The mind should be the willing servant of the Self. But it is only the very rare man or woman who possesses sufficient natural self-discipline for achieving this. In the case of most of us, the mind is either helpless slave or tyrannical master. Lacking proper orientation, we permit the impact of the world around us forever to impinge on us. Some of us let ourselves be buffeted by emotional storms or are forever being dis­tracted by external stimuli, with the result that single-minded pursuit of what is truly important to us is all but impossible. Others tend to veer to the other extreme; in an effort to set up defenses against external or emotional distraction we become creatures of the mind exclusively, denying natural impulses, rigid and driven in outlook. Thus in one way or another our very efforts at self-discipline defeat us, consuming energy which might more happily be put to constructive, creative use. These are failings of human nature as old as human nature itself. The Yogis, wisely aware of them, long ago devised a method for dealing with the problem. Just as their physical training teaches the student to get the most out of the potential of his body, so their mental disciplines are a key to teaching the individual how to function at one hundred percent capacity on the emotional and intellectual level.

This key may be called Deep Concentration.

Relaxation and Contraction, which you have learned in the two previous chapters, in addition to being necessary and highly beneficial in themselves, may also be regarded as pre­liminary steps to Concentration. Although both require a certain amount of mental discipline, they are primarily physi­cal routines. Now, however, you are on a truly different plane. Yet it is always well to bear in mind that there is no arbitrary division between the two, since body and mind are indivisible in all their interrelationships.

Yoga teaches that in order to control the mind one must first learn to empty it of useless baggage. Most of us live our lives out with our thoughts a needless clutter, the essential and the non-essential crowded together helter-skelter. Civilized man's mind, like his body, tends to be overloaded. But just as our bodies can grow firmer and lighter if we follow proper Yoga breathing and exercise routines, so we can learn to travel light mentally, discarding whatever doesn't properly belong, allowing instead plenty of space and light for the essentials to thrive in.

Since obviously there can be no such thing as concentration in a mental vacuum, one must always concentrate on some­thing. That is the first lesson to be learned. You must focus your attention on some image or object while determinedly shutting out everything else. This is not nearly so easy as it sounds—try thinking of one single thing for a period of thirty seconds, and see what happens! Left to itself the mind tends to flit from subject to subject, free-associating at a great rate. Keeping it from these gymnastics is the very essence of the problem.

During Deep Relaxation, you will remember, it was impor­tant to discipline your thinking in order to keep your mind from stimulating and tensing your muscles. In Deep Concen­tration, the same initial effort is called for, but with a differ­ence: whereas in relaxation the mind must be made as nearly blank as possible, in Deep Concentration it is made to dwell closely, steadily, on one thing and one alone

The various schools of Yoga teach various beginnings, but they almost invariably start by suggesting concentration on some part of the body. Thus Raja Yoga advises focusing on Trikute, the seat of the mind, which is said to be either the top of the head or the space between the eyes. Other schools recommend focusing on the tip of the nose, the navel or the Muladhara Chakra (see pages 39-41), the space directly below the last vertebra at the base of the spine. An excellent way to begin practice is to seat yourself in a comfortable po­sition—tailor fashion on the floor is recommended, but not absolutely necessary—and look steadily at an object directly in your line of vision. Next shut your eyes and try to visualize the object clearly in the space between your eyebrows. You will find in very short order that the picture fades from your mental vision. When this happens open your eyes, refresh the impression, and try again. At first you may have considerable difficulty in keeping the mental picture clear. Not only will it tend to fade, but you will be tempted to substitute other pic­tures in quick succession. External stimuli—sounds, sensa­tions, memories—will be another constant distraction. You will have to be quite stern with yourself. But the effort will be well worth making, for if you persist you will find it progres­sively easier to shut out unbidden interruptions and with practice you will be able to ignore them completely for as long as it suits you.

