and business acquaintances. Ask yourself what you are doing with your time. Think over plans for systematising your day. And your money? Is that spent by impulse or in some clear order? Most of us never practice this sort of meditation until we are on a sick bed. Emerson said: “Few men find themselves before they die.”