Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles
Monthly Magazine
Theme : Concentration
  May 2019 Issue - XVI
There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind’s immobility and thought-free stillness.

-Sri Aurobindo
Dedicated to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo who gave their lives to changing the earth-nature and earth-conditions so that the earth becomes a tenement of a Divine Life, and brought down the force of a supreme consciousness ushering a new age of Truth, Harmony, Peace and Love progressively.  The path to the Divine need not be anymore a "walk on the edge of a razor".
 
Center  Activities:

We observed the 24th April Darshan Day on Sat, May 4. This was the notable event in this month.  The invocations with music, readings and sharing made for a truly joyful celebration. Watching clips of the Mother's life thoroughly imbued us with thoughts of Her. The gratitude that spontaneously followed was overwhelming, no less the joy and deep sense of protection that naturally arose from it. 
   This month we have for our readers an interview with Medhananda (name given by the Mother) from his book "With Medhanda on the shores of infinity" He was an early disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and graced by Her with a many-sided realization of the Divine.
    The theme for this month is Concentration. It is the hallmark of those who have discovered the Divine. According to the Mother, it is the one thing to be cultivated, and indispensable in the spiritual path.

Happy reading.



One thing is absolutely indispensable and at the basis of everything, the capacity of concentrating the attention.


   - The Mother

The first opening is effected by a concentration in the heart, ... The second opening is effected by a concentration of the consciousness in the head .

- Sri Aurobindo. 

                                    On the shores of infinity  Medhananda

Sri Aurobindo's Planet

Medhananda: Haven't I ever told you about the time I left my body on the marketplace in Papeete? It was during the time when my wife had gone to take the children to school in France, and I was looking after a chemists' shop for a friend in his absence. The market starts at five in the morning, and by six-thirty or seven it is more or less finished. If you want good fish, you must go there at five when the fishermen have just come in. The fish are sold string together in a cord.... So there I was at the market. Just being there so early in the morning, and in such a crowd was strange. Suddenly, I became aware that I had left my body somewhere there in the marketplace, gazing at the fish. 

Q: What did it do there, all on its own?

Medhanda: What everybody does.... People don't do much - it got jostled around a bit. When I wanted to return to my body, it was impossible to remember what earth I belonged to, what solar system, what galaxy. There are lots of earths, even inhabited ones. It is a problem if you lose your connection with your body, especially in an expanding universe where you are in danger of getting further and further away from it.
   I was like a tiny child confronted with those vastnesses, which began to question me. And suddenly I remembered, "Sri Aurobindo!" I came from Sri Aurobindo's planet. "Ah" they seemed to exclaim, those cosmic entities who look after the intergalactic traffic., "Sri Aurobindo! You should have said that to start with!" And contact was re-established with this body standing in the middle tof the marketplace.
    It was used to my wanderings and knew that I would come back, but normally I would leave it in a quiet corner somewhere.... In a big European or American city it might have developed into a tragedy.
 
     
 
 This month's theme:
       Concentration
                                     
What is Concentration                          
- The Mother

Concentrate in the heart and above the head    
- Sri Aurobindo

Concentration and Dispersion              
- The Mother

Dealing with the mind through quietude and concentration       
- Sri Aurobindo

Your value is proportionate to the value of your attention                                         
- The Mother 
 
 

What is Concentration     - The Mother                                    Home

It is to bring back all the scattered threads of consciousness to a single point, a single idea. Those who can attain perfect attention succeed in everything they undertake; they will always make a rapid progress. And this kind of concentration can be developed exactly like the muscles; one may follow different systems, different methods of training. Today we know that the most pitiful weakling, for example, can with discipline become as strong as anyone else. One should not have a will which flickers out like a candle.

The will, concentration must be cultivated; it is a question of method, of regular exercise. If you will, you can. But the thought “What's the use?” must not come in to weaken the will. The idea that one is born with a certain character and can do nothing about it is a stupidity.  
 


