Nothing in this world can be thoroughly accomplished without concentration, whether in one's business or profession, or in spiritual work. Those who cannot make a success in their business or profession are the ones whose concentration is not right. And many of those who have succeeded in life owe this to the fact that their concentration is good. They may not know it. There have been many great inventors in the West who have produced wonderful things, yet they themselves did not know that it was due to their concentration that they were able to do so. Some are born with this as a natural gift, and it is because of it that they have made a success of whatever they have undertaken.

If one is an artist, with the help of concentration one can produce wonderful works; if one is a scientist one can achieve great results in science; if one is a poet, poetry will be easy to write; if one is a mystic, mystical inspiration will flow; but without concentration, however qualified a person may be, he will not be able to make the best use of his qualifications; he can hardly be called qualified at all. It is by the power of concentration alone that he can express himself fully.

Concentration is the beginning of meditation; meditation is the end of concentration. Once concentration is fully acquired, it is easy for a person to meditate.

From a metaphysical point of view concentration can be regarded as having three aspects: reflecting, constructing, improvising.

The first kind of concentration is to reflect any object that one has placed before oneself. This is the mirror-quality of mind that enables one to concentrate in this way. When one is impressed by a certain thing one has seen outside oneself, one tries to concentrate upon it, to hold it in mind. In other words, one focuses one's mind on that object with which one is impressed, and one's mind does nothing but reflect it.
The other kind of concentration is constructing or composing; for instance, when an artist has been told to make a very fanciful picture and he creates in his mind a creature with the face of a man, the horns of a buffalo and the wings of a bird. The material is there in his mind; he has only to put it together in order to produce a certain form. This is constructive concentration, visualizing, in other words making the mind produce something under the direction of the will.

All that man sees or thinks he sees is his own thought. Man can produce out of his thought an angel or a devil; he can produce God out of his thought. The building of the Tower of Babel is the making of the mind. Man's thought has great power; and when he comes to the realization that everything comes from one source and that everything is developing towards one goal, he begins to see that the source and the goal are God. Then the world of variety is no longer variety to him but unity; it is one.
The third aspect of concentration is improvising. If a poet is asked to write a poem on a rose-bud he begins to improvise. He brings into it a dewdrop, and he produces the picture of dawn; he takes a gentle stream of water and builds a beautiful background to it. This is the third kind of concentration.

Very often people think concentration means closing the eyes and sitting still in church, and that only once a week. And when they do this, although they themselves are in the church they do not know where their mind is.

When a person allows himself to be disturbed, that shows that his concentration is not good; and if his concentration is not good, that shows that his will-power fails him. The best way, therefore, to protect oneself from disturbance is to develop the power of concentration, so that the will-power develops naturally and one is able to withstand all the disturbances which arise when one has to live in the midst of the crowd.

The best remedy for a wandering mind is natural concentration; that means not forcing the mind. One should at first let the mind work naturally, thinking of things it is inclined to think about. Why should the mind think of something towards which it has no inclination? It is unnatural; it is like eating something one does not like; it will not be assimilated nor give good results.

One should think about anything one loves, then one can learn to concentrate.

Sometimes one says that a person is out of his mind when he does not have it under his control. It means that his mind is working mechanically; the will has no control over it. For the will is the king and reason is his minister. When both work together the mind is under control; when reason does not help, when the will has lost control, then the mind is not one's own any more and one can say a person is out of his mind.

It happens that when a person's mind is not strong enough to hold the object which he wants to accomplish, it gives way; and sometimes the body is not in a sufficiently fit condition to hold it. But that object, when unaccomplished, is unaccomplished only according to his mind; in accordance with the scheme of nature it has died a natural, peaceful death.

The Bible speaks of self-denial. People think it means not eating, not drinking, giving up all that is beautiful and good in life, going somewhere in solitude never to appear again. It is a wrong interpretation of a true teaching. Self-denial is self-effacement; it comes from self-forgetting. If one studies one's surroundings one finds that those who are happy are so because they have less thought of self. If they are unhappy it is because they think of themselves too much. A person is more bearable when he thinks less of himself; and a person is unbearable when he is always thinking of himself.

There are many miseries in life, but the greatest misery is self-pity. That person is heavier than rock, heavy for himself and heavy for others. Others cannot bear him; he cannot carry himself. It is no easy thing to do, to forget oneself, but if one is able to, what a wonderful power one creates within oneself! It is a great mystery. It gives power over heaven and hell.

Omar Khayyam says in his Rubayat, "Heaven is the vision of fulfilled desire; hell is the shadow of a soul on fire."

Where is that shadow? Where is that vision? Is it not within ourselves? It is we who hold it. Therefore heaven and hell are what we have made for ourselves; it cannot be changed by anything else but concentration.

But concentration has an even greater significance than this, for it is that creative power which man possesses and which he has as a heritage of God. That creative power begins to work wonders. For instance, a person thinks, "I should like fish for dinner", and when he comes home he finds that his housekeeper has cooked fish that evening. That is a phenomenon of concentration. He may not know it, but it worked in that way. The thought of the man struck the mind of the housekeeper, and the housekeeper served that dish to him. Imagine what a great power this is! One need not even think about one's desires; the very fact of having the desire is enough; concentration works it out and materializes it.

Such is the power of concentration. There are many stories told in the East about fakirs, dervishes, sages, Mahatmas. Many people wonder if they are true, and if they are true, how they come about. They want a scientific explanation, and it may be that one day it will be discovered by science. Nevertheless, one finds as much falsehood as truth in this, for anything can be imitated. There is gold and there is imitation gold; there is silver and there is imitation silver; and so there is imitation of truth also. What appears to be most wonderful and surprising is not all so wonderful. But at the same time there are things which are more wonderful than one can imagine, and they all belong to the power of mind. And where does this come from? From the source of all things. It is the power of God.

Even in the attainment of union with God, it is concentration which helps. The appearance of stigmata on some saints is the result of concentration; if it were not so then what would be the meaning and use of concentration? It seems out of the ordinary because only very few know what real concentration means. Someone who has mastered concentration has not very far to go; his next step will be the purpose for which he concentrated.