BEFORE you sit down to commence the practice of recall quietly but definitely decide what is to be your object of concentration and for how long you propose to sustain it. Sometimes people sit down and then begin to decide what to do; they start on one object and then change to another because they find it unsatisfactory, and at last they wake up to realize that their time has gone and they have done nothing.

It is better to determine before you sit down exactly what you will do, and then say to yourself quite definitely: “I am going to turn my mind to such and such a thing for a quarter of an hour, and I have no concern with anything else in the world during that time”. Picture yourself as doing it before you begin. It does not matter what object you select, though it is best to avoid anything large or complex at first. Real objects may be thought of, or pictures, or symbols, and the object should be often changed.

There are great advantages in settling down very quietly into your period of practice, and launching yourself gently into concentration or thought, as you would float a little paper boat upon a pond, for it prevents the adoption of any tension of body or mind.

It is advisable to cultivate a definite posture for your formal meditations, although you may also practice them at odd times in any position in which you may find yourself — for example, in train or bus, in the garden or on the beach, on a couch or in bed. [It is impossible to overestimate the value of odd moments, I knew a man who learned shorthand in such bits of time - little by little - and benefited much by it. Thus, while waiting for buses and trains people can learn languages, with a little book in hand, if only at the rate of one or two new words a day.]

The advantage of having a regular way of sitting is that you develop the necessary muscles for it by practice and habit, so that you can sit for a long time without bodily tiredness. The object is not to relax the body completely but to acquire a degree of development of the muscles used in a particular mode of sitting such that you can remain for a long time in that position without tiring — just as a soldier learns to stand at attention for a long time on certain parades. At first the body will ache — but that does not matter; choose your posture and adhere to it, and the aches will pass away.

It is not for me to prescribe a particular mode of sitting, but only to say that it should be healthful. In general, I would say: “Do not let the spine be twisted and do not support the back above the waist; put the arms in a restful position, minimizing their weight on the shoulders; let the legs be restful also, and let the whole position be so well balanced that it will require the minimum amount of muscular energy for its retention. And let the neck be stretched and loosened up and then settled into a balanced line”.

Sit down quietly, not abruptly, so that the heart action will not be disturbed, quietly poise the body, see that the breath is calmly regular, withdraw your attention from objects of smell, taste, sight, touch and sound, and give your attention to the chosen object.

It is quite common for people to set up bodily tenseness when they start to concentrate, on account of the habit in daily life of using the mind only in relation to material things. I think of picking up a heavy weight and at once my breathing changes and my muscular tension adapts itself to the task. On account of this habit you will often see people frowning, clenching their teeth and doubling up their fists when they begin to concentrate. Indeed, in some cases they do not feel that they are really concentrating unless they have such a tenseness. But I warn them that if they concentrate in such a fashion they will bring on headaches or neckaches, and may even carry themselves to the point of a nervous breakdown. In concentration there should be no special feeling in the body at all.

Let me say a word about the eyes. Practice throwing them out of focus, in preparation for your concentration. Otherwise when you imagine the object as being in its usual position a short distance in front of you, even when closed your eyes may focus themselves and perhaps strain themselves to some extent. When we read in old books that in meditation the eyes should be fixed on the tip of the nose we should reflect that this meant, originally, straight in front or in the direction in which the nose is pointing, which means that the eyes would be parallel and out of focus.[e.g. in the Bhagavad-Gita, vi, 13, nasikagra, often translated as “tip of the nose”, may well mean straight in front. Shri Shankaracharya, in his commentary on this verse, says we must read the expression with the implication “as it were”, and adds that actual fixing of the gaze on the tip of the nose would prevent the mind from carrying out the instruction in vi 25 (for which vi 13 is a preparation) to concentrate on the Self (Atmasanstham manah kritwa) In v 27 the instruction is to have the sight between the two eye-brows, meaning exactly the same thing.

I will give a special exercise in unfocusing the eyes, which you can practice at any odd times, to get away from any danger of eye-strain in the course of your practice of concentration.

Stand or sit in front of a vertical mirror, about one foot away from it. Look at a spot between your own eyebrows. Your eyes will be focused to that spot, Now try to look into each eye with each eye, first separately and then both together so that they are parallel, holding a sheet of cardboard vertically between them, if necessary, in the beginning. Notice also that when you think of something such as a distant scene or an abstract idea in memory, your eyes also take on this condition. Practice this until, before you begin to concentrate upon an object, you can feel that you are not focusing your eyes.

Another way to unfocus the eyes is to hold the two index fingers in a straight horizontal line, exactly level with the eyes, about 15 or 18 inches in front, and with the tips touching. Look at the point where they meet, and then look right through that point at a wall or other object at least 15 or 20 feet away. You will now see another finger — floating, as it were — between the two index fingers. Look further into the distance until this floating finger seems to be 2-1/2 to 3 inches long. Your eyes are now unfocussed. Shut them while you are thus looking.

For the sake of avoiding eye-strain and also for the sake of success in your concentration, you must not imagine that you are making an effort to look closely at an object in front of your eyes, and you must not have the least idea that you are holding the object in front of you mentally or by will power. Realize that the object itself does not wander away, but that it is your attention that tends to wander, so you must merely look at the object just as calmly as you would look at your watch to tell the time, just as lightly as you would hold a feather in your hand.

The development of attention on any object follows a triple course:

(I) “I am not interested”. In this there is a sort of sluggishness. We are not interested in things as such. The elementary man and the animal take very little notice of things unless they have been acted upon by them in some way producing pleasure and pain. Their minds have to be stung into action from without, or to satisfy the pangs of a physical hunger that rises inside the body.

(2) “I am interested because I like it”, or “I am interested because I dislike it”. In the former case there is a memory of pleasure along with the past experience of the object; in the latter, a memory of pain. So now we want to attend to the object to see how we can more fully enjoy it if it pleases us or how we can get rid of it or master it if it gives us displeasure or pain. This kind of attention does not give a true understanding of the object, because we are biased in our view of it.

(3) “I am interested, because I want to understand the nature, qualities and functions of this object”. We view it now without the bias of pleasure and pain, setting those aside to attain correct understanding. Thus in concentration we have to put aside our likes and dislikes, and especially so in meditation, because we want the truth, which can only be seen in a calm appraisal beyond the turbulence of liking and disliking.So in our practice of concentration we have not only to be sensible with regard to the body, and see that it is (I) not sluggish, and (2) not excited, but (3) calmly functioning. We have also to see with regard to the mind that it is (I) not sluggish, and (2) not excited, but (3) calm. It is only when there is a full activity in the mind in its perfect calmness that we can properly concentrate or meditate on any object, or we can properly, think and understand anything at all. So let there be attention without tension in both body and mind.

concentration, meditations, odd times, posture, time has gone