Attention

Attention

Let us consider concentration. You ask a man if he can

concentrate. He at once says: "Oh! it is very difficult. I have

often tried and failed." But put the same question in a different

way, and ask him: "Can you pay attention to a thing?" He will at

once say: "Yes, I can do that."

Concentration is attention. The fixed attitude of attention, that

is concentration. If you pay attention to what you do, your mind

will be concentrated. Many sit down for meditation and wonder why

they do not succeed. How can you suppose that half an hour of

meditation and twenty- three and a half hours of scattering of

thought throughout the day and night, will enable you to

concentrate during the half hour? You have undone during the day

and night what you did in the morning, as Penelope unravelled the

web she wove. To become a Yogi, you must be attentive all the

time. You must practice concentration every hour of your active

life. Now you scatter your thoughts for many hours, and you

wonder that you do not succeed. The wonder would be if you did.

You must pay attention every day to everything you do. That is,

no doubt, hard to do, and you may make it easier in the first

stages by choosing out of your day's work a portion only, and

doing that portion with perfect, unflagging attention. Do not let

your mind wander from the thing before you. It does not matter

what the thing is. It may be the adding up of a column of

figures, or the reading of a book. Anything will do. It is the

attitude of the mind that is important and not the object before

it. This is the only way of learning concentration. Fix your mind

rigidly on the work before you for the time being, and when you

have done with it, drop it. Practise steadily in this way for a

few months, and you will be surprised to find how easy it becomes

to concentrate the mind. Moreover, the body will soon learn to do

many things automatically. If you force it to do a thing

regularly, it will begin to do it, after a time, of its own

accord, and then you find that you can manage to do two or three

things at the same time. In England, for instance, women are very

fond of knitting. When a girl first learns to knit, she is

obliged to be very intent on her fingers. Her attention must not

wander from her fingers for a moment, or she will make a mistake.

She goes on doing that day after day, and presently her fingers

have learnt to pay attention to the work without her supervision,

and they may be left to do the knitting while she employs the

conscious mind on something else. It is further possible to train

your mind as the girl has trained her fingers. The mind also, the

mental body, can be so trained as to do a thing automatically. At

last, your highest consciousness can always remain fixed on the

Supreme, while the lower consciousness in the body will do the

things of the body, and do them perfectly, because perfectly

trained. These are practical lessons of Yoga.

Practice of this sort builds up the qualities you want, and you

become stronger and better, and fit to go on to the definite

study of Yoga.