Theosophy - Mind and Memory Training by Ernest Wood- Part 2 of 2
MIND
AND MEMORY TRAINING
by ERNEST
E. WOOD
Former
Principal of the D G Sind National College, Hyderabad. Sind.
First Edition 1936, Second
Edition 1939
Reprinted 1945, Revised
Reprint 1947
Reprinted 1956 by Occult
Research Press
THIS IS PART 2 OF 2 - CLICK
HERE FOR PART 1
CHAPTER
12
A
LOGICAL SERIES
[Page
81] IT often happens that a student requires to remember
a series of things. The days are gone, I hope, in which children are
expected to reel off the names of all the kings and queens of Israel
or of England, or of the capes on the coasts of Europe, Asia, Africa,
or America. But it does often happen to anyone to be a convenience to
be able to memorize a series of foreign words. Thus we might put together
in suitable order the exceptions given by Dr. Pick as a mnemonic for
the genders of French nouns, referred to in Chapter VIII.
The reader
will readily see why I have said "in suitable order" if he remembers our
experiment with a series of ideas in Chapter II. In that case he or she must
have found that it was easy to remember cat — milk — dairy — shed — roof — top — head — eyes — reading — book — paper — white — moon — sun — glory — fame,
but almost impossible to remember moon — dairy — head — paper — roof — milk — fame — eyes — white — reading — shed — glory — cat — top — sun — book,
although the words are the same in both the series.
Let us
then run over the easily remembered series, taking two at a time in order,
and notice the Roads of Thought which made the remembering easy—
Cat and
milk (Proximity);
milk and dairy (Proximity);
dairy and shed (Part);
shed and roof (Part);
roof and top (Class);
top and head (Class);
head and eyes (Part);
eyes and reading (Proximity);
reading and book (Proximity);
book and paper (Quality or Part);
paper and white (Quality); [Page 82]
white and moon (Quality);
moon and sun (Class);
sun and glory (Quality);
glory and fame (Class).
All these
links could be expressed in a more familiar way by simply making sentences
to connect each pair of words. That might be more convenient for a mind quite
unaccustomed to scientific methods and formulae. Nevertheless, the method
is not as good as that of naming the Road between each pair, because
the act of pausing with the two ideas before the rnind while finding the
name of the Road connecting them creates a momentary concentration on the
two ideas together, which is the chief cause of their being afterwards remembered
together.
However,
for those who wish simply to make sentences I will lay down the following
two rules—
1. When
you link two ideas together, always give a clear reason for their
association.
2. Never invent any unnatural reason.
I will
now illustrate these rules by the following series: Yellow — gold — iron — rails — railway — steam — water — ice — snow — soft — fur — skin — hand — pen — paper.
Yellow
and gold; because gold is of yellow color.
Gold and metal; because gold is a metal.
Metal and iron; because iron is a metal.
Iron and rails; because rails are made of iron.
Rails and railway; because rails are part of a railway.
Railway and steam; because there is steam traction on most railways.
Steam and water; because these are two forms of the same thing.
Water and ice; because these also are two forms of one thing.
Ice and snow; because they are forms of the same thing, and are often found
together in winter.
Snow and soft; because snow is very soft.
Soft and fur; because fur is very soft.
Fur and skin; because the fur is attached to the skin of the animal. [Page
83]
Skin and hand; because the skin is part of the hand.
Hand and pen; because we hold a pen in the hand when we write with it.
Pen and paper; because with a pen we usually write on paper.
Putting
some of these in a different order we could make a more difficult example:
water — paper — railway — gold — steam — fur — pen — snow — metal — skin.
The connections by sentences might be somewhat as follows —
A sheet
of paper is smooth like the surface of calm water. Or, water is used in making
paper pulp. What is the connection between paper and railway? Sometimes carriage
wheels are made of compressed paper-pulp; also everybody must be familiar
with the forms of the book-stall boys running about in the big railway stations,
selling their bundles of papers. Next come railway and gold. Here it would
be rather unnatural to think of railway trucks heaped up with gold; it would
be better to observe that the railway companies are immensely rich and that
much gold passes through their hands. How is gold related to steam ? The
use of steam power has increased the wealth of humanity enormously, and wealth
is represented by gold. The next pair is steam and fur. Furs conserve the
warmth of the body; warmth produces steam from water, or let us say, steam
issues from a hot place, such as a volcano, while the most valuable furs
are obtained from the cold latitudes, there being a contrast between the
two ideas in this respect. We come to fur and pen. The hair of animals is
used (among other things) for making artists' brushes, or "pencils," and
the brush and the pen are akin, since both are used for the same purpose,
that of writing and drawing. We might associate these two in another way.
Fur and feathers are the coverings of animals and birds, respectively, and
a. quill pen is made from the feathers of a goose. As for pen and snow, let
us say the feather of a quill is as white as snow. In deference to rule 2
we must, of course, avoid making an idea such as "I find [Page
84] a pen in the snow", or " I see a snow man eating a fountain-pen".
Such ridiculosities have no part in the true art of memory. Snow can be connected
with metal because one is soft, the other hard. Metal can be connected with
skin on the ground that knights of old used to wear metal armor and though
as a rule it did not touch the skin, it was, as it were, a metal skin to
the body. A good alternative is the idea that the skin of a ship is nowadays
made of metal.
As an illustration
of the use of the Roads in remembering a number of words I will take the
collection of French nouns given in Chapter VIII. Dr. Pick put them in the
following order, which he considered the most convenient that could be made
with these specific words. I will, however, give my own Roads of Thought,
as I consider them an improvement upon the various associations of thought
put forward by many teachers of mnemonics during the last few centuries.
I give
the English words, in order to present the meanings so plainly that he who
runs may read, but let the student of French repeat the series to himself
only in that language. To emphasize the importance of isolating each pair
of ideas and thinking of only two at a time I will show the series in tabular
form.
Conjoin
tooth with rabies (Proximity);
rabies with pity (Proximity) ;
pity with mercy (Class);
mercy with end (Proximity);
end with peace (Proximity);
peace with law (Proximity);
law with faith (Class);
faith with virtue (Class);
virtue with friendship (Class);
friendship with nation (Proximity);
nation with tribe (Class);
tribe with ant (Class);
ant with mouse (Class);
mouse with sheep (Class);
sheep with leap (Proximity or Quality); [Page 85]
leap with mare (Proximity or Quality);
mare with partridge (Class);
partridge with forest (Proximity);
forest with stem (Part);
stem with part (Class);
part with half (Class);
half with page (Class — half a leaf);
page with syllable (Part or Proximity);
syllable with imago (Class — all words are symbols).
For the
remainder of the series I will leave the student to find the Roads for himself
or herself, as an exercise.
Conjoin
image with water;
water with swimming;
swimming with cough;
cough with thirst;
thirst with hunger;
hunger with death;
death with scythe;
scythe with hand;
hand with skin;
skin with plain;
plain with nave;
nave with partition-wall;
partition-wall with chalk;
chalk with glue;
glue with cage;
cage with screw;
screw with key.
The reader
may wonder why I have so much insisted that only two ideas be taken together.
The answer is: Because the ability to forget or put things out of mind is
essential to a good memory. If you want to remember something new to you
you must, at least for a moment, concentrate upon it in relation with something
which is already familiar. It is impossible to obtain that concentration
while you are trying not to forget something else. To emphasize still further
this necessity for forgetting, I will give one more exercise showing the
process —
Animal
and cow (Class), forget animal;
cow and horns (Part), forget cow; [Page 86]
horns and knife (Class or Proximity), forget horns;
knife and spoon (Class), forget knife;
spoon and tea (Proximity), forget spoon;
tea and wakefulness (Proximity), forget tea;
wakefulness and sleep (Class), forget wakefulness;
sleep and vigour (Proximity), forget sleep;
vigour and Hercules (Quality), forget vigour;
Hercules and Greece (Proximity), forget Hercules;
Greece and Italy (Class), forget Greece;
Italy and top-boot (Quality), forget Italy;
top-boot and highwayman (Proximity), forget top-boot;
highwayman and horse (Proximity), forget highwayman;
horse and swiff (Quality), forget horse;
swift and eagle (Quality), forget swift;
eagle and peak (Proximity), forget eagle;
peak and snow (Proximity), forget peak;
snow and cotton-wool (Quality), forget snow;
cotton-wool and gas (Quality), forgot cotton-wool;
gas and liquid (Class), forget gas;
liquid and sap (Class), forget liquid;
sap and bark (Part), forget sap;
bark and skin (Class), forget bark.
