Concentration and meditatoin (mind & heart)

[krya]

Concentration, here's one of the very first thing students of esoteric schools learn to do.
This is to allow them to get ready for the second step which is "Meditation".
Now there's a lot of definition of concentration and meditation out there, and I will simply give my view on what I believe they are. So your own opinions are also welcome.

Concentration is the ability to focus.
Meditation is concentration on a spiritual matter.

Concentration is not really a spiritual practice. However meditation is.
Concentration is simply a tool that helps in meditation. If you can't concentrate you can't meditate. In other words if you can't focus on one thing at once, you can't meditate, because meditation requires one to stay focus on one thing at the time.

Concentration is an ability nature has given to everyone as free gift; and maybe the most previous of free gifts nature has given us, because from that ability will come many other abilities. For example, those who know how to concentrate on God can fell his love.
Concentration is however used for many other reason than for God. It can be used to focus while reading, while studying, while cooking, while working etc. Some level of concentration is always required to everyone to do anything consciously.


The human heart (human soul, feelings) has attractions (what it loves) and usually the mind helps the heart to achieve her desires. The mind will usually go where the heart is going.

Let me explain that like this:
The heart is the big sister of the mind, the mind is the small brother. The small brother has muscles (the Will) and lots of books in his house ( knowledge). However his big sister is blind, but she has beauty (the feeling) and lost of friends ( desires ).
While the brother collects books, the sister looks for beauty. So what happens is, the sister asks his small brother who knows a lot, to take her where she can find beauty. The small brother usually says "Yes sister, I know where you will find it, hold on me and let's go, I'll guide you".

When the mind (Small Brother) shows the heart (big sister) the way to ugliness (bad feelings), this is considered as a miss use of the concentration ability; But If the mind guides the heart to find beauty, then this is meditation. So concentration has no purpose on its own, while meditation has. Concentration becomes meditation as soon as it has a purpose to focus on something spiritual.

Concentration is the activity of the mind. The mind is a boy who focuses on anything he sees, to study it; he discovers good and bad things. All he does as job is to focus, his life is just a concentration until he decides to focus on good things. Concentration and meditation are then 2 phases of the mind life. Concentration being the mind young age and meditation being the adult age of the mind. A mind that starts to meditate, has grown up.

We should be away of the fact that in the human being evolution, the heart (big sister) is first to grow ( from 7 to 14 years old), and later start to grow the mind ( from 14 to 21 years old); If you realize that, a blind daughter is first born in us in our life time, you will understand why for example puberty life time gives such a difficult time to parents, who try so hard to convince the child to think about this and that; Well, during puberty time, the heart is grown up so much, and the mind is still a small boy, too small to say a word.

Our heart arrived first so she started going and touching all sorts of feelings (bad or good), because she was born blind. And when the mind comes, he must direct his sister( the heart) , to show her the way to the beauty. And that's exactly the purpose of meditation, to guide the heart where she is meant to go.

In many people's inner world, the mind is a boy full of knowledge, some people are even seen as human Wikipedias. They are considered as intelligent in our society. They know about this and about that. That's is so wonderful! Yes it is! But let's see how angels see these people. Angels say : "Hooo if you can't help your sister with what you know, we say you are fools".
Yes our intelligence is seen as foolishness in heaven if it doesn't help us to guide our feelings and desires.

Our mind full of knowledge must help the heart full of desires. This is how the mind truly grows up; This happens when the mind goes to its second phase; And once that becomes an habit, we become wise. Then if the heart (sister) is about to be burnt, the mind (brother) must grab the heart with his hands(with his will) and pull her (the heart), to save her from the pain (sufferance).

Also in some people's inner world, the mind and the heart are in conflict. They disputes, they even fight . The heart will want something but the mind doesn't help. Or it could be the opposite, I mean, the mind tells the heart to go someplace but the heart wants something else so she doesn't want to. For example we have all noticed sometimes we want to do something, but when you think about it, your knowledge shows how bad it is to do, so you end up not doing it at all. Sometimes we have lots of good knowledge but the desires to do the good thing is absent. All these cause a lot of inner conflicts, a lot of pain. This happens when the mind and the heart do not vibrate the same; Harmony requires that the heart and the mind should work together, and the result of that is inner peace.

The heart's job is to desire higher spiritual feelings and desires and the mind's job is to guide the heart where those higher desires are, by using all its knowledge. If the mind says NO, then the heart should obey and stop.

The heart needs warm (Love). And for the love of his sister (the heart), the mind will learn how to meditate and not simply how to concentrate. The mind will look for the light that warms, he must know the way to the light of God so he can take his big sister there. That way both gets what they truly live for: the mind for the true light and the heart for the true love.

Love and light to all.

