Category Archives: Daily Meditations

Posts from Christmas Past

Leave a reply

We are less than ten days before Christmas and the 2025 is nearly finished. Here are some past Christmas posts that you might like to read between all that you need/should/ought/want/and don’t want to do. During this time of year full of darkness, I hope you can find a moment to reflect on the beauty, light, and love that is also in our midst.

Balancing Silent Night with the Roar of the Evening News

Changing Judgments to Christmas Blessings

Writing a Spiritual Christmas List

Christmas Letter from Rabindranath Tagore

Bird painting by Tagore

Christmas Desires

Merry Christmas and Many Blessings to You in 2026!

(Catherine, 3 years and 9 months).

Ten Days of Will Gymnastics

1 Reply
pushing-a-car1
Strong will alone is like pushing a car uphill.

In April and May of 1929, on two different occasions, Assagioli experimented training his will. In his first experiment, he contemplated on the word ‘will’. But after the 4th session, it dawned on him that it was “useless to try and understand the nature of will by thinking about it. One must ‘feel’ one’s way to the heart of things.”

So during his next will experiment, Assagioli chose to stand relaxed and raise his arms sideways to the level of his shoulders in decided movements. He did this for 5 minutes while repeating “I will do this.” He did this for 10 days.

At first glance, this exercise of raising one’s arms up and down looks silly. But it actually is an example of what Assagioli refers to as ‘Will Gymnastics.’ Assagioli insists that the idea is simple. Muscles become stronger when we exercise, and so does the will. These will gymnastics work even better when you choose to do something you’d rather not do at all. In this way, ‘useless’ exercises, like raising your arms up and down everyday — with precision, regularity and persistence, become a deliberate act of training the will.

Assagioli’s Methodology and Observations

Assagioli’s brief observations of these two experiments performed on himself are rare insights into, not only his scientific method, but also his character. More than once, he writes about how while meditating on the word ‘will’ thoughts of “the stupidity of the task” would enter his awareness. With humor, he notes how he cannot pretend to have “the slightest enthusiasm” for the five-minute will exercise, but nevertheless, confirms that he is determined “to carry out my resolution whether it leads to any useful result or not.”

Regarding his methodology, first of all, these notes definitively show how Assagioli would practice psychosynthesis techniques on himself, something he stresses that all psychosynthesis guides do.

000261 The training of the will

We can also see that he clearly conducts the experiments as a dis-identified Observer, using the terms “the mind,” “the attention,” “the personality” and “the performance” instead the first-person possessive pronoun of “my mind”, “my attention,” etc. For example, he laments how “the personality will not co-operate” but the next day notes how he “feels quite independent and refuses to be tyrannized by it.”

Lastly, we might wonder why Assagioli chose to have the notes typed (as opposed to handwritten) and in English (instead of Italian, German or French). Was this too part of his scientific methodology?

You can read Assagioli’s notes on his Will Experiments by clicking here.

Join Me in 10-days of Will Gymnastics

By the way, I have decided to perform this training of the will experiment of lifting my arms for 5 minutes everyday. Would you like to join me? I will start on Sunday 16 March and go until 26 March. Be sure to jot down your thoughts, feelings, and observations after each session. If you like, send me your comments, and we can share our experience together.

Keep in mind Assagioli’s caveat:

“Much of the value of the exercise is lost, unless the mind is also concentrated on the task. It should be done willingly, with interest, with precision, with style. Try always to improve the quality of the work, the clearness of introspection, the fidelity of the written account, and above all to develop the awareness and the energy of the will.

It’s good to compete with oneself; in other words, to assume, a ‘sporting attitude’ in the best sense of the word.”

Are you ready? Are you set? Well then, let’s raise those arms!

Good luck and enjoy!

Writing a Spiritual Christmas List

Leave a reply

Underhill Christmas Rules 1921 1-4

Evelyn Underhill’s notes from the King’s College Archives.

