Regarding that particular exercise, I do not believe it is intended that you should feel comfortable. I've had a look at the lesson and I can't see that mentioned anywhere.

This is an exercise in self-discipline more than anything else.

I believe Charles Haanel is using this exercise as a demonstration to you just how hard many people find the simplest act of control over their own bodies. An even tougher exercise is the one the following week where you have to inhibit all thought too...again this is not intended to feel like a natural situation for you, it is just a demonstration to show how difficult such simple things are to do.

Personally, I wouldn't let your uncomfortableness about this exercise stop you from making progress in the book. You'll find this exercise much easier on a second or third pass through the book...yes, if you are like most people you'll end up going through this book more than once.

On a slightly related note, this particular exercise of sitting perfectly still for 30 minutes (or even up to an hour) is one of my favorites. I first came across it in the old cassette version of The Psychology of Achievement. (Note that that link is for the Audio CD in which this exercise seems to have been edited out).

Brian Tracy mentions this exercise as way of getting answers to impossible-type problems.

If you take your problem with you into this Silence for 30-60 mins, then during that time the answer to your problem will come to you and you will know it is the answer. Brian Tracy says this technique never fails and I have found this exercise to work reliably as he claims. It is one of my personal secret little "tricks" for coming up with ideas for achieving the impossible. :)

So Charles Haanel's first lesson exercise has more benefits to it (if you do master it) than you might be thinking.

Hope that helps you a bit.

Just like you would not enter a marathon and just show up and run 26 miles without a lot of training, it is exceedingly difficult to sit and meditate for a half hour successfully.

Why not start with 1 minute in the morning and once you've mastered that go to 2 and 3 and so on.

Because the mind is constantly going just like a movie reel, a good way to control your thoughts is to focus on your breath. While you deeply inhale, visualize breathing in white light. Then when you you breathe out, visualize breathing out dark smoke.

Do this over and over and before you know it, you will have mastered one full minute of sitting still and meditating on your breath.

SMALL STEPS and small successes toward our ultimate goal are OK.

I think it is also an exercise in learning to allow yourself - to allow yourself to learn to do it, to allow yourself to become able to do it, and to overcome your thoughts that you can't. Mastery of this is a demonstration that you can and by association, can do other things that you think you can't. Master yourself - the Master Key indeed!

By the way, how you sit is important. I can sit cross legged and meditate for fifteen minutes half an hour easily, as you automatically create a secure base by doing that but sitting in a chair is another matter. Note that he doesn't say HOW to sit except for to sit erect, which fits with the classic meditation position. It may even be that he is teaching a way of meditating by this process.

Quote:

44.. Now make the application: Select a room where you can be alone and undisturbed; sit erect, comfortably, but do not lounge; let your thoughts roam where they will but be perfectly still for from fifteen minutes to half an hour; continue this for three or four days or for a week until you secure full control of your physical being.

I had the same doubts when I first started my asana training (just simple "chair asana"). Every day I sat down for 5 minutes two times a day, forcing my body to stay completely still. At that time I was wondering if the shaking of my muscles will ever stop, it seemed that it won't. But after a month of regular practice this problem is less noticeable, at some times I don't shake at all (though usually I experience it in a less manner). Some more time and it will be over.

Remember to stay persistent all the time, and the problems will eventually disappear.