Applying the Power of Concentration to Develop Efficiency of Time of Accomplishment of Any Task

0:01 One of the key elements of Raja Yoga, based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, is the practice of Samyama, which is A1 pointed concentration that is so complete that it merges subject, object and the process of knowing into one unified whole. By this practice, one knows everything about the object of the concentration from inside, as it were. Even without going to the final stage of samyama, however, an individual can find tremendous benefit in whatever direction he turns his attention through an increasing focus of the concentration on the signal and a corresponding reduction of the noise or static that disrupts or weakens the signal that is coming through. An interesting example was recounted in the great epic of India, the Mahabharata.

0:57 The preceptor Drona was instructing the sons of Dritrashtra and the sons of Pandu in the art of archery. He asked each one to focus on a bird in a distant tree and in particular on the eye of that bird as the potential target of the archery. He then asked each Prince to describe what he observed. One after another they described the land, the sky, the clouds, the tree, the bird, and eventually they noted they saw the eye. He then came to Arjuna, the premier Archer of the Age and Arch. Arjuna replied that he saw only a black spot. He had restricted his focus and concentration down to just the target, the eye of the bird, and it disregarded everything else that was a distraction to that focus. While this story describes the process of concentration in terms of success in the world, it does not specifically address the point the mother is making that successful concentration also allows 1 to accomplish things in a much faster period of time.

2:10 This conclusion, however, is inevitable if one recognizes that much of the wasted time in accomplishing anything is due to the interference of distractions or noise that create friction and prevent the individual from making the exact correct minimal movement to achieve the result. The mother notes quote. If you have much to do, you must learn how to concentrate much all the more. And when you are doing a thing to think of that only and focus all your energy upon what you do, you gain at least half the time.

2:50 So if you tell me I have too much work, I answer You do not concentrate enough. Another child asks for a mathematical problem. Sometimes the solution comes quickly, sometimes it takes too long. The mother responds Quote Yes, it is exactly that. It depends on the degree of concentration. If you observe yourself, you will notice this quite well. When it does not come, it is because of a kind of haziness in the brain, something cloudy, like a fog somewhere, and then you are there as in a dream. You push forward trying to find it, and it is as though you were pushing into cotton wool.

3:37 You do not see clearly there, and so nothing comes. You may remain in that state for hours. Concentration consists precisely in removing the cloud. You gather together all the elements of your intelligence and fix them on one point, and then you do not even try actively to find the thing. All that you do is to concentrate in such a way as to see only the problem, but seeing not only its surface, seeing it in its depth, what it conceals. If you are able to gather together all your mental energies, bringing them to a point which is fixed on the Annunciation of the problem, and you stay there fixed as though you were about to drill a hole in the wall, all of a sudden it will come. And this is the only way if you try. Is it this?

4:35 Is it that? Is it this? Is it that? You will never find anything, or else you will need ours. You must get your mental forces to a point with strength enough to Pierce through the words and strike upon the thing that is behind. There is a thing to be found. Swoop down upon it. End Quote. Reference Sri Orobindo and the Mother Powers Within, Chapter 4 concentration, pages 42 to 43.