Sunday, November 1, 2015
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Your ability to concentrate is one measure of how successful you can be in life. Challenges are met more easily, pleasures enjoyed more fully, when you have control of your attention.
As we take up Raja Yoga during the month of November, we will study closely the role of concentration. It is fundamental to each step of that eightfold spiritual path. Swami Vivekananda said —
“All knowledge that we have, either of the external or internal world, is obtained through only one method — by the concentration of the mind. No knowledge can be had of any science unless we can concentrate our minds upon the subject. The astronomer concentrates his mind through the telescope… and so on. If you want to study your own mind, it will be the same process. You will have to concentrate your mind and turn it back upon itself. The difference in this world between mind and mind is simply the fact of concentration. One, more concentrated than the other, gets more knowledge.” — CW Vol 4: CONCENTRATION (San Francisco, March 16, 1900)
In this talk, Br. Shankara defines concentration and how it relates to study of your mind.