How to Concentrate - Annie Besant
Thought Power: Its Control and Culture, Chapter VII
Having understood the theory of concentration, the student should begin its practice.
If he be of a devotional temperament, his work will be much simplified, for then he can take the object of his devotion as the object of contemplation, and the heart being powerfully attracted to that object, the mind will readily dwell on it, presenting the beloved image without effort and excluding others with equal ease. For the mind is continually impelled by desire, and serves constantly as the minister of pleasure. That which gives pleasure is ever being sought by the mind, and it ever seeks to present images that give pleasure and to exclude those that give pain. Hence it will dwell on a beloved image, being steadied in that contemplation by the pleasure experienced in it, and if forcibly dragged away from it, will return to it again and again. A devotee can then very readily reach a considerable degree of concentration; he will think of the object of his devotion, creating by the imagination, as clearly as he can, a picture, an image of that object, and he will then keep his mind fixed on that image, on the thought of the Beloved. Thus a Christian would think of the Christ, of the Virgin-Mother, of his Patron Saint, of his Guardian Angel; a Hindu would think of Maheshvara, of Vishnu, of Uma, of Shri Krishna; a Buddhist would think of the Buddha, of the Bodhisattva; a Parsi of Ahura-mazda, of Mithra; and so on. Each and all of these objects appeal to the devotion of the worshipper, and the attraction exercised by them over the heart binds the mind to the happiness-giving object. In this way the mind becomes concentrated with the least exertion, the least loss of effort.
Where the temperament is not devotional, the element of attraction can still be utilized as a help, but in this case it will bind to an Idea not to a Person. The earliest attempts at concentration should always be made with this help. With the non-devotional the attractive image will take the form of some profound idea, some high problem; such should form the object of concentration, and on that the mind should be steadily bent. Herein the binding power of attraction is intellectual interest, the deep desire for knowledge, one of the profoundest loves of man.
Another very fruitful form of concentration, for one who is not attracted to a personality as an object of devotion, is to choose a virtue and concentrate upon that. A very real kind of devotion may be aroused by such an object, for it appeals to the heart through the love of intellectual and moral beauty. The virtue should be imaged by the mind in the completest possible way, and when a general view of its effects has been obtained, the mind should be steadied on its essential nature. A great subsidiary advantage of this kind of concentration is that as the mind shapes itself to the virtue and repeats its vibrations, the virtue will gradually become part of the nature, and will be firmly established in the character. This shaping of the mind is really an act of self-creation, for the mind after a while falls readily into the forms to which it has been constrained by concentration, and these forms become the organs of its habitual expression. True is it, as written of old:
"Man is the creation of thought; what he thinks upon in this life, that, hereafter, he becomes." (Chhandogyopnishad, III, xiv, i).
When the mind loses hold of its object, whether devotional or intellectual—as it will do, time after time—it must be brought back, and again directed to the object. Often at first it will wander away without the wandering being noticed, and the student suddenly awakes to the fact that he is thinking about something quite other than the proper object of thought. This will happen again and again, and he must patiently bring it back—a wearisome and tiring process, but there is no other way by which concentration can be gained.
It is a useful and instructive mental exercise, when the mind has thus slipped away without notice, to take it back again by the road along which it travelled in its strayings. This process increases the control of the rider over his runaway horse, and thus diminishes its inclination to escape.
Consecutive thinking, though a step towards concentration, is not identical with it, for in consecutive thinking the mind passes from one to another of a sequence of images, and is not fixed on one alone. But as it is far easier than concentration, the beginner may use it to lead up to the more difficult task. It is often helpful for a devotee to select a scene from the life of the object of his devotion, and to picture the scene vividly in its details, with local surroundings of landscape and colour. Thus the mind is gradually steadied on one line, and it can be led to and finally fixed on the central figure of the scene, the object of devotion. As the scene is reproduced in the mind, it takes on a feeling of reality, and it is quite possible in this way to get into magnetic touch with the record of that scene on a higher plane—the permanent photograph of it in the kosmic ether—and thus to obtain very much more knowledge of it than is supplied by any description of it that may have been given. Thus also may the devotee come into magnetic touch with the object of devotion and enter by this direct touch into far more intimate relations with him than are otherwise possible. For consciousness is not under the physical space-limitations, but is wheresoever it is conscious—a statement that has already been explained. [See earlier in the chapter of this book]
Concentration itself, however, it must be remembered, is not this sequential thinking, and the mind must finally be fastened to the one object and remain fixed thereunto, not reasoning on it, but, as it were, sucking out, absorbing, its content.
