Chapter 2

In the first chapter we talked about waking sleep and how an overactive mind tends to wander from one thought to the next with no apparent reason. For thousands of years wise people have known that the practices of concentrations and meditation are two of the most effective ways of calming an overactive mind. The exercises that follow are designed to help you do just that - calm your overactive and wandering mind. The ability to calm the mind is crucial for being able to develop pure awareness.

Concentration

A friend used the power of concentration to get him through a painful, near death experience. He was riding his motorcycle down a country road one bright sunny morning when all of a sudden an inebriated woman driving a van swerved onto his side of the road. They were both traveling about 55 M.P.H. and when they collided head on, he was slammed into the van's grill, onto the windshield, propelled over the top of the van and landed on the asphalt road. Practically every bone in his body was broken. His pelvis was shattered, his leg and several ribs broken and his skull fractured. He lay unconscious for several days in intensive care with all kinds of...