If you are to succeed, then never stop striving with that sharp dart of longing love to pierce the cloud of unknowing between you and God.
Avoid thinking of anything under God and keep at this exercise that will destroy the root of sin. It doesn't matter how much penance you do, how much fasting, what pilgrimage, how early you rise, the impulse to sin would still be in you. And it doesn't matter how sorry you are for your sins, nor desiring for the joys of heaven, they will not help you.
In comparison to this impulsive love, all of these can do little.
© The White Swami 2009