After studying
these relationships, close the book and repeat the whole series slowly forwards
and backwards. If you have any difficulty in remembering any of them, try
every possible device before you consent to look up the list in the book.
If in going forward you come to a stop, start from the end and work backward
until you meet the difficulty in the rear. If that does not avail, take the
word next to the missing one, and ask yourself whether the connection was
one of Class, Part, Quality, or Proximity. The recovery of the last idea
is sure by this method. One should not submit to the ignominy of looking
up the list, either as an admission of failure, or worse still as a capitulation
to mental indolence. The mind should be firmly made to render complete obedience.
When repeating the words you need not recall the relationships or linkages,
except when a breakdown occurs.
To complete
my emphasis upon the placing together of two ideas, let me explain further:[Page
87]
It
must be observed that two separate or dissociated ideas will not co-exist
in the mind without blending. A new idea can come forward in thought only
by linking itself with another already in the mind. If two ideas are brought
together, either they will blend into a larger unit, or the stronger will
push out the weaker, which will then slip out of attention. Link two such
ideas by a third, which is common to both, and at once they will remain together
comfortably before the attention.
Picture,
for example, in your imagination a pen and a hand separately. Now try to
hold these separate ideas at once before the mind. You will find that the
attention runs rapidly to and fro from one object to the other, and each
is lost in turn; but if you picture the pen in the hand in the act of writing
it becomes easy to hold them together without any variation of attention,
because they are then really one idea, the two objects having a unity of
purpose and action.
The sequences
of ideas which we have studied in this chapter may seem somewhat artificial,
but really all our life is such a sequence. There has been a continuous succession
and if we wish to remember something that has occurred within it we can often
do so with the aid of outstanding landmarks by the roadside. The ways of
memory are not unlike those of outer experience.
In finding
our way about the outer world from one place to another we have three particular
guides. We may reach our goal by fixing our eyes on a distant spire or mountain
peak, and gradually working towards it, overcoming or circumventing such
obstacles as we may find in our path. We may follow out a well-marked road,
trusting that it will take us to the place we wish to reach. We may take
note of a succession of landmarks, and proceed from point to point with their
aid. In a well laid out country these are amply provided. There is no road
without landmarks — at this turning an inn, at that a stout and ancient
oak tree, at [Page
88] another a tinkling rivulet, at the next, a farm-house with
a barking dog, and children playing in the yard.
In the
sequence of memories, also, the roads have their landmarks—ideas each
of which leads on to the next and suggests it. With their aid the train of
thought can almost always find its way with certainty along the roads and
paths which it has trodden before. At the age of six I had a severe illness,
at twelve my father removed his home to a new house, at sixteen I went to
college — such are the pronounced memories from which most persons
would be able to trace out details of the past.
The man
of orderly and well-appointed mind finds himself living as in a pleasant,
prosperous country with well-kept roads, well-stocked lands and smiling gardens,
whether his range be small or large. Another may live in a barren wilderness
or jungle twenty times as large, but to move from point to point must cross
the arid, thirsty wastes of useless knowledge, scramble over the broken ground
of mental rubbish, wade through the pestiferous marshes of ill-associated
thoughts, or force his painful way through the tangled undergrowth of confused
purposes and ideas. It is, ot course, largely these ill-associations that
are responsible for bad memories, for when they are numerous the roads and
tracks are almost obliterated.
In the
following chapter I will try to show how the mind travels, and we may then
consider the means to guide its future movement. [Page 89] .
CHAPTER 13
FOOTSTEPS
OF THOUGHT
I MUST
now remind the student that the mind is dynamic and that it walks as though
on two feet. This I have already explained. Sometimes thinking is called
a flow of thought. Very good, but I prefer the simile of walking, as that
reminds me of the static elements—the ideas or mental images on which
the feet of the mind may be thought to step.
This is
an important point. Therefore, even at the risk of repetition let me give
another example, from my own experience. I start by thinking about a cat.
A few moments later I find myself thinking about a very strikingly designed
iron bridge that spans the river Indus between the towns of Sukkur and Rohri.
I might imagine, if I did not know the laws governing the process of thought,
that my mind had leaped from the idea of the cat to the idea of the bridge,
that it had merely casually forgotten the first thing and merely casually
thought of the other. But if I take the trouble to recall what has happened
and to study the matter I shall find that there was an unbroken chain of
images leading from the first to the last, that it was on a definite series
of stepping stones that I crossed between the two.
I thought
of a cat, then of a cat lying upon a hearth-rug before a fire (a very common
thing in Europe), then of the hearth-rug without the cat, then of the hearth-rug
being made in a factory, then of a particular factory that I knew very well,
which was near the river Indus, and then of the scene further up the river
where the great bridge already mentioned rises into the air.
As I have
said before, the process is just like walking; one mental foot comes down
on the idea of the cat, the other moves forward and rests on the idea of
the hearth-rug; the [Page
90] first foot is lifted from the cat and moves forward to
the factory. When it is settled there the second foot is lifted from the
idea of the hearth-rug and brought down upon the river Indus. Next the first
foot is removed from the idea of the factory and settled upon the Sukkur
bridge and so on.
The process
is also like the beating of the heart. There is first a thought, then it
is enlarged by the addition of another; then it is contracted by the elimination
of the first. Expansion and contraption of thought thus alternate as regularly
as in the beating of the heart. When the expansion takes place consciousness
becomes vaguer, for the light of attention is more diffused, because it covers
a larger field; but when the contraction takes place the object is vividly
illumined and consciousness is at its best in point of quality. The contraction
is concentration; the expansion is meditation. The movement is thought.
Now, two
things may happen in this process of thought. The attention may simply drift
from one image to another with no settled purpose or direction, taking at
each step the easiest path, following old habits of thought, keeping
to the beaten track, or going the easiest way, like a stream of water finding
its way down hill. Or it may be set to the work of exploration and discovery
in a certain definite direction decided upon before the process begins.
The first
of these alternatives is mind-wandering; the second is thinking. Some minds
scarcely do anything but wander; others are capable of thought.
Knowing
this, we are in a position to practise thinking, just as definitely as we
can undertake muscular development with or without physical apparatus. We
may convert our thought-activities from streams of rnud and sand into chains
of gold.
Let us
define some of our words and see where we stand, (I) The attention is what
is commonly called the will, which is ourself awake, expanding and contracting
like a heart, [Page
91] spanning portions of what we may call the mental world,
as with two feet. (2) The mental world is a subjective region full of ideas.
As the attention poises itself on one of these, whether simple or complex
(a larger or smaller portion of that world) it can look around and see some
of the mental scenery, the ideas connected with that upon which it rests.
(3) Thought is the process of moving from one foot to the other. Ideas are
mental objects; thought is mental travel; the will is the traveler. Let us
examine these more fully.
There is
a sense in which we are all very much aloof from the world. Our life is really
in our minds; there we see the reflections of the objects around us; there
we feel our pleasures and pains. Sitting in this mind I am at the moment
somewhat aloof from my surroundings, and intent only on my writing.
Suppose
I stop writing for a moment and look round. In front of me are the table
and chairs, on arid against the walls are book-shelves, cabinets, a clock,
a calendar, pictures, and numerous other things. I look through the windows
and there are the tops of the palm and mango trees, the white March clouds
of Madras, and beyond them the ethereal blue.
I attend
to my ears instead of my eyes — a crow squawks over on the left; the
clock ticks on the wall; footsteps shuffle along the corridor; there is a
murmur of distant voices; a squirrel chirrups near at hand; some pandits
are droning in the Sanskrit library near by; a typewriter rattles somewhere
else; and behind all these is the roar of the breakers of the Bay of Bengal
on the beach half a mile away. I attend more closely, and hear the blood
rumbling in my ears and the long-drawn whistle of some obscure physiological
process.
