Come to a Center

“In our last Talk we learned that it was quite possible for sounds to be about us and yet we not hear them. Sometimes, as in the case of Tyndall’s companion, it is because we are not capable; at other times, as when the clock strikes and we do not hear, it is because we are occupied with other things. It is from this latter fact— being occupied with other things—that we can learn what listening is.  Listening is not being occupied with other things. It is being completely attentive to what we are expected to hear. Listening is the condition of being occupied with other thoughts when we should be listening is known as inattention. To listen with full attention, all other things being entirely absent from the mind, is one form of concentration.

 

Inattention is a destroyer. It divides our power between two or more things when it should be directed upon a single thing. Concentration gives us greater and greater mind power. If you will look in your dictionary to find what concentration means you will find it is made up of con meaning with, and centrum, a center, “with a center,” or “to come to a center. If you hold a magnifying-glass between your hand and the sun you will find that at a  certain distance the sunlight is in a circle. By changing the distance with delicacy you can diminish the circle to almost a point,—you make the light come to a center. When the circle of light is large, no particular effect is noted by the hand. When, however, the circle is as small as it can be made you feel a sensation of warmth which, if continued long enough, will really burn the hand. That small circle is the sunlight in concentration. The rays of sunlight, instead of being scattered, are centered. They burn the hand because they are full of power—powerful.

 

By way of example: Let the different rays stand for inattention and the tiny circle of light for concentration. The former has little or no power; the latter is full of power. This very well illustrates what happens, both when our thoughts are scattered over a large area, and when they are brought together—concentrated—in a small circle. The first listening indeed which should claim our attention is not tone-listening, but listening to what is said to us. No one under a good teacher ever learns well who is not attentive and obedient. And then listening and doing are inseparably joined. Tone-listening makes us selfcritical and observant, and we are assured by men of science that unless we become good observers in our early years, it is later impossible for us.

 

In the previous Talk we spoke about listening to all kinds of sounds, particularly those out-of-doors. In this Talk we shall speak only of real music-listening. You know, now, that music born out of the heart is the thought of a good man. Of course, beautiful thoughts of any kind should be listened to not only with attention, but with reverence. Reverence is the tribute which the thoughtful listener pays to the music of a man who has expressed himself beautifully in tone. This at once reveals to us that we should listen to what is great for the purpose of getting ideals. We hear what we hope to attain. It is said of the violinist, Pierre Baillot, that when only ten years of age he heard the playing of Viotti, and though he did not hear it again for twenty years the performance ever remained in his mind as an ideal to be realized in his studies, and he worked to attain it.” (Music, MLL, pg 24-26)

“For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19)