“In fact, our sorrows and joys are nothing; our individual exaggerated fantasy makes them appear magnified a thousand fold.”

How do we practice so that we remain neutral in our behavior? Many of us imagine that it is only us who are being singled out for tragedy and hardship.

I run an NGO and I have worked in the area of substance abuse, AIDS prevention and risk-taking behavior. I have met many persons who had tragedy strike them. They met the catastrophe frontally. Men and women started working in this area and enabling persons to lead a healthier life. I have a friend who lost three sons to AIDS and she was one of the persons who comforted mothers, sisters, and partners on the loss of a loved one. Wives who got infected by their partners, took to nursing persons living with AIDS and working in the area of reducing risk taking behavior.

“Concentration is a faculty. This can be used in business, the office, and as elsewhere. Concentration helps in improving the personality of an individual. Concentration is a permanent aid to success in every sphere of life. It bestows keen insight and a ready reckoning intellectual capacity. It somehow acts as a potential medium to unearth occult treasures.”

How can we practice concentration?

When we sit down to the sadhana of concentration, our breathing pattern changes. Our breath flows through the left and right nostril alternately. Sometimes when we are practicing concentration, the ida nadi is flowing and we feel a great deal of pain in the body and sleepy. There is a dullness as the ida nadi creates depression in the system and this causes physical pain. If the pingala nadi is flowing, our mind behaves like a grasshopper. Ida nadi is Chandra (moon) nadi and controls our mental energy. Pingala nadi is Surya (sun) nadi and controls our vitality.

Before we practice concentration, we should practice Anuloma Viloma. We visualize the breath flowing in and out of the left nostril until the count of 27 backwards. Then we visualize the breath flowing in and out of the right nostril, until the count of 27. Finally, we practice triangular breathing, visualizing the breath going in through both nostrils, meeting at the eyebrow center and then visualizing the breath going out through both nostrils, until the count of 54. Now the sushumna nadi is flowing and we can practice chidakasha dharana.

Chidakasha Dharana is gazing into the eyebrow center without engaging. We are uninfluenced by our thoughts. We are detached and aware.

Aim Hrim Klim