The Hindee, whose goals are so vastly different from ours, strive through concentration and meditation for the state of Samadhi, or super-consciousness, which as you already know may best be described as that state where the Self ceases to exist and becomes absorbed in the Absolute. This is a practice definitely not to be attempted without the guidance of a Guru, for such deep and intense concentration may result in a sort of spiritual intoxication nothing short of an unbalanced state of mind. Useless, excessive dreaminess may also result from over­doing the exercise. For the Westerner the goal of Deep Con­centration is a far more practical one; you can learn so to harness and discipline your thinking that you will soon be bringing increased efficiency to your daily tasks, be they problems on your job, in your household, or in some creative field of your choosing.

It goes without saying that to concentrate properly one must keep serene, which means emptying the mind of irrita­tion, worry and distraction, not permitting any of these emo­tions to take hold and interfere. This too becomes a matter of practice. At first, as you try concentrating on the object of your choice, you will find the immediate preoccupations of daily living crowding you, hammering for admittance. The way to deal with them is deliberately to shut them out. Learn to watch your thoughts as though you were an interested spectator but do not permit yourself to identify with them. Then, when you see them begin to wander, shepherd them back where you want them. Dull and uninspired as this will seem at first—for day-dreaming and wool-gathering are a more attractive pastime than concentrating on, say the flame of a candle—the practice will soon yield rewards. It will surprise you how quickly a little mechanical exercise will enable you so to discipline your mind that when you are called on to focus on something important, something vital, it will no longer be tempted to wander at all.

Many people make the mistake of assuming that concentra­tion is a grim, tension-provoking business. They frown, bite a pencil, chew lips and nails in an outward show of effort. But all they succeed in doing is to increase their own restlessness, tiring themselves out to no purpose. They keep their five senses relentlessly at play, pulling in all directions instead of working together, harmoniously. That this is a profligate waste of energy both muscular and emotional, is self-evident. With Deep Concentration such frittering-away of one's re­sources can be avoided. You might sum it up this way: Just as at first you had to learn to concentrate in order to relax, so now you must learn to relax in order to concentrate to good advantage.

As with other Yoga routines, it is important to make a habit of practicing Deep Concentration at regular intervals, setting aside at least one regular period for it each day. You might, for instance, plan to do it immediately after the relaxation and contraction exercises in the morning, before you start on your day's chores. Late afternoon, or at night before retiring are other good times. Each has its own advantages: the morning time helps you start the day with a clear head, an afternoon period refreshes you for the evening ahead. Concentration the last thing at night offers certain very special rewards, however. As you learn greater and greater mind control, you will find that you can train yourself to project your thinking into your sleep, or toward the tasks and problems of the following day. Actually what happens is that while you sleep your innermost mind continues to function and the following morning you are likely to wake with solutions to puzzling questions clear in your mind and with an added awareness of how to go about doing what should be done.

This approach, which the Yogis worked out generations ago and which a few intuitive people are forever rediscovering for themselves is today recognized by psychiatrists as a mental process on the subconscious level. As Sigmund Freud pointed out not so very many years back for the benefit of the Western world, civilized man has buried this subconscious so deep un­der layers of repression and doubt that often it works against him rather than for him. The Yoga method, through Deep Concentration, helps us make friends with it once more.

Valuable as concentration directly before sleep can be to you, it is a mistake to try practicing it if, by the time you are ready for bed, you have reached a stage of mental fatigue. But if you are determined to go through with it just the same, a period of relaxation should precede it. In such a case follow the classic method: lie flat on your back, close your eyes and con­sciously relax each set of muscles in turn, starting with the head, neck and shoulders, going down the arms, the torso, the thighs and knees and legs, all the way into your toes. Make your mind a blank. Soon you will feel sufficiently refreshed to proceed to the mental exercises. This approach will also contribute to deep, healthful sleep.

Tired or not, never make the mistake of trying to achieve your goal of concentration by forcing unwelcome or irrele­vant thoughts sternly out of your head. Instead, deliberately substitute those thoughts which are acceptable. For example, if you are concentrating on the flame of a candle and your mind wanders away to the picture of an ordinary light bulb, and from there to the lamp on your desk and the work piled up beside it, do not shudder away from the sight—ignore it. Focus your mind's eye on the candle flame once more. Continue do­ing this until your thoughts, accepting your bidding, flow as you would have them flow. But be sure, again, to do this with­out identifying with the thoughts themselves: pretend to be the outsider looking on, as though what is going on inside your mind were an action on a stage. Always bear in mind the dif­ference between you, the thinker, and the object of your thoughts.

