The haphazard approach of years past had to
change. Once inspiration magically comes, there’s no excuse. You organise your
day into essentials, choices and non-essentials. Essentials: to dedicate time
throughout the day to withdrawal, meditation, questioning yourself and doing
certain exercises or rituals; focusing on the inner world, not exclusively on the
outer world. This must be planned and structured to avoid interruptions and
conflicts with other duties. The things you do are considered “duties”, and
these are threefold: 1) “Physical Duties”, or personal duties,
such as care of the body, a timetable for daily activities, right food and meals,
hygiene, sleep and breathing, proper use of the senses; obligatory duties to
family, parents, children, society, etc.; professional duties for economic
support, as we need to earn a livelihood, including social duties. These are
performed while practising the four charities of thinking only good thoughts,
speaking only good words, doing only good deeds and giving to others, ie,
charity or "tithing". Additionally there may be “choice” duties, to cater to
personality traits, things we like doing and cannot yet give up. All the rest
are non-essentials and are to be gradually phased out. Then come 2) the
“Moral Duties” or the cleaning and purification of the mind or heart. Only
a strong or purified mind can begin to experience truth without distortion, and
the way to do this, we are told, is to practise the 26 virtues. Confusion over
virtues abounds, and I had no idea what a virtue really was until I began
investigating. But the list had been given. Then 3) the “Spiritual
Duties”, which are meditation and contemplation on Truth.
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