I turn
my attention to my skin, and now I feel the pen upon which my fingers gently
press, the clothes upon my back, the chair on which I sit (I might say "in
which" if it were more comfortable), the floor upon which my feet are [Page
92] placed; the warm soft wind pressing upon and wafting my
hands and face.
I wish
to emphasize this point: at any moment I am aware of only a tiny fragment
of the world. I have traveled about in this body for a number of years, seen,
heard and felt many things in different parts of the world, but how little
of that experience of mine can exist in my consciousness at any moment, and
how inexpressibly small even the whole of it has been in comparison with
all that exists which I have not seen or known !
I must
accept my natural limitations, but fortunately I am not a mere mirror in
which the objects of the world reflect themselves. I have the power of attention.
I can ignore some things, and pay attention to others. This applies to both
sense-objects and ideas.
This being
so, let us understand the value of control of the mind, so that what we do
we do intentionally. Let us train the mind (I) to move in the direction we
have chosen, and (2) to extend and improve its range of vision, its ability
to see clearly and rightly the events which it meets on the road of life.
Before
we consider (I) let us look again at (2), which is concerned with the static
elements, or stepping-stones, in the process of thought.
When the
foot of thought comes down upon an idea it does so like that of an elephant,
which spreads when it settles, and covers a certain amount of space. Therefore
when you turn your attention to an idea you do not find a solitary, clear-cut
thing, but one thing associated with many others.
Materially
that is the case also; you cannot find anything by itself — books without
eyes to read them, pens without paper to write on, shoes without feet to
be covered, cups without mouths to be poured into, houses without people
to live in them, are unthinkable things.[Page
93]
But every idea has a center where the vision is clear, from which it gradually
shades away. Just as when I fix my eyes upon the ink-bottle before me I see
also vaguely other things on the table, the articles of furniture to left and
right, the trees in the garden outside, a multitude of details; so also when
I fix my attention on a particular thought I find a mass of thoughts around
it, gradually shading off, becoming more indefinite as more remote, and finally
losing themselves at no definite limit. So our stepping-stones may be large
or small, on account of various factors, especially our familiarity with the
subject and our degree of concentration at the moment. [Page 94] .
CHAPTER
14
THE
POWER OF A MOOD
WE have already seen that when
I thought of a cat I thought of a hearth-rug (which is one of the ideas that
can come out of that magic box), but I might apparently equally well have
thought of whiskers, milk, claws, or mice. One of such ideas was sure to
form the next stepping-stone in my chain of ideas or flow of thought. This
chain of thoughts presents an unbroken succession. Each idea is succeeded
by another, like the links in a chain. As in time things follow one after
another, only two moments with their contents being linked directly together,
so in the flow of mental activity images follow one after another, only two
being directly connected.
There is
some kind of a choice at every step in the process of thought, and it is
instructive to observe to what widely separate goals every parting of the
ways may lead, since every idea calls up such a great variety of associations.
When I
used to look at the banyan tree outside my window I saw and heard the throngs
of crows and squirrels; and now any thought of a banyan tree will at once
bring within its circle a vision of this particular tree, with its spreading
branches and hanging roots, the fern-pots beneath it, the audacious crows
and the chattering, shrieking, striped brown squirrels. But at once thoughts
of other kinds of trees also enter into the circle of attention, though further
from the center; the tall, straight palm, the wrinkled oak, the slender poplar,
the sad, shorn willow of central England, the trim pine among the northern
snows.
Then again,
as I view the spreading branches of the banyan tree and its many trunks,
bearing the weight of giant arms ten centuries old, my mind runs back to
the history which it might tell—of the floods of the river running
near, [Page
95] of the building of houses and the making of roads, and,
far back in the past, of the breezy jungle growth, the jackals and the tigers,
the birds and the monkeys and the countless ants and scorpions and snakes
which have nestled in its hollows and lived among its branches in the centuries
past.
If my mood
changes again I might notice its vast extent — a mountain of wood — and
think how an army might shelter beneath it, how it would give timber to build
ten houses or make a thousand roaring fires. Thus the banyan tree calls up
different kinds of thoughts according to my mood.
The manner
in which anyone's thought will turn at the parting of the ways which occurs
at every step in thought depends upon his mood. Consider this idea of the
tree. It has many thoughts attached to it, such as those mentioned above,
or those represented in the following diagram —
Tree
1.
Garden, field, etc.
2. Banyan,
pine, etc.
3.Age,
size, value, etc.
4. Bush, hedge,
plant, etc.
5. Leaves,
branch, bark, etc.
6. Crows,
squirrels, insects, etc.
7. Seed,
blossom, fruit, etc., and so on.
If I were a farmer my thought might pass along line
7 to an idea of fruit. Fruit would then become the centre of another circle
of ideas, those belonging to lines I to 6 having been passed by, almost or
entirely unnoticed. The mind might then pass on to the idea of market, a thought
which has no direct connection with the tree, and the tree is now forgotten
as the moving attention pursues its course.
If I were a merchant my thought might find itself
somewhere on line 3, interested in lumber, which is directly connected with
the thought of the tree, and from that it might pass on to the current prices
of timber, and on to financial and banking questions and other matters still
more remote.
A naturalist might pass along line 6; a huntsman
or a [Page 96] pleasure-seeker
along line I. Almost all would lose sight of the tree at the third step of
thought.
It is marvelous to what an extent the future depends
upon the choice I make at every moment as to my next step in thought. The following
diagram illustrates how slight is the parting of the ways of thought, but how
wide asunder the paths soon go —
It is a choice between many ways that is being offered
to us at every moment. Our attention is being called from a great number of
directions at once. There is an endless competition among the objects of the
senses for our notice; there is likewise an endless competition among the ideas
within the world of the mind for our attention. The attention finds itself
surrounded with various alluring baits. Which will he take at any given time
? Will he prefer the hearth-rug or the milk ?
In the succession of ideas, what is the nature of
that internal mood which determines that one idea rather than another shall
be appropriated, shall be raised to the throne in our minds, in the succession
that takes place there ? Why should it not be some other idea, which is quite
as closely associated with the original one ?
Let me put the problem in another way. Suppose I
am [Page 97] sitting
at my desk in the center of my room when suddenly all the four doors open at
once, and with the precision of the cuckoo from an old cottage clock my friends
Smith, Brown, Jones and Robinson enter and exclaim with one voice: "Ah, Wood,
I want to consult you about something!"
Which will first claim my surprised attention ? This
will certainly depend upon something. It will depend upon the mood of my mind.
The only other thing which could determine it would be some unusual peculiarity
in attire or gesture, which we are not supposing to be present. If Brown were
dressed as a Turk he would claim first attention; but in the absence of any
such startling or abnormal thing, nothing but the mood of the mind at the moment
could determine which selection the attention would make.
Again, suppose that I am engaged in the work of putting
a book through the press, and someone comes to the door and calls out: "Proofs!" I
have visions of printed sheets and the drudgery of correcting them. If I am
engaged in studying a scientific problem, the same sound will immediately awaken
a totally different set of ideas. Here it is clear that the difference which
determines the sequence lies in the mind, not in the outside world.
Similarly, if Mr. Lincoln Inn, the eminent barrister,
is in London, and someone utters in his hearing the word "bag," he at once
thinks of briefs and all the paraphernalia of his profession; but if it is
the vacation and he is engaged in his favorite sport of shooting upon the Scottish
moors, the word at once brings before him gratifying visions of forlorn-looking
birds tied by the legs, and pleasant recollections of his skill and prowess
and past triumphs on the field of sport.
At different times different moods — purposes,
habits, and interests—dominate our minds, and it is the mood which is
the cause that one idea rather than another should be selected from the many
that surround every thought and object. As a powerful magnet polarizes soft
iron within a [Page
98] considerable area, not only in immediate proximity, so does
the temporary or permanent mood polarize each incoming idea as soon as it approaches
the outermost sphere of the field of attention.
