Non Exclusive Type of Concentration

The way we teach meditation utilizes both non-exclusive and exclusive concentration.

To be fully awake and aware, using the consciousness, one needs to understand non-exclusive concentration: a type of awareness that perceives everything all at once, without limiting concentration on one thing. Only with a very expansive awareness / concentration can one perceive what we otherwise would not perceive. This type of concentration is developed in our vigil state and in concentration practice (sitting).

Once we perceive something that causes suffering (i.e. an ego) we need to meditate in order to concentration fully upon it. In this case, we need to shut all the physical senses down, focusing our consciousness on what we perceived as a cause of suffering. Since an ego is a specific entity, one would need to concentrate exclusively upon it in order to comprehend it. Generally, people fail here because they get distracted by other elements; that is, they have not developed exclusive concentration (dharana / dhyana).

Some traditions emphasize one type of concentration over the other. This is similar to insisting that a bird use one wing.

Non-exclusive concentration develops the consciousness, but it does not reduce the ego. There are many yogis who awaken consciousness and develop expansive awareness, but become tricked thinking this type of perception "spontaneously liberates." Therefore, they do not concentrate on their defects and so do not eliminate the ego, and they remain bound in suffering. Many, many yogis, have been surprised after death to find they awakened a bit but accomplished no real work.

Exclusive concentration gives us focus to penetrate phenomena and extract information. However, without non-exclusive awareness, one will not have much to meditate upon, because awareness has not expanded out from its mechanical routine.

From our point of view, the reduction of the ego is the priority. We see that both types united provides a dynamic method that awakens the consciousness effectively and with balance.

Here is an outline of meditation written by Samael Aun Weor in The Revolution of the Dialectic. If you read it carefully, you will see both types of concentration are needed.

1. Relaxation: It is indispensable to relax the body for meditation; no muscle should remain with tension. It is urgent to provoke and to regulate drowsiness by will. It is evident that with the wise combination of drowsiness and meditation, that which is called Illumination will be the outcome.

2. Retrospection: What are we looking for in retrospection? Due to the mechanical life that he lives in, the intellectual animal forgets the Self. Thus, he falls into fascination. He goes around with his consciousness asleep, without remembering what he did at the moment of rising from his bed, without knowing the first thoughts of the day, his actions and the places he has been to.

The objective of retrospection is the acquisition of awareness of one’s behavior or actions of the past. When carrying out the retrospection, we should not put any objections to the mind; we will recall memories of past actions, from the moment of beginning the retrospection to the desired moment in our lives. We should study each memory without becoming identified with it.

3. Serene Reflection: First, before any thoughts surge, we need to become fully aware of the mood that we are in. Serenely observe our mind; pay full attention to any mental form which appears on the screen of the intellect.

It is necessary to become sentries of our own mind during any given agitated activity, and to then stop for an instant and observe it.

4. Psychoanalysis: Examine, estimate and inquire about the origin, and root of every thought, memory, affection, emotion, feeling, resentment, etc., while they emerge from within the mind.

During psychoanalysis, one must examine, evaluate, inquire, and find out the origin of, the cause of, the reason for, or the fundamental motive for each thought, memory, image and association as they emerge from the bottom of the subconsciousness.

5. Mantralization or Koan: The objectives of this phase are: a) To mix the magical forces of mantras or koans in our inner universe.

b) To awaken the consciousness.

c) To internally accumulate christic atoms of high voltage.

In this psychological work, the intellect must assume a psychological, receptive, integral, unitotal, complete, tranquil and profound state. One achieves this unitotalreceptive state with the koans or phrases that control the mind.

6. Superlative Analysis: Consists of an introspective knowledge of oneself. During deep meditation, introversion is indispensable.

In that state, one will work in the process of the comprehension of the “I” or defect that one wants to disintegrate. The Gnostic student will concentrate on the psychological aggregate and will maintain it on the screen of the mind. Above all, it is indispensable to be sincere with oneself.

Superlative analysis consists of two phases which are:

a) Self-exploration: To investigate, within the depths of our consciousness and in the 49 levels of our subconsciousness, when that the defect first manifested itself in our lives, when it last manifested itself and in which moment it has had more strength to manifest itself.

b) Self-discovery: Toinvestigatewhatarethe nourishing foods of the “I.” To fraction and divide the defect in various parts and to study each part in order to get to know the kind of “I’s” it originates from and the kind of “I’s” that originate from it.

7. Self-judgment: To seat the defect being studied in the defendant’s chair. To bring to judgment the damages it causes to the consciousness and the benefits that the annihilation of the defect being judged would bring into our life.

8. Prayer: One will supplicate (ask) the Divine Mother Kundalini, our inner and individual Mother, with much fervor. One will talk to her with frankness and introvert all the defects and faults that one has, so that She, who is the only one capable of disintegrating the “I’s,” will disintegrate them at their very roots.