Concentration is a focusing of the mind. It consists of focusing upon a certain subject or object, and being held there for a time. It seems very easy, but a little practice will show how difficult it is to firmly fix the attention and hold it there. It will have a tendency to waver, and move to some other object or subject, and much practice is needed in order to hold it at the desired point.

But practice will accomplish wonders, as one may see by observing people who have acquired this faculty, and who use it in their everyday life. Many persons have acquired the faculty of concentrating their attention but have allowed it to become almost involuntary and they become a slave to it, forgetting themselves and everything else. This is the ignorant way of concentrating, and those addicted to it become slaves to their habits instead of masters of their minds.

They become day-dreamers and absent-minded people instead of conscious and mindful. The secret is in the mastery of the mind. Many enlightened beings can concentrate at will and completely bury themselves in the subject before them, then extract from it every item of interest. They do not allow abstraction to come into the picture. They are very wide awake individuals, close observers, clear thinkers and correct reasoners. They are masters of their minds, not slaves to their moods.

The ignorant concentrators bury themselves in the object or subject and allow it to absorb themselves, while the trained thinker asserts the self and then directs the mind to concentrate upon the subject or object, keeping it under control and in view all the time.

Concentrate the attention upon some familiar object; a pencil, for instance. Hold the mind there and consider the pencil to the exclusion of any other object. Consider its size, color, shape and type of wood. Consider its uses and purposes, its materials, the process of its manufacture, etc. In short think as many things about the pencil as possible allowing the mind to pursue any associated paths, such as a consideration of the graphite of which the lead is made, the forest from which the wood used came from, the history of pencils and other implements used for writing.

Then practice focusing the attention upon some abstract subject. Think about the subject in all its phases and branches one by one until everything is known about it. It is surprising to find how much more there is know about any one thing or subject than previously believed. In hidden corners of the mind there are found useful and interesting information about the subject. This exercise will not only help to develop intellectual powers but will strengthen memory and give more confidence.

Patience is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances. This can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset, or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with long term difficulties. It is also used to refer to the character trait of being steadfast.

It is often described as a core virtue in religion or spiritual practices. For example, Job is a figure that appears in the Hebrew Bible, Christian Bible and the Koran. His story is considered a profound religious work. At its core, the theme is the coexistence of evil and God and the application of patience is highlighted as the antidote to the earthly struggles caused by that coexistence. The plot of the book is that Job endures difficulties without losing patience or spirtual belief.

In our current consumer culture, patience is not considered a spiritual attribute but is often viewed as something we must assume when we don’t get what we want. We have been taught by proponents of advertising and marketing that anything we want is available to us immediately. This includes not only physical objects such as fashionable clothing and microwave food, but also personal attributes such as health and well being.

We are taught that we are less whole when we do not have these things. This attitude drives our economy and allows for the explosive progress being made by humanity during this current era. We become obsessed by the need to have things and acquire positive personal traits to the point where there is no other goal to existence.

But what really changes this idea is our attitude toward it. When we go within and practice meditation and prayer we are activating patience. All outside influences fall away and we are left with the one simple truth of our existence. The patience we assume when we allow the nature of spirit to flow through us gradually changes us.

This idea plays into the way we attract things into our lives. If we are frustrated and unhappy about things that we want but do not have, our capacity to experience them is debilitated. By projecting an energy of difficulty and expectation, we will sometimes even attract the opposite of what we want.

When we allow patience to influence our lives, we are suspended in the center of all that is. The things we need come into our lives and sometimes they are quite different from what we think we want. It takes practice to assume this stance and it is often difficult to stay on course. But it is worth the time and trouble, and once acquired can be regarded as a treasure discovered in an unexpected place.

Findhorn is a spiritual community for holistic education, helping to unfold a new human consciousness and create a positive and sustainable future. It is located near the end of a small peninsula on the northeastern shore of Scotland. It offers a range of holistic workshops and events in the unique environment of a working community and ecovillage. The programmes are an integral part of the community’s work and give participants practical experience of how to apply spiritual and holistic values in daily life.

In late 1962, Peter Caddy and Dorothy Maclean became unemployed and for want of any other accommodation settled in a caravan near the village of Findhorn. They began organic gardening as a way of growing food. To this activity they brought their spiritual practices, which they believed led to communication with nature spirits under whose guidance the garden flourished. Peter Caddy also introduced the positive thinking practices he had learned in the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship.

Within the Findhorn village, sustainable values are expressed in the environment with ecological houses, innovative use of building materials such as local stone and straw bales, beauty in the architecture and gardens, and applied technology in the sewage treatment facility and electricity generating wind turbines. Sustainable values are also expressed in the community’s social, economic and educational initiatives.

