“Just then my willful mind switched over to the happenings of the days just past and I found myself reliving all the horrors. ‘Stop!’ I said: ‘You’ve lost track of your meditation!’” (ODAT, 13 November)
The mind needs to be trained. This is meditation.
I thought the miserable thoughts were either a true reflection of reality or were somehow imposed on me.
Neither was the case. Rather, I was sloppy when it came to mental hygiene.
I have had to learn not to process incorrect thoughts but to note them, dismiss them, and redirect my attention.
I do not need to argue with them substantively—that just seems to give them fuel.
Rather, I recognise their source (ego—not God) and dismiss them because of their source.
In the meditation, I can then return to the thought at hand, the task at hand, the plan at hand, the spiritual idea at hand.