Cultivation of Concentration - James Allen

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Cultivation of Concentration Concentration, or the bringing of the mind to a center

and keeping it there, is vitally necessary to the accomplishment of any task.

It is the father of thoroughness and the mother of excellence.

As a faculty, it is not an end in itself, but is an aid to all faculties, all work.

Not a purpose in itself, it is yet a power which serves all purposes.

Like steam and mechanics, it is a dynamic force in the machinery of the mind and the functions

of life.

The faculty is a common possession, though in its perfection it is rare.

Just as will and reason are common possessions, though a perfectly poised will and a comprehensive

reason are rare possessions.

The mystery which some modern mystical writers have thrown around it is entirely superlifice.

Every successful man, in whatever direction his success may lie, practices concentration,

though he may know nothing about it as a subject of study.

Every time one becomes absorbed in a book or task, or is wrapped in devotion or a citrus

in duty, concentration in a greater or lesser degree is brought into play.

Many books purporting to give instructions on concentration make its practice in acquisition

and end in itself.

Then this, there is no sure nor swifter way to its destruction.

The fixing of the eye upon the tip of the nose, upon a doorknob, a picture, a mystical

symbol, or the portrait of a saint, or the centering of the mind upon the navel, the

pineal gland, or some imaginary point in space.

I have seen all these methods seriously advised and works on this subject, with the object

of acquiring concentration, is like trying to nourish the body by merely moving the

jaws in the act of eating, without taking food.

Such methods prevent the end at which they aim.

They lead towards dispersion and not concentration, towards weakness and imbacility, rather than

towards power and intelligence.

I have met those who have squandered, by these practices, what measure of concentration

they at first possessed, and have become the prey of a weak and wandering mind.

And is an aid to the doing of something, it is not the doing of something in itself.

A ladder has no divine knowledge, or the sweeping of a floor, without resorting to methods

which have no practical bearing in life.

For what is concentration, but the bringing of a well-controlled mind, to the doing of

that which has to be done?

He who does his work in an aimless or hurried, or thoughtless manner, and resorts to his

artificial concentration methods, to his doorknob, his picture, or nasal extremity, in order

to gain that which he imagines to be some kind of mystical power, but which is a very ordinary

and practical quality, though he may drift towards insanity, and I knew one man who became

insane by these practices.

He will not increase in steadiness of mind.

The great enemy of concentration, and therefore of all skill and power, is a wavering, wandering,

undisciplined value in and of itself, but only in so far as it enables us to reach something,

which we could not otherwise reach.

In like manner, concentration is that which enables the mind to accomplish with ease, that

which it would be otherwise impossible to accomplish.

But of itself, it is a dead thing, and not a living accomplishment.

Concentration is so interwoven with the uses of life that it cannot be separated from

duty, and he who tries to acquire it apart from his task, his duty, will not only fail,

but will diminish, and not increase his mental control and executive capacity, and so render

himself less and less fit to succeed in his undertakings.

A scattered and undisciplined army would be useless.

To make it effective in action, and swift in victory, it must be solidly concentrated

and masterfully directed.

Scattered and diffuse thoughts are weak and worthless.

Thoughts marshalled, commanded, and directed upon at a given point, are invincible.

Confusion, doubt, and difficulty give way before their masterly approach.

It thought enters largely into all successes, and informs all victories.

There is no more secret about its requirement than about any other acquisition, for it is

governed by the underlying principle of all development, namely, practice.

To be able to do a thing, you must begin to do it, and keep on doing it until the thing

is mastered.

This principle prevails universally in all arts, sciences, trades, in all learning conduct

religion.

To be able to paint one must paint.

To know how to use a tool skillfully, he must use the tool.

To become learned, he must learn.

To become wise, he must do wise things.

And to successfully concentrate his mind, he must concentrate it.

But the doing is not all, it must be done with energy and intelligence.

The beginning of concentration, then, is to go to your daily task and put your mind on

it, bringing all your intelligence and mental energy to a focus upon that which has to

be done.

And every time the thoughts are found wandering aimlessly away, they should be brought

promptly back to the thing in hand.

Thus the center upon which you are to bring your mind to a point is not your pineal gland

or a point in space.

But the work which you are doing every day, and your object in thus concentrating, is

to be able to do your work with smooth rapidity and consummate skill.

For until you can thus do your work, you have not gained any degree of control over the

mind, you have not acquired the power of concentration.

This powerful focusing of one's thought and energy and will upon the doing of things

is difficult at first, as everything worth acquiring is difficult.

But daily efforts, strenuously made and patiently followed up, will soon lead to such a measure

of self-control, as will enable one to bring a strong and penetrating mind to bear upon

any work undertaken.

A mind that will quickly comprehend all the details of the work, and dispose of them

with accuracy and dispatch.

