On this first day of lent I have been reflecting a great deal on the following excerpt from one of my teacher’s books:
To initiate a true process of self-transformation, first you have to discipline yourself. Discipline means overcoming your carelessness. To start and complete any kind of task, spiritual or mundane, you have to organize your external and internal life. You can do so only when you are not careless. Sloth, inertia, procrastination, and all other negative tendencies receive their nourishment from one main fountain—carelessness.
Excerpt from Touched by Fire by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, Ph.D.
Chapter seven page 216
As a true modern westerner yesterday I conversed and contemplated over which vice I should abstain from over the course of the coming forty days.
This morning I am inclined to approach it from a different perspective. In earlier times lent was less about giving up a vice, and more about offering prayers and meditation, fasting from certain indulgences, and being kind to others.
So this morning I feel it appropriate to set my intention to re-connect with my meditation practice, be more disciplined with my diet and exercise routines, and to make an effort to be more kind to myself and others. I will try to keep a journal of how things progress here.
If I had to say that i was “giving up one thing for lent” how could I not choose carelessness?
