Sunday, November 27, 2016
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November is a month for study of Raja Yoga, a spiritual path often called the yoga of meditation. A raja yogi uses ancient, proven spiritual techniques to quiet the mind and gain control of her or his attention. Regular daily practice of concentration may lead to meditation, which can reveal God and liberate you from the cycle of death and rebirth.
Progress in yoga depends heavily on two capabilities: detachment (vairāgya), and concentration (dhāraṇā). On Sunday morning we will focus on concentration.
Your ability to concentrate also is one measure of how successful and happy you can be in everyday life. Won’t challenges be met more easily and pleasures enjoyed more fully, when you have a firm grip on your attention?
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)