Most of us are familiar with the schoolboy experiment
with a test-tube loosely filled with iron filings. We corked it and laid it
flat upon the table, and as we passed a magnet slowly over it we watched the
filings rise and turn over and lay themselves all in the same direction, so
that they became a lot of little magnets all acting together. And we then found
by experiment that the tube of filings had become a magnet.
At first the filings lay higgledy-piggledy; even
if they had then been magnets the influence of one would have neutralized that
of its neighbour, because of their different directions ; but now that they
lie in line they act together as a magnet, influencing all soft iron that is
brought near to them.
So also if your thoughts lie higgledy-piggledy in
the mind, pointing in all directions, their effects will destroy one another.
If you want to know the present condition of your mind, observe the nature
of your thoughts when you are not deliberately thinking of something definite—they
form the background of the mind, and it is possible that they may be a confused
and sorry crowd. If we desire success in any particular pursuit, we had better
polarize those thoughts.
We can now understand that success in the pursuit
of any aim may be promoted by our establishing a permanent mood in its direction.
When this is done, even the most trifling or the most adverse events will fall
into line and prove of service to us in the gaining of our end. The will controls
thought. It can form a mood covering a period of time or a specific enterprise.
If you would like to undertake a little experiment
in keeping a mood through a series of ideas try the following —
Open a book at random, and note the first noun that
catches your eye; this idea will be your starting-point. Next [Page
99] open it at a different page, and again take the first noun;
this will be your goal. You are interested in reaching that goal. It determines
your mood for the time being. Then think consecutively from the starting-point
to the goal.
For example, I have turned up "law," then "portal";
I must think away from "law," keeping "portal" in view until I reach it. This
proves to be an easy matter, for I think of a certain law court that I know,
which has a strikingly gloomy entrance.
A second case: "cloak" and "bottle." Again it is
easy because my wife has a bottle-green rain-coat.
A third case: "turmoil" and "wall"; I might think
of many things in connection with turmoil, but under the present conditions
I find myself thinking of a medieval battle against the wall of an old fort
near which is a college where I served as Principal for some years.
These exercises will help you to realize how a mood imposed by the will actually
works, and will assist you to impose one permanently or temporarily on the mind
at any time, so that your life may be concentrated on a definite purpose. In
addition to its general purpose in life, you will find this power to impose moods
very useful as enabling you to turn rapidly and effectively from one piece of
work to another.[Page
100]
CHAPTER 15
EXPANSION
OF IDEAS
IN Chapter
III we have studied how to develop concentration by thinking of many things
connected with a chosen object, taking care at the same time not to lose
sight of it. For that purpose we made use of the four Roads of Thought.
Now I propose
to the student a very similar experiment for the purpose of expanding ideas,
so that he may be able to do his best thinking about any object.
Select
your object, let us say "house," and proceed to clothe it with all its directly
connected ideas. The result may be somewhat as follows, but should be much
fuller, as there is not room here for a complete picture.
HOUSE
Road
I. A. Abode, dwelling, domicile, residence, habitation, address,
lodging.
B.
Cottage, mansion, cabin, shed, hut, hovel, tent, shanty, barrack, palace,
castle, kennel, sty, pen, nest, hive, wigwam, hutch, villa, lodge, hotel,
inn, bungalow.
G.
Prison.
Road
II. A. Room, hearth, floor, wall, door, roof, foundation, brick,
mortar, tile.
Village,
town, farm, camp, park, block, row, square, street, road, terrace.
B.
Warehouse, shop, factory, field, orchard, garden, barn.
Road
III. A. Large, small, comfortable, ugly, beautiful, new, old, Elizabethan,
Georgian, Colonial, modern, stone, brick, wood, concrete, country, town.
B.
Museum, school, factory, workshop, store, church, temple. [Page
101]
Road
IV. A. Furniture, crockery, fire, water, electricity, gas, bath,
architect, builder. Also houses you have known or particularly noticed.
B.
Comfort, safety, health, companionship, cleaning.
As another
example I will take an abstract subject —
PEACE
Road I.
A. Virtue.
B. Harmony, concord, friendship, calm, agreement, sympathy.
C. War, enmity.
Road II.
A. Good citizenship, worthiness, holiness.
B. Industry, devotion, perseverance, altruism.
Road III.
A. Fraternity, friendliness, tranquillity.
B. Sympathy, game, agreement, arbitration, good-humor, co-operation.
Road IV.
A. Pipe, treaty, League of Nations, ploughshare, pastoral scene, pacifism.
B, Safety, commerce, progress, armistice, truce.
It will
be noticed that some of the above lines of thought have two subdivisions.
In IV B, for example, we have to consider what peace leads to, and
what leads to peace.
In actual
experiment along these lines the student will find that he has to do much
thinking. He will ponder a moment to consider how peace is a virtue. He will
consider whether a factory is part of the same whole along with a house,
or is another object having the same quality as a house; he will probably
finally agree with me that it is both — for they are often co-parts
of a town or village, and they also have an outstanding quality in common,
the character of being shelters from the sun, wind or rain. Some may consider
that I am wrong in putting prison in contrast to house, and that I should
have put "the out-of-doors," and that I am wrong in including such [Page
102] things as hive, nest and kennel in objects belonging to
the same class. Perhaps I am wrong in those cases, but the student must agree
that this exercise gives a good training in the art of thinking. To do it
you are compelled to think.[Page
105]
CHAPTER
16
NUMBER ARGUMENTS AND
DIAGRAMS
NEARLY
all persons find it difficult to remember numbers, because these do not in
themselves represent objects evident to the senses and therefore material
for imagination. We can easily imagine two gate posts, three sides of a triangle,
six surfaces of a cube, but when we go beyond this it becomes increasingly
difficult to imagine the quantities of even quite definite things. It is
still more difficult to picture the numbers representing quantities of units
of measure.
A teacher
may "feel" that there are thirty-five or forty boys in his class by seeing
them in complete or broken groups, but of things such as the number of feet
in a mile, or the square root of a number, only a specially constituted mind
could form the slightest image. Numbers in themselves are meaningless in
the imagination.
Notwithstanding
this abstract character of numbers, they have some distinguishable features
in their relationships to one another. It is therefore possible to develop
a greatly improved memory of numbers by studying these features, so as to
acquire familiarity with their distinctions.
To a very
little child a cat and a dog are not at first clearly different kinds of
things, but later it observes their points of difference and recognizes them
easily — no longer as indistinguishable twins. When non-Asiatic persons
first go to Japan or India, they often say that the Japanese or the Hindu
people are all alike. Frequently they find themselves in the embarrassing
position of not being able to distinguish those to whom they have been introduced
a day or two before. But later on they have no such difficulty. At first
the general color and formation of face dominated the mind, and only after
it had become quite used to these features did it begin [Page
106] to discriminate the minor differences. In time, indeed,
the new resident forgets the brown colour and does not notice it at all.
Similarly
do we appreciate the facial merits of our loved relatives, who may be homely
or even repulsive to others. To add another example; it has often been remarked
that a shepherd recognizes by their features the members of his flock, which
look alike to ordinary persons.
Most people
have not developed a sense of the relations between numbers, and have not
practised thinking about them — hence their inability to recognize
and remember them. When this faculty of the mind has been developed by practice
of number arguments, the numbers will become familiar realities with strong
features of their own, and will be remembered with comparative ease.
Let us
suppose that you want to remember your new telephone number, which is 8715.
Write the number down, look at it, and do all the reasoning that you can
about it, on the following lines: the first number is even and it is the
biggest; the other three are odd, and of those three the biggest comes first
and is one less than the even number; the middle odd number is the smallest
possible; if you add the last two you have a descending series from 8; the
addition of the two middle numbers equals the first — and so on.
It is a
great help in the remembering of long numbers to divide them into groups,
in much the same way as long words are divided into syllables. The present
number conveniently breaks into 8 and 715.
Looking
over the balcony where I am writing this paragraph I see a motor car standing
in the road—number 208457. This easily splits into two parts, 2084
and 57. The first part has only even numbers, if we may consider o in the
even series; the last part has two odd numbers, which are ascending and successive,
and follow in order (5 after 4) from the first part. The first part begins
with the smallest [Page
107] positive even number, ascends after o to the highest and
then goes on to half that or double the first — and so on.