This trick of looking inside yourself is the initial step toward becoming truly 'self-conscious—conscious of the Self, that is; once you learn to separate the Self from its environment you will experience a sense of freedom and augmented strength, for then the environment, the things that are happen­ing, the people around you, will cease to dominate your con­sciousness. Gone will be the need to yield to every outside de­mand. You will begin to cultivate the kind of detachment which will make it possible for you to be in true control of your own mind.

Many years ago Yoga was defined as "the complete mastery of the mind and emotions." You can readily see how great a part concentration plays in reaching this mastery. For as man thinks, so he is. Thus, although we are always being told that it is impossible to change human nature, you, the individual, can indeed change yourself to a very great extent by determin­ing what your thoughts will be. For the mind is wonderfully flexible and will respond to cultivation as fertile soil responds to it. Think peace, and gradually your entire outlook becomes one of serenity and inner calm. Empty your mind of anger, of resentment against your fellow-beings, substitute an attitude of live-and-let-live, and you will be rewarded by a sense of tolerance that will make living with others infinitely easier. Refuse to be ruffled by the thousand-and-one phenomena that yesterday distracted you from your chosen course, and a deep and genuine feeling of equanimity will soon make it easier for you to live with yourself and, of course, with others.

The Yogis go much further. They claim that the mind of each of us influences the minds of others by means of currents we set up. Therefore, they say, harsh and hostile thoughts spread harm and may actually do harm to those who come in contact with us while on the contrary calm and kindness con­tribute to their well-being. Be that as it may, we do know— and both medical men and psychologists are the first to agree with this—a hostile, negative attitude is invariably destructive both to ourselves and to our relationships with others. The only constructive approach is the positive one. Through prac­tice of Yoga it is possible to achieve such an attitude without having recourse to such long, arduous processes of emotional re-education as people are given on the psychiatrist's couch. It would be the height of folly not to profit by what is at hand.

For the ordinary person, there is, of course, no such thing as complete detachment. The highly-trained Yoga on the other hand is able so completely to detach himself from the world around him that he achieves startling results. For instance, it is basically through intense concentration—through his single-minded refusal to permit any outside manifestation whatsoever to disrupt it—that the Indian fakir learns so com­pletely to control his body as to perform the feats for which fakirs are famous. Suspending breath for days at a time, halting the beating of the heart, sitting on a bed of nails without any seeming ill-effects—all these are the more spectacular results of complete, intensive concentration combined with the ex­ercise of highly-developed will power. We in the West aren't interested in such accomplishments. If the fakirs' feats are mentioned here at all, it is only to demonstrate to what extraordinary lengths it is possible to triumph over normal human limitations. Our immediate interest is to learn to benefit from concentration in practical ways.

In the chapter on Meditation which follows we shall look at the further benefits derived from that deepening of self-knowledge to which correct thinking inevitably leads. But the beginnings of this self-knowledge are right here. For as your mind becomes impervious to disturbance from within as well as without, as you grow less vulnerable, so to speak, the thousand tensions set up by ever-present emotional conflicts gradually disappear. As your thinking becomes less chaotic, as you learn to stay with an idea, pleasant or unpleasant, until you have really given yourself a chance to examine it closely, not only do you become able to face your real self honestly but, whatever facts you discover about yourself, you can face them with equanimity. Next, the need which all of us have to keep up a facade gradually vanishes. This in turn helps us live each day with a more economic outlay of emotional resources.

And now for a few simple exercises to teach you to harness the powerhouse of your mind. The goals are simple at first. Like all Yoga exercises they should be done without the threat of interruptions, while you are alone in a room. Your clothes and your position should be comfortable. Everything should contribute to an initial attitude of relaxation.

Intense concentration can improve memory, since lack of it is largely a matter of inability to focus on anything long enough or with sufficient interest, for it to make a lasting im­pression. A simple exercise which does not even require the traditional Yoga pose is to select a few cards out of a pack, lay them face down in front of you, then jot down the value and suit of each. With practice you will be able to increase the number of cards you are able to remember at one time until finally you will accurately recall the entire pack in the order in which you put them down.

