Course XIV - Teaching 11: Entry to Silence

By Concentration your mental matter does not acquire any form, but adopts only one form.
Concentration is made in two ways: one is objective and other subjective. One, as expression of the will, acts on a sense or determined form; other, as state of abstract mental consciousness, is over all senses.
The objects of Concentration are: 1) Elimination any internal and external obstruction; 2) Constant practice of certain exercises; and 3) Accumulation of energy.
First you practice objective Concentration, with direct results, as expression of the will.
By removing internal and external obstructions, you purify the body, transform blood and tissues, tune nerves and blood vessels, and bring a more harmonious contact between physical body and astral body.
A constant practice of certain exercises develops psychic powers.
The accumulation of energy preserves all this power in the deposit of centers and plexuses to be used by the disciple in due time.
There are different exercises for Psychical powers produced by objective Concentration.
For certain Masters, these powers are produced by illuminative Concentration, but others feel that they are the most valuable end in the path of Prayer; but psychic powers should be only a stage, which in no way indicates the state of Divine Union. As the disciple progresses on the way of Concentration, he shall see the prodigious effects of these exercises.
The disciple has learnt during the time of Concentration, for instance, how to look closely at the sea and to love it; but in Concentration he learns how to throw his mental force to the sea, making it produce a surge that gradually is greater and stronger.
Concentration is not the idea in itself, but the force of the idea. When Concentration is objective, it charges the central image on which is fixed with a continuous power that makes it resistant, vast and living. If central images are diverse, then they collide, by contrast, waging a cruel war among them. When the mental image is only one, then becomes powerful and vast, becomes the very subject and Concentration becomes subjective.
The only one will of man has no power any more, and the Divine consciousness acts supreme in the soul. Then he is not the reflector of the centre-image, but the very center; he is the very image.
God has devised the universe; he saw that the universe was good and loved it; so he made himself center of his creative image and remained a prisoner in it; a Divine prisoner who will be unable to liberate himself while only one atom of force that has animated his idea remains in the cosmos.
All beings possess the gift of Concentration, but make use of it as if they were animated by the continuous illusion of desire, constantly giving live and force to diverse and various mental images; the latter fight among them for the power that they were given, spend the energy of man and impede him a true concentration.
But when the mind has only one fixed idea, an integral idea, and this idea is the center and end of being, concentration is good and perfect.
The mystical passage from objective Concentration to subjective Meditation is called Entry to Silence.