Learning Concentration Without Effort

Circle by Hilma af Klint

There are certain states of being that are prerequisites for inner development. At the beginning of Letter I, The Magician, of Meditations on the Tarot, Valentin Tomberg teaches that the key to the Hermetic path of spiritual development is “concentration without effort.”

Without this inner state of perfectly concentrated calm, one cannot explore the mysteries of the Tarot, much less any other spiritual reality.

He states:

…the first and fundamental principle of esotericism (i.e. of the way of experience of the reality of the spirit) can be rendered by the formula:

“Learn at first concentration without effort; transform work into play; make every yoke that you have accepted easy and every burden that you carry light!”

This counsel, or command, or even warning, however you wish to take it, is most serious; this is attested by its original source, namely the words of the Master Himself:

“My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew xi, 30)

(Meditations on the Tarot, pp. 7-8).

What does Tomberg mean by concentration without effort? He explains further that concentration without effort is,

the state of consciousness (i.e. thought, imagination, feeling and will) of perfect calm, accompanied by the complete relaxation of the nerves and the muscles of the body. It is the profound silence of desires, of preoccupations, of the imagination, of the memory and of discursive thought” (p. 10).

This state of perfect calm brings us into contact with the essence, the still point of our being. When we come into contact with this state, creativity, insight, and unconditional love flow effortlessly. We become conduits for divine magic and participate in the ongoing reintegration and resurrection of the world. It is not so much a matter of technical skill as it is a new form of consciousness, a new way of being in which the scattered parts of the mind have been silenced and restored to an inner unity and harmony.

This way of being, this inner stillness, is one of the six limbs of Hindu Yoga, dharana, or one pointed mind. In fact, the great majority of the exercises of Hatha Yoga, so popular in the West, have very little to do with “fitness” in the sense embraced by the modern suburbanite, but rather are designed to train the mind and body to bring about this one pointed state of consciousness.

But how does the Hermetic aspirant develop concentration without effort? How does one attain this state of effortless relaxation? Christian Hermeticism, after all, whatever else it may be, is ultimately practical. It is not about speculative theories or detachment from ordinary life. It is entering more deeply into life.

Today, therefore, I would like to consider some practical ways in which to learn concentration without effort.

The Mastery of Attention

In the letter on the first Arcana of the Tarot, Tomberg draws an analogy between the effortlessness of a tightrope walker and the practice of concentration without effort. But as anyone who has attempted tightrope walking would tell you, such effortlessness can only come with the effort of great practice.

Likewise, the graceful movements of a ballet dancer, the oneness of musician and instrument seen in great classical performers, or the feats of skilled athletes are honed through hour upon hour of practice. Effort, then, is the key to effortlessness.

While the path to practicing an instrument or a sport is quite clear, how does one practice mastering attention in ordinary life? Through the practice of mindfully entering into our experiences with as much attention as possible. Swami Rama, in his Perennial Psychology of the Baghavad Gita, explains:

Attention is the first step on the ladder to develop one-pointedness of mind. One must pay wholehearted attention to all of the things he does from morning until evening. The aspirant should also understand why he is acting in a particular way. Actions should not be performed as a reaction without understanding why one does them. The human mind is prone to be reactionary if it is not trained, and an untrained mind crates disorder, disease and confusion. If one does something with full attention, he will increase his awareness and ability to perform his duty. If one forms the habit of attending fully to whatever he is doing, the mind will become trained, and eventually concentration will become effortless. (pg. 78)

It is by attending that we become effortless contemplatives. We must master our attention, harness it, and bring into the here and now. Our minds resist the present, always seeking to project us into the future or drag us into the past. The one thing we must not do, our mind says, is be here now.

Even more practical are the first few chapters of Rudolf Steiner’s How to Know Higher Worlds. As a long time student of Steiner, Tomberg was no doubt articulating much of what he had learned from his study of anthroposophy, albeit bathing it the symbolic language of Hermeticism. Inner concentration or unity of being, after all, is not the exclusive domain of one spiritual path or another—rather, it is a universal truth on the path of inner development reflected in all authentic traditions.

Let us return to Steiner and his practical teachings on developing inner concentration. As I said, he begins his work on awakening the deeper layers of one’s consciousness with an extended treatise on the development of concentration without effort, albeit it is called meditation in anthroposophical parlance.

The student must set aside a small part of his daily life in which to concern himself with something quite different from the objects of his daily occupation. The way, also, in which he occupies himself at such a time must differ entirely from the way in which he performs the rest of his daily duties. But this does not mean that what he does in the time thus set apart has no connection with his daily work. On the contrary, he will soon find that just these secluded moments, when sought in the right way, give him full power to perform his daily task[s]. Nor must it be supposed that the observance of this rule will really encroach upon the time needed for the performance of his duties. Should anyone really have no more time at his disposal, five minutes a day will suffice. It all depends on the manner in which these five minutes are spent.

During these periods the student should wrest himself entirely free from his work-a-day life. His thoughts and feelings should take on a different coloring. His joys and sorrows, his cares, experiences and actions must pass in review before his soul; and he must adopt such a position that he may regard all his sundry experiences from a higher point of view.

Steiner goes into much greater detail on how to develop this contemplative consciousness, and you, dear reader, are encouraged to read the first few chapters How to Know Higher Worlds in order to deepen your understanding of how to practically practice concentration without effort. It is a work Tomberg held in high esteem until the end of his life.

Simone Weil, the French philosopher and contemporary of Tomberg, echoes Steiner in her letter written to Catholic school children, Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies With a View to the Love of God. In her letter, she encourages the students to embrace the effort and attention required by their difficult school studies as a path of spiritual development:

If we have no aptitude or natural taste for geometry this does not mean that our faculty for attention will not be developed by wrestling with a problem or studying a theorem. On the contrary it is almost an advantage.

It does not even matter much whether we succeed in finding the solution or understanding the proof, although it is important to try really hard to do so. Never in any case whatever is a genuine effort of the attention wasted. It always has its effect on the spiritual plane and in consequence on the lower one of the intelligence, for all spiritual light lightens the mind.

If we concentrate our attention on trying to solve a problem of geometry, and if at the end of an hour we are no nearer to doing so than at the beginning, we have nevertheless been making progress each minute of that hour in another more mysterious dimension. Without our knowing or feeling it, this apparently barren effort has brought more light into the soul. The result will one day be discovered in prayer. Moreover it may very likely be felt besides in some department of the intelligence in no way connected with mathematics. Perhaps he who made the unsuccessful effort will one day be able to grasp the beauty of a line of Racine2 more vividly on account of it. But it is certain that this effort will bear its fruit in prayer. There is no doubt whatever about that.

The entire letter-essay brilliant weaves insights into the nature of attention with practical applications of it in the ordinary duties of a student. Extending Weil’s encouragement to embrace difficulties beyond school work, we can see that any challenge or obstacle in ordinary life, properly embraced, can become a path to deepening our attention and concentration.

Finally, reading Meditations on the Tarot itself can be a practical way to learn concentration without effort. For MOT cannot be read casually or with partial attention. It demands a level of time, silence, and concentration to understand, and this in itself is a teacher of inner stillness. Every time I complete a reading of it, I realize that it has taken me nearly a year to complete—for reading it is not merely a matter of accumulating information, but rather engaging with what one is reading at a deep soul level. And of course, this is entirely by design.

I hope, dear reader, that this gives you some practical ways to embrace the path of concentration without effort, and so discover the deepest essence of your being that is all one and bathed in light and silence.