An auxiliary exercise which may be practiced profitably at odd moments is to make yourself consciously aware of what you see as you walk down a street or enter a room. Rather than proceed in your usual state of semi-consciousness, try making a point of assimilating as many impressions as possible. Afterwards try just as systematically to recall as many as you can after you have reached your destination. This, by the way, is a good preliminary to the more formal, and more difficult, practice of sitting with the eyes closed and systematically making yourself remember everything you did during the previous day. You will probably be amazed at first at how many details actually escape you. In time, however, you will learn to marshal your thoughts until yesterday's events pass clearly in review before your mind's eye like a series of motion picture stills projected on a screen. Remember, do not be tempted to pick and choose, shrugging off certain memories as too trivial and inconsequential to merit notice. They doubt­less are, in themselves, but it isn't their intrinsic importance with which you are concerned for the moment. Remember you are now engaged in a training process intended to develop your ability to control not just your memory, but those thoughts which are important to you.

A final exercise in concentration, and the most difficult of all for reasons which are self-evident, is to spend a few minutes nightly reviewing the day's happenings and scrutinizing your own behavior directly before you fall asleep. The difficulty here is not that your tired mind will be tempted to wander. A far more serious stumbling block is the simple fact that honest self-analysis is seldom pleasant. In the course of any one day we all do many things which we would just as soon not remember. Consequently we shy away from them, sometimes burying them so determinedly that it takes a professional analyst to force us to face up to them. The problem then is to make your nightly self-examination honest without being morbid. You need neither berate nor excuse yourself but just honestly admit your own faults for the purpose of not repeat­ing them. Learn to do this, and you will really be making progress. There are few areas where your new powers of con­centration will help you more. For, once you learn to stay with this kind of self-examination long enough to reach realistic conclusions, you will be well on the way to true self-knowl­edge.

We have now seen how, beginning with simple, mechani­cal, physical routines, Yoga helps you to better emotional and intellectual concentration. There is yet another area where concentration can be of infinite value, and that is in matters of health. For the body, like the mind, is naturally suggestible, as any doctor with insight into psychosomatic medicine will tell you. For instance, you probably know how easy it is to de­velop a momentary sore throat from listening to a singer with a tight voice. Partially-deaf people often find their hearing fluctuating, depending on whether or not what is being said is something they want to hear. These reactions are so spontan­eous that we have very little control over them. Conscious ex­ercise of the mind, however, can and will counteract the un­conscious impulses.

Earlier in the book we have seen how it is possible to utilize prana, directing it to sick areas of the body to effect cures in cases of minor ailments such as headaches and colds. This "thinking yourself well," however, cannot be accomplished without proper concentration. If the neophyte rarely succeeds in achieving beneficial results, it is because of an inherent inability to direct the prana currents long enough and steadfastly enough to do much good. Developing the art of single-mindness is the secret here.

When it comes to more serious illnesses such as heart disease or ulcers brought on by mental stresses and strains, arthritis and hardening of the arteries that have their basis in a person's rigidity of character, back trouble precipitated by the mental burdens one feels he is carrying—all these are syndromes which a doctor seldom conquers alone. He may help, or he may temporarily alleviate the patient's suffering. But as fast as he prescribes, the patient himself undermines the cure just so long as he persists in his initial mental attitudes. But Deep Concentration can create a new attitude just for the trying. In part it will achieve this by contributing to a more serene emo­tional climate. But even more importantly it will help the pa­tient achieve insight into himself, his attitudes and blindspots. And once he understands the emotional causes of his illness he will be on the road to coping with them.

The Hindee, whose goals are so vastly different from ours, strive through concentration and meditation for the state of Samadhi, or super-consciousness, which as you already know may best be described as that state where the Self ceases to exist and becomes absorbed in the Absolute. This is a practice definitely not to be attempted without the guidance of a Guru, for such deep and intense concentration may result in a sort of spiritual intoxication nothing short of an unbalanced state of mind. Useless, excessive dreaminess may also result from over­doing the exercise. For the Westerner the goal of Deep Con­centration is a far more practical one; you can learn so to harness and discipline your thinking that you will soon be bringing increased efficiency to your daily tasks, be they problems on your job, in your household, or in some creative field of your choosing.