Concentrate in the heart and above the head  - Sri Aurobindo  Home

 

It will be evident that the two most important things here are the opening of the heart centre and the opening of the mind centres to all that is behind and above them.  For the heart opens to the psychic being and the mind centres open to the higher consciousness and the nexus between the psychic being and the higher consciousness is the principal means of the Siddhi.  The first opening is effected by a concentration in the heart, a call to the Divine to manifest within us and through the psychic to take up and lead the whole nature. Aspiration, prayer, Bhakti, love, surrender are the main supports of this part of the Sadhana accompanied by a rejection of all that stands in the way of what we aspire for.  The second opening is effected by a concentration of the consciousness in the head  (afterwards, above it)  and an aspiration and call and a sustained will for the descent of the divine Peace, Power, Light, Knowledge, Ananda into the being the Peace first or the Peace and Force together.  Some indeed receive Light first or Ananda first or some sudden pouring down of Knowledge.  With some there is first an opening which reveals to them a vast infinite Silence, Force, Light or Bliss above them and afterwards either they ascend to that or these things begin to descend into the lower nature.  With others there is either the descent, first into the head, then down to the heart level, then to the navel and below and through the whole body, or else an inexplicable opening without any sense of descent of peace, light, wideness or power, or else a horizontal opening into the cosmic consciousness

 

Concentration and Dispersion                - The Mother   Home

To solve a problem, to learn a lesson, a lot of concentration and attention is needed, everyone knows that – an intellectual attention and concentration. But concentration is not only an intellectual thing, it may be found in all the activities of the being, including bodily activities. The control over the nerves should be such as would allow you a complete concentration on what you are doing and, through the very intensity of your concentration, you acquire an immediate response to external touches. To attain this concentration you need a conscious control of the energies.

 Are you conscious of the energies you receive and those you spend ? One is more or less conscious of the energy one spends, especially when one wastes it too much ! It is a question here of the constant exchange between receiving and spending ! Before the age of reason, little children receive a lot of energy and they spend it lavishly, without thinking, and this allows them to play for hours together without getting tired. But gradually, as thought develops, one begins to measure and calculate the energy spent – usually this is futile, for unless you have the knowledge of the process of receiving energy, it is better to spend freely what you get than let it stagnate within you.
 
First, you must become conscious of the receiving of energies, their passing into your being and their expenditure. Next, you must have a sort of higher instinct which tells you whence the most favourable energies come; then you put yourself in contact with them through thought, through stillness or any other process – there are many. You must know what energy you want, whence it comes, of what it is composed. Later comes the control of the energy received. Ninety per cent of men do not absorb enough energy or they take in too much and do not assimilate what they take – as soon as they have had a sufficient dose they immediately throw it out by becoming restless, talking, shouting, You must know how to keep within you the received energy and concentrate it fully on the desired activity and not on anything else. If you can do this, you won't need to use your will. You need only gather together all the energies received and use them consciously, concentrate with the maximum attention in order to do everything you want.

 And you must know how to give a real value to what you want to do – what the higher part of your being wants to do – for to do what one likes to do is not difficult.

Dealing with the mind through quietude and concentration    
-
Sri Aurobindo        Home

What you have now seen and describe in your letter is the ordinary activity of the physical mind which is full of ordinary habitual and constantly recurrent thoughts and is always busy with external objects and activities. What used to trouble you before was the vital mind which is different, – for that is always occupied with emotions, passions, desires, reactions of all kinds to the contacts of life and the behaviour of others. The physical mind also can be responsive with these things but in a different way – its nature is less that of desire than of habitual activity, small common interests, pains and pleasures. If one tries to control or suppress it, it becomes more active.
 
To deal with this mind two things are necessary, (1) not so much to try to control or fight with or suppress it as to stand back from it: one looks at it and sees what it is but refuses to follow its thoughts or run about among the objects it pursues, remaining at the back of the mind quiet and separate; (2) to practise quietude and concentration in this separateness, until the habit of quiet takes hold of the physical mind and replaces the habit of these small activities. This of course takes time and can only come by practice.
 

Your value is proportionate to the value of your attention    Mother        Home

Whatever you may want to do in life, one thing is absolutely indispensable and at the basis of everything, the capacity of concentrating the attention. If you are able to gather together the rays of attention and consciousness on one point and can maintain this concentration with a persistent will, nothing can resist it – whatever it may be, from the most material physical development to the highest spiritual one. But this discipline must be followed in a constant and, it may be said, imperturbable way; not that you should always be concentrated on the same thing – that’s not what I mean, I mean learning to concentrate.
      And materially, for studies, sports, all physical or mental development, it is absolutely indispensable. And the value of an individual is proportionate to the value of his attention.
      And from the spiritual point of view it is still more important. There is no spiritual obstacle which can resist a penetrating power of concentration. For instance, the discovery of the psychic being, union with the inner Divine, opening to the higher  spheres, all can be obtained by an intense and obstinate power of concentration — but one must learn how to do it.
      There is nothing in the human or even in the superhuman field, to which the power of concentration is not the key.
      You can be the best athlete, you can be the best student, you can be an artistic, literary or scientific genius, you can be the greatest saint with that faculty. And everyone has in himself a tiny little beginning of it is given to everybody, but people do not cultivate it.           

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