Meditation on Virtues
according
to A. Besant (3)
One favourite way of mine—for I was very irritable in my younger days— . . . was making myself an embodiment of patience; you never saw such a saint as I was in my meditation; whatever I might have been outside of it during the day, I was absolutely, completely, and perfectly patient in it! Then I brought up round me mentally all the most unpleasant and provoking people that I knew, and I heightened their power of provocation as much as I increased my own power of patience; and so I made a little mental drama, in which they provoked me in every possible way, and I answered as a modern Griselda. After a time, when I met the people, I found that their power of provocation had gone. “Why did I think that person so annoying?” I would wonder. I found that, unconsciously and gradually, I had established patience as a permanent part of my character. Any one of you can do it.
Man’s Life in This and Other Worlds
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