It goes without saying that to concentrate properly one must keep serene, which means emptying the mind of irrita­tion, worry and distraction, not permitting any of these emo­tions to take hold and interfere. This too becomes a matter of practice. At first, as you try concentrating on the object of your choice, you will find the immediate preoccupations of daily living crowding you, hammering for admittance. The way to deal with them is deliberately to shut them out. Learn to watch your thoughts as though you were an interested spectator but do not permit yourself to identify with them. Then, when you see them begin to wander, shepherd them back where you want them. Dull and uninspired as this will seem at first—for day-dreaming and wool-gathering are a more attractive pastime than concentrating on, say the flame of a candle—the practice will soon yield rewards. It will surprise you how quickly a little mechanical exercise will enable you so to discipline your mind that when you are called on to focus on something important, something vital, it will no longer be tempted to wander at all.

Many people make the mistake of assuming that concentra­tion is a grim, tension-provoking business. They frown, bite a pencil, chew lips and nails in an outward show of effort. But all they succeed in doing is to increase their own restlessness, tiring themselves out to no purpose. They keep their five senses relentlessly at play, pulling in all directions instead of working together, harmoniously. That this is a profligate waste of energy both muscular and emotional, is self-evident. With Deep Concentration such frittering-away of one's re­sources can be avoided. You might sum it up this way: Just as at first you had to learn to concentrate in order to relax, so now you must learn to relax in order to concentrate to good advantage.

As with other Yoga routines, it is important to make a habit of practicing Deep Concentration at regular intervals, setting aside at least one regular period for it each day. You might, for instance, plan to do it immediately after the relaxation and contraction exercises in the morning, before you start on your day's chores. Late afternoon, or at night before retiring are other good times. Each has its own advantages: the morning time helps you start the day with a clear head, an afternoon period refreshes you for the evening ahead. Concentration the last thing at night offers certain very special rewards, however. As you learn greater and greater mind control, you will find that you can train yourself to project your thinking into your sleep, or toward the tasks and problems of the following day. Actually what happens is that while you sleep your innermost mind continues to function and the following morning you are likely to wake with solutions to puzzling questions clear in your mind and with an added awareness of how to go about doing what should be done.

This approach, which the Yogis worked out generations ago and which a few intuitive people are forever rediscovering for themselves is today recognized by psychiatrists as a mental process on the subconscious level. As Sigmund Freud pointed out not so very many years back for the benefit of the Western world, civilized man has buried this subconscious so deep un­der layers of repression and doubt that often it works against him rather than for him. The Yoga method, through Deep Concentration, helps us make friends with it once more.

Valuable as concentration directly before sleep can be to you, it is a mistake to try practicing it if, by the time you are ready for bed, you have reached a stage of mental fatigue. But if you are determined to go through with it just the same, a period of relaxation should precede it. In such a case follow the classic method: lie flat on your back, close your eyes and con­sciously relax each set of muscles in turn, starting with the head, neck and shoulders, going down the arms, the torso, the thighs and knees and legs, all the way into your toes. Make your mind a blank. Soon you will feel sufficiently refreshed to proceed to the mental exercises. This approach will also contribute to deep, healthful sleep.

Tired or not, never make the mistake of trying to achieve your goal of concentration by forcing unwelcome or irrele­vant thoughts sternly out of your head. Instead, deliberately substitute those thoughts which are acceptable. For example, if you are concentrating on the flame of a candle and your mind wanders away to the picture of an ordinary light bulb, and from there to the lamp on your desk and the work piled up beside it, do not shudder away from the sight—ignore it. Focus your mind's eye on the candle flame once more. Continue do­ing this until your thoughts, accepting your bidding, flow as you would have them flow. But be sure, again, to do this with­out identifying with the thoughts themselves: pretend to be the outsider looking on, as though what is going on inside your mind were an action on a stage. Always bear in mind the dif­ference between you, the thinker, and the object of your thoughts.

