| Cougar Press PO Box 894 Meadview AZ 86444 |
| Concentration |
Concentration, meditation and contemplation are the last three limbs of Raja Yoga. These words
at first glance can appear to be synonymous. We might find ourselves wondering just what is the
difference between meditation and contemplation. Are not both mere examples of concentration?
In his Yoga Aphorisms Patanjali introduces these subjects as follows:
The dictionary offers a number of definitions for concentration, but the one we are concerned
with here would be:
In Practical Yoga, Ernest Wood suggests that we all do this already. Imagine for a moment what
it would be like, here in this vast universe, if we didn't concentrate. For every grain of sand, every
star, every galaxy, every atom or molecule to receive the same dose of attention would be the
same as to neglect the whole thing.
When I worked in a small electronics factory in my younger days, we had a woman whose job was
"Q.C." Quality Control's function was to inspect the products at various levels of completion to
determine if they met the standards of the engineers and clients.
The gals on the assembly line who soldered components onto circuit boards did not easily
understand or approve of Q.C. The work that they did was painstaking. They had to be careful
and meticulous while performing their jobs. There was no other way to do it, and they all were
very conscientious about it.
However, they were also very devoted to their ongoing conversation. When I might deign to
listen for a bit to this constant flow, I was unable to understand more than fragments, individual
words and phrases. I really couldn't follow the flow of gossip, recipes and work-related subjects.
They all talked at once, eight hours a day. Meanwhile, their fingers flew as they fastened
resistors, capacitors, diodes and every other kind of component onto the circuit boards that
would later be installed deep inside oscilloscopes or power supplies. They were scrupulous about
every particular step in the process. They were fast, and they were good, and most of their output
was perfect.
Now, when I say "most" of what they produced was perfect, there is the strong implication that
some of it was not perfect. Much of this was caught and repaired immediately. When the
assembler cleaned the board with trichloroethylene, she would immediately see if a solder joint
was bad, and she would fix it on the spot, most of the time.
"Most of the time" was not good enough for the quality that management demanded in these
sensitive electronic instruments. The folks on the assembly line considered that all of their work
was perfect and that Q.C. was not necessary. However, as everyone else knew, their output was
not perfect, and quality control was essential.
The woman who worked as Q.C. ate her lunch alone. She was a little more experienced than the
assemblers, and a little more devoted to her job. She made a little more money; she was hated by
everyone on the assembly line, and she routinely rejected anywhere from ten to fifty percent of
the stuffed boards that came off of the line.
Concentration. The woman who did quality control did not engage in endless conversation while
she worked. Where the assemblers looked for (and found) perfection, she searched for flaws. She
probably suffered from headaches as well. Her own work was subject to quality analysis later,
when the completed machine went into the test department so that it could be determined, by
technicians armed with sensitive instruments, whether or not the product did what it was
supposed to do.
In our normal life, our thoughts are all over the place. Busy people like to believe that they can
think about any number of things at the same time, and they can. Now and then a situation will
demand total concentration. The carpenter, who a moment earlier was thinking about the job at
hand, the whole project, the work of the other trades, his annual income, his wife or his girlfriend,
the upcoming coffee break, his vacation plans, his kids, his search for another job and his
prospects for promotion suddenly narrows his focus to the single instant when he hits his finger
with a hammer, or cuts himself with a saw, or falls off a ladder.
Any of the other subjects that had raced through his mind might have been far more important
than the nail he was driving into a piece of wood. However, if he had been concentrating on what
he was doing, perhaps he would not have struck his finger with the hammer. Such is life. Do
what you're thinking about, and think about what you are doing. These are words to live by, but
is that possible when we are beset by so many other concerns about people, places and money?
It's good to know that our brains are entirely capable of handling their responsibilities without
our conscious awareness. As a matter of fact, most matters are handled better if we take our silly
ego and just butt out. The little part of us that we believe to be in control actually has nothing to
do with most of the physical, chemical, biological and psychological processes that are going on
all of the time within us. Our circulation, digestion, glandular secretions, neural synapses and
intra-cellular activity proceed apace without our interference.
Down inside of our cells there are many tiny creatures called mitochondria. These little gals are
vital to our health and vitality, yet we have no control over them. Furthermore, they don't know
anything about us. An individual mitochondrion performs her functions in accord with her own
needs and programs without the slightest awareness of ours.