Education at Findhorn is experiential and transformative, a journey of self-discovery that changes people’s lives and is helping to create a sustainable and peaceful world. Living education is an integral part of the community’s work. Recognising the interdependence of all life is at the heart of the education. Taking time for inner reflection, building relationships with others, and co-creating with nature are essential to the fabric of community life.

This type of experiential, living, and transformative education has become increasingly important as humanity comes to terms with global conflict, depletion of the world’s resources, changes in climate, and questions about the purpose of life and the values we live by. The environment in which teaching happens is often as important as the teaching itself, and the range of programs offered at Findhorn address profound personal and global concerns within the unique context of a thriving spiritual community.

The Findhorn project has received special designation from the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements. It is a tangible demonstration of the links between the spiritual, social, ecological and economic aspects of life and is a synthesis of the best of current thinking on human habitats. It is a constantly evolving model used as a teaching resource by a number of university and school groups as well as by professional organisations and municipalities worldwide.

The Taizé Community is an ecumenical Christian monastic order in Taizé, Burgundy, France. The founder , Brother Roger, was born in Switzerland in 1915. After studying theology in in Strasbourg and Lausanne he searched in France for a suitable location to found a religous community. The derelict rural village of Taizé, near the Abbey of Cluny, was chosen. The hamlet was just a few kilometres from the demarcation line separating unoccupied France from the Nazi occupied zone. The Community sheltered many refugees, including Jews, at considerable risk to Brother Roger, who had to flee to Switzerland at one point to avoid arrest by theGestapo. When France was liberated the Community also worked with German prisoners of war.

Taizé has spawned a unique style of worship music that reflects the meditative nature of the community. The music emphasises simple phrases, usually lines from Psalms or other pieces of Scripture, repeated and sometimes also sung in canon. The repetition is intended to aid meditation and prayer. Much of the Taizé community music was conceived and composed by Jacques Berthier. Berthier, who studied at the César Frank School in Paris, had an extraordinary ability to write truly functional music that could be sung in more than twenty languages on a wide variety of instruments ranging from guitar and keyboard to full orchestra. 

The community, though Western European in origin, seeks to welcome people and traditions from across the globe. This internationalism is reflected by the music and prayers where songs are sung in many languages and increasingly include chants and icons from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. 

At the heart of Taizé there is a passion for the church. That is why the community has never wanted to create a movement or organization centred on itself, but rather to send the young back from the youth meetings to their local church, group or community, to undertake with many others a pilgrimage of trust on earth. In many places across the world, ecumenical prayers using music from Taizé are organised by people, young and old, who have been in touch with the community. These times of prayer are varied and are integrated in appropriate ways into the life of the local church.

Since the late 1950s, the Taizé community has become an important destination for Christian pilgrimage with the number of visitors ranging from a few hundred to several thousand during summer vacations, with the week of Easter being an exception with a peak of more than 5,000 people. The weekly international youth meetings, primarily for young adults between 17 and 30 years of age, are the community’s priority.

Helped by its music the teachings of the Taizé Community have spread through Western Europe, and into the United States. The annual New Year meetings, which are attended by tens of thousands of young people, have been hosted by most leading European cities including former communist countries. The 90 year old Brother Roger was killed in August 2005 when an apparently mentally-disturbed Romanian woman stabbed him during evening prayer at Taizé. 

In 1991, the asteroid 100033 Taizé was named in honour of the community.

Cells are individual conscious entities that participate in collective consciousnesses at various levels. There are many varieties of one celled beings who do not live in cell communities but spend their lives free and self regulating. When cells join in cooperative association they do not lose consciousness any more than a fish in a school. There is a body of evidence indicating that there is more to an organism than simply chemical reactions.

Dr. Harold Saxton Burr spent much of his life experimenting with electrical fields that envelop all organic forms. We need to keep in mind that all form is of a field nature. When we put iron filings around a magnet we see the shape of an immaterial field. When we examine matter we see an atomic field that assumes many forms. The nature of form is that it has boundary. Organic forms have the familiar material boundaries that we see and then there is an electrical envelope outside this boundary that has been studied by Dr. Burr.

This envelope is an extremely weak, direct current electrical field, extending out less than an inch. This field exists around all organic forms. There are also other energy fields such as the alternating current fields of electricity extending out from various regions of the human body, but none of these encompass the whole body. Dr. Burr was interested not so much by the fact that such a field exists but by the fluctuation of energy potential in these fields, which resonated with terrestrial and extraterrestrial events.