Most of us are familiar with writing Christmas Lists. As children we might have been encouraged by our parents to write to Santa Claus, sending him our list of desired gifts. We might have also been told that Santa Claus kept his own “list of who’s naughty and nice.” As we became adults enmeshed in the frenetic holiday craziness, our Christmas lists probably became more numerous and less imaginative – lists of things to do, presents to buy, and greeting cards to send.

The Christian mystic and writer Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) also wrote a Christmas list – but a kind I had never seen before. In the archives of King’s College London, you can read three pages of her own notes which she entitled “Rule. Christmas 1921.” Her handwriting is evenly spaced and full of sensuous loops and curves. Like Assagioli, she occasionally underlines, and even double underlines words for emphasis. Underhill’s Christmas list contains her spiritual goals for leading a Christian life, to be tested and practiced by herself for six months – “quietly and steadily, with a disposition to find them true even where uncongenial.”

Evelyn-Underhill

Evelyn Underhill

I have transcribed her Rule for you to read; you can download it here. Underhill wrote this list ten years after her best-selling book Mysticism: A Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness (which Assagioli studied extensively) had been published. She had just returned to practicing her Anglican faith and was starting to conduct retreats.

In all likelihood, Underhill wrote the list under the guidance of her own spiritual director Baron Friedrich von Hügel, whom she said was “the most wonderful personality … so saintly, truthful, sane and tolerant.” He encouraged her to engage in more charitable, down-to-earth activities, which is evident in her list where she dedicates two days a week to working with the poor (#2 in the list) and fixes a time for “daily, deliberate prayer” (#5).

Rule vs Rules

015510 Intuition See Underhill

Assagioli’s note referencing Underhill.

The first thing that I noticed is that Underhill called her list a “Rule.” Not a list of “rules” but a Rule, similarly to what is known as The Rule of Saint Benedict. When she visited Sorella Maria in Italy, she referred to the community as:

“… a little group of women who are trying to bring back to modern existence the homely, deeply supernatural and quite unmonastic ideal of the Primitive Rule.”

This use of the word “Rule” instead of “rules” seems to be a more open, discriminatory way of dealing with life as opposed to hard, fast rules that don’t allow for unforeseen conditions and our human frailty.

Try Writing Your Own Rule Christmas 2023

Upon studying Underhill’s Rule, I was impressed with the number of items on her list. Three pages full is a lot! Naturally, it inspired me to write my own “Rule. Christmas 2023” and I hope it inspires you as well. Here’s a few suggestions:

1. Prepare the space. Make sure you have enough time and a quiet space to work in.

2. Prepare yourself. Before starting to write, take time in prayer or meditation to quiet your mind and heart.

3. Use pen and paper. I know it sounds soooo old-fashion, but it works. Assagioli explains that while writing by hand, you allow other thoughts and feelings that you were not yet aware of to spontaneously emerge. It is as if the pen were to “take control of your hand.” But in reality, it is not the “pen” that is taking control but the unconscious.

4. Be honest and gentle. Try to come up with a list of items to be “dealt with”, as Underhill writes, “not by direct fighting but by gently turning to God or thoughts of serenely loving Saints.”

Just write. It doesn’t have to be perfect, wise, or entertaining. Just write without any judgment. Tell that judge inside you to go away! You know, that one who keeps insisting: “Oh! This is so stupid/a waste of time. I’m a terrible writer. Look at my handwriting. What a mess!”

Don’t make the list too long. Up to five items is enough for now…

5. Be grateful. Afterwards, extend your thanks to God/the Universe and yourself, especially the part that really did not want to write this Rule!

6. Be diligent, persistence, and patient. Put the Rule away somewhere safe, but keep it in your heart. Check periodically with yourself to affirm what you are doing well and what you might need to continue to work on.

7. Celebrate. In June 2024, at the Summer Solstice, reopen the Rule and assess your progress. Know that any movement forward is great spiritual success.  Be Joyful!