On a larger scale, our brains can solve our problems for us without our constant attention to
every synapse. We don't even need to know that it is going on. If I have a problem that is
distracting or bothering me, I can assign it to my subconscious mentality with the instruction to
get back to me with what I need to know, when I need to know it. This might amount to the need
for more data, or it might be a solution.
Try this. Some time when you have a concern that is keeping you awake at night, bothering you
or distracting you from other matters, just do this. Assemble in your mind everything that you
know about the question or the problem, and then tell your brain to take this data and analyze it,
puzzle over it, take it apart and put it back together, or do whatever it takes to arrive at the
correct answer or the appropriate solution, but leave me out of it! If you need more information
to work with, just ask. I will get what you need, if I can. Otherwise, leave me alone. Let me know
about your conclusions, if I really even need to know.
Here's a little example. More than once I have been driving home from the job. I might be
listening to the radio, anticipating dinner, or mulling over the day's work. Suddenly I notice that
I have left the main route and am pulling into a parking lot. Only then do I remember that I
needed to pick up something from the store. I had forgotten all about the errand, but my brain
had not, and it had directed my feet, hands and eyes to pilot the truck to the appropriate store.
Only then was I let in on it.
Concentration varies widely. Each of our lives might be thought of as a concentration of the
cosmic awareness. From a distance all the galaxies look the same. Within the Milky Way are
perhaps a hundred billion stars, identical dots on the infinite blackness.
Up close, each star differs in size, mass and numbers of planets. The planets look like electrons
circling a nucleus in an atom, but if we focus on one, we find it to be different from all of the
others.
Here on Earth we have seven or eight billion humans. From a distance they look as much alike as
a hundred yellow baby chickens in a barnyard. Up close and in focus, we are each as different as
Jupiter and Mars. Each of us has more cells in our body than there are stars in the galaxy. Up
close they might be skin, muscle, blood, nerve or bone cells.
The skin cells may look the same from a distance, but up close each one is an individual, with its
own nucleus and its own collection of mitochondria and chromosomes. Each cell can have
thousands of mitochondria. We only have forty-six chromosomes in each cellular nucleus, but
there are hundreds or thousands of genes in each chromosome, and there are more genes are in
the mitochondria.
We can get smaller than this. All of the chemicals in our bodies are made of molecules, and all of
the molecules are composed of atoms. The atoms themselves are made up of electrons and nuclei,
and each nucleus contains from one to several dozen protons and neutrons. Even those are made
of quarks. So where do we stop?
If all of the electrons were to quit doing what they do, we would cease to exist. We know this, but
there is nothing that we can do about it. The orbits of the Earth and the Moon are absolutely
vital to life as we know it, but there is really nothing that we can do about those either.
Sometimes we feel that we can do nothing in the spheres that lie in between the cosmic and the
quantum either. The politics, wars and socio-economic upheavals of the world: we are part of
them, and their results influence and define our lives, but can we really change or influence them?
The biological realities, mutations and disease: we try to make these things better, but still we
have epidemics and congenital deformities, as well as overpopulation and famine.
Family life: we long for harmony and satisfaction, but we get discord and frustration.
To a profound extent, we discover what is worth our attention, or where our point of
concentration should lie, by doing exactly that. Practice makes perfect. I don't pretend to be
perfect. Perfection is for fools. But when I sit down in a comfortable position, let my breath flow
and my senses withdraw from the everyday world, and focus on one thing, I am moving toward
that elusive goal.
The object of concentration can be simple. Professor Wood suggests a rose. Because of it's
pleasant fragrance, beauty, size and availability, a rose is a good choice. Any flower is a good
choice. During winter in a temperate climate, it might not be such a good point of focus.
Perhaps then a snow-covered spruce, seen through the window, would be less demanding.
Other objects that come to mind would include:
Adjectives that might describe these potential objects of concentration include easy, available and
meaningless. You won't get far trying to concentrate on something that is hard to look at. In
addition to that, it has to exist in your environment. You want to be able to see it, hear it or
smell it, to sense it in some tangible way.
At this stage of the practice of Raja Yoga, meaning is another factor that would prove to be a
distraction. Here is an example. You might close your eyes and concentrate on the sound of a
breeze whispering in the nearby trees. That is the kind of sound that promotes the kind of deeper
and slower brain waves that accompany meditation and contemplation. So far so good, but if the
breeze changes into a wind that foretells a change in the weather, it could prove to be a
distraction rather than an effective focal point. The approach of rain, lightning, a wind storm or
a tornado calls for a different response than sitting in some sort of serene trance. There are
windows to close, things to be brought inside, preparations to be made, and so on.
