Next: 7.2 The Folly of Up: 7. Concentration in Daily Previous: 7. Concentration in Daily Contents Index
Concentration is not an end in itself, but a means to develop the will so that it may make the entire life purposeful. Polarize your entire life - all your actions, your feelings, your thinking - by establishing a permanent mood towards success in some line of human endeavor. It may be the mood of an artist, a scientist, a poet, a philosopher, a philanthropist; it may concern art, religion, science, interpretation, philosophy, thoughts and deeds of affection and kindness, or works of commerce or government; it may aim at skill in action, or intense and expanded feeling, or a clear and deep understanding of life; it may seek self-government, or, the mastery of environment and success in outward things. That is for you to choose; but choose something definite and polarize your whole life to that.
Polarization of your life-work means that you will have a purpose in life - I do not say a goal, for there is danger in that. One makes a special and often exhausting effort to that end, reaches it and has not the resilience left to go further, so may then linger at that roadside goal for a very long time. That is perhaps one reason why in the Bhagavad Gita the aspiring Arjuna is told that his business is with the action only, never with the result of action. To dwell upon the result is to glorify something still very fleeting, or even to block the way to a higher attainment by aiming too low. In this business of living it is function we have to choose, and perfect action is possible within that function every living moment. If I am planting a tree I must give myself fully to the planting, with only a background thought to the apples or oranges that I shall get from the tree a few years hence. Dwelling in thought upon that result will spoil in some measure, perhaps in great measure, my work and my pleasure of planting and the great benefit I can have from that, and even my reverence for work itself and the spiritual values of daily life.
Choose at least one thing in life - a hobby of study or of art if you cannot get into a congenial form of livelihood. Keep up one thing year after year, and gradually you will become a master of that and will find that you possess a personal instrument in which you can enjoy power. Do not despise personality and say it is low and an obstacle to realization of a deeper self. The deeper self will reveal itself through the use of a definite personality, which should have precise form and function in society, and be an instrument for skill in action. Personality is the key to success; it is our box of tools.
There is no real success without goodness, and there is no greatness without goodness. These are not pious sentiments, but material and psychological facts, simply because the alternative to goodness is selfishness - a form of shrinking from life - and the result of dependence upon outward things, which indicates a narrowness or weakness of character. Outward success without inward success is frail and short-lived, like that of men, who make money and then fall ill through self-indulgence. It is not only a question of self-indulgence. You cannot be calm and strong if your success depends upon position, power, dignity and security for your own personal self. Your eagerness to have such outward things would mark your dependence upon them, and that dependence would open you up to anxiety about them, and to agitation and distress as they come and go. There is thus no greatness without goodness as well, no outward success without the inward success of a strong will full of goodwill towards others. Outward success without inward strength is an illusion.
Success depends upon what you seek and how you seek. If you have said that you will succeed in anything, you will without fail, no matter how lofty the aim, if your will is in accord with the principle of goodness or unity, the essential law of life. If it is not, you cannot really will; you are only attracted by something outside, and filled for the time being with a ruling desire.
If what you seek is the idle satisfaction of the body or of the senses, or even of the mind, you cannot really say: ``I will'', for you are the slave of the pleasures of the lower life and you will be drawn wherever the objects of the senses may lead. But if you say: ``I will have power; I will have love; I will have knowledge'', you must choose the right way to seek it, and provide that others also are more powerful and freer because you are so, that they have more love because you have much to give, that they have more knowledge because it has come to you. A rich man living among poor men is not really rich - that is an illusion. If in pride you hold and withhold power, in order to feel your supremacy over others, you are not obeying the true law of life, you are a slave to the base emotion of pride. If in your seeking of knowledge your aim is to shine and feel superior, or if you seek love of others for yourself, that you may multiply yourself in them, that they may think well of you and speak highly of you and be drawn to seek your company, once more you are disobeying the true law of life, and are a slave to the base emotion of pride. And that pride, when thwarted by the accidents of life, will be turned into envy, jealousy, anger and fear, and you will be torn by the conflicting winds of circumstances, drowned in the ocean of wishes, and unable to say: ``I will.'' 7.1
Even more will this be so if you seek the satisfaction of the senses or the luxuries of the body; then indeed you will be a slave. Corrupted with wishes and regrets, there will be no peace and power within you. Indeed, you must train all your vehicles - your body, feelings and mind - to orderly activity, removing from them all traces of sloth and heaviness, agitation and excitement of every kind, so that they will be perfect instruments for carrying out your will in the regions in which they work.
The first thing to do is to select the mood that you will have; then eliminate all those things that can agitate the mind in any way. You must try to get rid of every trace of anger, irritation, anxiety, uncertainty and fear. When such qualities are allowed in the mind there can be no real exercise of will, no real permanence of mood. Success in the practice of mind-control is dependent upon steadiness of mood, and if you are still so infantile in character as to be swayed to anger, anxiety and fear by the so-called accidents of life, you cannot until you command yourself have anything better than shifting moods and a wandering mind. Only the things that are pure and good and kind and calm can be permanent; pride, anger and fear and all their kin are of the essence of agitation and impermanence. Therefore the mood you select must be compatible with your best and most unselfish ideal - unselfish not only for yourself but also for others. You can no longer regard life as a battle with others or for a few others, nor desire to control others; if your aim is the gradual mastery of self and the full development of your powers, your only possible attitude towards others, to all and all the time, is that of a benevolent intention to share with them the freedom and power that you are winning for yourself.