The Effect of Dharana or Concentrating the Mind : 6.

What it is that we are disturbing is a very interesting point to recollect at the present moment. We are interfering with those silent forces which have been, up to this time, lying dormant, inactive, on account of unfavourable circumstances for germinating into conscious experience. We are now compelling the fruit to ripen under conditions that we are introducing by the power of concentration, so the latent energies, which would not have otherwise woken up into activity, are made to wake up. This is what we call the waking up of sleeping dogs; and we do not know what the dog will do when it wakes up. It can go the other way, or it can attack us. Hence, we have to be very cautious, first of all. What would we do when these forces are stirred? It is not very wise for an untutored mind to stir up forces like that in an act of concentration. It is not merely concentration of mind that is expected of us; we must also know what we are in our deposits, at the bottom.


When we wake up all these forces that are deposited within, we must be able to face them. In the concentration process, the forces that are awakened are nothing but those things which are within us and everything that is sympathetically connected with the external atmosphere. The affections that are deep-rooted inside – the deposited potencies of likes, etc. – stir up the corresponding objects outside in the world. And so there is an awakening of forces within as well as without when we concentrate the mind. If we are wise enough, if we are discriminative enough, we can understand what is inside us, and we can also understand what we will awaken, because the things that will wake up are those counterparts of the deposits of potencies that are psychologically buried inside. That is why Patanjali has been so cautious to give us a detailed analysis of the psychological functions of the mind, not only in the Samadhi Pada but also at the commencement of the Sadhana Pada. A wise understanding and probing into one’s inward constitution is necessary before one takes up the work or function of concentration of mind.


In the sutra which begins the Vibhuti Pada, desa bandha? cittasya dhara?a  (III.1), Patanjali gives us a definition of concentration. The binding, or fixing, or tethering of one’s attention at a particular point is called concentration. This is not a joke. We cannot do it easily, because we cannot think of one thing continuously for a long time. The reason is that the mind has not been accustomed to it; we have always been taught to think a hundred things at a time. Even when it appears that we are concentrating on one particular point, there is a subconscious distraction of attention towards other things. An officer at work may be concentrating his mind on the task on hand, but it does not mean that subconsciously he is forgetting his family. He is thinking of his family also at the same time. It may not be on the conscious level, but subconsciously it is there. His wife may be at home, ill. How can he forget that, when he is working in the office? So there is another side-activity going on in the mind, together with the issue that is directly on hand. Or he may be a judge in the court; it does not matter. He may be passing a judgement, but he cannot forget his child who is seriously ill at home. That is a subconscious activity that is going on as an undercurrent, together with this directly adopted attitude of conscious concentration on the particular work on hand.


Swami Krishnananda


To be continued  ....