An answer from the
Mother :
"..... it
is a very interesting subject and I wanted to
speak to you about it in detail..... generally
when men are in a hurry, they do not do
completely what they have to do or they do badly
what they do. Well, there is a third way, it is
to intensify one's concentration. If you do that
you can gain half the time, even from a very
short time. Take a very ordinary example: to have
your bath and to dress; the time needed varies
with people, doesn't it? But let us say, half an
hour is required for doing everything without
losing time and without hurrying. Then if you are
in a hurry, one of two things happen; you don't
wash so well or you dress badly. But there is
another way - to concentrate one's attention and
one's energy, think only of what one is doing and
not of anything else, not to make a movement too
much, to make the exact movement in the most
exact way, and ( it is an experience lived, I can
speak of it with certitude) you can do in fifteen
minutes what you were formerly doing in half an
hour, and do it it well, at times even better,
without forgetting anything, without leaving out
anything, simply by the intensity of the
concentration.... For all that you do - study,
play, work - there is only one solution : to
increase one's power of concentration...."
The Mother remarks
elsewhere -
".....if
you want to do something well, what ever it may
be.... you must become what you are doing and not
remain a small person looking at himself doing it...
Take a very amusing instance: you want to fill a
bottle from another bottle; you concentrate (you
may try it as a discipline...); well, as long as
you are the bottle to be filled, the bottle from
which one pours, and the movement of pouring, as
long as you are only this, all goes well. But if
unfortunately you think at a given moment: "Ah!
it is getting on well, I am managing well,' the
next minute it spills over! .... That is why work
is a good means of discipline, for if you want to
do the work properly, you must become the work
instead of being someone who works.... For if
truly you want to do it (the work) well, this is
the only way of doing it.."
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