Symbols or patterns of various sorts can be helpful in guiding the mind into a period of
concentration, but probably not if the item encourages thoughts of pain (the cross), politics (flags,
swastikas) or money (dollar or euro signs). All of those are important things to consider, but
there is a time and a place for each of them, and that is not what we are about when we sit down
to practice concentration.
I mentioned above that we learn how to do this by doing it. We get our whole system, physical,
mental and spiritual, in tune with the practice of sitting quietly and focusing on one point in the
universe. Gently we nudge our brains into the deeper rhythms, alpha and theta, that go along
with such practice and make it easier.
There is a strong pragmatic quality to discovering success in Yoga. If it works do it. There are
confirmed atheists who are nevertheless swayed by the religious rituals that encourage the serenity
that they seek. Churches, cloisters, temples, mosques, incense, bells, vestments, meaningless
chants, fasting, communion, hymns, drums, dancing savages and whirling dervishes all have their
effects on the human mind. We have the Yoga of Daily Life, which includes body conditioning,
self-study and attentiveness to God. We have bodies, and we take care of them with exercise and
nutrition. It does not matter if the body is an illusion. The ill health, stiffness and malnutrition
that will come with the failure to care for our little temples will also be illusions, but to a very
great extent we get to choose what kind of illusions we want to experience. Time is an illusion, yet
we can make effective choices about how we wish to spend our time.
The same is true in the matter of self-study. It matters not that our mind is merely a function of
our body. There still is much to learn, and there are many subjects to study. There is mental
health and mental illness. There is sanity and its opposite. Within the mind are found happiness
and despair, elation and depression, awareness and distraction, understanding and confusion,
wisdom and foolishness.
In addition to these, there is all of the accumulated knowledge about every subject under the sun
and beyond. There is the history of the human race. There is the history of the universe. There is
biology, zoology, botany, chemistry and physics. There is philosophy, psychology, sociology and
economics. There are the things we need to know, to learn about, to become familiar with, in
order to earn our livings, in order to provide for ourselves and our loved ones.
Comfort and wealth may be illusions, but poverty and frustration are also on the menu; take your
pick.
Very similar to our physical and mental demands, our spiritual needs are impossible to ignore.
So what if there is no god, no soul, no divine essence, no prime mover, no heaven or hell, no
miracles, no prophecy or inspiration? Illusions are all that we have, and all that we have to work
with. The loneliness, the spiritual desolation and the existential angst that comes with the
suspicion that nothing is real, that there is no salvation, that nobody loves us, are all illusions as
well, but the pain and sorrow will feel, well, like pain and sorrow.
The galling quality of illusions is that they seem to be real. There is irony at work here. Part of
the definition of illusion is that whatever it is that we think we are seeing or hearing is not real.
As it comes to seem less real, it simultaneously becomes less of an illusion. The most powerful
illusions would be the ones that come to us without a shred of doubt about their reality.
The ancient Hindus referred to this web of illusion as "maya." The big question is this: is there
some reality behind the web, something that is not illusion? Or is maya merely a curtain that
conceals the deep truth that nothing exists?
In the Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu mentions "the utility of nothing,"
referring to the nothing that makes doorways, gateways and jugs serviceable as portals and
containers.
In Christian theology, we get the Creator Himself being born from a virgin. Without getting
vulgar, I might suggest that this story is an analogy of the riddle that arises when we wonder,
"Who made God?" In modern terms this comes out as, "What preceded the Big Bang?"
For now, we have three ways of perceiving the concept of nothing:
Which of these ideas is correct? Let me say this: If I knew, I wouldn't tell you, and I wouldn't
even tell you that I knew.
Rather, I am asking that you sit down from time to time and leave behind all the riddles of
wonder about physical, mental or spiritual reality. Focus on something that is easy to perceive.
Let the distractions wash over you like waves at the seashore, coming in and going out. Don't try
to stop them; just let them be. Delve toward the center of your object of concentration, through
every dimension, spatial, temporal, imaginary. When you find it, if only for a moment, you will
have found the center of all things.
at first glance can appear to be synonymous. We might find ourselves wondering just what is the
difference between meditation and contemplation. Are not both mere examples of concentration?
In his Yoga Aphorisms Patanjali introduces these subjects as follows:
- III, 1. "Concentration is the binding of the mind to one place."
III, 2. "Meditation is continued mental effort there."