The following
happens to be the number on a certain passport: 062246. It presents the peculiarity
of being composed only of even numbers. It splits comfortably into three,
06, 22 and 46. The middle pair is easily remembered, and the other two may
be compared. Both end in 6; the first number of the last pair is the sum
of the middle pair, and the second number follows it successively; the sum
of the last pair is equal to the sum of all the rest — and so on.
There is
no group of numbers that cannot be discussed in this way. After considering
for half a minute any telephone or other number you will find it pleasantly
reclining in your mind whenever you want to remember it. The arguments will
disappear, but the number will remain, and you will probably soon find also
that your observation and memory for numbers have been greatly improved,
so that you can remember them far better than before, even without special
intention and without resort to these number arguments.
Let us
now turn to a method of remembering numbers which I have called "Number Diagrams."
Look for
a little while at the first diagram above, which is nothing more than a square
containing nine dots in the centers of the nine equal divisions into which
it is easily broken up in the imagination.
Then look
at the second diagram, and imagine that the divisions of the square have
the values of i to 9, as shown.
In the
first diagram the middle dot can be supposed to [Page
108] stand for the number 5, the dot in the lower left-hand
corner for the number 7, that in the upper right-hand corner for 3, and so
on. Thus, an imaginary square containing a dot or a little dash, as below,
will constitute a diagram for the number 6.
Two
Digits. To form a diagram for a number having two digits, simply
draw a line from the one position to the other, straight if the smaller comes
first, curved if the bigger comes first, as in the following, representing
34, 95 and 28.
Three
Digits. If the number contains three or more digits, always begin
with a straight line and end with a curved one; thus we may express 458,
242, 6138, 5736, 24691 and 759523 by.
[Page
109] If the three numbers happen to lie in a straight line,
a break in the line should be made, as will be seen in the following
diagrams of 258 and 1598:
A little
complication is introduced if two similar digits happen to come together,
but the difficulty is overcome by the device of making a little tick across
the line to indicate the second similar digit; thus, for 553, 227 and 445599
we form —
A further
complication arises in connection with the cipher. In this case insert a
little circle into the series; thus, for 20, 202 and 22005550 we have —
If the
cipher comes first in the number, detach it at the beginning if there are
only two digits, but attach [Page
110] it if there are more, as in the following, representing
02, 026 and 073.
A decimal
point may be indicated by a dot placed in that one of the nine divisions
of the square which corresponds to the position of the number before which
it is to be placed. Thus if the point is to be placed before the first digit,
it will be put in the first division, and so on, as in the following examples,
showing .423, 4.23 and 42.3.
It is a
help to make the number diagrams of a generous size in the imagination — as
big as an average picture or even a window frame.
The two
practices in this chapter lend themselves to immediate employment in practical
affairs, so no special exercises need be prescribed. [Page
111]
CHAPTER
17
NUMBER-WORDS
IN
the year 1648 Stanislaus Mirik von Wenusheim wrote a work entitled Relatio
Novissima ex Parnasso de Arte Meminiscentiae, [Parnassus” was
the name of a periodical, published at Marburg] in the course
of which he expounded what he described as "the most fertile secret". This "secret" consisted
in substituting letters for numbers and then making words and sentences from
the letters.
He appears
to have been the first mnemotechnist to employ this plan in Europe, and his
method was quickly taken up and improved by the famous G. W. Leibnitz, who
also called it a secret — "A secret how numbers, especially those of
chronology, etc., can be conveyed to the memory so as never to be forgotten."[From
a MS, in the Library of Hanover].
Dr. Richard
Grey was the first to expound the idea in English, in his Memoria Technica,
published in 1730. It cannot be said that Dr. Grey's number letters were
very satisfactory, for it was possible to make from them only uncouth words,
whereas for the benefit of mind and memory we require words naming familiar
objects or ideas.
In Dr Grey's
system I could be represented by either a or b, 2 by either d or e, 3 by
either I or t — I need not mention the rest of the equivalents. To
remember (to take only one example) that the Inquisition was first erected
against the Albigenses in the year 1222, he formed the compound word, "Inquisded" — the
first part to represent the Inquisition, and the "ded" to represent the number
222, the thousand being ignored as not being likely to be forgotten.
Gregor
von Feinaigle (1812) improved upon that clumsy system by giving number-values
only to consonants, and keeping the vowels free, so that they might be inserted
between the consonants to form well-known words. His alphabet was: I = t;
2 = n; 3 = m; 4 = r; 5 = I; 6 = d; 7 = c, k, g, q; 8 = b, h, v, w; 9 = p,
f; o = s, x, z. From these equivalents the number 812 (I take it from the
date of publication of his work, as a random example) could be represented
by words such as "button," "obtain," or "Wotan."
Other teachers
of memory systems — notably Aime Paris, Francis Fauvel Gouraud, Dr.
Edward Pick, and others more recent, worked further upon this idea of number
equivalents, introducing small improvements — mostly attempts to provide
for each number a more or less equal representation. The lower case of a
practical printer shows that certain letters are used in the English language
much more frequently than others. Those which are comparatively little used
should therefore be grouped in lots, each lot to represent one number.
I have
studied most of these systems, and as a result have formed my own, which
I believe to be a slight improvement upon even the best of any of the others.
It happened that nearly twenty-five years ago I had a long illness, and during
convalescence I had to lie down quietly for about six weeks. I took the opportunity
during that time to study the combinations of the letters in all the commonly
used words in the English dictionary.
Before
I explain the method, in which I naturally adopted all that was best in the
old systems, I must mention that the "fertile secret" was known among the
Hindus long ago. I have before me a set of number-equivalents for the Sanskrit
language given in Nilakantha's Commentary on the " Mahabharata" (Adi Parva,
end of Sarga 2). His system was called " Katapayadi.” II3
I insert
this only as a curiosity for European readers, and
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
0 |
k |
kh |
g |
gh |
ng |
ch |
chh |
j |
jh |
n |
t |
th |
d |
dh |
n |
t |
th |
d |
dh |
n |
p |
ph |
b |
bh |
m |
|
|
|
|
|
y |
r |
I |
V |
s' |
sh |
s |
h |
1 |
ksh |
so refrain
from explaining the phonetics of the Sanskrit alphabet.
One of
the uses of this system is found in a commentary on the "Ramayana," in which
the number of verses is given in mnemonic form at the ends of certain sections.
We find apparently unmeaning words ending in "mana" (a measure), such as
garamana, which would indicate the number 32. The system is also referred
to in other places, such as Vararuchi's "Kadinava" and the "Laghu Arya Siddhanta."
Now to
the system which I advocate. It springs from a study based upon a recognition
that the numbers I, 2, 3. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, o, are probably used equally
in human affairs, but the letters of the alphabet are not, and further, some
letters are rare at the beginnings or the ends of words, while others are
common.
I is to
be represented by t, or d. Thus the following words may stand for number
i: head, tea, toe, doe, hot, oat, wad, yacht, youth, thaw, etc.
2 is to be represented by n. Words for number 2: hen, knee, wain, neigh, etc.,
3 is to be represented by m. Words for number
3: yam, may, home, ma, aim, etc.
4 is to be represented by r. Words for number 4: oar, row, ray, arrow, etc.
5 is to be represented by I. Words for number 5 : hill, hall lea, yellow, etc.[Page
114]
6 is to be represented by ch, j or sh. Words for number 6: joy, wish, ash,
edge, show, chew, etc.
7 is to be represented by k, g, or ng. Words for number 7: cow, hag, egg, hang,
ache, etc.
8 is to be represented by f or v. Words for number 8: foe, vow, half, wave,
fee, etc.
9 is to be represented by p or b. Words for number 9 : ape, bee, hope, web,
abbé hub, etc.
0 is to be represented by s or z. Words for number 10: hose, saw, haze, zoo,
ass, etc.
The letters
h, w and y, and the vowels, have no number-values in our method, but may
be used for word-making wherever convenient. Only the sound of words (not
the spelling) is considered, and double letters are always used as though
single, as in "yellow."
