Book 4 (Part I)

CHAPTER V DHARANA OW that we have learnt to observe the mind, so that we know how it works to some extent, and have begun to understand the elements of control, we may try the resultof gathering together all the powers of the mind, and attempting to focus them on a single point. We know that it is fairly easy for the ordinary educated mind to think without much distraction on a subject in which it is much interested. We have the popular phrase, “ revolving a thing in the mind ”; and as long as the subject is sufficiently complex, as long as thoughts pass freely, there is no great difficulty. So long as a gyroscope is in motion, it remains motionless relatively to its support, and even resists attempts to distract it; when it stops it falls from that position. If the earth ceased to spin round the sun, it would at once fall into the sun. The moment then that the student takes a simple subject—or rather a simple object—and imagines it or visualizes it, he will find that it is not so much his creature as he supposed. Other thoughts will invade 55