III, 3. "Contemplation is the same when there is the shining of the mere object alone,
- as if devoid of one's own form."
The dictionary offers a number of definitions for concentration, but the one we are concerned
with here would be:
"focus of mind or resources: the direction of all thought or effort toward one particular task,
idea, or subject"
In Practical Yoga, Ernest Wood suggests that we all do this already. Imagine for a moment what
it would be like, here in this vast universe, if we didn't concentrate. For every grain of sand, every
star, every galaxy, every atom or molecule to receive the same dose of attention would be the
same as to neglect the whole thing.
When I worked in a small electronics factory in my younger days, we had a woman whose job was
"Q.C." Quality Control's function was to inspect the products at various levels of completion to
determine if they met the standards of the engineers and clients.
The gals on the assembly line who soldered components onto circuit boards did not easily
understand or approve of Q.C. The work that they did was painstaking. They had to be careful
and meticulous while performing their jobs. There was no other way to do it, and they all were
very conscientious about it.
However, they were also very devoted to their ongoing conversation. When I might deign to
listen for a bit to this constant flow, I was unable to understand more than fragments, individual
words and phrases. I really couldn't follow the flow of gossip, recipes and work-related subjects.
They all talked at once, eight hours a day. Meanwhile, their fingers flew as they fastened
resistors, capacitors, diodes and every other kind of component onto the circuit boards that
would later be installed deep inside oscilloscopes or power supplies. They were scrupulous about
every particular step in the process. They were fast, and they were good, and most of their output
was perfect.
Now, when I say "most" of what they produced was perfect, there is the strong implication that
some of it was not perfect. Much of this was caught and repaired immediately. When the
assembler cleaned the board with trichloroethylene, she would immediately see if a solder joint
was bad, and she would fix it on the spot, most of the time.
"Most of the time" was not good enough for the quality that management demanded in these
sensitive electronic instruments. The folks on the assembly line considered that all of their work
was perfect and that Q.C. was not necessary. However, as everyone else knew, their output was
not perfect, and quality control was essential.
The woman who worked as Q.C. ate her lunch alone. She was a little more experienced than the
assemblers, and a little more devoted to her job. She made a little more money; she was hated by
everyone on the assembly line, and she routinely rejected anywhere from ten to fifty percent of
the stuffed boards that came off of the line.
Concentration. The woman who did quality control did not engage in endless conversation while
she worked. Where the assemblers looked for (and found) perfection, she searched for flaws. She
probably suffered from headaches as well. Her own work was subject to quality analysis later,
when the completed machine went into the test department so that it could be determined, by
technicians armed with sensitive instruments, whether or not the product did what it was
supposed to do.
In our normal life, our thoughts are all over the place. Busy people like to believe that they can
think about any number of things at the same time, and they can. Now and then a situation will
demand total concentration. The carpenter, who a moment earlier was thinking about the job at
hand, the whole project, the work of the other trades, his annual income, his wife or his girlfriend,
the upcoming coffee break, his vacation plans, his kids, his search for another job and his
prospects for promotion suddenly narrows his focus to the single instant when he hits his finger
with a hammer, or cuts himself with a saw, or falls off a ladder.
Any of the other subjects that had raced through his mind might have been far more important
than the nail he was driving into a piece of wood. However, if he had been concentrating on what
he was doing, perhaps he would not have struck his finger with the hammer. Such is life. Do
what you're thinking about, and think about what you are doing. These are words to live by, but
is that possible when we are beset by so many other concerns about people, places and money?
It's good to know that our brains are entirely capable of handling their responsibilities without
our conscious awareness. As a matter of fact, most matters are handled better if we take our silly
ego and just butt out. The little part of us that we believe to be in control actually has nothing to
do with most of the physical, chemical, biological and psychological processes that are going on
all of the time within us. Our circulation, digestion, glandular secretions, neural synapses and
intra-cellular activity proceed apace without our interference.
Down inside of our cells there are many tiny creatures called mitochondria. These little gals are
vital to our health and vitality, yet we have no control over them. Furthermore, they don't know
anything about us. An individual mitochondrion performs her functions in accord with her own
needs and programs without the slightest awareness of ours.
On a larger scale, our brains can solve our problems for us without our constant attention to
every synapse. We don't even need to know that it is going on. If I have a problem that is
distracting or bothering me, I can assign it to my subconscious mentality with the instruction to
get back to me with what I need to know, when I need to know it. This might amount to the need
for more data, or it might be a solution.
