How to increase your concentration power
Sometimes, a change of venue does the job. For years, I worked in a busy office at a university. When I needed to meet a deadline or pay close attention to a project, I would decamp to a quiet corner of the library ability to concentrate, thoughts could be lost and memories wasted. Some consider concentration a way of branding our brains to recall things and assist our memory.
Questioner: My question is, what means concentration to you,
and which way can we apply
Concentration in our daily lives?
So what’s your definition of Concentration?
There’re many ways to describe this word. Instead of saying concentration, if you use the word attention – would you agree that attention and concentration are about the same thing?
There is a little difference, there are nuances to it,
but when you say concentration, it’s just like focusing a light on something, means only… a concentration is always a spot. Attention can be much more widespread. See right now, if you have clear vision, I’m having problem seeing the young man, because you kept him in darkness there in the hall. (Laughs) But if the hall was well lit,I don’t have to concentration myself to see the people who are sitting here. I just need attention; if I am attentive, I will see all the people here the way they are. But now, I get interested in this one young man, then, I need concentration. If I had only concentration, without the general
attention about everything around me, indiscriminate attention I’m talking about attention not even about something, just being attentive, because…only because there is a certain level of attention and awareness within you,
you even know that you exist. Otherwise, let’s say in sleep, in your experience, neither
the world exists, nor you exist. All that’s happened is, there is no attention, because there is no attention,
there is no perception of any kind. So first thing is attention, that
there is a general grasp of everything. Then, there’s a particular interest,
then, we concentration it down to that particular interest. So, what is the purpose, or what is the definition of concentration, what is the use of concentration, where can concentration get us? We are focusing on something only because our attention is not keen enough. If our attention was very keen, you would not need to concentration on anything. In the yogic systems, we have what is called as Dashavadanis,
what this means is, a man will do ten things at the same time.
Another man will do hundred things at the same time. This is, he will articulate a particular musical raga, at the same time, he will calculate a very complex arithmetic problem, at the same time, he will write poetry, at the same time like this, he will do ten things, or one hundred things.
There are people like this. You can either use that to just be a stage performer, or you can just use it in your life, you are an entrepreneur. It’s very important if you’re walking on the street, you are able to see something that most other people cannot see.
That is when you become a leader,
because you are able to see things others are yet to see.
That is when you take up a leadership position because…
essentially leadership means, you’re on a perch.
Once you are on a perch, you must see better than others.
So attention is that dimension
which will put you on that perch.
If your attention has to be very keen about everything,
then you should stop discriminating in terms of
“I like this person, I don’t like this person.
This is good, this is bad.
This is nice, this is not nice.
This is useful, this is not useful.”
If you do not make any kind of discrimination,
you just work on your attention –
not about being attentive about something,
just being super attentive, not about anything.
See, right now if you increase the
voltage in this hall where you are sitting,
when light comes on, light is not thinking in terms of… whom should I concentration on. When light comes on, everything that is there in that room will be seen. This is important; this is a very important aspect of yogic process is, that we go on working on our attention, that we keep on keying up our
attention to a higher and higher level, a higher and higher voltage and intensity. Now we don’t encourage focus, because concentration means consolidate all that attention and put it on one person.
Suppose you invested your entire focus on one spot, and you found nothing worthwhile in that spot,
what will you do at the end of your life? This is what is happening to most lives.
Now, you just work on making your attention itself so keen that even if somebody concentrations on something,
they won’t be that keen. If your attention is that keen, you won’t miss a thing in this universe. Now, when you don’t miss a thing, everybody thinks you’re some kind of a super human being! No, no, no, this is not about being super human.
This is about realizing, being human itself is super. So, if you cultivate your attention, there are… we can give you very dynamic processes through which you can scale up your attention to a higher and higher level.
How clearly you see, determines
how successfully you walk this life – there’s no question about it. How much lack of clarity there is in you, that much blundering you will do in your life –
simply, there is no question about this. So, if one has to get… first of all, work towards cultivating this attention, first thing is, you stop your sense of discriminatory looking that you don’t look at this person, “Oh! This is a man, this is a woman,
this is dog, this is this, this is that…” Simply pay attention without any judgment. If you just pay attention to anything and everything without any judgment, you will see, if you just pay attention to an ant, there are phenomenal things.
You’re in Germany, who knows if you pay enough attention to an ant; you may come up with the best automobile on the planet, because I have not seen any machine moving with as much dexterity as an ant moves! But I think nobody has paid enough attention to an ant! (Laughs)
So attention, raising the bar of attention, is more important than concentration – for immediate purposes, if you need to focus on something, you can; but right now you can do a simple experiment. If you sit with your face slightly upturned like this and close your eyes, you will see, naturally there will be a concentration between your eyebrows, but you can be conscious of many things:
people around you, your breath, the sensations in your body – you can be conscious of everything, and still be focused. So mental concentration is a limited possibility, but the attention – enhancement of attention that ultimately delivers you to a space where you become conscious, or, in other people’s words, super conscious
- it’s just conscious, but people
think you’re super conscious –
because of this, you grasp everything as it is. The most important thing for this is that your mind is not functioning like a prism, distorting things and creating designs where they don’t exist. Your mind has become like a plain mirror, it just shows everything just the way it is.
Only when you see everything just the way it is, you will have the ability to handle everything sensibly; otherwise, you make a mess out of many things. And this is very important for an entrepreneur (chuckles) because you don’t have a job
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