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The Fourth Lesson: Mental Control.549
The Importance of Concentration.
Concentration is a focusing of the mind. And this focusing of the mind
requires a focusing, or bringing to a center, of the Will. The mind is
concentrated because the Will is focused upon the object. The mind flows
into the mould made by the Will. The above exercises are designed not only
to accustom the mind to the obedience and direction of the Will, but also
tend to accustom the Will to command. We speak of strengthening the Will,
when what we really mean is training the mind to obey, and accustoming the
Will to command. Our Will is strong enough, but we do not realize it. The
Will takes root in the very center of our being—in the “I,” but our imperfectly
developed mind does not recognize this fact. We are like young elephants
that do not recognize their own strength, but allow themselves to be
mastered by puny drivers, whom they could brush aside with a movement.
The Will is back of all action—all doing—mental and physical.
We shall have much to say touching the Will, in these lessons and the
student should give the matter his careful attention. Let him look around
him, and he will see that the great difference between the men who have
stepped forward from the ranks, and those who remain huddled up in the
crowd, consists in Determination and Will. As Buxton has well said: “The
longer I live, the more certain I am that the great difference between men,
the feeble and the powerful; the great and the insignificant; is Energy and
Invincible Determination.” And he might have added that the thing behind
that “energy and invincible determination” was Will.
The writers and thinkers of all ages have recognized the wonderful and
transcendent importance of the Will. Tennyson sings: “O living Will thou
shalt endure when all that seems shall suffer shock.” Oliver Wendell Holmes
says: “The seat of the Will seems to vary with the organ through which it is
manifested; to transport itself to different parts of the brain, as we may wish
to recall a picture, a phrase, a melody; to throw its force on the muscles or
the intellectual processes. Like the general-in-chief, its place is everywhere
in the field of action. It is the least like an instrument of any of our faculties;