Sweet Mother

'Concentration'

(Mother gives me 'Concentration'¹ flowers and a bunch of 'New Birth'² leaves)

Here is a bunch of 'Concentration' and of 'New Birth'.

To concentrate for developing the intelligence, for developing the inborn faculties which are hidden in us....

To concentrate is to find oneself. It is the quest, the means to follow. It is the shortest way to achieve something. One has only to concentrate — but deeply — and toc! You get the thing, the word, the idea, the feeling, the place you want to discover, the plane of consciousness, and with perseverance, the Self, and with a constant effort, — the Soul. To concentrate in order to find the soul. One can achieve everything with the help of concentration.

But one has to know how to concentrate, and for each plane there is a degree of concentration. To know how to concentrate is to acquire the power to withdraw from other things except the one thing you wish to achieve.

You know what you should do to start with. You sit before a wall and say to yourself: "Let my mind be as white as the wall." Then, if you see a little black point on the wall, — or anywhere else, — a point, you start to concentrate on this point, with a fixed gaze, without having any other thoughts in your mind, without moving, without wavering, as if you wanted to envelop it

1 'Concentration' — Euphorbia milli, crown of thorns

2 'New Birth' — Oreganum marjorana, sweet marjoram

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The Mother in Japan, 1918.

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with your hypnotic look. Then you will see that you begin to have a relation with this point and that nothing exists around. Only the point exists, and you are drawn, as if by a magnet. Your gaze penetrates. And gradually, the black point no longer exists in your vision. You are concentrating very hard. But instead of a black point, there is a luminous point; as if the appearance of everything was changing. The black point has become a luminous point. And one sees other movements just around this luminous point. Then, one sees only the luminous point and nothing else around. And a sort of deep relation is established. You will try it and tell me.

Then, if one learns to concentrate further, really concentrate with intensity, one perceives that it is not oneself who is concentrating, and that the ego no longer exists, but that a completely detached will, — without thought, nor flickering, like an emptiness but well sustained by the aspiration, — is acting through the so-called self. For the Self seems to be hidden. But the concentration is well directed, deeply fixed there, within (indicating the psychic centre), not being disturbed by the exterior, discovering regions of happiness where the divine sweetness reigns. Layer after layer, one discovers planes of consciousness and one leaves behind one subtle body after another, passing from one plane to another till there is no resistance and the soul is before us without intermediary and without outside support. And one discovers the soul in its plenitude. If one starts to live in this state, it is then that one lives perpetually a new birth. At each moment, one discovers a new life, a new aspiration, a new light and a new love. It is always from newness to newness that one advances. It is this that is life.

One has to know how to concentrate by going there,

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deep within, to find the inner seat from where one should aspire more and more, and, at the same time, reject all that disturbs — the impulses, the sensations, and the thoughts. All that does not belong to us has to be rejected so that we may be pure in order to identify ourselves with the Divine Consciousness.

Three stages that help one another: to concentrate, to reject, and to aspire to identify oneself with the Divine.

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