Copyright ©1994 First published January 1, 1994, Durga Ma. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including the use of information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from Durga Ma. |
Lesson 3 Attention Getters
By trying to move your attention consciously, you can get a feeling for how it works and what it does. This knowledge will be helpful for meditation because attention is a key element. Try these attention experiments and make a note of your observations. You may want to try them more than once.
Experiment #2 First, put your attention on something outside yourself for just a moment. Something you can see or hear, for instance. Give it your full attention. Now move your attention to yourself. You can concentrate on anything inside yourself, such as your breath or a thought in your mind. Did you notice any difference in what it was like to have your attention flowing to something outside yourself as opposed to going inside yourself? Make a note of your observations. [ Adequate journaling space is provided in the hard copy version ]
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WITH THE FOLLOWING EXPERIMENTS, try to do one each day so that you can see what happens as you go about your normal activities. Later, or when it is convenient, make a note of your observations.
Experiment #3 The next time you experience a strong emotion, notice what happens to your attention. Does it move in or out? What is the nature of its movement? How is that different from the way you experienced its movement in Experiment #1 (Lesson 2, "How Meditation Works")? [ Adequate journaling space is provided in the hard copy version ]
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Experiment #4 Notice when your body attracts your attention at a time when you are not expecting it. Is your attention being drawn to a certain place in your body? Do you allow it to go there? Do you resist the flow of your attention to that place? Does it go there anyway? Make a note of your observations. [ Adequate journaling space is provided in the hard copy version ]
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Experiment #5 Notice what happens to your attention when you are in the company of another person and you experience strong feelings. [ Adequate journaling space is provided in the hard copy version ]
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The Single Object
What will you put your attention on during meditation? If you choose something that has no meaning or is of no particular value to you and you succeed in entering into a meditative state, your experience will not be very meaningful. The substance of emotion is prana, the life energy. When we consider that the life energy follows the attention, it becomes obvious that when emotion is present in the process of directing the attention, there is a lot more power behind it. If you meditate using a stump for an object, unless you have a deep affinity for tree stumps, your meditation won’t be very powerful. On the other hand, if you use, for instance, a picture of someone who represents your highest ideal, someone who sparks a feeling of love or deep devotion to them or to what they represent to you, you’ll find it’s easy to access a pleasant but powerful feeling. If you succeed in entering into a meditative state, it will be a more powerful and meaningful experience. The more this is so, the more likely it is that you can remain in a meditative state. The longer you can remain in a meditative state, the more likely it is that you can enter into actual union with the essence of the object (or what it represents). This experience can be wonderful beyond words and has the power to transform. Because the life energy is normally such a busy taxi for activities your mind gives it to do, it often doesn’t get enough time to do what it likes to do — which is to heal and maintain your body. So give it a break. Meditate! Normally, there are many perceptions entering your mind through your eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and/or skin — the movie, the sound track, the smell and the taste of the popcorn, etc. — but when your attention is occupied by the awareness of only one thing traveling through one of these ‘gates’, your mind becomes quieter because it simply isn’t doing anything else!
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by © Copyright 2002 Lauretta Graham,
Phoenix, AZ. |