Chapter 6The Role of Concentration and Meditation · Concentration on the Idea

If one concentrates on a thought or a word, one has to dwell on the essential idea contained in the word with the aspiration to feel the thing which it expresses.

* I have not the original chapter before me just now; but from the sentences quoted1 it seems to be the essential mental Idea. As for instance in the method of Vedantic knowledge one concentrates on the idea of Brahman omnipresent — one looks at a tree or other surrounding objects with the idea that Brahman is there and the tree or object is only a form. After a time if the concentration is of the right kind, one begins to become aware of a presence, an existence, the physical tree form becomes a shell and that presence or existence is felt to be the only reality. The idea then drops, it is a direct vision of the thing that takes its place — there is no longer any necessity of concentrating on the 1 The correspondent sent to Sri Aurobindo a passage from The Synthesis of Yoga: “This concentration proceeds by the Idea . . . ; for it is through the Idea that the mental being rises beyond all expression to that which is expressed, to that of which the Idea itself is only the instrument. By concentration upon the Idea the mental existence which at present we are breaks open the barrier of our mentality and arrives at the state of consciousness, the state of being, the state of power of conscious-being and bliss of conscious-being to which the Idea corresponds and of which it is the symbol, movement and rhythm.” THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO, vol. 23, p. 321.

idea, one sees with a deeper consciousness, sa pa´syati. It should be noted that this concentration on the idea is not mere thinking, mananam — it is an inner dwelling on the essence of the Idea.