One-pointed Attention and Listen to His Words

 When people complain that they cannot concentrate, I laugh, for even the driver of a car is a master of the art of concentration. The taxi driver does not pay heed to the chatter from the seat behind or to the radio. He is watching the road ahead with single-pointed attention. If you have earnestness and faith (shraddha), more than half the battle is won. That is why, Krishna asks Arjuna, "Have you listened to what I have said with one-pointed attention?" Arjuna, even in the midst of the opposing armies in the battle-field, affirmed he listened to the words of the Lord with keen concentration. Practice concentration and it will stand you in good stead. Also, do not mistake the technique for the goal; do not lose your way in the tangle of scholarship. Scholarship and learning are only the means for the mastery of the Mind, to turn it from the Creation to the Creator.

Swami is here comparing concentration with earnestness and faith. If we are earnest, we concentrate.

If you have earnestness and faith (shraddha), more than half the battle is won. That is why, Krishna asks Arjuna, "Have you listened to what I have said with one-pointed attention?" Arjuna, even in the midst of the opposing armies in the battle-field, affirmed he listened to the words of the Lord with keen concentration. Practice concentration and it will stand you in good stead.

We have to listen with one-pointed attention and it is not about meditation if he mentions Arjuna and the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna was listening to Krishna’s words with one-pointed attention and that is what I find very poor in our study circles, we have one or two who listen and there is something like one-pointed attention.

Here we listen to his words in thinking it over and we also need that one-pointed attention, for me writing it down helps to keep that concentration level actually. If my mind is not settled down or I don’t feel like it, I just go ahead writing about it and by that I get into it, somehow the memory of past experiences in my life come up and we begin to think it over and see it in our own life and by that we get to one-pointed attention. I notice it when I have the TV on in the background to keep me company more or less and I don’t watch, it is on but the one-pointed attention is by what I am doing and listening to his words and after I finish I usually don’t know what I had been on TV, I didn’t watch and I am often kind of surprised about the one-pointed attention and that is why we have to see it in our own life, if we cannot understand it because it is somehow in the air and out of the context of our own experience, we are not even able to listen and even less with one-pointed attention.

It helps to remember the basics, he said: First discrimination, second seeing it in our own life, third going on no matter what obstacles are there.

If we do that and we listen, think it over and absorb, we need one-pointed attention or the attention will grow into one-pointedness by practicing.

If you have earnestness and faith (shraddha), more than half the battle is won. That is why, Krishna asks Arjuna, "Have you listened to what I have said with one-pointed attention?" Arjuna, even in the midst of the opposing armies in the battle-field, affirmed he listened to the words of the Lord with keen concentration.

We think here about earnestness of faith, the requirement to be able to listen. We are in the example on the battlefield and in the Bhagavad Gita. If we know the Bhagavad Gita enough we know that it is the song of the divine and that Krishna is telling Arjuna why he has to fight that war and if there is no one-pointed attention even in the midst of the opposing armies in that battle-field, he still listened to the words of the Lord with keen concentration.

That is in a way kind of expected by the love and attention we have for a divine master like Krishna or Baba that we are also focused with keen concentration and not in the air seeking for a divinity outside of ourselves, different from us and most of all in heaven. If we listened to his words yesterday we also know that there is a difference and if we gaze with fix attention on the sky, we should not complain if we cannot see the ground. We should look for the sheet of water on the ground and the reflection in it and then we will see both levels, the earth and the sky.

That is very important what he is telling us and if we are listening with one-pointed attention we notice it and if not we just read it and we don’t get it, we are not one-pointed enough. That Swami is mentioning Arjuna and Krishna and the battlefield is significant, we have to keep that one-pointed focus like Arjuna in the midst of the battle in listening to Krishna his charioteer. If we see it in our own life, we are also in the field and have to fight that battle and have to keep one-pointed attention to his words. Our study circle is a kind of training, we learn to listen to all and see all sides and we have to find the one facet that is always true from all sides, that is the aim of it and that happens only with one-pointed attention.

There are that many distractions going on in the moment even on the movement level, everybody wants to do his own thing and the program that is really about his message is not getting the one-pointed focus it should, listening to his words.

We are in that sense in thinking it over and seeing it in our own life getting aware that we have no Arjunas on our battlefield in our life, we have a Krishna and we have the divine words, but we have no Arjuna with one-pointed concentration.

That is concentration and not being distracted and running here and there and thinking it is something we do and even service, when the basic understanding is not present. They have not understood the importance of the study help and the great message in the text as they should have, not one actually is enough one-pointed to get the message. It means we are not doing what he is telling us to do, we stand in the field and in our battle of life, but we don’t practice that type of one-pointed concentration and we are in no way like Arjuna.

That is what we are always again talking about it, if we practice concentration listen to the divine words, it will stand us in good stead.

It is an incredible benefit we get from it if we practice that concentration and listen to the divine words as Arjuna did when he listened to Krishna with one-pointed concentration and we get aware of it only after we did it, not before.

First we have to do it, we have to get the right experience of it, we have to taste it, we have to love it, we have to get aware of how our own self-awareness it growing and benefiting from it, we have to get that type of discrimination, we have to be it and if we do, we know what he is talking about and why he tell it to us the way he does.

Practice concentration and it will stand you in good stead. Also, do not mistake the technique for the goal; do not lose your way in the tangle of scholarship. Scholarship and learning are only the means for the mastery of the Mind, to turn it from the Creation to the Creator.

We should not mistake the technique for the goal. We listen and think it over to absorb, we learn, we absorb it in our own life, we should not lose our way in the tangle of the scholarship. He is warning us that we can lose our way and that listening with one-pointed concentration is for the mastery of the mind and usually scholarship and learning is to get a certain degree.

By listening to his words we get aware of the reflection in the mirror of our own self and we realize we are the same higher self in our own self and how do we turn it from the creation to the creator?

Listening to his words we get aware that ‘though art that’, ‘we are that’ and ‘all are that’ therefore, also ‘I am that’, if the man who comes in our dream is in our meditation, if we meditate together and afterwards we get out of it and share our experience. Suppose we sat down for meditation because we knew we would have the man who comes in our dream in our meditation and it would be about getting aware of the creator, we open effortlessly our eyes as we do after meditation and we take some time for it and we begin to share and you would tell us that he said, ‘I am the One’ and I would also tell that he told me, ‘I am the One’.

We all would be there sharing the same great experience, what is not likely to happen ever, as we are all individual beings and all on a different level on our path to the expansion of consciousness, it is just for the understanding part of it and why we should listen to his words. We all would have had the man in our dreams who said, ‘I am the One’, what would be the difference between us, it means there is only one I and we are all the same ‘I’, because he is the One. If we have that type of experience, we know why he talks about Oneness and the difference between the creation and the creator. Creation is just being, consciousness and the creator is present in the, ‘I am the one’, there is a big distinction between just pure being and ‘I am the One’, it is the principle of ‘I am I’ and he comes in our dreams to awake us.