By monitoring the direct current field around living things, Dr. Burr found that the change in potential energy of this field correlates with specific events both internal and external to the body. This energy field that Burr studied is the same as the energy field that is monitored by the lie detector. The lie detector monitors fluctuations of the emotions. It is important to note that the field of electricity itself is probably not the emotion but a byproduct of its functioning. The symptomatic fluctuation makes it possible to monitor the actual phenomenon.

By his study, Burr found that each of us is a participant in the metabolism of the solar body through this field. Fluctuations in energy potential of this direct current field correlate with the lunar cycle and the sun spot cycle. He also discovered that by monitoring the field, the ovulation of the human female could be determined exactly, a matter of extreme importance to the human family. The electrical monitoring indicates an immaterial force that both controls and is controlled by the material. It is an integrated whole.

Burr’s research led him to the discovery that by monitoring the energy field he could determine the longitudinal axis (spinal column) of an unfertilized salamander egg. As he monitored it after fertilization his monitoring of the immaterial guiding field indicated that the spinal column remained congruous with the electrical polarity throughout its development. That is, the guiding field was there before fertilization and remained there as the guiding field, as the biological form unfolded. Burr went further and demonstrated that the guiding field not only participates in guiding the development of form but also is always at work with the living organism.

Burr also found the cosmic fluctuations of moon cycle, sun cycle and sunspots caused changes in the electrical potential of field, thus giving us evidence of the intimate connection of our bodies and emotions to cosmic events. In addition to being simply another piece of evidence that everything is connected, the Burr material shows an interaction between a force field that can be monitored by its electrical side effect and the physical organism. It suggests even further that important aspects of the control of the material form exists in this field.

Student and colleague Leonard Ravitz carried Burr’s work forward. Ravitz focused especially on the human dimension, beginning with a solid demonstration of the effects of the lunar cycle on the human energy field, reaching a peak of activity at the full moon. Through work with hypnosis he demonstrated that changes in the energy field directly relate to changes in a person’s mental and emotional states. Ravitz stated, “Both emotional activity and stimuli of any sort involve mobilization of electrical energy, as indicated on the galvanometer, hence, both emotions and stimuli evoke the same energy. Emotions can be equated with energy.” Most intriguingly, Ravitz showed that the energy field as a whole disappears before physical death.

When one looks out into the heavens at night, one sees points of light. This light is the transmission of pure energy striking the cells in our eyes. We know intellectually that the universe is full of pure energy going in all directions from those stars, but sometimes we cannot perceive that the light is something that is formed by the same source that has created us.

We are all largely influenced by the thoughts of others. Vibrations of thoughts linger in the atmosphere long after a thought has passed. The atmosphere is charged with the vibrations of thoughts from many years past, and still affect those whose minds are ready to receive them. And we attract to us thought vibrations corresponding in nature with those which we are in the habit of entertaining. The law of attraction is in full operation and we may see instances of it at all time.

By maintaining and entertaining thoughts along certain lines we allow these thought vibrations to influence us. If we cultivate a habit of thinking along the lines of cheerfulness, brightness and optimism, we attract to ourselves similar thought vibrations of others and we find that before long we will find all sorts of cheerful thoughts pouring into our minds from all directions. Likewise, if we harbor thoughts of gloom, despair and pessimism, we lay ourselves open to the influx of similar thoughts which have emanated from the minds of others.

Not only are we affected in this way by the thoughts of others, but what is known as suggestion also plays an important part in this aspect of subconscious influence. We find that the mind has a tendency to reproduce the emotions, moods and feelings of other persons, as evidenced by their attitude, appearance, facial expression, or words. If we associate with persons of a gloomy temperament, we run the risk of assimilating their mental trouble by the law of suggestion, unless we understand this law and counteract it.

In the same way we find that cheerfulness is contagious, and if we keep in the company of cheerful people we are very apt to take on their mental quality. The same rule applies to frequenting the company of unsuccessful or successful people, as the case may be. If we allow ourselves to take up the suggestions constantly emanating from them, we will find that our minds will begin to reproduce the characteristics, dispositions and traits of the other persons, and before long we will be living on the same mental plane.

These things are true only when we allow ourselves to take on the impressions, but unless one understands the law of suggestion and understands its principles and operations, one is more or less apt to be affected by it. We all remember the effect of certain positive persons with whom we come in contact. One individual has a faculty of inspiring with vigor and energy those in whose company we happen to be. Someone else will cause a feeling of uneasiness in those around him by reason of a prevailing attitude of distrust, suspicion, and low cunning.

Some carry an atmosphere of health around them, while others seem to be surrounded with a sickly aura of disease, even when their physical condition does not seem to indicate the lack of health. Mental states have a subtle way of impressing themselves upon us, and the student who will take the trouble to closely observe those with whom he comes in contact will receive a liberal education along these lines.

