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Shifting Focus: From the Outside In
A
Selection from
the book How
to Achieve Peace of Mind...
Shifting Focus: From the Outside In
By Jerry Dorsman
"Look upon
some object, then slowly withdraw your sight
from it, then slowly withdraw your thought from it.
Then."
-Tantric
Sutra
All our lives we
tend to move outward, into the world; rarely do we move inward, toward
ourselves. It’s natural to move outward. We need things outside of ourselves. We need food, water, shelter, clothing, and
other goods, so we
need to work to make money for purchasing these things.
Understanding the
world, and moving into it, is crucial to our survival. Hence we tend to
focus almost exclusively on what’s happening outside of ourselves. That
means we lose sight of what’s happening inside. We hardly ever bother to
move inward, and now, when we try we tend to lose our way, and struggle to
find the center. We have lost touch with our inner core.
What would we
find at the inner core? Peace. This is the deepest, happiest peace you can
know. It’s there, close at hand, waiting. It’s just below the surface,
and once you have practiced moving inward, you can find it.
It’s not hard
to do this. But you need to take some time to learn how. As easily as you
learned to move outward into the world, you can learn to move inward to
your center. That’s what this sutra is all about.
Try this:
Look upon some
object. Pick an object you enjoy, something that pleases you visually—a
flower, a face, some dearly cherished possession. It’s better to select something simple in its features. Now look upon it.
Drink it in with your
eyes. Become one with it. Notice the point of vision where you become one
with this object, the point at which you merge. Notice that this point
feels as if it’s outside of you! Is it? Your eyes are at one with the
object.
Then slowly
withdraw your sight from it. The image of this object is impressed on your
sight. Now slowly close your eyes while keeping the image strong in your mind. Visualize it fully. The image is now a thought in
your mind. The
object has become a thought. Where is this thought? It’s near your sense
of sight, at the surface of your mind, on the tip of your brain—somewhere
just between your vision of the object itself and your deep inner core.
Then slowly
withdraw your thought from it. While keeping your eyes closed, allow the
image of this object to dissolve. Carefully but purposefully, let the
thought dissolve until all you "see" is a blank screen. Then, as
the thought disappears, go deeper and deeper, to an undisturbed center, a
place behind the thought, a place behind all thought. Here, you are in a
windless place where no thought stirs.
Then. At this
calm center, then. . . . Quietly, you become one with inner peace at this
deepest place within. There exists no thought, no symbol, simply a feeling
of imperturbable calm. Now you are at one with yourself, as completely as
you were at one with the object in your vision a few moments ago.
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