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external influences are likely to be unfavourable. New faces, new scenes
will disjturb us ; even the new habits of life which we undertake for this
very purpose of controlling the mind will at first tend to upset it. Still,
we must give up our habit of eating too much, and follow the natural
rule of only eating when we are hungry, listening to the interior voice
which tells us that we have had enough.
The same rule applies to sleep.
We have determined to control our
minds, and so our time for meditation must take precedence of other
hours.
We must fix times for practice, and make our feasts movable. In
order to test our progress, for we shall find that (as in all physio-
logical matters) meditation cannot be gauged by the feelings, We shall
have a note-book and pencil, and we shall also have a watch.
We
shall then endeavour to count how often, during the first quarter of an
hour, the mind breaks away from the idea upon which it is determined
to concentrate. We shall practice this twice daily; and, as we go, ex-
perience will teach us which conditions are favourable and which not.
Before we have been doing this for very long we are almost certain to
get impatient, and we shall find that we have to practice many other
things in order to assist us in our work.
New problems will constantly
arise which must be faced, and solved.
For instance, we shall most assuredly find that we fidget.
We shall