Concentration vs. Attention

Introduction - some lessons learned from T.M.

In TM the mantra, a 'meaningless' sound is given so that the person does not engage with the meaning and create a resistance to the deepening process. Engaging with the meaning and intention are active, left brain processes - the ones we wish to leave behind as we enter trance ... it is really the attention of the unconscious mind we wish to utilise.

Relaxation is only achieved by letting go of conscious intellectual processes and switching into a different mode, a parasympathetic mode in which endorphins naturally flow.

As in the example of the Blackboard script, the intellect is engaged in something which in, and of itself, doesn't actually appear to contribute to the deepening process; imagining the letters of of the alphabet and then erasing them, in this case.

The visualisation acts as a distraction ... keeping the left brain busy whilst the attention is free to listen to the therapist on other cognitive levels, which by nature function simultaneously. In TM relaxation occurs without forcing or trying - the phrase "try to relax" highlights this dilemma! This is an example of the operation of the "Law of Concentrated Attention", which maintians that as we concentrate on an idea it becomes spontaineously realised, which is what happens when suggestions are issued as commands.

We avoid this mode of concentrated attention by making suggestions that are very gentle and require no effort. This type of concentration (contention) would be invoked by a suggestion such as ...

"Place your attention on my voice lazily, effortlessly, dreamily."