In English
Difference between concentration & meditation
Many people thing that concentration is the same thing as meditation, but there is no such connection between concentration and meditation. Concentration is something which is below your senses, whereas meditation is something which is above your senses. But many are under the false impression that concentration is identical with meditation, and they take to a wrong path. Concentration is something which we use involuntarily in our daily, normal, routine life. dust look at this, I am now reading the newspaper. My eyes are looking at the letters. My hand is holding the paper. My Intelligence is thinking now. Mind is also thinking. Thus when the eyes are doing their work, the hand is doing its work, when the Intelligence is doing its work, and the mind is also doing its work, then I am able to get the contents of the newspaper. It means, if I want to get at the matter that is contained In the newspaper, all these enumerated senses are concentrated and they are all. coordinated and are working on the newspaper. Not only this, if one wants to drive a car, unless one has concentration, one cannot drive a car on the road. All the normal routines, like walking, talking, reading, writing, eating, all these things we do only as result of concentration. If concentration like this is part and parcel of your daily life, then what is that we practise to get concentration? What we have to practice is something which is beyond these normal senses. We must rise from being below the senses (that is the state of concentration) to the senses (that is, the middle position, called contemplation); and from there we must rise above the senses, that is called meditation. Between concentration and meditation there is border area which covers both and that is the area of contemplation. To be In that area of contemplation is to free yourself of worldly attachments. If you break away all the worldly attachments - all the routine attachments in the world - then you will enter the region of contemplation. When you have completely broken away ALL your attachments, you break through this area of contemplation and you get into the area of meditation.