We may now turn to the first exercise:

Exercise 1.
Study the following diagram:

Copy it on a large sheet of paper and try to increase the number of arrows to 100. Write in a Road-nomination or reason for each arrow-word, in the manner shown in number-brackets on the diagram. If you cannot put in 100 at one sitting, keep the diagram and continue the work each day. If you dislike cats, use “dog” or anything else, for it is a rule of mental health not to ponder on disliked things. Do this exercise every day for a week, at least.

Take care not to think about the milk, or mouse, or whiskers, etc. Merely notice them and write them down, and then slide your attention back along the arrow to the cat. Do not jump back, but slide back.’ Then ask yourself, “What next?” while looking at the cat. Again write down any idea that comes up. When , you have written down a good many, you may find the mind going empty, and bringing out no more. Still hold on for a while, and only after a little while more begin to use the Four Roads systematically to find some more.

When at last you do decide to give up waiting or looking for more arrow-words, you may stop and think about what you have been doing. You have been doing concentration, practicing return, and getting to know what it feels like. Incidentally, you have also been tidying up some of the contents of your mind.

Exercise 2.
Now decide to concentrate mentally on a cat (or other object) for five minutes. “Look at the clock and make a note of the time. Tell yourself that you are going to keep the cat idea in mental focus for five minutes. Don’t think about the time, but make a note of it. After a while you will suddenly realize that you are thinking of something else — note the time — and have forgotten the, cat in the meantime. Try to find the cause of this. Was it due to a drift beginning with milk, mouse, whiskers or any others of the hundred; direct association standing around the cat? Was it due to the intrusion into the mind of bodily discomfort, disturbed breathing, sense receptions through hearing, sight, smell or touch? Was it due to a thought of failure in your experiment, or to wondering-if-you-can, or anxiety about something, hurt pride, anger, fear, discontent, timidity, worry or anything of this kind? Do this exercise every day for at least a week and observe the increase of the period of concentration.

Exercise 3.
Most important. Do. this one every day for a month.

Concentrate “as before on a cat, or some other pleasing object.; Do not try to think only of the cat, but deliberately send your thought out along the arrows one after another with the instruction to look there and return to the center. Say “milk — cat, mouse — cat, whiskers — cat, claws — cat” and all the rest of your arrows and then more. Bring into vision everything you can think of that has a direct connection with “cat” by all the four Roads of Thought. When you cannot think of any more still try hard to think of other things without letting the cat fade from the focus of your attention. Hold on to the cat while you try to penetrate, the void. Say to yourself, “Is, there anything more on Road 1, on Road 2, on Road 3, on Road 4?”

Explanation ,“In this exercise you are, controlling your thoughts or ideas with your will. Slowly your will establishes a habit of recall which operates under a mood of concentration. After you have practiced this exercise every day for a month you ought to be able to put on this mood — which is a feeling — on the slightest decision of the will, silently saying, “Now, concentration”.

I can give a very good simile for this to all who know how to swim. When going for a swim you arrive at the edge of the pool, and say to yourself, “Now, swimming”. “Do I?” you will ask, perhaps with a little surprise, “I never noticed it”. No, you did not notice it, but you do say to yourself, “Now, swimming”, and instantly a change comes over the body — and you can swim. Even if you are the best of swimmers and you fall into water accidentally, you flounder about like a beginner in the art of swimming until you recover yourself and realize, “Why! I am in the water”, and then you almost subconsciously say, “Now, swimming”.

It is not different even with walking. We get up and say, “Now, walking”. Then we walk, and all the muscles concerned do their work. Psychiatrists will confirm my statement that there are many people not walking this earth but lying in bed or going about in wheelchairs merely because they have a mind-inhibition which prevents them from saying to themselves, “Now, “walking”.

When I start teaching this method of recall there is nearly always someone who asks: “But is it not sufficient merely to try to concentrate on something and keep on persistently bringing the mind back to that thing whenever it wanders away from it?“

The answer is “No”. In all these matters we must do no violence to body or mind. We are not hard and lofty masters whipping a wild animal into sullen obedience. We are philosophers — people who know how to live. We know that happiness of body and mind consists in their functioning in a manner and degree harmonious to their hereditary structure and environment. We aim at the fulfilment of life, from crown to toes, not the unnatural development of one part at the expense of the rest, for the sake of some particular prideful power.

To command the mind is one thing. To teach it as a willing and happy pupil constantly finding new delights of experience in healthy functioning is quite another. And also the natural way of mind-living, in which thought and love and will all function harmoniously as one, relating us with understanding and all-over purpose to events and our fellow-beings and the well-spring of divine purpose that brings order and joy from the within of our lives, is best. Thus our lives will blossom like the rose, whose beauty and fragrance come from its secret depths — which does not battle for power, which cannot be chiseled or hammered into shape, yet fulfils itself in yielding its best to its order of society, its own circle of living beings. Truly can it be said of such a life that it tells us of fulfilment, harmony, happiness and faith, and in its gracious yielding to the order of its being there is a spiritual consummation — “the dew-drop slips into the shining sea” while “the universe grows I”.

I have not gone far afield and forgotten our present study. That mind of ours is to be like the rose, which surrenders itself to no violence, nor proposes to do it to another.

Let me take up another simile for this practical job of learning concentration. You are sitting reading and you have your dog lying beside you. The dog becomes restless. You call out, “Fido, come here, lie down”. Fido obeys, but very soon, when you are not looking, he is away again. You call him, and the process is repeated again and again. Similarly, bringing the mind back again and again to the object of concentration teaches it to concentrate under the stern eye of the will, but not to unfold its own powers naturally in more harmonious living. It does not produce the mood of concentration and the habit of recall which functions within, that mood. There is all the difference in the world between the obedience of a slave (called tamasic) and the ordered activity of intelligent co-operation and mental fruitfulness seen in an ideal family (called sattvic).

I have prescribed a whole month for this exercise. By that time the average reader of this book should be able to give his attention to one thing in tranquil concentration for any reasonable length of time. This will then lead to a great many other things.

concentration, four roads, mental health, recall