It is very
easy with these number-letters to find a great variety of words representing
numbers from I to 100: in many cases, such as 10, 14, 15, 41, 50, 51, 57,
70, 85, 90, 91, 94, 95, 97, one can readily write down about forty words
for each number.
When we
come to numbers between 100 and 1000, it is a little more difficult, and
the student will find that, while he can readily write down several words
for most of the numbers there will be over two hundred out of the nine hundred
numbers which will give him pause.
If we choose
the number 742 for example, we may readily form corn, crane, green, carrion,
grain, acorn, cairn, etc. For 945 we easily discover April, pearl, prowl,
broil, parole, peril, parley, barley, barrel, apparel, beryl, brawl, etc.
For 114 we readily find daughter, editor, theatre, debtor, auditor, tutor,
tooter, dater, etc.
But the
following numbers, among others, present difficulties: 993, 963, 896, 699,
598, 599, 568, 525,. 499, 418, 353. 135.
To overcome
these difficulties I suggest the following [Page
115] plan: use an adjective and a noun together, and count
only the first consonant sound of the adjective. We can then form, for the
above numbers, epic poem, prowling puma (993); pure jam, precious gem (963);
flowery bush, full page (896); shy baby, cherry-wood pipe (699); lean beef,
light puff (598); lively puppy, lead pipe (599); Highland chief, yellow sheaf
(568); long nail, lower Nile (525); restless baby, ruling pope (499); running
thief, rapid dive (418); meek lamb, mortared lime (353); daily mail, hot
meal (135).
It is necessary
in all such cases to make a very lively image to represent the adjective.
Vague and general adjectives, such as nice, good, bad, pleasant, etc., are
to be strictly avoided.
Students
do not nowadays need to remember long lists of dates in history and of numbers
in science and mathematics, as was formerly the case, so numbers of more
than three digits are rarely needed. In history, one needs only three digits
for dates, as the thousands may easily be remembered without any special
attention being given to them.
When we
have settled that we do not want more than three digits in one word, we may,
if we wish, employ the method of counting only the first three consonant
sounds in a long word, or if we use an adjective, the first sound in the
adjective and the first two in the noun.
We may
then form number-words such as the following: flowing river (848); boomerang
(934); book-case (977); wild elephant (558); blue lotus (951); young pigeon (796).
The number-words,
when formed, can be associated without difficulty in all the ways that I
have already indicated, and from them the numbers can readily be drawn.
The following
will serve as a little exercise for the student. Convert these numbers into
a sentence by first finding as [Page
116] many words as you can for each: 2, 3175, 174—I,
1953. 2, 65I, 51—0, 64I5, I, 9, 21410I, 9, I, 45, 756, 8, 80620, 21,
I, 45, 756, 8, 04620. I0, 0I95632I, 0I0, 2, 0I2I4I,14,I7I40, 67, I, 09650,
2, I, 74, 8, 65I42.
The key
to the above sentence is: "A new medical degree — the Diploma in Child
Health — is shortly to be introduced by the Royal College of Physicians
and the Royal College of Surgeons. Its establishment sets a new standard
for doctors wishing to specialize in the care of children."
In the
last chapter I gave a telephone number, 87I5, a motor-car number, 208457,
and a passport number, 062246. If we wish to remember these by the number-word
method we could form "full kettle," "unsafe rowlock,"and"such inane rush" respectively.
In this case we must remember that we are using the adjectives in full in
reference to the two larger numbers.
Now let
us suppose that the telephone, the motor car and the passport belong respectively
to a Mr. Smith, a Mr. Brown and a Mr. Robinson; we can connect the numbers
with those persons by: full kettle — repair to kettle — tinsmith — Smith;
unsafe rowlock — boat — drown — Brown ;such inane rush — danger — robbery — Robinson.
If they
are your own telephone, motor car and passport you may remember them by:
full kettle—bubbling sound — ringing sound — telephone;
unsafe rowlock — boat — conveyance — motor car; such inane
rush — travel — passport. The student may perhaps improve upon
these associations; I have given the first that came into my head.
A man with
a good memory for numbers, and thoroughly familiar with their manipulation,
might be able, with some effort, to remember a dozen or twenty digits once
read out to him; but it would be indeed difficult to find a man who could
remember, say, a thousand numbers in that way, though the task of doing so
by our method of substitution is simplicity itself [ Page
117] There are several ways of arranging the digits in a very
long number. The method I recommend is that of taking them in groups of three
and then finding number-words for them.
I will
take at random — 92I8403657I92836057I2823701562394. For this I may
form the following series of words: bind, freeze, marine shell, cool dip,
new vim, chisel, cotton, venom, ghost, legion, empire. These words are almost
the first that occur to me, and are by no means necessarily the best. I use
them to show what can be done off-hand, though it is better generally to
go over the numbers and choose the words more carefully when there is time.
The next
step is to link the words by intermediaries, where necessary, as, bind (fix)
freeze (water) marine shell (sea) cool dip (nudity) new vim (keen, tool)
chisel (shavings, soft, cotton-wool) cotton (cotton-thread, stringy, snake)
venom (fear) ghost (dead, dead warriors) legion (Roman legion) empire.
Another
method of making number-words was "discovered" by M. Gouraud, and expounded
in his Phreno-Mnemotechny, published in New York and London in I845.
He called it "number metamorphosis."
His metamorphoses
were made through similarity of sound. The name of some object of sense was
substituted for the name of the number, thus: for the figure zero, hero;
for the number one, a wand; for the number two, a tooth; for three, a tree;
for four, a fort; and so on.
These metamorphosed
words or "homophones" were used as "pegs" on which to hang nine or ten numbers
each, while the ten numbers were formed into a sentence on the principle
of number-words.
M. Gouraud
showed how to apply this method to keeping in mind the ratio of the circumference
to the diameter of a circle to the extent of I54 decimals, a feat which he
performed by learning sixteen simple sentences.[Page
118]
The first
nine numbers are 3 I 4 I 5 9 2 6 5, for which he formed the ridiculous sentence: "My
deary dolly, be no chilly." This, the first set, is the "hero" set, and was
linked with that word by the supposition that a hero was uttering the sentence.
The sentences
are difficult to make, and the linking is decidedly primitive, but apart
from these elements, the scheme of metamorphosed key-numbers proves very
useful.
It may,
for example, be used as providing starting-points for a series of our number-words,
which may very readily be linked on to it. We may choose thirty numbers,
as before, 92I8403657, I92836057I, 282370I562, and remember them in three
sets of ten, each preceded by one of the key-words. The digits from the first
to the tenth will be under the aegis of "hero," the eleventh to the twentieth
under "wand," and so on. Thus for the foregoing numbers we may make three
sets: hero, bone, devour, smash, leg; wand, tap, knife, images,
locket; tooth, hen, fan, hammock, stall, chain. These could be connected,
where it is necessary, by (mighty dead), (hungry dog), (crunch), (brokenleg);
(blow), (cut), (gleaming and mirror), (portrait); (beak), (feather), (swing),
(rest), (rope).
This method
facilitates the location of the digits, and enables one to pick out a number
required, without the trouble of counting along the whole series.
A third
plan, which I prefer to M. Gouraud's, is to select number-words for key-words,
instead of homophones; for example, instead of hero, use ice, sea, saw, ass,
sow, sue, ease, essay, hose, house, or any other zero word; instead of wand
use tea, tie, add, oat, toe, height, youth, or any other word standing for
the number one. In this case it is easy to find a word suited to the series
which it is required to begin.
It will
now be seen that the task of remembering dates is a very easy one. All that
needs to be done is to take the last three digits of the date, form a word
from them, and connect [Page
119] this in turn with the idea of the event by our link method.
There are,
of course, other devices useful to students, such as that of making charts
of centuries, divided into squares for each year or ten years, and fixing
small symbols in each square to represent the happenings of the period.
I will
content myself with one or two examples of the link method: Queen Boadicea
raised an army against the Romans and killed 7000 of them, in the year A.D.
