The mind, in order to work at its operable best, must maintain a state of Being that is contusive to the impartation of Spiritual intuition and insight. Otherwise, we live a sort-of half-life, lived in vain, suffering karmic ignorance, while unconsciously creating it anew for our next lifetime to suffer.
Spirit, due to the misidentifying as the temporary and manifest Consciousness of Mind, has used the mind amiss by using it in the creation of life via taking thought. Using it to think. This is opposed to 'Being' - to maintaining a still quiescent and meditative stillness of mind that reflects the Divine Word/Idea within itself to be made manifest in the physical. Furthermore, by misidentifying with the manifest Soul rather than the Unmanifest Soul, the Spiritual Realm becomes veiled and lost as the mind blindly guides itself in the physical without the intuition and insight of Spirit. Intuition, instinct and knowing become lost to us.
The only way to unveil the Spiritual Realm of our Being is through firstly gaining the right ontological understanding and identification, which brings the right use of mind, which is meditation and mindfulness. Only through maintaining the right state of mind, can realization of the true Self in and of Spirit be experienced.
Joel Goldsmith, a practicing metaphysician of the late 20th century advocated meditating or practicing the Presence, as he called it, at least 3 times a day for as little as 15 seconds and building the practice up from there. I am of the same mind. This is a good way to slow the mind down, getting it into the habit of staying Present rather than hopping all around the place lost in its own shenanigans, distracted from its spiritual centre or Temple as Present Moment Awareness.
Holding the mind in and as one thought is meditation. Thought Aka Mind, becomes Awareness the longer it stays one-pointed and singular in and as this meditation. The longer this singular state of Awareness is held, the more alert and conscious one becomes - the more one's consciousness expands into and as Awareness. This means of course staying out of the process of thinking. One cannot hold the mind as one thought which is meditation and think at the same time. As Maharishi says, "Meditation is the expulsion of all thought". Thought is the division and activation of mind. Meditation is the opposite of this. Meditation is Being. Meditation is the concentration of Presence - your presence - your light, in and as this moment.
Perhaps you, as many do, like to think of the mind as a Temple. If so, then do not let this temple become more than one room. Do not let it rise into being a temple that has two, three, or five hundred rooms, for you will lose yourself in them. Then when Spirit comes to guide you, you will not be present, but lost in one of many other rooms - outside of the now where Spirit lives.
This is, in principle how the mind works. If your presence is in thought, then it is not available to the reality of Now. Your thoughts are not reality. Now is reality. Understand this very simple core truth. Your concentration, your attention will give life to whatever it beholds - either your thoughts or the present moment itself. Either reality or your idea of it.
Atticus was once quoted as saying "She fell in love with the idea of him and ideas are dangerous things to love". People do this with the present moment – defiling an resisting the moment by superimposing their limitations and duality of thought onto it, instead of letting it unfold naturally in its own way.
The right understanding, eventually experientially prove to the metaphysical aspirant, that we are not the mind and body but Spirit. This realization settles the mind into a quiescent state of peace that serves the true Self rather than veiling it. Rather than living life from the limited, dual, and unconscious level of Mind, one learns to live by the risen state of Consciousness that is Spirit. What the mind separates, the Soul unites through and as Love.
Rather than living life in which we must judge, manipulate, control, and hustle everyone and thing, with only our perspective to go by, we hold a meditative state of mind that allows Spirit to act upon the mind, inspiring thought while intuitively guiding us. Mind is personal and limited to only the person. Spirit is impersonal and omniscient.
Life lived at the level of Spirit, as opposed to mind, renders a totally different reality to life lived by a billion minds cut off from their Source like branches from a vine. To be without the intuition of Spirit, the Instinct of Soul, and the serendipitous synchronicity of true Self is to live a barren life whereupon the dead bury the dead.
Come alive by concentrating your Presence in and of the Present Moment. Let your consciousness expand until you are no longer in the moment but are the moment itself. Dissolve into now.... for you do not have a life. You are life. Let the love of Spirit unify us all.
~ Tracy Pierce
I feel something that is peaceful and beautiful about the message in this post. I suppose that is intuition. Because at the same time a question arises. How do I concentrate while expanding Awareness?
I have found the Hand washing exercise helpful, let the eyes watch the hands as they clean each other under the running water, watch the suds as they foam and then disappear, while not attaching to any thought in this movement.