Try this. Some time when you have a concern that is keeping you awake at night, bothering you
or distracting you from other matters, just do this. Assemble in your mind everything that you
know about the question or the problem, and then tell your brain to take this data and analyze it,
puzzle over it, take it apart and put it back together, or do whatever it takes to arrive at the
correct answer or the appropriate solution, but leave me out of it! If you need more information
to work with, just ask. I will get what you need, if I can. Otherwise, leave me alone. Let me know
about your conclusions, if I really even need to know.
Here's a little example. More than once I have been driving home from the job. I might be
listening to the radio, anticipating dinner, or mulling over the day's work. Suddenly I notice that
I have left the main route and am pulling into a parking lot. Only then do I remember that I
needed to pick up something from the store. I had forgotten all about the errand, but my brain
had not, and it had directed my feet, hands and eyes to pilot the truck to the appropriate store.
Only then was I let in on it.
Concentration varies widely. Each of our lives might be thought of as a concentration of the
cosmic awareness. From a distance all the galaxies look the same. Within the Milky Way are
perhaps a hundred billion stars, identical dots on the infinite blackness.
Up close, each star differs in size, mass and numbers of planets. The planets look like electrons
circling a nucleus in an atom, but if we focus on one, we find it to be different from all of the
others.
Here on Earth we have seven or eight billion humans. From a distance they look as much alike as
a hundred yellow baby chickens in a barnyard. Up close and in focus, we are each as different as
Jupiter and Mars. Each of us has more cells in our body than there are stars in the galaxy. Up
close they might be skin, muscle, blood, nerve or bone cells.
The skin cells may look the same from a distance, but up close each one is an individual, with its
own nucleus and its own collection of mitochondria and chromosomes. Each cell can have
thousands of mitochondria. We only have forty-six chromosomes in each cellular nucleus, but
there are hundreds or thousands of genes in each chromosome, and there are more genes are in
the mitochondria.
We can get smaller than this. All of the chemicals in our bodies are made of molecules, and all of
the molecules are composed of atoms. The atoms themselves are made up of electrons and nuclei,
and each nucleus contains from one to several dozen protons and neutrons. Even those are made
of quarks. So where do we stop?
If all of the electrons were to quit doing what they do, we would cease to exist. We know this, but
there is nothing that we can do about it. The orbits of the Earth and the Moon are absolutely
vital to life as we know it, but there is really nothing that we can do about those either.
Sometimes we feel that we can do nothing in the spheres that lie in between the cosmic and the
quantum either. The politics, wars and socio-economic upheavals of the world: we are part of
them, and their results influence and define our lives, but can we really change or influence them?
The biological realities, mutations and disease: we try to make these things better, but still we
have epidemics and congenital deformities, as well as overpopulation and famine.
Family life: we long for harmony and satisfaction, but we get discord and frustration.
To a profound extent, we discover what is worth our attention, or where our point of
concentration should lie, by doing exactly that. Practice makes perfect. I don't pretend to be
perfect. Perfection is for fools. But when I sit down in a comfortable position, let my breath flow
and my senses withdraw from the everyday world, and focus on one thing, I am moving toward
that elusive goal.
The object of concentration can be simple. Professor Wood suggests a rose. Because of it's
pleasant fragrance, beauty, size and availability, a rose is a good choice. Any flower is a good
choice. During winter in a temperate climate, it might not be such a good point of focus.
Perhaps then a snow-covered spruce, seen through the window, would be less demanding.
Other objects that come to mind would include:
- a new moon, low in the western sky, on its way to the horizon;
- a full moon, rising in the east;
- twilight colors;
- a rainbow;
- a tree;
- a benign symbol;
- a sound, like surf rolling in, water falling, wind blowing through tree branches, birds singing
or music that is gentle and lovely; - the view from the top of a hill;
- pleasant fragrance;
- the sound of rain on the roof or leaves;
- the sound of a chant.
Adjectives that might describe these potential objects of concentration include easy, available and
meaningless. You won't get far trying to concentrate on something that is hard to look at. In
addition to that, it has to exist in your environment. You want to be able to see it, hear it or
smell it, to sense it in some tangible way.
At this stage of the practice of Raja Yoga, meaning is another factor that would prove to be a
distraction. Here is an example. You might close your eyes and concentrate on the sound of a
breeze whispering in the nearby trees. That is the kind of sound that promotes the kind of deeper
and slower brain waves that accompany meditation and contemplation. So far so good, but if the
breeze changes into a wind that foretells a change in the weather, it could prove to be a
distraction rather than an effective focal point. The approach of rain, lightning, a wind storm or
a tornado calls for a different response than sitting in some sort of serene trance. There are
windows to close, things to be brought inside, preparations to be made, and so on.