There is of course a great difference in the degree of suggestibility among different persons. There are those who are almost immune, while at the other end of the line are to be found others who are so constantly and strongly impressed by the suggestions of others, conscious or unconscious, that they may be said to scarcely have any independent thought or will of their own. But nearly all persons are suggestible to a greater or lesser degree.

It must not be supposed that all suggestions are bad, harmful, or undesirable. Many suggestions are very good for us, and coming at the right time have aided us. Nevertheless, it is of utmost importance to always let our own minds evaluate these suggestions before allowing them to manifest in our subconscious mind. We must let the final decision be our own and not the will of another.

The sense of who we are that is apparent to us in moments of our clearest mental vision is really a reflection of the sense of reality underlying the whole. It is the consciousness of the whole, manifesting through our own point or center of consciousness. We can find our consciousness gradually enlarging until it realizes its identity with the whole. We realize that beneath all the forms and labels of the visible world, there is to be found one life, force, substance, existence and reality.

And instead of experiencing a sense of loss of identity or individuality we become conscious of an expansion of individuality and identity. Instead of feeling ourselves absorbed by an enormous and unexplainable force, we feel that we are spreading out and embracing the whole universe. This is difficult to express in words since there are no words to fit the concept, and all we can hope to do is start into motion the ideas that will help us experience the consciousness which will bring its own understanding. 

As an infant, we are able to identify the real part of the self with the real part of all the other forms in the universe. In every person, animal, plant and mineral we see behind the form of its appearance evidence of the presence of spirit which is the same as our own spirit, for it is all one. We see ourselves in all forms of life, in all times in all places. We realize that the real self is everywhere present and everlasting, and that the life within ourselves exisits within all the universe.

As we mature, we begin to identify more strongly with the idea that we are separate from this oneness of the universe. We slowly drift away from the concept that all things are connected as we begin to develop our own individuality and personality. But if we put effort into realizing the truth that we have known all along we will find that the mind will adapt to a mode of thinking that is more real than the reality we have fabricated. Even though we may be engaged in our ordinary day to day activities, by practicing a realization of the oneness of life it will expand to become second nature.

We must know once again that this connection to the universe is real, and that we are in touch with all else that is real. The roots of our being are grounded in the absolute. We must realize that instead of being a separate atom of reality, isolated and fixed in a narrow space, we are a center of consciousness in the whole of reality, and that the universe is our home. Our true nature which is constantly being revealed to us is so great that our minds in the present state of development only sometimes grasp even the faintest idea of it.

As we expand in the understanding and consciousness of the oneness of reality, so does our ability to use it grow. This realization of the true self brings with it a love for all of life. This slowly emerging consciousness brings with it greater compassion and kindness. We must not be discouraged if the progress seems slow for the soul must expand naturally as does the flower, without haste, without force. The road is long but the reward is great and there are resting places along the way.

We gain our knowledge of the outside world through his senses. Many of us are in the habit of thinking of these senses as if they did the sensing instead of being merely carriers of the vibrations coming from the outside world, which are then presented to the mind for examination. It is important to understand that it is the mind that perceives, not the senses. And consequently, an investigation of perception is really a development of the mind.

In order for one to gain knowledge, it is necessary to use to the best advantage the mental instruments and tools that we finds at our disposal. One must develop and improve such tools. Not only does one gain a great benefit from a development of perception, but one also acquires an additional benefit from the training of the whole mind arising from mental discipline.

Certain aspects of the perception may be trained. Through the senses we receive all information regarding the outside world. If we keep these doors half open or crowded with obstacles and rubbish, we may expect to receive but few messages from outside. But if we keep the doorways clear and clean, we will obtain the best that is passing our way.

One may argue that the highest ideas do not come to us through the senses, but the things obtained through the senses are the raw material upon which the mind works. From this we are able to create the beautiful things that we are able to produce in its highest forms. Just as is the body dependent for growth upon the nourishment taken into it so the mind is dependent for growth upon the impressions received from the universe, and these impressions come largely through the senses.

We see and know but very little of what is going on around us. Our limitations are great. Our powers of vision report only a few vibrations of the full frequency of light, and below and above the visual scope lie an infinity of vibrations unknown to us. The same is true of the powers of hearing, for only a comparatively small portion of the sound waves reach our ears. Some animals hear much more than we do.

If we had only one sense we would obtain but a one dea of the outside world. If another sense is added our knowledge is doubled. The best proof of the relation between increased sense perception and development is in the study of the evolution of animal forms. In the early stages of life organisms had only the sense of feeling and a faint sense of taste. Then developed smell, hearing and sight, each marking a distinct advance in the scale of life. So, as we develop new senses in the future we will be much wiser and greater beings.