Concentration signifies the state of being at a centre (”con” and “centrum”). Applied to thought, it is the act of bringing the mind to a single point. Each human being must practise concentration subjectively and objectively. In other words, each human being aims with more or less precision at concentration on a point within and a point without his own world. Concentration “without” is illustrated when you devote all your attention upon Nature, such as learning a trade, a profession, a science, an art or some form of business.




This is Evolution, outgoing or positive mental energy. I shall call this Objective Concentration. Concentration “within” implies the withdrawing of attention from the external world and the placing of mind on “God,” “Spirit,” “Heaven,” “Religion,” “Peace,” “Nirvana,” “Eternity,” etc. This is Involution, i.e., incoming or negative energy.

When Objective Concentration alone is practised, you develop into a hard-headed, practical man of the world or a successful man of business. You are keen and shrewd. The world is a very matter-of-fact thing to you. You cannot think of anything else beyond money-making and pleasures and worldly affairs. You are a “worldling of the world,” very clever, rich, and a master along your own lines.

But spiritually you are an imbecile, worse than a baby. This is the Objective Mind –the “deepest immersed in matter, literally made of the dust.” “It is the brain of worldly wisdom, common sense, prudence, methodical arrangement, order, discipline, classification, the skill and knowledge of the expert in any branch or department of art or science.” This side of the mind is well developed in Scientists, Mathematicians and Businessmen, etc. Where it is not guided by the Subjective Mind, it can only see diversity and difference and is the slave of Maya–the slayer of the Real.

Subjective Concentration is seeking the Kingdom of Heaven within you. “God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth.” LAPLACE, the great astronomer, asserted that he had swept the heavens with his telescope and found neither God nor Heaven. Yes, poor LAPLACE! He looked for God objectively instead of subjectively.

The Kingdom of God comes not with ‘observation’ but it is ‘within’ you. The be-all and the end-all of religion is the practice of Subjective Concentration. The performance of objective work by the human organism necessitates expenditure of energy and at last death, because all Objective Concentration means ‘going from’ the Absolute centre–God–and hence it expends Spiritual Energy.

Subjective Concentration means ‘coming to’ the centre and hence it husbands and recuperates this energy. Now nature is motion to and from, and Spirit–the centre of Life. This two-fold motion constitutes what is known as polarity–Evolution and Involution–negative and positive. At the negative pole life becomes involved, i.e., ‘wrapped up’ in form. At the positive pole life ‘evolves’ or becomes expressed in nature. In Subjective Concentration you return for fresh supplies to the inexhaustible storehouse of force–the Absolute Will. Jesus healed the sick, exhibited control over external nature by raising the dead, because his chaste soul could receive nothing negatively from God and could give it out positively to the objective world. All power comes from God. I would impress upon you the all-important necessity of placing yourself in a magnetically passive attitude towards the Universal Will and then of taking up a calm, positive attitude towards the phenomenal world–which is a projection of the lower nature and hence must be handled masterfully, fearlessly and confidently. Be positive to the external world. Be negative and receptive to the Lord’s Will-force. Remember this.

This brings me to the supremest and most solid truth contained in the Science of prayer. The praying mind, by its mere attitude of faith and earnest expectation, opens itself out to the tremendous inflow of Divine Energy. It draws close to the centre of all-power, wisdom and love, and drinks deep of the living waters of life so that even the very face or flesh begins to shine under the influence of this self-polarization — if I may be permitted to use this word — through prayer. Here is the causa nuxus between a prayer and its sure reply. Do you remember what Lord Rosebery said of the great Puritan Mystic Oliver Cromwell? If not, please let me quote: “The secret of his extraordinary success — he was a practical mystic — the most formidable and terrible of all combinations. The man who combines inspiration, apparently derived — in my judgment, really derived — from close communion with the Supernatural and the Celestial, a man who has that inspiration and adds to it the energy of a mighty man of action, such a man as that lives in communion on a Sinai of his own; and when he pleases to come down to this world below, seems armed with no less than the terrors and decrees of the Almighty Himself.”

Now both forms of concentration must be practised so as to hold the two poles in the even balance of harmonious growth.

HOW TO CONCENTRATE OBJECTIVELY.

(a) In all undertakings whether of small or great importance shut off all thoughts and ideas except such as have any immediate and direct bearing upon the thing in hand. Pay attention. Bend all the energies of your mind and will upon it till it is completed to your satisfaction. Divert your attention from one thing to another only when you sanction by a resolve and understand why you do so. Your daily work which you must choose according to the special bent of your mind, will present you opportunities.

(b) Control impulse. Suppose an idea enters your mind. Compose yourself quietly before carrying out its purport. Consider it. Turn it over in your mind. Contemplate it. Weave your mental energies around it, as it were, till at last the idea with your final decision stands out clear-cut and well-defined. Then proceed to act it out physically with your mental concentration cutting a way for you straight on to the execution of your designing. This is forethought.

(c) In perfect concentration time vanishes. In working out a design on which you have set your heart dispense altogether with the element of time and work at it concentratedly for days, months and years with confident expectation of success.

(d) Take a picture, representing a landscape, the interior of a building, an assembly of persons, a square, a triangle or a more complicated geometrical figure. Look at it well. Then lay it aside. Close your eyes. Reproduce the picture mentally in detail. Then repose your mind on the same image to the exclusion of all other thoughts. This is a more fixed and meditative method and will sharpen the mind wonderfully. It will also develop the power of conscious Mental Imagery. The key to Objective Concentration is Conscious Attention.

Taken from “The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga” by A. P. Mukerji. For more articles on Yoga, visit

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