Having understood the theory of concentration, the student should begin its practice.
If he be of a devotional temperament, his work will be much simplified, for then he can take the object of his devotion as the object of contemplation, and the heart being powerfully attracted to that object, the mind will readily dwell on it, presenting the beloved image without effort and excluding others with equal ease. For the mind is continually impelled by desire, and serves constantly as the minister of pleasure. That which gives pleasure is ever being sought by the mind, and it ever seeks to present images that give pleasure and to exclude those that give pain. Hence it will dwell on a beloved image, being steadied in that contemplation by the pleasure experienced in it, and if forcibly dragged away from it, will return to it again and again. A devotee can then very readily reach a considerable degree of concentration; he will think of the object of his devotion, creating by the imagination, as clearly as he can, a picture, an image of that object, and he will then keep his mind fixed on that image, on the thought of the Beloved. Thus a Christian would think of the Christ, of the Virgin-Mother, of his Patron Saint, of his Guardian Angel; a Hindu would think of Maheshvara, of Vishnu, of Uma, of Shri Krishna; a Buddhist would think of the Buddha, of the Bodhisattva; a Parsi of Ahura-mazda, of Mithra; and so on. Each and all of these objects appeal to the devotion of the worshipper, and the attraction exercised by them over the heart binds the mind to the happiness-giving object. In this way the mind becomes concentrated with the least exertion, the least loss of effort.
Where the temperament is not devotional, the element of attraction can still be utilized as a help, but in this case it will bind to an Idea not to a Person. The earliest attempts at concentration should always be made with this help. With the non-devotional the attractive image will take the form of some profound idea, some high problem; such should form the object of concentration, and on that the mind should be steadily bent. Herein the binding power of attraction is intellectual interest, the deep desire for knowledge, one of the profoundest loves of man.
Another very fruitful form of concentration, for one who is not attracted to a personality as an object of devotion, is to choose a virtue and concentrate upon that. A very real kind of devotion may be aroused by such an object, for it appeals to the heart through the love of intellectual and moral beauty. The virtue should be imaged by the mind in the completest possible way, and when a general view of its effects has been obtained, the mind should be steadied on its essential nature. A great subsidiary advantage of this kind of concentration is that as the mind shapes itself to the virtue and repeats its vibrations, the virtue will gradually become part of the nature, and will be firmly established in the character. This shaping of the mind is really an act of self-creation, for the mind after a while falls readily into the forms to which it has been constrained by concentration, and these forms become the organs of its habitual expression. True is it, as written of old:
"Man is the creation of thought; what he thinks upon in this life, that, hereafter, he becomes." (Chhandogyopnishad, III, xiv, i).
When the mind loses hold of its object, whether devotional or intellectual—as it will do, time after time—it must be brought back, and again directed to the object. Often at first it will wander away without the wandering being noticed, and the student suddenly awakes to the fact that he is thinking about something quite other than the proper object of thought. This will happen again and again, and he must patiently bring it back—a wearisome and tiring process, but there is no other way by which concentration can be gained.
It is a useful and instructive mental exercise, when the mind has thus slipped away without notice, to take it back again by the road along which it travelled in its strayings. This process increases the control of the rider over his runaway horse, and thus diminishes its inclination to escape.
Consecutive thinking, though a step towards concentration, is not identical with it, for in consecutive thinking the mind passes from one to another of a sequence of images, and is not fixed on one alone. But as it is far easier than concentration, the beginner may use it to lead up to the more difficult task. It is often helpful for a devotee to select a scene from the life of the object of his devotion, and to picture the scene vividly in its details, with local surroundings of landscape and colour. Thus the mind is gradually steadied on one line, and it can be led to and finally fixed on the central figure of the scene, the object of devotion. As the scene is reproduced in the mind, it takes on a feeling of reality, and it is quite possible in this way to get into magnetic touch with the record of that scene on a higher plane—the permanent photograph of it in the kosmic ether—and thus to obtain very much more knowledge of it than is supplied by any description of it that may have been given. Thus also may the devotee come into magnetic touch with the object of devotion and enter by this direct touch into far more intimate relations with him than are otherwise possible. For consciousness is not under the physical space-limitations, but is wheresoever it is conscious—a statement that has already been explained. [See earlier in the chapter of this book]
Concentration itself, however, it must be remembered, is not this sequential thinking, and the mind must finally be fastened to the one object and remain fixed thereunto, not reasoning on it, but, as it were, sucking out, absorbing, its content.
