unimportant. If meditation is important to you and you are staunchly determined to persevere in its practice whatever the cost, you are on the road to success. With this attitude, you have made splendid preparations for meditation. In Search for Silence, Elizabeth O’Connor reminds us of St. Teresa’s admonition: “It is essential, I maintain, to begin the practice of prayer with a firm resolution to persevere in it.”[3] If you begin prayer with the attitude that it is an absolute necessity, vital