Swami Sivananda, spiritual master, Guru of Paramahansa Swami Satyananda Saraswati would insist all his disciples regularly wrote their spiritual diaries. It is a very effective tool to audit one’s behaviour and to correct oneself in order to facilitate one’s spiritual advancement. This is a simple method to control our weaknesses , to win over our enemies hidden inside our mind, to cleanse our mind, to purge our mind and intellect of evil thoughts and negative intuitions, to correct our entire personality and consequently elevate our spiritual level.

While writing this unique diary one confesses with one’s own self when, how and where one erred during the day. This confession with oneself makes a great deal of difference to one’s behaviour. Because one’s weaknesses are first identified and then mention is made when and how one succumbed to those weaknesses. It is studying the finer aspects of one’s weaknesses or negative qualities which lie hidden in one’s mind — unattended. Weaknesses or negative qualities are one’s real enemies and they have been occupying the entire space in one’s personality since time immemorial without any barricades. They have been eating into the vitals of one’s self since God alone knows when. These weaknesses and negative traits impede one’s growth, shackles one to the material world, sabotage all efforts to advance spiritually, make us commit blunder after blunders and keep us in the state where liberation seems impossible.

Therefore these enemies within have to be conquered at all cost. Whenever we plan to attack our enemy, we try to know as much about him as possible in order to enable us to easily defeat him. Unfortunately, we never think of the enemies lying within which are more dangerous than the ones outside.  Therefore, one must first defeat, tame and conquer these tyrant enemies . Before planning an attack on them we must first identify them. So the first step is to analyse one’s personality dispassionately and find out weaknesses or negative elements. While doing so, one should deliberately try to avoid the tendency towards either self-love or self-accusation. Don’t love or hate yourself. Make yourself stand in front of your own self as you are — like a mirror. Find faults with great abandon with your own self and note them down. Generally, anger and lust are the main and the strongest enemies present in almost every individual. How strong they are within your self ? Try to introspect. Envy , greed are another enemies that crop up now and then. Addictions for alcohol, tobacco, drugs also should be identified. If you are a powerful person you tend to terrorise others.  So, misuse of one’s power — physical, intellectual, financial etc. also is a vice which has to be curbed. Note it down if it is present in your personality. Besides, there are a number of specific weaknesses, negative elements and vices which differ from person to person. One should delve deep into one’s own personality, introspect deeply to find the presence of any such vices. Once they are identified the second step is to monitor their movements, audit their misdeeds, assess the damage they have done to your self during the day.

Auditing the movements of our weaknesses, making note of the moments when you succumb to those weaknesses and vices is like waging a war against and looking straight into the eyes of our enemy. This had never happened in your life and neither in the life of your enemies. When you start cornering your enemies like this, when you start demanding explanations from them, when you start telling them to get out of your personality and when you give them the message loud and clear that  are awake now, the enemies get startled and half of their energy and strength is lost. When your enemies realize that the owner of the space that they have been occupying for so long has finally arrived to reclaim the property, they start packing up for good one after another. Of course, this process is too long and it depends on you how effectively you monitor the movements of your weaknesses and vices and how committed you ar to the resolve of not falling prey to the weaknesses.

Similarly, one should write down about the good, noble deeds that one has performed during the day to bolster one’s morale and to scare the enemies further.

In this holy and historic war one should be armed with spiritual powers to facilitate the defeat of our enemies. So, one should inculcate spiritual habits and start performing some sadhana ;like japa ( counting beads of rosary ) of your favourite mantra or the mantra given to you by your Guru, paying obeisance to your favourite God, reciting holy stotras etc. Similarly, one should start practicing meditation sincerely without fail. Meditation is the greatest powerhouse offered to us by the Lord of the universe. One should use it as much as possible and benefit.

How to write this spiritual diary?  Formulate a questionaire as follows. One can add a few more questions depending upon the number of enemies within , the weaknesses one is plagued with and the vices one is dogged by.

The Questionaire

* When did I leave the bed?

* How many hours did I sleep?

* For how long did I practice asana and pranayama, yoga?

* How many malas of japa did I chant?

* For how long did I practice meditation?

* For how long did I perform Karmayoga ( service without any expectations)

* How many times did I get angry ?

*How did I rectify myself ?

* In how much time did I control my anger?

*How many times did I succumb to lust for opposite sex ?

* Did I fail in Brahmacharya ( celibacy ) ?

* How many times did I feel greedy ?

* How many times did I feel envious ?

* How many times did I succumb to addictions ?

* Tobacco

* Alcohol

* Drugs

* Entertainment

*How  much time did I waste — computer games, TV, entertainment etc ?

*How much time did I spend in mouna ( silence ) ?

* Which positive quality did I try to cultivate ?

* Which negative quality did I try to eradicate from my personality ?

* How much time of the day did I spend in a positive and negative way ?

* How many negative people I was with during the day and for how long ?

* How many positive people I was with during the day and for how long ?

* How was the day ? Positive or negative ?

* About what weakness I should be alert tomorrow ?

Similarly, one can formulate one’s own questionaire to suit one’s personality. A weekly review of the diary has to be taken to judge one’s progress. One can see a marked difference in one’s behaviour in about two months time provided the diary is written with religious regularity and reviewed frequently. Besides, one has to make a resolve time and again not to repeat mistakes committed once. If resolves are not made the entire exercise beocmes pointless.

Best luck in your war against your enemies within.

Prakash Joshi

Yogam Sharanam