This trick of looking inside yourself is the initial step toward becoming truly 'self-conscious—conscious of the Self, that is; once you learn to separate the Self from its environment you will experience a sense of freedom and augmented strength, for then the environment, the things that are happen­ing, the people around you, will cease to dominate your con­sciousness. Gone will be the need to yield to every outside de­mand. You will begin to cultivate the kind of detachment which will make it possible for you to be in true control of your own mind.

Many years ago Yoga was defined as "the complete mastery of the mind and emotions." You can readily see how great a part concentration plays in reaching this mastery. For as man thinks, so he is. Thus, although we are always being told that it is impossible to change human nature, you, the individual, can indeed change yourself to a very great extent by determin­ing what your thoughts will be. For the mind is wonderfully flexible and will respond to cultivation as fertile soil responds to it. Think peace, and gradually your entire outlook becomes one of serenity and inner calm. Empty your mind of anger, of resentment against your fellow-beings, substitute an attitude of live-and-let-live, and you will be rewarded by a sense of tolerance that will make living with others infinitely easier. Refuse to be ruffled by the thousand-and-one phenomena that yesterday distracted you from your chosen course, and a deep and genuine feeling of equanimity will soon make it easier for you to live with yourself and, of course, with others.

The Yogis go much further. They claim that the mind of each of us influences the minds of others by means of currents we set up. Therefore, they say, harsh and hostile thoughts spread harm and may actually do harm to those who come in contact with us while on the contrary calm and kindness con­tribute to their well-being. Be that as it may, we do know— and both medical men and psychologists are the first to agree with this—a hostile, negative attitude is invariably destructive both to ourselves and to our relationships with others. The only constructive approach is the positive one. Through prac­tice of Yoga it is possible to achieve such an attitude without having recourse to such long, arduous processes of emotional re-education as people are given on the psychiatrist's couch. It would be the height of folly not to profit by what is at hand.

For the ordinary person, there is, of course, no such thing as complete detachment. The highly-trained Yoga on the other hand is able so completely to detach himself from the world around him that he achieves startling results. For instance, it is basically through intense concentration—through his single-minded refusal to permit any outside manifestation whatsoever to disrupt it—that the Indian fakir learns so com­pletely to control his body as to perform the feats for which fakirs are famous. Suspending breath for days at a time, halting the beating of the heart, sitting on a bed of nails without any seeming ill-effects—all these are the more spectacular results of complete, intensive concentration combined with the ex­ercise of highly-developed will power. We in the West aren't interested in such accomplishments. If the fakirs' feats are mentioned here at all, it is only to demonstrate to what extraordinary lengths it is possible to triumph over normal human limitations. Our immediate interest is to learn to benefit from concentration in practical ways.

In the chapter on Meditation which follows we shall look at the further benefits derived from that deepening of self-knowledge to which correct thinking inevitably leads. But the beginnings of this self-knowledge are right here. For as your mind becomes impervious to disturbance from within as well as without, as you grow less vulnerable, so to speak, the thousand tensions set up by ever-present emotional conflicts gradually disappear. As your thinking becomes less chaotic, as you learn to stay with an idea, pleasant or unpleasant, until you have really given yourself a chance to examine it closely, not only do you become able to face your real self honestly but, whatever facts you discover about yourself, you can face them with equanimity. Next, the need which all of us have to keep up a facade gradually vanishes. This in turn helps us live each day with a more economic outlay of emotional resources.

And now for a few simple exercises to teach you to harness the powerhouse of your mind. The goals are simple at first. Like all Yoga exercises they should be done without the threat of interruptions, while you are alone in a room. Your clothes and your position should be comfortable. Everything should contribute to an initial attitude of relaxation.

Intense concentration can improve memory, since lack of it is largely a matter of inability to focus on anything long enough or with sufficient interest, for it to make a lasting im­pression. A simple exercise which does not even require the traditional Yoga pose is to select a few cards out of a pack, lay them face down in front of you, then jot down the value and suit of each. With practice you will be able to increase the number of cards you are able to remember at one time until finally you will accurately recall the entire pack in the order in which you put them down.

