Mind | SuccessConsciousness.com Blog on Self Improvement and Spiritual Growth

Consciousness, Awareness and the Mind

By Remez Sasson

Someone wrote to me a few days ago, saying that he read the article You Are not the Mind, but the article made him feel uncomfortable. He couldn’t accept the idea that he is not his mind. He asked, “What does the word mind mean? How can it be that I not my mind? Can you give me more information about “who I am,” and what is the mind? I don’t see the difference.”

For people who have been meditating for a long time, and for people conversant with Sri Ramana Maharshi and with the teachings of nonduality, this is not a strange idea.

The brain is the physical vessel of the mind. The mind creates thoughts, and thoughts manifest as words. Different thoughts pass the mind all the time. Can you say that you are these passing thoughts?

The mind is composed of the thoughts you think. What happens when you stop thinking, such as when in deep sleep? Where is the mind then, and if you are the mind, where are you? Did you cease to exist?

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Filed Under: Spiritual Growth Tagged With: awareness, concentration, consciousness, Meditation, mind

What is Concentration?

By Remez Sasson

What is concentration? What do you know about it?

Concentration is the ability to direct one’s attention in accordance with one’s will. It means control of the attention. It is the ability to focus the mind on one subject, object or thought, and at the same time exclude from the mind every other unrelated thoughts, ideas, feelings and sensations.

It also means the ability to do one thing at a time, instead of jumping from one subject to another and losing attention, time, and energy.

Concentration is a state, in which one’s whole attention is engrossed in one thing only, and being oblivious to everything else. During concentration, the mind focuses on the object of concentration, and only one thought occupies the mind. The whole energy of the mind becomes concentrated on this one thought.

The ability to command the mind and control the attention is not common, and requires training. Most people lack the ability to control their attention and focus the mind exclusively on one subject for any length of time. They can’t command their mind to concentrate, whenever they want to. However, concentration is not uncommon activity. It happens almost everyday, to almost everyone, but it is more of a spontaneous and uncontrolled ability.

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Filed Under: Concentration and Mind Power Tagged With: concentration, focus, mind, what is concentration

Passive Concentration Versus Active Concentration

By Remez Sasson

As you know, concentration is very important in everyone’s life, and it is one of the main reasons for success or failure in all areas of life.

Most people find it difficult to focus their mind. However, there are times when they do concentrate, but this is a passive concentration. Let me explain.

When you read a fascinating book, do you sometimes forget everything else, and get completely immersed in the book?

When you watch a good movie or a good show, do you sometimes become oblivious to everything else, even to hunger, your chores, or to the people around you?

When you are engaged in an activity that you like very much, do you forget about the time, and it seems to pass very fast?

At such times you can ignore thoughts, noises, people, pain and problems. It is as if the activity you are engaged it, draws your whole attention, without any effort on your part. This is passive concentration.

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Filed Under: Concentration and Mind Power Tagged With: active concentration, focus, mind, passive concentration

Your Dominant Thoughts – How to Take Advantage of Them

By Gary Simpson

Not only do we become what we think about, we do what we think about. Whether your thoughts are positive or negative your mind will act on them. If we are directed by our dominating thoughts, why not implant our minds with things that will benefit us?
Learn how you can do this…

Self belief is a wonderful thing.

I know from my own life experiences that whenever I have been filled with dread or doubt I am unable to perform at a satisfactory level. Just the other day I was using a claw hammer and a lever to dismantle a packing crate. At the time I was making quite a noise hammering away when my wife came down to the workshop to see what I was doing.

Jokingly, I quipped: “I haven’t hit my fingers with the hammer yet!” Guess what I did within minutes of uttering those words? Yep. Bang. Yeeowch! Actually, I didn’t say that. It was something more colorful.

You see, in retrospect, what I did was plant the seed in my mind that I was going to hit my fingers with the hammer. My mind set about fulfilling the thought.

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Filed Under: Positive Attitude Tagged With: mind, thoughts

Visualization and Your Ideal Weight

By Melonie Dodaro

We often have difficulty thinking in abstract ideas. We dream in full-color movie clips! Visualization is a process that we use, even if we don’t know we’re doing it; it’s just how we naturally think. If you think about losing weight, you don’t think in terms of fat cells shriveling up or healthy foods being digested better by your body. You imagine how it would look and feel to be at your ideal weight—what new clothes you might wear or what kind of compliments you might receive.

It’s important to understand how visualization and the law of attraction work in harmony, because they function whether you know it or not, or even want them to. The law of attraction states that you will attract more of whatever you are thinking about repeatedly, whether you are mulling around or grumbling to yourself; that’s visualizing—which invokes the law of attraction.

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Filed Under: Law of Attraction Tagged With: Law of Attraction, mind, visualization, weight