John Yates, in his book, “The Mind Illuminated,” presents a way of understanding the mind that many have found supportive of their efforts to concentrate in meditation. <\/p>\n
He\u2019s describing two basic ways our brain has evolved to engage with the world. One is through \u201cselective attention\u201d (SA) \u2013 our brain selects out of an infinite array of information a specific object to attend to. \u201cSA\u201d tends to be conceptual, very much concerned with \u201cme\u201d and my desires and fears, and excludes much of the rest of experience. It is very much the kind of attention that we are conditioned to in our education, and if there is too much emphasis on it, it tends to lead to a great deal of tension and anxiety. <\/p>\n
The other form is \u201cperipheral awareness\u201d (PA) and is holistic, takes in the whole field of experience at once, is much less \u201cself-centered,\u201d more connected to the body and to others. <\/p>\n
One very important aspect of these two modes of engagement with the world is that selective attention tends to be more active, whereas peripheral awareness is generally a relaxed, passive, open engagement with the world. <\/p>\n
Because of our education, many of us, when we turn to meditation, and we hear of Mother or Sri Aurobindo\u2019s emphasis on the importance of concentration \u2013 concentrating on an aspiration for the opening to eh Force, for example \u2013 somewhat reflexively employ selective attention. If we overemphasize this, we end up in a battle with \u201cdistractions.\u201d Culadasa has a brilliant, extremely practical and ultimately quite simple description of a gentle way of balancing SA and PA. <\/p>\n
Ultimately, as one learns this, the \u201ceffort\u201d to balance gives way to an effortless integration \u2013 an integration that is finally so seamless that SA and PA \u201cmerge\u201d into \u201csomething else.\u201d<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
I’ve been reflecting on how this relates to integral Yoga. I just happened, this morning (11-30-16) to turn ‘at random” to a passage from the Mother’s ‘Questions and Answers” that i think may be a distant parallel to this integration of “active” selective awareness and “passive” peripheral awareness. <\/p>\n
*****************************<\/p>\n
“If you want to get true inspiration, inner guidance, the guide, and if you want to have the force, to receive the force which will guide you and make you act as you should, then you do not move any longer, that is \u2014 I don\u2019t mean not move physically but nothing must come out from you any more and, on the contrary, you remain as though you were quite still, but open, and wait for the Force to enter, and then open yourself as wide as possible to take in all that comes into you. And it is this movement: instead of out-going vibrations there is a kind of calm quietude, but completely open, as though you were opening all your doors in this way to the force which must descend into you and transform your action and consciousness. <\/p>\n
Receptivity is the result of a true passivity… <\/p>\n
…the two things can go together, you see, there is a moment when the two \u2014 aspiration and passivity \u2014 can not only be alternate but simultaneous. You can be at once in the state of aspiration, of willing, which calls down something \u2014 exactly the will to open oneself and receive, and the aspiration which calls down the force you want to receive \u2014 and at the same time be in that state of complete inner stillness which allows full penetration, for it is in this immobility that one can be penetrated, that one becomes permeable by the Force. Well, the two can be simultaneous without the one disturbing the other, or can alternate so closely that they can hardly be distinguished. But one can be like that, like a great flame rising in aspiration, and at the same time as though this flame formed a vase, a large vase, opening and receiving all that comes down. <\/p>\n
And the two can go together. And when one succeeds in having the two together, one can have them constantly, what- ever one may be doing. Only there may be a slight, very slight displacement of consciousness, almost imperceptible, which becomes aware of the flame first and then of the vase of receptivity \u2014 of what seeks to be filled and the flame that rises to call down what must fill the vase \u2014 a very slight pendular movement and so close that it gives the impression that one has the two at the same time.”<\/p>\n
The Mother, Questions and Answers, 1954, p. 115<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Yates, in his book, “The Mind Illuminated,” presents a way of understanding the mind that many have found supportive of their efforts to concentrate in meditation. He\u2019s describing two basic ways our brain has evolved to engage with the world. One is through \u201cselective attention\u201d (SA) \u2013 our brain selects out of an infinite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":861,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions\/861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}