He will thus, as his concentrated capacity increases, enlarge his usefulness in the scheme

of things, and increase his value to the world, thus inviting nobler opportunities, and

opening the door to higher duties, he will also experience the joy of a wider and fuller

life.

In the process of concentration, there are the four following stages, one, attention,

two, contemplation, three, abstraction, four, activity in repose.

At first the thoughts are arrested, and the mind is fixed upon the object of concentration,

which is the task in hand.

This is attention.

The mind is then roused into vigorous thought concerning the way of proceeding with the task.

This is contemplation.

Protracted contemplation leads to a condition of mind, in which the doors of the senses

are all closed, against the entrance of outside distractions.

The thoughts being wrapped in, and solely and intensely centered upon the work in hand.

This is abstraction.

The mind thus centered in profound cogitation reaches a state in which the maximum of work

is accomplished with the minimum of friction.

This is activity in repose.

Attention is the first stage in all successful work.

Those who lack it fail in everything.

Such are the lazy, the thoughtless, the indifferent, and incompetent.

When attention is followed by an awakening of the mind to serious thought, then the second

stage is reached.

To ensure success in all ordinary, worldly undertakings, it is not necessary to go beyond

these two stages.

They are reached in a greater or lesser degree, by all that large army of skilled and competent

workers, which carries out the work of the world in its manifold departments, and only

a comparatively small number reach the third stage of abstraction.

For when abstraction is reached, we have entered the sphere of genius.

In the first two stages, the work in the mind are separate, and the work is done more

less laboriously, and with a degree of friction.

But in the third stage, a marriage of the work with the mind takes place.

There is a fusion, a union, and the two become one.

Then there is a superior efficiency with less labor and friction.

In the perfection of the first two stages, the mind is objectively engaged, and is easily

drawn from its center by external sights and sounds.

But when the mind has attained perfection in abstraction, the subjective method of working

is accomplished, as distinguished from the objective.

The thinker is then oblivious to the outside world, but is vividly alive in his mental

operations.

If spoken to, he will not hear, and if applied with more vigorous appeals, he will bring

back his mind to outside things as one coming out of a dream.

Indeed, this abstraction is a kind of waking dream, but its similarity to a dream ends with

the subjective state.

It does not obtain in the mental operations of that state, in which, instead of the confusion

of dreaming, there is perfect order, penetrating insight, and a wide range of comprehension.

Whoever attains to perfection in abstraction will manifest genius in the particular work

upon which his mind is centered.

In veners, artists, poets, scientists, philosophers, and all men of genius are men of abstraction.

They accomplish subjectively, and with ease, that which the objective workers, men who

have not yet attained beyond the second stage in concentration, cannot accomplish with

the most strenuous labor.

When the fourth stage, that of activity and repose is attained, then concentration in

its perfection is acquired.

I am unable to find a single word which will fully express this dual condition of intense

activity combined with steadiness, or rest, and have therefore employed the term activity

and repose.

The term appears contradictory, but the simple illustration of a spinning top will serve

to explain the paradox.

When a top spins at the maximum velocity, the friction is reduced to the minimum, and

the top assumes that condition of perfect repose, which is a sight so beautiful to the

eye, and so captivating to the mind of the schoolboy, who then says his top is asleep.

The top is apparently motionless, but it is at rest, not of inertia, but of intense

and perfectly balanced activity.

So the mind that has acquired perfect concentration is, when engaged in that intense activity of

thought which results in productive work of the highest kind, in a state of quiet

poise and calm repose.

Externally there is no apparent activity, no disturbance, and the face of a man who has

acquired this power will assume a more or less radiant calmness, and the face will be

more sublimely calm when the mind is most intensely engaged in active thought.

Each stage of concentration has its particular power.

As the first stage, when perfected, leads to usefulness, the second leads to skill,

ability, talent, the third leads to originality and genius, while the fourth leads to mastery

and power, and makes leaders and teachers of men.

In the development of concentration also, as in all objects of growth, the following

stages embody the preceding ones in their entirety.

As contemplation, attention is contained, in abstraction, both attention and contemplation

are embodied, and he who has reached the last stage brings into play in the act of contemplation,

all the four stages.

He who has perfected himself in concentration is able, at any moment, to bring his thoughts

to a point upon any matter, and to search into it with the strong light of an active

comprehension.

He can both take a thing up and lay it down with equal deliberation.

He has learned how to use his thinking faculties to fixed purposes, and guide them towards

definite ends.

He is an intelligent doer of things, and not a weak wanderer amid chaotic thought.

Decision, energy, alertness, as well as deliberation, judgment, and gravity, accompany

the habit of concentration, and that vigorous mental training which its cultivation involves,

leads through an ever-increasing usefulness and success in worldly occupations, towards

that higher form of concentration called meditation, in which the mind becomes divinely

illumined, and acquires the heavenly knowledge.