The best time to introspect is at the close of the day’s activities. After dinner a restful repose floods the mind. Anxieties for the morrow refuse to rise up with the usual din and roar. The disappointments of the day do not disturb the after dinner peace. This is the sacred hour for negation and assertion. The psychological person in you is, at this moment, receptive and vividly transparent. In this quiet half hour let your mind rest in its impartial seat of judgement.
Let the day’s activities, actions, motives, thoughts and feelings stream by. What you earlier believed to have been an honest show of charity on your part may now reveal itself as selfishly motivated. Your offering to help a fatherless child’s education may now be exposed as a move to gain the attention of the charming young widow.
An afternoon quarrel with your friend, on principles, may be found to have arisen purely from your wounded vanity. Your vehement condemnation of religion to the club members may be revealed as an escape from the consciousness of your own imperfections or an expression of ignorance of your own religion. During your after dinner rest, you can examine the entire day and watch yourself alternately playing the villain and the hero in the drama of your just spent day.
The observer in you becomes ashamed of the false actor within. This realisation of yourself as you are is alone sufficient to effect an immediate improvement in your personality. Wrong values will drop off, and new, noble values will begin to thrive. You must not suffer consciously any known blemish in your personality. Animalism thrives on your ignorance. Detect it – and the next moment it is routed.