Symbols or patterns of various sorts can be helpful in guiding the mind into a period of
concentration, but probably not if the item encourages thoughts of pain (the cross), politics (flags,
swastikas) or money (dollar or euro signs). All of those are important things to consider, but
there is a time and a place for each of them, and that is not what we are about when we sit down
to practice concentration.
I mentioned above that we learn how to do this by doing it. We get our whole system, physical,
mental and spiritual, in tune with the practice of sitting quietly and focusing on one point in the
universe. Gently we nudge our brains into the deeper rhythms, alpha and theta, that go along
with such practice and make it easier.
There is a strong pragmatic quality to discovering success in Yoga. If it works do it. There are
confirmed atheists who are nevertheless swayed by the religious rituals that encourage the serenity
that they seek. Churches, cloisters, temples, mosques, incense, bells, vestments, meaningless
chants, fasting, communion, hymns, drums, dancing savages and whirling dervishes all have their
effects on the human mind. We have the Yoga of Daily Life, which includes body conditioning,
self-study and attentiveness to God. We have bodies, and we take care of them with exercise and
nutrition. It does not matter if the body is an illusion. The ill health, stiffness and malnutrition
that will come with the failure to care for our little temples will also be illusions, but to a very
great extent we get to choose what kind of illusions we want to experience. Time is an illusion, yet
we can make effective choices about how we wish to spend our time.
The same is true in the matter of self-study. It matters not that our mind is merely a function of
our body. There still is much to learn, and there are many subjects to study. There is mental
health and mental illness. There is sanity and its opposite. Within the mind are found happiness
and despair, elation and depression, awareness and distraction, understanding and confusion,
wisdom and foolishness.
In addition to these, there is all of the accumulated knowledge about every subject under the sun
and beyond. There is the history of the human race. There is the history of the universe. There is
biology, zoology, botany, chemistry and physics. There is philosophy, psychology, sociology and
economics. There are the things we need to know, to learn about, to become familiar with, in
order to earn our livings, in order to provide for ourselves and our loved ones.
Comfort and wealth may be illusions, but poverty and frustration are also on the menu; take your
pick.
Very similar to our physical and mental demands, our spiritual needs are impossible to ignore.
So what if there is no god, no soul, no divine essence, no prime mover, no heaven or hell, no
miracles, no prophecy or inspiration? Illusions are all that we have, and all that we have to work
with. The loneliness, the spiritual desolation and the existential angst that comes with the
suspicion that nothing is real, that there is no salvation, that nobody loves us, are all illusions as
well, but the pain and sorrow will feel, well, like pain and sorrow.
The galling quality of illusions is that they seem to be real. There is irony at work here. Part of
the definition of illusion is that whatever it is that we think we are seeing or hearing is not real.
As it comes to seem less real, it simultaneously becomes less of an illusion. The most powerful
illusions would be the ones that come to us without a shred of doubt about their reality.
The ancient Hindus referred to this web of illusion as "maya." The big question is this: is there
some reality behind the web, something that is not illusion? Or is maya merely a curtain that
conceals the deep truth that nothing exists?
In the Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu mentions "the utility of nothing,"
referring to the nothing that makes doorways, gateways and jugs serviceable as portals and
containers.
In Christian theology, we get the Creator Himself being born from a virgin. Without getting
vulgar, I might suggest that this story is an analogy of the riddle that arises when we wonder,
"Who made God?" In modern terms this comes out as, "What preceded the Big Bang?"
For now, we have three ways of perceiving the concept of nothing:
- the reality behind the veil of illusion,
- the practical necessity of empty space,
- the source of everything.
Which of these ideas is correct? Let me say this: If I knew, I wouldn't tell you, and I wouldn't
even tell you that I knew.
Rather, I am asking that you sit down from time to time and leave behind all the riddles of
wonder about physical, mental or spiritual reality. Focus on something that is easy to perceive.
Let the distractions wash over you like waves at the seashore, coming in and going out. Don't try
to stop them; just let them be. Delve toward the center of your object of concentration, through
every dimension, spatial, temporal, imaginary. When you find it, if only for a moment, you will
have found the center of all things.
| Yoga for Carnivores by Jay Dyck |