Isha Upanishad - Super school - Auroville - Isha Upanishad 902

You might say that consciousness has a number of capacities of concentration. There are many kinds of concentrations. We know for example that there is something like multiple concentration. Everyone who cooks foods has a constant example of multiple concentration. When you're cooking, you have two, three vessels on the fire, and you're watching all the three simultaneously.  You know that each one of them requires a different kind of fire, slow fire, rapid fire and intense fire and you're managing all the three at the same time. Suddenly a child enters the room and demands something and you answer that question also. It has nothing to do with cooking at all. It is something quite different but you are capable of answering and the child goes on nagging you, answer me, why this is, why that answer me. We know this is child psychology and you are answering the question to the child, according to the psychology of the child, in the language of the child. All these are Powers of consciousness, it's a multiple concentration. Multiple concentration in which you can modulate in many ways automatically. This is happening even in our ordinary life and anybody can do it.

 Sometimes this multiple concentration can also become integral concentration in which you can see the inter-connections of all the things. Suddenly in a big luminous vision in which you don't see these things separate, even the child's question coming at a particular time, you understand the meaning of it. Why should they come at that time, you understand the meaning of it. You have an integral idea as to what is happening around you. This consciousness is possible even for our human consciousness, as we are. This consciousness can be also multiplied; you know there are many people in India who are called ashthavadhani, ashtha-avadhani, ashtha means eight. You speak out to him eight proposition, one after the other, not even ordinary kind of propositions, short story then you bring out a verse, third is only a word, fourth is a long story,5,6,7 and ashtha is something else. Then you ask him, please tell me, what I spoke to you, and he will give exactly the repetition of the 8 exactly in the order in which it was proposed, including the verses, which were not known to him earlier. He researched only once and then he repeats immediately after this interval that these are eight are already completed. The ashtha-avadhani, all they propositions one after the other, exactly in the way in which they were narrated by the original speaker. It is a special kind of training, which these people undergo and they are ashtha-avadhanis. They are aware of eight things at the same time. There are also some people in India, who are called shatta-avadhanis, they have this capacity hundredfold. Hundreds of things are told one after the other and they can tell you the hundred things afterwards in the same order. Now these are special capacities of consciousness, special kind of concentration, such a concentration that as soon as it is spoken to you, it is recollected in your consciousness, in an ordered manner. There is no confusion about it. There are some people, if you want to hear sometime, we can bring here some ashtha-avadhanis here, it will be interesting. There are still ashtha-avadhanis in our country and in fact there are some shatta-avadhanis also, but very rare but there are.

Question: Is it mind or consciousness?

Answer: It is not the ordinary mind. The mind has many capacities and beyond mind there are higher grades of the mind and surely some of these capacities are not capacities of the ordinary mind. But there are higher levels of consciousness in which training is given.  Supposing there is a vision of Indra. Indira is supposed to have thousand eyes, we have only two eyes. He is supposed to have thousand eyes, sahasraksha, − in Sanskrit it is called sahasraksha, sahasra means a thousand. aksha means eyes. In this particular case that I gave, you to enter the room and you see this particular thing falling down and concentrate only on that. But with one-thousand eyes you can see all the thousand things around even though you can concentrate only upon that.

The question you had asked was why non-observation? So, exclusive concentration of consciousness is one answer that you exclude everything else, so that you can attack the problem on hand immediately without waiting to see anything else. This exclusive concentration of consciousness has one great benefit, advantage, you can do the particular work at hand very effectively. If at the same time, you get distracted by so many things and if you do not exclusively concentrate upon that object, you may not be able to save that object from falling but by concentrating you are able to do it. Take another example of exclusive concentration of consciousness and its benefit. We all very often take part in a drama and we take part of a character. Supposing this drama is on Savitri and you're supposed to recite the words of Savitri. If you are a good actor or actress, you identify yourself completely with Savitri and when you forget completely that you are you reciting Savitri's, words your effectivity of recitation becomes perfect. This is the advantage of exclusive concentration of consciousness. This exclusive concentration of consciousness leads you to ignore other things, you ignore what you are.