[fatehearted]

The association you made for this story was great. I really enjoyed that and it was exceptionally informative. It is very easy to forget that the 2 are forever working hand in hand, so they should vibrate at the same frequency. They help each other, the hearts desire can help guide the mind to more knowledge and the minds knowledge to guide the heart to the true beauty.

[krya]

Well as you loved the story I can tell you the remaining part of the story about the mind and the heart.

Here's how it goes:
The heart and the mind have parents. The heart looks very much like her mother, and the mind looks very much like his father. The mother is universal heart where the original love of God dwells. and the father is the universal intelligence, where the original light of God dwells.

From the spiritual world, the first child those parents have is the mind (the boy), then the heart comes in the second position. But in the material world, our heart is first to be born then later only comes the mind. So in heaven our heavenly parents gives birth to a boy then a daughter, and just like our parents, we humans on earth do give birth to a son and daughter but in the reverse order. So what is first in heaven is last here on earth. This is what explains the popular saying "The first people will be the last". It's a natural law.

That's why we do not need to be biology scientist to find out what will develop first in a baby in the belly of a pregnant women. The process should be the same, the heart organ of the baby will first develop, then the brain organ will finish its formation later.
And that's how the universe too was formed, first its heart then it's brain later. Yes the universe also has a heart and a brain, because it's an image of a human being. just like our solar system is.
You can imagine what a human soul looked like at the beginning of things, a ball of fire representing his invisible heart(his feelings).

Now see carefully how things are organized, the heart is made first to come on earth so that she can be second when the mind is born. So looking at this from down to top, heart is first and mind is second, but looking at this from top to bottom, the mind becomes first and the heart second. And this is the perfect Divine math! what this means is that The mind is seen first from heaven, so the mind is closer to his parents (the divine world) than the heart. So it takes less efforts for the mind to see the light of God.

The heart and the mind hold each other hands tightly, so one can drag the other in a certain direction; but no matter who drags the other, the mind is still seen first in heaven. The mind is where the light and the warm of our heavenly parents pass by. the mind gets his food first, and lets the warm pass down to reach the heart his sister. so if the mind is cloudy and dirty, not only the light of God doesn't shine on the mind but that mind will not let the warm get down to the heart.

You should be aware of different sorts of Yoga, or ways to unite with God, and among them, there's the kama yoga (Union to God using faith alone) which is the most popular yoga practiced by religious people, like in Christianity and a part of Hinduism, and Islam. What happens here is that people try to get to God with their faith alone. This is based on the fact that the heart also have the power to drag the mind to light. Kama yoga is for those who can not concentrate, meditate. So they can try to get to God via the heart, which is to me a very difficult path, although powerful. To success in this, one need to run away from the society, and live a place where his heart will not be tempted too much in the wrong path. and because one can not meditate, one must keep strengthening the faith by reading the holy book. This is how the religious will can succeed to influence his mind. He may not become wise, but the purity of his heart will end up making the purity of his mind. then only warm starts to be felt in the heart of the religious. Praying requires one to forget about earthly things for a while and focus the mind on God, that's why prayer can also be called a small meditation, and you can tell, since religious do feel the joy of God when they pray to God.

The heart is to become exactly like his mother ( the universal heart) full of love and beauty. And the mind exactly like his father ( the universal intelligence) full of knowledge and light. Then their parents will come down to visit them in their home ( the body).

[John_Ly]

This is one of the subjects that I personally like to meditate about because it explains some very important aspects of the masculine and feminine principles of consciousness. So I would also like to add to this discussion by bringing a similar idea to the table. The mind (a masculine attribute) and the heart (a feminine attribute) seek each other in order to advance toward realization. For that to happen, there must be a level of cooperation and understanding between the two attributes, otherwise many imbalances will be created. This is best explained with the analogy of two people, one who is paralyzed but can see and another one who is blind but can walk. If those two people decide to live together as one, then they will compensate their respective shortcomings; otherwise they will surely lead each other to disaster.

On a more personal level, let us see how this idea fit within the polarity of male and female in our specie. Roughly speaking, a man stores wisdom (which comes from the mind) while a woman stores love (which comes from the heart). When wisdom and love are properly united, they produce truth. Wisdom is characterized by the power of its strength and love is characterized by the inspiration of its beauty. From wisdom comes power while from love comes life and it is essential to have both in order to be safe. That is why a man seeks the beauty of heart in his woman (which will inspire and stabilize him) while the woman seeks the strength of mind in her man (which will activate and uplift her).This complementarity is the way cosmic intelligence designed the two genders to relate, for this is the only way they may both find fulfillment.



That is why I do not anything praiseworthy about a man who tries to weaken his woman, because she is already vulnerable by her nature. The same way, a woman who tries to destabilize her man has nothing to be proud of because the man is already unstable by his nature.