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will evaluate your progress and decide whether to continue. Make a clear and

achievable goal in the beginning—the number of days of daily practice that you

are willing to commit to. Once you succeed at keeping this first commitment to

yourself, you will likely be encouraged to continue. If you miss your regular time

on any given day, then meditate later on but do your best to keep to your time

schedule. This will reinforce the habit.

When I think about the relationship between the patterns in my mind and
my experiences in life, I feel guilty that I have caused bad things to happen.
I blame myself for the conditions I am struggling with and it makes it worse.
How can I change this?
Make a distinction between blame and responsibility. When we use our discern-

ment to determine how our thoughts or behaviors have contributed to certain

conditions and we accept responsibility for it, we can make necessary changes to

bring about an improvement. Blaming ourselves, or anyone else for that matter,

usually exacerbates an already difficult situation and doesn’t empower us to

change. Concentrate more on the power of your ability to see clearly and make

positive changes now than on anything that happened in the past. What we do

now, the choices we make now, forms our present and future experiences.

INSPIRATION FOR SPIRITUALLY CONSCIOUS LIvING

You are eternally free. Do you not know that the rope with which you tie anything in
this world must rot or wear out? And though you use iron chains, or even gold, what-
ever binds will one day break or be shattered. Do any worldly fetters exist that can
never be broken?. . .In your innermost heart you know that you are free; that is why it
is your nature to yearn for freedom.

—Sri Anandamayi Ma

Of God himself no person can think. God may well be loved, but not thought. By
love God may be grasped and held; by thought never. Smite upon that thick cloud of
unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love. Come what may, do not give up.

—The Cloud of Unknowing