The Effect of Dharana or Concentrating the Mind : 8.






Generally, when we speak of a point, we think of a geometrical location. This is what an ordinary schoolboy will define ‘point’ as – it is a point in space. This is the crudest definition of a point that can be given. A dot, a full stop, is a kind of point. The centre of a circle is a point, and so on. Inasmuch as it is a geometrical point that we are conceiving, naturally it has to be in space. Because every point is a point in space, and because space is outside as well as inside, this point can be outside as well as inside. Wherever space is, there the point also is, because a point is nothing but a part of space. Where is the point of concentration? It is outside, or it is inside.



This is a general definition of the location of an object of concentration. But we have to say something more about this point. Are we meditating on a point in the sense of a dot or an ink spot? Or is it something else? This point is not merely a dot. It is a figurative term used to designate an ideal which is in the mind. It is not a physical dot in the sense of a full stop that we put when we write a sentence. It is a metaphorical expression intended to give the characteristics of what we ought to think in our mind for the purpose of achieving our result. So, before we actually sit for meditation or concentration, we have to have some idea in our mind: “What is the matter with me? What do I want?” What is it that we want? It is not uniform to every person. It varies from one individual to another.


Therefore comes the necessity for initiation. We cannot have a wholesale mass-initiation given by a Guru to thousands of people. That is not possible because the needs of individuals vary from one to another. We cannot announce through the broadcasting station: “Let all take this medicine.” This is not possible, because how can we prescribe a single medicine to masses of people, not knowing what diseases they are suffering from? It would be a foolish broadcast. Likewise, we cannot give a mass initiation. Each individual is a specific character by himself or herself. Thus, when we come to this point in the practice of sadhana, we come to an individual issue – and that is the need felt for initiation by a Guru. What is it that we need? What are our requirements? Why are we concentrating the mind? This will reveal many other things also, simultaneously. The method that we have to adopt in meditation also varies.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued   ....



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