Meditate with Urmila: The 3 Ps and new resolutions

For the year 2021, many of you may have taken a resolution. In case your resolution begins to dwindle, then you can reinfuse energy into it through these three aspects: practice, patience and perseverance. (3 Ps).

Most resolutions fall by the wayside for the lack of full or undivided attention. A resolve or ‘sankalp’ is to be held in sacredness, and ought to be followed with the attitude of ‘samadhi’. Resolve needs the respect of the 3Ps. And this energy can be brought back through choice to allow fruition of your goal.

Practice

This asks for regularity, discipline and a ‘ceremony’ of attention. Ceremony implies making your resolve sacred. A ceremony becomes sacred only because a great deal of attention is given to every aspect of its planning, for instance, a marriage. Here, you plan things to every detail possible.

Similarly, if you resolve, let’s say, to start meditating this year (or any other resolve), then give the practice its sacredness. How do you do that? You plan (that is, energise your idea) by attending all possible stages of it first in your mind. In meditation, it may involve aspects like: where will I will sit to meditate, how will I maintain a daily discipline of it, what time will I start and finish the practice, how will I build the practice etc. When you are planning mentally, you are giving attention to your idea/resolve. Any resolve requires constant mental practice as well as physical practice.

The more you practice your resolve through visualisation (mental) and action (physical), the more energy you feed to it. Then this energy starts to shape form to offer physical results.

Patience

Let’s say your resolution is to meditate for peace and calm. Keeping a goal is one thing, getting fixated on a particular outcome is another. In meditative practice, holding on to the outcome causes suffering and dislodges one from the practice. Therefore, patience is warranted. Patience is a mental aspect and not physical, hence it can be developed and practised through thoughts.

Affirmations, such as, “patience leads me to my meditation goals.” I go with the flow of my practice”, “outcome will be divinely guided, at the time it is best for me” etc. Know that for a resolve to bear fruit, one ought to build-up emotional skills and thought skills. So, whether the resolve is learning a new language or baking or rock climbing, building up positive emotions and thoughts is an important step. In learning the emotional and mental skill, you reduce your strenuous effort and simply follow ease.

Perseverance

Any thought (subtle energy) takes time to build up and to deliver results, to be seen in physical form (gross energy). Until such time build-up is done, that is, a physical form is shaped, one needs to patiently persevere in practice. So, for instance, if my goal is to run two miles within a week, then I have to fuel my thoughts towards my goal, preserve through my practice, which is my ‘sadhna’, in order to attain the results in physical form. Know that the energy works at thought level first to be manifested at physical level.

What causes energy dropout from a resolution? It is indifference, which is the lack of attention and focus, irregularity in practice, casual attitude towards the goal. All these are obstacles to perseverance.

A resolve or ‘sankalp’ needs a ‘samadhi’ attitude, meaning undivided focus. Any resolution, big or small, short-term or long-term, taken on new year’s or later, requires celebratory attention of the three Ps.