Focus: The Prequisite for Success

One day I was talking with a friend on the pavement and we were about a couple of feet apart, face to face. A little later, a dog came sniffing at the ground intently. He was so intent that he walked through the two of us without realising what he had done. That is focus. Unwavering focus which can lead us to success.

Without it, the lawyer trying to write an important contract is will mess up the contract over an argument he’d had with his wife.

The judge is distracted by a teenager appearing before him as he resembles his own son.

The student is taking an exam but is distracted by a popular song running through his head.

Lack of concentration means inefficiency. But what is not generally known is that a concentrated mind succeeds not only because it can solve problems with greater dispatch, but also because problems have a way of somehow vanishing before its focused energies, without even requiring to be solved.

A concentrated mind often attracts opportunities for success that, to less focussed (and therefore less successful) individuals, appear to come by sheer luck. The one who concentrates receives inspiration and this may often be thought of as a divine favour by others. But such seeming “favours” are due simply to the power of concentration. Concentration awakens our powers and channels them, dissolving obstacles in our path, attracting opportunities, insights, and inspirations. In many ways, concentration is the single most important key to success.

This is particularly true in yoga practice. The mind, in meditation, must be so perfectly still that not a ripple of thought enters it. God, the Subtlest Reality, cannot be perceived except in utter silence. Much of the teaching of yoga, therefore, centres on techniques designed especially for developing concentration.

Ask, what is concentration? Concentration implies, first, an ability to release one’s mental and emotional energies from all other interests and involvements and, second, an ability to focus them on a single object or state of awareness.

Living creature are nourished by food, and food is nourished by rain, rain itself is the water of life, which comes from selfless Worship and service.

- BHAGAWAD GITA

Educator

MS. QURI PATEL