67—check. King Arthur, famous for his powerful resistance and victories
over the Saxons, A.D. 5I4 — leader. Queen Elizabeth ascended the English
throne, I558 — fond of praise — lady-love. Germany annexed Austria,
I938, bold move. Transatlantic air mail began, I939, air — air-pump — pump. [Page
120]
CHAPTER
18
PLACING
THE MEMORY
IN a previous
chapter I have mentioned that the Greek poet Simonides had the idea of symbolizing
complex or abstract ideas so as to remember them easily. The examples I took
were from a hypothetical discourse in which government, financial matters
and naval affairs and the necessity for wisdom in the policy of the time,
would be represented respectively by a crown or scepter, a current coin,
the image of a ship, and the figure of Minerva.
We are
also indebted to him for the idea of using places or positions in which to
put ideas for safe-keeping in the mind, much as we put papers in pigeon-holes
or files.
Suppose
that we provide our places in a house which is quite familiar to us. Then,
if we enter our house at the front door and number all the objects we see
in turn — the doormat I, the brass step 2, a picture 3, a hatrack 4,
an umbrella stand 5, and so on — we have at once a basis for remembering
a large number of things in order.
In the
discourse above mentioned we might place the crown on the doormat, the coin
on the brass step, the ship in the picture, a statue of Minerva on the hatrack,
and so on. Thus the speaker could avoid missing any of them in the course
of his speech or debate.
The incident
which led Simonides to this mnemonic device of places is related as follows
by Cicero. I have taken it from Dr. Pick's History of Mnemonics (I866).
"A man
named Skopas, at Kranon, in Thessalia, once gave a grand dinner in honor
of a victorious gladiator. Among the guests was the poet Simonides, who,
during the repast, recited some verses he had composed in honor of the hero
of the feast. After his recitation, he was called outside, and [Page
121] had scarcely left the room, when the ceiling fell in,
crushing Skopas and all his guests. When the relatives of the killed came
to bury the remains, they found them so smashed and disfigured, that they
could not distinguish one body from another. It happened, however, that Simonides
had observed the place which each person had occupied; and on looking at
the several places, he was able to identify all the bodies. This led him
to believe that nothing could better assist the memory than to retain in
the mind certain fixed places, and therein to deposit, with the assistance
of the imagination, whatever we intend to keep in our memory."
The following
extract from Quintilian shows how the idea was used among the ancients —
"You choose
a very spacious and diversely arranged place — a large house, for instance,
divided into several apartments. You impress on the mind with care whatever
is remarkable in it; so that the mind may run through all the parts without
hesitation or delay; for the essential is not to hesitate before the objects,
as remembrances destined to help other remembrances should be more than sure.
Moreover, for recalling to mind what you have written or simply meditated,
you help yourself with any sign borrowed from the matter you have to treat
of — if the object should be one of war, navigation, or the like; or
with some word, for a word suffices to refresh the memory, as soon as it
begins to fail. If the object is navigation, the sign will be an anchor;
if it is war, it will be a weapon.
"Then you
proceed as follows: you place the first idea in the hall, the second in the
parlour, and so on with the rest, going over the windows, the chambers, to
the statues and similar objects. This done, if the object is to apply that
proceeding to the memory, you look over every apartment, beginning with the
first, and recalling at every picture the idea which was confided to it;
so that, howsoever numerous the things may be which are to be kept in mind,
they are [Page
122] put in a row, and form a sort of chain, which prevents
the confusion to which you are exposed when bound to learn by heart. You
can create for yourself imaginary places."
In another
place Quintilian said that in place of a house, which might not contain enough
things to act as pegs or places (quite possible in his day, I suppose, though
hardly likely now), we may assume a public building, the walls of a city,
or a well-known road, to divisions of which we may refer our symbols.
Metrodorus
assumed the circle of the zodiac, divided into 360 compartments of a degree
each — but that in my opinion would not provide a background of sufficiently
vivid quality. The common things of daily life, or the incidents of mythology
or history are far more vivid and facile for any but an extraordinary mind.
The process
of locating ideas (by means of symbols and otherwise) in familiar objects
underwent numerous changes in the course of the centuries that followed.
I need not detail these but will content myself with a brief description
of the adaptation made by Gregor von Feinaigle.
In this
later development an imaginary house is taken as having a number of rooms,
and each room as having fifty places, arranged in the following manner: the
floor is divided into nine equal squares, and each wall is divided similarly
into nine, with, however, a tenth in the centre above it upon the ceiling,
while another square in the centre of the ceiling makes the fiftieth square
in the room.
You enter
at one side, and find before you nine squares on the floor; then, on your
left hand is a wall with the tenth square on the ceiling above, and squares
II to I9 on the wall; in front of you a similar set from 20 to 29; on the
right another, from 30 to 39; beside you another, from 40 to 49 ; while number
50 lies above you in the middle of the ceiling.
Having
fixed your walls, it is better to take a walk round [Page
123] the room in imagination, rather than merely to stand at
the side and survey it in the manner described.
It now
remains to people the apartment, and this may be done in a variety of ways.
Von Feinaigle
used the method of similarity of form, that is, he made pictures somewhat
resembling the numbers assigned to the squares or places. On the floor of
the first room he had —
The
Tower of Babel |
A
Swan |
A
Mountain, or Parnassus |
A
Looking-Glass |
A
Throne |
The
Horn of Plenty |
A
Glass-blower |
Midas |
A
Flower, or Narcissus |
In the case of number 4, the form was really symbolical,
the looking-glass having four corners, but the other pictures were so drawn
that they very closely resembled the numbers.
I will supply a set of the first nine squares which
I think give an improvement upon von Feinaigle's selection — for I a
tower, 2 a swan, 3 a sea-horse, 4 a sailing boat, 5 a snake, 6 a monkey, 7
a trumpeter, 8 an ant, and 9 a flower. The pictures on page I24 illustrate
the idea.
It would be equally practical, at least for the smaller
numbers, to use the homophones, or similar-sound words, of Gouraud, which I
have mentioned in my previous chapter. Then the first square would be occupied
by a wand, the second by a tooth, the third by a tree, the fourth by a fort,
and so on.
A better method, in my opinion, is to form pictures
according to number-words representing the numbers. In that case we might have
in the first square a head, in the second a hen, in the third a home, in the
fourth an oar, in the fifth a hill, and so on. The advantage of this method
is [Page 124] that
it gives us a very wide choice of familiar objects from which to make at least
two rooms — that is up to a hundred.
If the student wants at short notice a set of, say,
ten
squares
or places, I suggest that he may select number-words relating to some chosen
category of things, such as:
Towns;
I Tokio, 2 New York, 3 Manchester, 4 Rio de Janeiro, 5 London, etc. For number
I0 a town beginning with s or z — Stuttgart. Here I use the first consonant
only.
Animals;
I dog, 2 hen, 3 monkey, 4 rabbit, 5 lion, etc.
Materials;
I wood, 2 enamel, 3 marble, 4 iron, 5 leather, etc.
Races;
I Tibetan, 2 Indian, 3 American, 4 Russian, 5 Liberian, etc. [Page
125]
Locomotion;
I tram-car, 2 underground railway, 3 motor car, 4 aeroplane, 5 lorry, etc.
Shops; I Thacker's, 2 Wanamaker's, 3 Marshall Field's, 4 Orr's,
5 Liberty's, etc. (I have given the names of shops well known to me;
the student will easily provide substitutes of his own.)
Clothing; I turban, 2 necktie, 3 umbrella, 4 riding suit, 5 lace,
etc.
Foods; I toffee, 2 nuts, 3 milk, 4 rice, 5 olive oil, etc.
People; I Hitler, 2 Napoleon, 3 Emerson, 4 Rembrandt, 5 Lenin,
etc. (I have given historical names, but personally-known people are
even better, as having more mnemonic detail)
I now ask
the student to notice that I have given, in "Towns," "Animals," "Materials," etc.,
number-words for I, 2, 3, etc. He is thereby provided with 90 squares, which
will serve him well for a long series, since he can use Towns for places
II to 20, Animals for places 2I to 30, and so on. To complete a full "house " of
a hundred squares he can make an extra series of I to 10, composed of, say,
Sounds: I thunder, 2 neighing, 3 music, 4 rattle, 5 laughter etc.
