Concentration
12. Breath control and purification
This week we offer a simple yet very effective exercise in breath control. Please note that this exercise should be done according to ones capacity — do not do anything that is beyond your capacity or it may upset and disturb you. If you are not able to breath as slowly or as deeply as you would like, no harm. Just breath as slowly and as deeply as you can and your capacity will increase naturally over time.
The following are the words of Sri Chinmoy:
Try to breathe in as slowly and a quietly as possible, so that if you placed a tiny thread right in front of your nose it would not even move. Then you will see that your meditation will be deep and your mind will be very calm and quiet.
(Source: Meditation: Man-Perfection In God-Satisfaction)
Sri Chinmoy was once asked the question, “I would like to develop better concentration so that I can keep my mind focused on one thought.” The following is Sri Chinmoy’s answer:
10. Stilling the mind
This week Sri Chinmoy offers advice on how to deal with the minds constant and often troublesome thoughts — a problem that besets most if not all seekers in their quest for enlightenment. Taming the 'monkey-mind', as Sri Chinmoy calls it, requires a combination of adamantine determination, resilience and calm patience. Sri Chinmoy's words:
09. Concentrate on a flower
For this exercise, you will need a flower. Either hold a flower in your hand or have a flower in a vase in front of you. When Sri Chinmoy offered this concentration exercise, he had given each person present a flower...
I have offered you a flower. Please look at the entire flower for a few seconds, and while you are concentrating on it, try to feel that you yourself arc this flower. At the same time, try to feel that this flower is growing inside your heart — in the inmost recesses of your heart.
Then try to concentrate gradually on one particular petal of the flower. Feel that this petal which you have selected is the seed-form of your reality-existence. After a few minutes, concentrate on the entire flower again, and feel that it is the universal Reality. In this way, go back and forth, concentrating first on the petal — the seed-form of your reality, and then on the entire flower — the universal Reality. While you are doing this, please do not allow any thought to enter into your mind. Try to make your mind absolutely calm, quiet, and tranquil. Also, kindly keep your eyes half open.
After some time, please close your eyes and try to see the flower on which you have been concentrating inside your heart. Then in the same way that you concentrated on the physical flower in your hand, kindly concentrate on the flower inside your heart, with your eyes closed.
A flower signifies purity. Try to feel that your heart has become as pure as the flower.
Purity you want?
Just imagine breathing in the beauty,
Purity and fragrance of a flower.
– Sri Chinmoy
08. Focus on a picture
This week we offer another simple yet very effective concentration exercise that was recommended by Sri Chinmoy. This is an exercise in identification with a teacher or spiritual Master who inspires you or, if you are fortunate enough to have a spiritual Master, guides your life. If you do not wish to focus a particular individual, no harm — Sri Chinmoy offers other options:
07. The power of concentration
Sri Chinmoy suggests the following exercise to develop power in your concentration and to acquire power from your meditation:
When you want to get the power of concentration, identify yourself with the tiniest thing possible. Then only will you become all-powerful. God is all-powerful not because He is vastness itself, but because He is inside the elephant as well as the ant. God is all-powerful because He can be both elephant and ant. He is the infinite and He is the finite. Just because He is finite and infinite at the same time, He is omnipotent.
So if you want to meditate and acquire power, just think of Infinity itself, because there is God's infinite power. But if you want to develop power through your concentration, think of something very subtle, very small. (Source: Creation and Perfection – by Sri Chinmoy)
Don't be afraid of your meditation-power. Don't be a fool. It is your meditation that can and will give you the indomitable courage to conquer all your other fears. — Sri Chinmoy
06. Developing extraordinary concentration
This week we continue with the theme of concentration. Sri Chinmoy offers a simple and effective exercise to develop extraordinary concentration:
05. Concentration on a black dot 3
This week we offer a third and final black dot concentration exercise – a variation on last weeks exercise from the writings of Sri Chinmoy:
04. Concentration on a black dot 2
Here is another concentration excercise offered by Sri Chinmoy that continues with the theme of using a black dot.
03. Concentration on a black dot 1
Here is another exercise offered by Sri Chinmoy to help develop concentration:
02. Concentration on a flame
The spiritual heart is a chakra, or spiritual centre, that is located in the centre of the chest and houses our spiritual energies and propensities. Sri Chinmoy puts it this way:
"It is better to meditate in the heart than in the mind. The mind is like Times Square on New Year's Eve; the heart is like a lonely cave in the Himalayas. If you meditate in the mind, you will be able to meditate for perhaps five minutes; and out of that five minutes, for one minute you may meditate powerfully. After that you will feel your whole head getting tense. First you get joy and satisfaction; then you may feel a barren desert. But if you meditate in the heart, you acquire the capacity to identify yourself with the joy and satisfaction that you get, and then it becomes permanently yours."
Here is another concentration exercise – a creative visualisation. In this simple exercise, Sri Chinmoy asks us to image a flame inside our spiritual heart: