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The universe can be yours

Last Updated 14 October 2011, 13:22 IST
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At a mundane level, Arjun’s secret can be used to help children with their studies. In an exercise called tratak, one places a lit candle two feet away, and asks the person to look at the tip of the flame. It’s important to allow one’s eyes to blink once in a while. One begins doing tratak for a few minutes a day, then building up concentration over months to 15 minutes, not more. One should ideally do this on a relatively empty stomach. If this exercise seems to give you headaches or eye trouble, discontinue it.

It’s easy to concentrate when one is undisturbed. But life is not so kind. Some sales companies go to great lengths to help employees to be focussed in a tough world. In one such practice, 50 individuals stand in two rows facing each other, armed with sticks.

Through this passage, one-by-one, employees have to run, focussing on the end of the tunnel, where a consumer sits. As they do so, they are hammered by the people armed with sticks. “By the end of it” says an employee “you can sell teddybears in the middle of a lathicharge.”

Stripping away the unnecessary, is a variant method of one-pointedness. A former boss of mine, Piyush Pandey, a global ad figure, epitomised this face of one-pointedness. No, he did not sit and meditate to create ads. When creating his global award-winning ads, he first sought the heartbeat, the one single emotional lever, by asking the earthy question “What’s the main thing?” Once he found that, he stripped away everything else. In the process, he created ad campaigns like the ones for Fevicol, Cadbury’s and Asian Paints.

Another aspect of one-pointedness comes from the stalking tiger, the Zen swordsman, and modern communicators.  In The Decisive Moment or Tipping Factor concepts, before change occurs a groundswell of force rises. This power can then be triggered into a landslide with just the toss of a pebble. And so the hunter of life is required to gather his force and wait till that moment appears and victory can be seized with a single thrust.

But is one-pointedness only about commanding human concentration, and waiting for the tides of power to rise? Zen archers offer an astounding observation. “When you one-pointedly focus”, they state, “the target draws your arrow towards it.” Revealing the magnetism of one-pointedness. An idea at the heart of wishcraft, a method popularised by the bestseller, The Secret. In this, you take a thought or outcome and charge it, usually through repetition. Done properly, as millions have discovered, your wish will manifest.

How does it work?  Some point to the law of attraction. But radical mystics argue the explanation is deeper. “The universe emerges from thought. And so as we create a thought of intensity,  it creates a crystallisation point around which a new reality forms.”

Many believe that if all their earthly wishes were to come true, happiness would follow. But mystics argue that the true treasure lies beyond. One of the finest expositions of using the full power of one-pointedness, comes from Lord Vivekanada. He argues one must take the whole life and shape it around a single desire, to turn oneself into an arrow that is aimed at God.

For those who would like to put this into practice, we gift you with a powerful tantric focus-meditation: In this, one draws a small, black dot the size of a 25 paise on a large white KG cardboard. You sit three feet from it. You focus on the black, remembering to blink your eyes, naturally. You do this at the same time, everyday, starting with five minutes and slowly increasing the length of meditation. At first you will see, a fierce white light dancing around the black dot. Continue and after minutes or a few days you will see the dot change colour.  Continue the exercise. One day, the dot will change to a blazing light.

Continue. We will not spoil your journey, but it can take you to the heart of creation. Those with eye problems, borderline psychotic conditions, at a stroke risk are advised against doing such a meditation.

Do not wish to use a tantric technique? In focus-based meditations, we can use literally anything as a focus: a dot, a statue, a body part, a star, a chant, an action, a thought.
You now hold in your grasp a cosmic secret.  In today’s techno-babble it’s, “In the micro-dot of one-pointedness is the macro-virtuality of everything.”

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(Published 14 October 2011, 13:22 IST)

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