(16) Fixating contemplation is indispensable, it ensures the strengthening of illumination. Only one must not stay sitting rigidly if worldly thoughts come up, but one must examine where the thought is, where it began, and where it fades out. Nothing is gained by pushing re lection farther. One must be content to see where the thought arose, and not seek beyond the point of origin; for to find the heart (consciousness), to get behind consciousness with consciousness-that cannot be done. We want to bring the states of the heart together in rest, that is true contemplation. What contradicts it is false contemplation. This leads to no goal. When the flight of thoughts keeps extending farther, one should stop and begin contemplating. Let one contemplate and then start concentrating again. That is the double method of strengthening the illumination. It means the circular course of the light. The circular course is ixation. The Light is contemplation. Fixation without contemplation is circulation without Light. Contemplation without ixation is Light without circulation!

(6) Having abandoned all desires born of the ego-centric will, having restrained the group of senses with mind from all sides, one should attain quietude slowly and slowly by the intellect held firmly. And then, fixing the mind in Atma, he should not think of anything else at all.

(35) It is good to tame the mind, which is difficult to hold in and flighty, rushing wherever it listeth; a tamed mind brings happiness.

(1) WHEN thus vigour has been nurtured, it is well to fix the thought in concentred effort; the man of wandering mind lies between the fangs of the Passions. It cannot wander if body and thought be in solitude; so it is well to forsake the world and put away vain imaginations. Because of love, or hunger for gain, and the like, men will not forsake the world; then in order to cast it aside the wise will lay to heart these thoughts. Passion is overcome only by him who has won through stillness of spirit the perfect vision. Knowing this, I must first seek for stillness; it comes through the contentment that is regardless of the world. What creature of a day should cling to other frail beings, when he can never again through thousands of births behold his beloved? Yet when he sees him not, he is ill at ease; he rests not in concentred thought; and even when he beholds him he is not satisfied, but is distressed by the same longing as before. He sees not things in their reality; he loses his horror of the world; he is consumed by his grief in yearning for union with the beloved. In thoughts thereupon his brief life vainly passes away hour by hour; and the eternal Law is broken for the sake of a short-lived friend!

(2) Having restrained all the senses the harmonized should sit intent on me. His wisdom is steady whose senses are under control.

(6) Whenever and wherever the restless and unsteady mind wanders, one should bring it back and continually focus it on God.

(18) Endowed with a pure understanding, restraining the self with firmness, turning away from sound and other sense-objects, and abandoning love and hatred; Dwelling in solitude, eating but little, controlling the speech, body, and mind, ever engaged in meditation and concentration, and cultivating freedom from passion; Forsaking conceit and power, pride and lust, wrath and possessions, tranquil in heart, and free from ego— he becomes worthy of becoming one with Brahman.

(18) Emptiness comes as the first of the three contemplations. All things are looked upon as empty. Then follows delusion. Although it is known that they are empty, thiiigs are not destroyed, but a man attends to his affairs in the midst of the emptiness. But though one does not destroy things, neither does one pay attention to them; this is contemplation of the centre. While practising contemplation of the empty, one also knows that one cannot destroy the ten thousand things, and still one does not notice them. In this way the three contemplations fall together. But, after all, strength is in visioning the empty. Therefore, when one practises contemplation of emptiness, emptiness is certainly empty, but delusion is empty also, and the centre is empty. It needs a great strength to practise contemplation of delusion; then delusion is really delusion, but emptiness is also delusion, and the centre is also delusion. Being on the way of the centre, one also creates images of the emptiness, but they are not called empty, but are called central. One practises also contemplation of delusion, but one does not call it delusion, one calls it central. As to what has to do with the centre, more need not be said.

(13) It is one of the most promising doctrines of certain schools of occult philosophy that the power of expelling thoughts, or if need be, killing them dead on the spot, must be attained. Naturally the art requires practice, but like other arts, when once acquired there is no mystery or difficulty about it. And it is worth practice. It may indeed fairly be said that life only begins when this art has been acquired. For obviously when, instead of being ruled by individual thoughts, the whole flock of them in their immense multitude and variety and capacity is ours to direct and dispatch and employ where we list, life becomes a thing so vast and grand compared with what it was before, that its former condition may well appear almost antenatal. If you can kill a thought dead, for the time being, you can do anything with it that you please. And therefore it is that this power is so valuable. And it not only frees a man from mental torment (which is nine-tenths at least of the torments of life), but it gives to him a concentrated power of handling mental work absolutely unknown to him before. The two things are correlative to each other.

(7) Buddha said: When you fix your heart on one point, then nothing is impossible for you. The heart easily runs away, so it is necessary to gather it together by means of breathing power. Breathing power easily becomes coarse, therefore it has to be re ined by the heart. When that is done, can it then happen that it is not fixed?

(6) Thus the self-controlled Yogi holding the mind in meditation on the Self, attains peace abiding in me which culminates in the highest bliss of liberation.

(8) The two mistakes of laziness and distraction must be combated by quiet work that is carried on daily without interruption; then results will certainly be achieved. If one is not seated during meditation, one will often be distracted without noticing it. To become conscious of the inattention is the mechanism by which to do away with inattention. Laziness of which a man is conscious; and laziness of which he is imconscious, are a thousand miles apart. Unconscious laziness is real laziness; conscious laziness is not complete laziness, because there is still some clarity in it. Distraction comes from letting the spirit wander about; laziness comes from the spirit not yet being pure. Distraction is much easier to correct than laziness. It is as in sickness: if one feels pains and itchings, one can help them with remedies, but laziness is like a disease that is attended by loss of feeling. Distraction can be overcome, confusion can be straightened out, but laziness and absent-mindedness are heavy and dark. Distraction and confusion at least have a place, but in laziness and absent-mindedness the anima alone is active. In inattention the animus is still present, but in laziness pure darkness rules. If one becomes sleepy during meditation, that is an effect of laziness. Breathing alone serves to remove laziness. Although the breath that lows in and out through the nose is not the true breath, the flowing in and out of the true breath is connected with it.

(2) The man whose mind is not under his control has no Self-knowledge and no contemplation either. Without contemplation he can have no peace; and without peace, how can he have happiness?

(5) The sage who has turned away all external impressions, fixing his gaze in the centre of the brows, controlling the incoming and outgoing breath rhythmically, keeping the senses, the mind and the intellect controlled, free from desire, fear and hatred, aspiring for the highest freedom indeed enjoys freedom always.

(17) Serenity of mind, gentleness, silence, self-control, and purity of heart— these constitute the austerity of the mind.

(33) By holding one-pointedly to that train of thought, the belief that they are real is dissipated; and, that being impressed upon the inner continuity [of consciousness], one turneth backwards: if the knowledge of the unreality be impressed deeply in that way, the womb-door will be closed.

(8) With practice, O Parth, when you constantly engage the mind in remembering Me, the Supreme Divine Personality, without deviating, you will certainly attain Me.

(2) When your intellect which is perplexed by hearing the various sastras becomes steady and immovable in ecstatic concentration, then you shall attain union with the Supreme Being.

(11) The ancient Hermetists use the word "Meditation" in describing the process of the mental creation of the Universe in the Mind of THE ALL, the word "Contemplation" also being frequently employed. But the idea intended seems to be that of the employment of the Divine Attention. "Attention" is a word derived from the Latin root, meaning "to reach out; to stretch out," and so the act of Attention is really a mental "reaching out; extension" of mental energy, so that the underlying idea is readily understood when we examine into the real meaning of "Attention."