Chapter 1 Continuation: How to Practice the Observation Exercise

The meditation exercise contains all the ingredients for perfect self-control.The values accumulate only when practiced daily. If you want to break a habit or solve a problem, at this moment stop trying. I know it is very important to you, but up to now you have not succeeded your way, with all that effort. Put the same attention into your meditation exercise, and you will find that problems will resolve themselves. In a very short while habits will give you up, beginning with the last to appear.

There will come a time when serious guilt problems lose their place of importance. This may be quite puzzling, but remember what I said, “Do not analyze it.” Just be grateful that it is so. Be patient; in time you will understand what is happening.

These words are to be your guide for a little while. Go through the basic exercise without help whenever you can. It is essential that sooner or later you learn to do it by yourself without any help from this recording or text.

The day you stop meditating will be the day you begin to fall back, and it may be impossible to begin again, ever.

Examine the following text and thoroughly familiarize yourself with the simple requirement of the meditation exercise technique. When you have grasped the basic concept, which is to learn how to become objective to your own thought stream and not fall into your thoughts, it’s time to put it into practice.

You should not encounter any difficulty, but if you run into emotional blocks toward the printed word, you should obtain the instruction as it first appeared, as a sound recording in the author’s voice.

You will notice that the exercise in learning objectivity phases into a discussion of basic principles. In the original classic sound recording from which this text is taken, this format was used because once the conscious mind is separated from the confusion, the education, and the prejudices of the lower subconscious self, it becomes capable of deeper understanding and of following sound principles as never before.

To be patient and calm is good advice that few can follow, except perhaps artificially by taking pills. Only in the truly objective state can the conscious mind inherit faith and, through faith, patience, and fully appreciate (and marvel at) how far the principle of patience can go. Now that the meditation is in printed form, the exercise has been separated from the principles explained by the narrator. You will note the point of separation following the end of the exercise. The author wishes to emphasize that the spoken word is far easier to follow than the written word, and he again suggests that you write for his meditation recordings if you have any difficulty.

The procedure is modified as follows: first accomplish the objective of the meditation exercise and when you have reached this objective state (which feels mildly distant), then read the principles that protect the meditative state.

This simple exercise leads your consciousness up through layers of conscious thinking while the spoken part of the dialogue shows you how to preserve this state and helps awaken you progressively to even higher realms of understanding.