An auxiliary exercise which may be practiced profitably at odd moments is to make yourself consciously aware of what you see as you walk down a street or enter a room. Rather than proceed in your usual state of semi-consciousness, try making a point of assimilating as many impressions as possible. Afterwards try just as systematically to recall as many as you can after you have reached your destination. This, by the way, is a good preliminary to the more formal, and more difficult, practice of sitting with the eyes closed and systematically making yourself remember everything you did during the previous day. You will probably be amazed at first at how many details actually escape you. In time, however, you will learn to marshal your thoughts until yesterday's events pass clearly in review before your mind's eye like a series of motion picture stills projected on a screen. Remember, do not be tempted to pick and choose, shrugging off certain memories as too trivial and inconsequential to merit notice. They doubt­less are, in themselves, but it isn't their intrinsic importance with which you are concerned for the moment. Remember you are now engaged in a training process intended to develop your ability to control not just your memory, but those thoughts which are important to you.

A final exercise in concentration, and the most difficult of all for reasons which are self-evident, is to spend a few minutes nightly reviewing the day's happenings and scrutinizing your own behavior directly before you fall asleep. The difficulty here is not that your tired mind will be tempted to wander. A far more serious stumbling block is the simple fact that honest self-analysis is seldom pleasant. In the course of any one day we all do many things which we would just as soon not remember. Consequently we shy away from them, sometimes burying them so determinedly that it takes a professional analyst to force us to face up to them. The problem then is to make your nightly self-examination honest without being morbid. You need neither berate nor excuse yourself but just honestly admit your own faults for the purpose of not repeat­ing them. Learn to do this, and you will really be making progress. There are few areas where your new powers of con­centration will help you more. For, once you learn to stay with this kind of self-examination long enough to reach realistic conclusions, you will be well on the way to true self-knowl­edge.

We have now seen how, beginning with simple, mechani­cal, physical routines, Yoga helps you to better emotional and intellectual concentration. There is yet another area where concentration can be of infinite value, and that is in matters of health. For the body, like the mind, is naturally suggestible, as any doctor with insight into psychosomatic medicine will tell you. For instance, you probably know how easy it is to de­velop a momentary sore throat from listening to a singer with a tight voice. Partially-deaf people often find their hearing fluctuating, depending on whether or not what is being said is something they want to hear. These reactions are so spontan­eous that we have very little control over them. Conscious ex­ercise of the mind, however, can and will counteract the un­conscious impulses.

Earlier in the book we have seen how it is possible to utilize prana, directing it to sick areas of the body to effect cures in cases of minor ailments such as headaches and colds. This "thinking yourself well," however, cannot be accomplished without proper concentration. If the neophyte rarely succeeds in achieving beneficial results, it is because of an inherent inability to direct the prana currents long enough and steadfastly enough to do much good. Developing the art of single-mindness is the secret here.

When it comes to more serious illnesses such as heart disease or ulcers brought on by mental stresses and strains, arthritis and hardening of the arteries that have their basis in a person's rigidity of character, back trouble precipitated by the mental burdens one feels he is carrying—all these are syndromes which a doctor seldom conquers alone. He may help, or he may temporarily alleviate the patient's suffering. But as fast as he prescribes, the patient himself undermines the cure just so long as he persists in his initial mental attitudes. But Deep Concentration can create a new attitude just for the trying. In part it will achieve this by contributing to a more serene emo­tional climate. But even more importantly it will help the pa­tient achieve insight into himself, his attitudes and blindspots. And once he understands the emotional causes of his illness he will be on the road to coping with them.

This then is how you can make a major contribution to your overall well-being, your health, your peace of mind, and finally that inner poise and purposefulness which are the foun­dation of better relationships with the people around you. This is how you can learn to control your immediate destinies, and so in the long run control your entire future to a great extent. Just a few minutes a day, every day, devoted to Deep Concen­tration: a modest beginning indeed, but in time, with perse­verance, it will truly make you the captain of your own soul, the master of your fate..

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