Attention & Focus · “You Become What You Hold”
Concentration
To train one-pointed attention by fixing the eyes or the mind on a single chosen point — a dot, the eyebrow-centre, the nose-tip, or the heart — until concentration ripens into meditation.
Sit steady in your meditation room. Pick ONE point — a black dot or Om on the wall (eyes open, no winking, then hold the after-image), or internally the heart (for bhaktas) or the eyebrow-centre/nose-tip (for yogis/vedantins). Hold the gaze gently, from half a minute, building toward half an hour. Each time the mind bolts, bring it quietly back to the same point. Sustained, concentration becomes meditation.
What it is
Before meditation, Sivananda insists, comes concentration (dharana) — and he teaches it as a set of concrete drills for fixing attention on a single point. For Sivananda trataka “is the alpha and beta of concentration, being the first exercise for Yogic students.” This file is his practical concentration regimen: what to gaze at, where to place the mind, how long to hold it, and how to grade it up.
It is distinct from the base (which credits Swatmarama / Hatha Yoga and centres on the flame) and from Patanjali’s bare definition in — Sivananda’s contribution is the menu of points matched to the practitioner’s path and the explicit beginner progression.
The Method
Sivananda’s drills, faithfully: A. External gazing (trataka). “Concentrate on a black dot on the wall, a candle-flame, a bright star, the moon, the picture of OM (AUM), Lord Siva, Rama, Krishna, Devi or your Ishta Devata in front of you with open eyes.” Gaze steadily, without winking, then close the eyes and hold the after-image.
B. Internal point — choose by your path. “Concentrate gently either on the lotus of the heart (Anahata Chakra) or on the space between the two eyebrows (Ajna Chakra or Trikuti), or on the tip of the nose.” He assigns them: “ Bhaktas should concentrate on the heart.
Yogis and Vedantins should concentrate on Ajna Chakra.“ C. The eyebrow gaze (Bhrumadhya-Drishti). “Fixing one’s eyes between the eyebrows. Sit in Padmasana or Siddhasana in your meditation room and practise this gaze gently from half a minute to half an hour.“ Start tiny, build slowly; never strain.
D. Bring the mind back. When the mind runs from the point — and it will — note it without irritation and return it to the same object, again and again. Sustained, this concentration “ripens” into meditation.
Source & Lineage
Swami Sivananda Saraswati lays this out in Concentration and Meditation, his standard manual. → (sivananda swami). It is the preparatory limb feeding his meditation routine.
Common refinements
Straining the eyes or “boring into” the point — Sivananda repeats gently; soft, steady fixation, not a glare.
- Starting at half an hour — begin at half a minute and build; over-long early sessions cause strain and aversion.
- Switching the object every session — pick one point and one image; constancy is what trains the faculty.
- Frustration at wandering — the return is the rep; each catch-and-return is the exercise, not a failure.
- Mismatching the point to yourself — devotionally inclined → heart; analytic/jnana → eyebrow-centre.