Concentration and Alignment

Wisdom Teachings
Essences of the Teachings

Today the world is charged with overactivity. Already before sunrise the big cities pulsate with speed and it runs on and on. Overactivity causes restlessness in us and in society, it makes us do things to excess: We consume more, speak more, eat more than necessary. There is a certain pride to transgress the norms and to outdo the others. The competitive mind is an expression of overactivity. It leads to aggressiveness and to the attempt of wanting to control and rule over the environment or even the entire planet.

The business world benefits from overactivity. It creates an excessive desire and makes us believe that we need many things. World-wide the bustle of earning money has come into the centre of the activity of life. There isn’t much time left for the family or for spiritual practice. The overactivity counteracts the impulses of the soul, and we are swept away by ourselves.

However, we also can consciously put the energy of overactivity into service, for in the material as well as in the spiritual world the following applies: He who can concentrate his energies on a target just like on a point will have success. Thus a desire focused on a plan will manifest very much. If we have a central aim, ideal, or endeavour in life, and work for it incessantly, all our energy gets pooled in order to plan and to progress. If we have no goal, no ideal and no endeavour, we get drawn by the five senses into five directions. A carriage drawn by five horses into five directions will break into five parts. Therefore we have to learn to align the will through focusing and to concentrate our energies on a goal. Where the will is weak, it dissipates into many desires. Desire is the lower aspect of will, will is the higher aspect of desire. Through aspiration the energy of desire is transformed into will and the dispersed will is concentrated.

Without sufficient aspiration we don’t move forward. A person who wasn’t able to manage the material world can only dream of managing the powers of the spiritual world. For if we don’t have the ability to align the will by centring the senses, we have no success in the outer world; and it is even much more difficult for us to find success in the spiritual world. Thus we are neither useful for ourselves nor for others.

Aspiration is like concentrating the sun ray through a magnifying glass. When the light is concentrated, it transforms itself into the fire or power aspect. Through alignment and determination we accumulate the fire. It burns the impurities of the three lower bodies and makes us ascend. The unicorn is a symbol of this determination. We can create in us this horn of subtle matter of light: When we project energies of good will through the third eye, a work of good will can progress well. To meditate with perseverance on the unicorn helps us to become more aligned and focused.

To be active in the family, in profession, and in yoga, demands different kinds of energy from us. We find it hard to concentrate and to do justice to all; easily something falls short. Of course, on the way certain things in our life fall away like dry leaves from the tree. But we shouldn’t reject anything, but learn to live life in all its facets. Master CVV speaks of the simultaneous existence on all planes: “Leave nothing aside. I am with you, you can expand yourselves, in order to fulfil every demand which comes to you. Expand into every direction and answer every call. In reality you are unbounded. Your own poor understanding of yourself makes you limit yourself to very small spheres of life. There is no limit for growth. The centre expands towards the circumference into all 360 degrees.”

All we do should be done with full alignment and devotion: When we are totally busy with a work, all the rest doesn’t exist for us. Only this work is present to us. We concentrate on what is just before us and thus are centred on the presence. If we focus more and more on it, the past and the future will also flow into the presence.

When we eat, work, read, or are with the small things of everyday life, we shouldn’t do it half-heartedly. Insofar as we are full of devotion, we are aligned and concentrated. What we do with devotion gives us the full experience. Devotion isn’t emotion; it is our ability to concentrate and to do a task well, without making mistakes or forgetting something. A teacher checks if his student is devoted enough. Devotion is something else than admiration of the personality. Today both are often confused. A too intense devotion leading to emotion, however, is undesirable.

Without devotion we cannot approach wisdom. Another word for devotion is mental concentration. It comes through appropriate aspiration. Without alignment and devotion a spiritual training isn’t possible, and the practices are leading us nowhere. Today the Master of the 1st ray, Morya, works with the 6th ray of devotion, because an individual full of devotion can take the steps earlier and with a higher speed than someone who is struggling the whole time with his own mind. Devotion helps to align the senses to the mind, the mind to the heart, and the personality to the soul. Thus the energy of the soul can flow through everything.

When we invoke the energy of the Master, we should be very centred and shouldn’t do it routinely in a mechanical manner. We can set up a picture, light incense and look into the eyes of the master, then close our eyes and speak the invocation and invoke consciously the energy into the heart. Then we shouldn’t concentrate anymore on the form and cling to it, but observe when thoughts come or adjustments happen.

The form is an aid in order to feel the energy in the heart. If we don’t do this consciously and with concentration, the energy called in moves around the thought plane, but not in the centre. The centre of the mental plane is in the heart. Master Djwhal Khul says: “Learn to think from the heart.” To think from the heart means to think from the centre. Thinking from the mind is like thinking from the periphery. The centre of the mind is in the heart. The many superficial thoughts move on the margins. Many people only entertain superficial thoughts, which keep on coming and going and shift from one to the other. If we aren’t aligned, we are like a radio which isn’t tuned to the transmitting station and receives nothing but noise.

Many people say you should concentrate the mind. They spend decades with their efforts, but the process is wrong. We never can concentrate or control the mind. It keeps on moving, for the principle of the mind is movement, we cannot make it static. Instead we relax the mind by bringing it to the heart and by observing the breath.

We have to realign and organise our mind daily, with joy and without getting dogged. The right alignment comes through alignment to the Divine, to the One in all. The One brings all to the right order. If he wants to get someone into an order, he sends him to a teacher, a master. In this not the physical nearness of the master is important, but the psychic nearness through alignment. He who is in the master consciousness doesn’t have the feeling he is doing anything. His presence keeps the disciple on the soul plane and creates in him a vertical alignment, “vertical levels”, and thus he gets uplifted. When we are aligned to the teacher, all our work becomes more concentrated and focused. Our work progresses much faster up to the point, where we, too, gain mastery.

K.P. Kumar: The Aquarian Cross / notes from seminars / E. Krishnamacharya: Occult Anatomy. The World Teacher Trust - Dhanishta, Visakhapatnam, India.