Customer Reviews

Concentration: An Approach to Meditation (Quest Books)

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I have read other books on concentration and meditation but this one is different. It teaches you how to train your mind as a willing and happy student as opposed to whipping your mind into shape as a master over a slave. The methods work and my concentration has improved greatly as a result.

A practical introduction with exercises for developing practical concentration skills regardless of whether of not you have any interest in meditating (which I do not.). Most of Wood's books are good, but this is my favorite.

I first read this almost twenty years ago, and cannot overstate how valuable it was to me then. The methods Mr. Wood taught in the book have given me focus in my academic, business, and personal life, and helped me to achieve many goals. Year's back, I gave away about a dozen copies to friends. I just promised to loan it to another, picking it up after a ten-year absence. Re-reading the first chapter was like hearing from an old friend. In the end I decided to buy another copy to give to the friend, rather than part with mine. Do the exercises: they work.

I did all the excercises in the book and it really works. It has helped me through college and now in my professional life.

Having practice concentration from several other resources, I find this to be my favorite. Most other methods of concentration require a lot of willpower to sharpen mental focus. While this might work, in my experience, it doesn't work very well. As soon a you stop training, you're mind will quickly resort back to its old wandering ways.

The method taught by Dr. Woods on the other hand, is more gental, and over time gets your mind into the habit of staying with a single thought until you're no longer interested in it. In essence you are able to control your mind. I highly recommend this work, though for most people, in order to see effective results a lot of daily practice is required, far more than what the author suggests.

This book is written for those who want to gain success from such books. Great attention was made to details which in turn gives the reader a very thorough explanation of meditation. There is so much in this book that I find more and more after each time I read it.

This book isn't brilliant, but it does give a really effective concentration exercise early on which a friend of mine and I tried and found to be the most effective for developing mental concentration. I have Sivananda's Concentration and Meditation, Dumont's The Power of Concentration, Sadhu's Concentration, and have practiced other exercises, and all authors give the exercise where the student has to stare at an object and then visualize it with his eyes closed. This exercise has the added benefit for developing visualization but I find Wood's "Roads of Thought" exercise more effective for developing pure mental concentration. Nevertheless, I use both for the purposes of astral projection, meditation and general day-to-day living.

James Allen, who developed perfect concentration, condemned 'exercises' for concentration, saying "it is like trying to nourish the body by merely moving the jaw as in the act of eating, without taking food." Allen's advice goes like this:
"The beginning of concentration, then, is to go to your daily task and put your mind on it, bringing all your intelligence and mental energy to a focus upon that which has to be done; and every time the thoughts are found wandering aimlessly away, they should be brought promptly back to the thing in hand." Rabolu claims to have developed concentration in this way. Rabolu recommends that people plan their day ahead, list their tasks and do the most important task first, focusing on one task at a time without thinking about other things. Multitasking then is concentration's worst enemy.

James Allen said that perfect concentration "leads to mastery and power, and makes leaders and teachers of men."

I know someone who developed deep concentration by simply chanting for two hours every morning. He told me that after one and a half months he developed a good concentration and that after three months he developed a concentration that would make whatever he said come true. Keep in mind that this guy would wake up at 4am and sometimes 6am but never later.

The development of concentration demands an investigative mental attitude. Levey encourages us to focus on our breathing. Dumont firstly advises us to learn how to sit still. Sadhu starts by telling us to focus on the second hand of a watch. Sivananda tells us to stare at a sacred symbol until our eyes water, then close the eyes and visualize it. Rabolu says focus on one thing at a time and do seated exercises too. While I believe teachers like Rabolu transcend all other teachers, Wood's "Roads of Thought" wins my Best Concentration Exercise Award. As for the rest of the book, for me it's useless at the moment but that's just me.

I definitely plan to do the exercises, but my morbid curiosity is steering my will to keep turning the pages. I had only been exposed to Concentration, by Mouni Sadhu, which is excellent, one of the books that changed my life in hard-to-explain ways.

Sadhu's book does pit you against your mind. It is one of the best books I've read. But since I am weak, like most people, it might be better to, instead of commanding the mind, "teach it as a willing and happy pupil."

I would be willing to bet that any eager student desiring to improve concentration could pick up any book on it and enhance himself.

Mouni Sadhu wrote, "Why do some thoughts come to you, no matter whether you "invited" them?"

Both books are excellent. The author of any book on concentration already has an advantage: it is the one faculty so desperately lacking in most people. Everybody thinks they have a sense of humor, everybody thinks they're good listeners, and many people think they can concentrate. But then they can't really.

I remember when I diligently practiced Sadhu's exercises, I could virtually ask anyone for anything and they would submit.

This book is another proof of how good books resist the pass of time. Ernest Wood guides you through this book as a patient master. It's the closest thing to a Concentration/Meditation teacher. When I said that it's almost like having a teacher besides you, I meant it: He guides you with detail through all the exercises in the book and even tells you what to do when different problems arise. It is also perfectly compatible with our nowadays busy lives it only only requiring from 5-20 minutes/day to practice.

I recommend this to anyone: Either people interested in improving their concentration or people looking to have a firm grasp on meditation.

I have been studying Patanjali's Sutras for a while now I definitely can see what he is deriving his ideas from. I rather like his writing style a little too early 20th century for some but worth looking at.
PS: You can easily find downloadable copies of this book by simply searching on his name Ernest Wood.