Eknath Easwaran's book Meditation includes some hilarious and perhaps important parables. In Chapter 4 ("One-Pointed Attention", page 134) he tells of the 19th Century mystic Ramakrishna's great powers of concentration:
... Sri Ramakrishna once went to see a religious drama produced by his disciple Girish Ghosh He was very fond of Girish and of the play, so he sat right up front. The curtain went up, and a character started singing the praises of the Lord. Sri Ramakrishna immediately began to enter the supreme state of consciousness. The stage faded; the actors and actresses faded. As only a great mystic can, he uttered a protest: "I come here, Lord, to see a play staged by my disciple, and you send me into ecstasy. I won't let it happen!" And he started saying over and over, "Money . . . money . . . money," so as to keep some awareness of the temporal world.
That story made me laugh! Money is one of my major fixations; I need to stop being so attached to it, stop fretting so much about spending it. And likewise my other big challenges, which I'll refrain from mentioning here. The list of things to which I cling is long ...
(cf. Meditation by Eknath Easwaran, Machines Obey Me, ...) - ^z - 2010-12-17