7.4 ‘I have practised the meditation intermittently, with no sustained effort, and it seems to produce no worthwhile results – why not?’

Your whole organism, your mind and body, in reality linked inextricably as a unity, is structured with the built-in desire, capacity and ability to attain enlightenment. The drive to attain enlightenment is a natural part of your existence – the aim of meditation is to awaken and fulfil that drive. The capacity to become psychologically enlightened is well within the ability of any ordinary intelligent person.

The purpose of the simple meditation technique taught in this book is to awaken, strengthen, mature and bring to successful fruition your in-built capacity for attaining enlightenment. The way to achieve this is committed daily practice of meditation. It is only with sustained duration of effort through time that your inherent capacity to attain enlightenment will awaken.

The reason you have achieved so little is because you have committed so little of your self. Out of arrogance, laziness or fear, you have only dipped a toe in the water, or only rolled your trousers up and gone paddling in the shallows. Then you wonder what there is in swimming which is so satisfying to other people.

Be clear on this: until you have sustained the practice of meditation through a period of time, you have not begun to meditate. Intermittent attempts to meditate are only intermittent attempts, nothing more. Unless you persevere with a minimum of fifteen minutes meditation daily, you will continue to live your self-illusory, self-deceiving and self-wasteful life.

By now, having tried meditation a little, you are probably aware of how demanding such a simple practice actually is. This is because living your life fully and honestly is very demanding. Think on this and what it tells you about yourself.