"Silence, Prayer, Meditation and Contemplation blend into each other harmoniously." –Flower A. Newhouse

Finding Your True North

The Armor of Spiritual Life - Lesson 7

Meditation Is the Breastplate of Our Spiritual Armor, Part II

The Vital Practice of Concentration

Concentration is the one-pointed exercise of the powers of the spiritual mind. Its purpose is to align that which is imperfect to Spirit which is all complete.

In Silence, as we concentrate with spiritual purposefulness upon our objective lives and their needs, our minds become more perceiving of causes and disorganized procedures. Concentration not only exposes faulty development, but it likewise suggests, by contrast, the Way to Wholeness.

Spiritual concentration is vital to the full government of our minds and lives. It unfolds the powers of order, detail, thoroughness, and analysis. It attacks problems with the aim of divine solution, and needs with the purpose of clarification.

No one is spiritually mature who has not learned to govern his mind with spiritual exercise. Concentration could well be called the ordering of the mind. As one advances in consciousness, this power of concentration is used more and more toward the gaining of a deeper understanding of principles and aspects of Truth.

In the infinitude of Spirit, pervading all dimensions, there are areas of specific knowledge, powers, and purposes. Directed thought and prayers, by means of the law of attraction, align themselves with definite resources. Thus, one who is concentrating upon the realization of ideas necessary for writing, or for finances, or for healing, is automatically attuned to Regions of Known Specifics according to his need and degree of purposefulness.

In Realms of the Living Dead by Homer Curtiss, an enlightened seeker comments, "You see, I've found out that when a man thinks definitely along a certain line there’s a stream of force going out from his brain that makes a pathway into space. If he thinks clearly the paths leads up through the realms and worlds…up to the ideal or patterns that his thought is reaching out toward…The paths that go out from the minds of trained thinkers do lead to definite ends of attainment. Once in a while I have found a mind like this whose path seems to go straight upward, on and on through all the worlds as far as I could see, and in each world it seems to spread out to make connections and establish itself. Such a mind can bring back to its brain truth from every world it contacts."

Ponder for a moment the state of your spiritual mind. How can you see yourself benefiting from the practice of concentration?

Concentration is a spiritual exercise when it is used with spiritual motivation. It enables us to have x-ray vision, intellectually. At a certain level in consciousness we begin to receive things, realities, powers, with new detection. But instead of being highly aware or reverent, with the best nobility that we posses in our uplifted moments, we are more analytical at this stage; we are discriminating. We are able to classify, to analyze, segregate, and to select. That is the power and value of concentration.

When we achieve a certain speed mentally and spiritually - not speed of force, impatience or zest, but a speed of concentration, listening, and attention within - we find ourselves at a new elevation, a new zone of thought. We are now inclined toward meditation. The first effort activates all of our concrete mental processes. The second exercises the spiritual processes of the mind. Meditation requires all of concentration’s skill, discrimination, analysis, evaluation, and one-pointedness; but it adds to these arts idealization, a universal perspective, and veneration of Realities.

Concentration sets the wheels in motion for meditation's productive realization. Being on a higher level of mental endeavor, meditation pursues the perfecting of life through communion with Intelligences or Ideals of perfection. The word "perfection" should always be regarded in a relative sense, since perfection to one person might be incompleteness to another.

Click to Listen to Flower on Concentration

What do you think your greatest challenge will be in regards to your practice of concentration? What is the ideal you are striving to achieve during concentration?

Practice

M8 Find the card entitled Stillness to Improve Concentration (M8). Practice these techniques during your work with concentration.

You can now work on having a time in your day for just silence and concentration - or - choose another meditation card and follow Flower's Outline for Meditation in this unit:

1. Silence
2. Concentration
3. Meditation
4. Contemplation

And now may the day be full of light and may every attunement period find you walking on the path of Those who have already achieved mastery.

Questions and Answers

Questions and answers with Flower A. Newhouse (excerpted from Here Are Your Answers, Volumes I, II and III)

If one finds meditation a duty rather than a delight should he meditate or not?

That is up to the individual. Usually an indolent mind is not apt to be enthusiastic about helpful practices of clarification and training. We may vary the time of our meditation periods, but at least once a day we should sit down for reflection upon our ideals and our methods for improvement. Prayers for others should be included. The unruly mind may balk at these dedicated exercises, but a wise continuance, if consistently practiced, will bear results, although not as quickly or as fruitfully as would occur were meditations enjoyed.