I consider
this last method of mine about the best of all — easiest to commit
to memory, and allowing for a selection of very familiar objects. Let the
student make up his own ten sets of varied familiar objects on these lines,
and he will be well equipped to perform what most people will regard as wonderful
feats of memory.
Whatever
he decides upon he will do well to make a set of little drawings for himself;
however rough or crude they may be they will aid his imagination greatly.
It is necessary
to commit the chosen set of places thoroughly to memory, but the task is
an easy one, because the objects either resemble the numbers they represent
or are number-words.
Another
plan for making a set of 25 squares on the spur [Page
126] of the moment is to follow the letters of the alphabet
(omitting x) with reference to some category such as animals, or countries
or occupations. Thus we might form the series: Architect, Butler, Carpenter,
Doctor, Elephant-trainer, Farmer, Goldsmith, Harbour-master, Ink-maker, Journalist,
Kitchen-maid . . . Veterinary surgeon, Watchman, Yachtsman, Zoologist.
The advantage
of the picture-system over that of merely linking together a long string
of things is that you can at once pick out any one of the things you want
from it without disarranging the series, and without having to repeat the
whole series from the beginning. Its disadvantage is that more ideas are
imposed upon the mind than are necessary for understanding the things to
be remembered. Yet that disadvantage is small, and the system does enable
one to do some things that would be impossible by the link method. With its
aid some astonishing memory feats can be performed.
Some such
system as this was almost universally employed by those who from time to
time appeared in Middle Age Europe performing memory feats consisting of
repeating vast numbers of words and numbers once read out to them. One of
the most striking examples of this use of the art was a certain Lambert Schenckel,
who travelled over the chief countries in Europe in the sixteenth century,
and won honour and praise everywhere, though in his earlier years he, like
many others, was persecuted for supposed traffic with the devil. A pupil
of his, Sommer, writes in a Latin treatise —
"A lawyer,
who has a hundred or more causes to conduct, by the assistance of my mnemonics
may stamp them so strongly on his memory that he will know in what manner
to answer each client, in any order and at any hour, with as much precision
as if he had but just perused his brief. And in pleading, he will not only
have the evidence and reasonings of his own party at his finger's ends, but
all the grounds [Page
127] and refutations of his antagonist also. Let a man go into
a library, and read one book after another, yet he shall be able to write
down all that he has read, many days after, at home."
The student
will understand, from my previous chapters, how to associate the objects
to be remembered with the places to which they are assigned. Suppose that
in the I7th place we want to remember an ostrich. Let my I7th place be a
town beginning with k, g, or ng, say Kiel. I do not like the old idea of
making a picture of an ostrich crossing the Kiel canal. If I make a rational
association and concentrate on it for a moment, I can drop it out of mind
with full confidence that it will come to light again as soon as I think
of Kiel. Such a connection might be: ostrich — sand — water — canal — Kiel.[Page
128]
CHAPTER
19
MEMORY-
MEN OF INDIA
INDIA has
always been a land of wonders, among which the memory feats of the Ashtavadhanis have
long been conspicuous. An article in The Theosophist magazine
for I886 reports an occasion on which a memory expert of South India simultaneously
kept in mind and did the following eleven things and afterwards correctly
repeated the whole.
I. Played a game of chess, without seeing the board.
2. Carried on a conversation upon various subjects.
3. Completed a Sanskrit verse from the first line
given him.
4 Multiplied five figures by a multiplier of four
figures.
5. Added a sum of three columns, each of eight rows
of figures.
6. Committed to memory a Sanskrit verse of sixteen
words — the words being given to him out of their order, and at the option
of the tester.
7. Completed a "magic square" in which the separate,
sums ufthe several squares added up to a total named, whether tried horizontally
or vertically.
8. Without seeing the chess-board directed the movement
of a knight so that it should make the circuit of the board within the outline
of a horse traced on it, and enter no other squares than those.
9. Completed a second "magic square" with a different
number from that in the above named.
10. Kept count of the strokes of a bell rung by a
gentleman present.
11. Committed to memory two sentences of Spanish,
given on the same system as No. 6.
The writer of the article, Colonel H. S. Olcott,
went on [Page
129] to say that he had heard of men who could take in fifty
things in this way, arid in one case, when he was living in Bombay, there was
an exhibition in the house of a Hindu gentleman of high position in which the
pandit remembered no less than one hundred things given to him at the one sitting.
The Colonel believed, however, that twenty-four was about the maximum of new
items that could be retained and the remainder must have been already known
to the pandit.
This estimate was certainly too low, but the author
was correct when he added, with reference to the method of memorizing, that
the memory-men have acquired the power of creating in the mind for each of
the several things they do a separate mnemonic point or thought-centre, around
which they force the ideas relating to it to cluster and group themselves.
The "places" which I have described in the preceding
chapter constitute such mnemonic points.
In an exhibition which I had the pleasure of witnessing
in the State of Morvi in Kathiawar, the expert, Mr. Nathuram P. Shukla, remembered
a hundred items. There was a large gathering of people, seated on carpets in
a big hall. Twenty people were selected and seated directly in front of the
pandit. He attended to each of the twenty people in turn, and went along the
line five times.
Several gave him sentences composed of five words,
each person using a different language — Gujarati, English, Sanskrit,
Persian, Hindi, Mahratti, French and Latin — and the words were given
out of order. One sitter gave moves in a game of chess. Two others gave figures
to be multiplied and added together. Another carried on little conversations
with the pandit on various topics. Another struck a little bell a number of
times on each round. There were calculations of dates, completion of short
poems and other items.
After the hundred points had been made the pandit [Page
130] meditated for a little while, then answered questions
relating to the items, and finally repeated the whole.
Later I had the good fortune to meet this expert
in the State of Limbdi. We spent much time together during my stay there, and
he was good enough to explain to me some of the methods of memory culture in
vogue in his profession.
Though I am writing this book for the benefit of
students, and others who want to improve their minds and memories in general,
not for spectacular purposes, the reader who cares to do so may comparatively
easily perform many of the feats of Ashtavadhana with the aid of the
methods prescribed in this book, and a reasonable amount of practice. The training
should be gradual, and one must be particular about cleanliness of life and
thought, and general calmness of mind. Otherwise there is real danger of overstrain.
I do not recommend people beyond middle age to attempt these feats.
I will explain how some of the feats can be done.
The student will easily arrange the others for himself.
First of all have in mind I00 places. I will assume
that you have adopted my system of Sounds, Towns, Animals, Materials, Races,
Locomotion, Shops, Clothing, Foods and People, as given in the last chapter,
and that you know your "places" thoroughly.
You have twenty people sitting before you, and you
will attend to each of them five times. You first assign five of your places
to each.
Let us suppose that the third man is to give you
a sentence consisting of five words in English. His squares will be the first
five towns: Tokio, New York, Manchester, Rio de Janeiro and London. He says: " My
third word is ' looks '." You can make a picture of a man looking afar, perhaps
shading his eyes with his hand, or perhaps a picture of a person looking into
a microscope. The connection of this with Manchester would be easy for me,
for it was in [Page
131] Manchester that I studied geology and examined many rock-sections
and other things under the microscope. On the next round our third gentleman
says, "My fifth word is ' pretty'." A pretty lady would do for my picture.
London in my experience has been largely Oxford Street and Regent Street, where
the ladies buy their pretty things. Next, Mr. 3 says, " My second word is 'garden'." You
must associate this with New York. I would think of the roof gardens on some
of the tall buildings of New York, which are already familiar to me. On the
next round, "My fourth word is 'very'." Now "very" alone has no sense, so I
must think of a similar word — verre, the French word for glass, jumps
up in my mind. This must be connected with Rio de Janeiro. On one of my visits
to that town I stayed in an hotel which had a huge plate-glass window. Now
the fifth round: "My first word is 'my'." Again a meaningless word; turn it
into microphone or mica. To join microphone with Tokio, I would picture myself
as I once gave a lecture there—not, however, using the microphone that
time. Your connections, and your towns, perhaps, would be quite different from
mine.
At this stage in the proceedings you still have no
idea of. the sentence. You have not tried to remember the first round while
going on the second round. Each time that you have associated an object with
your town you have immediately forgotten it and thought no more about it — this
is imperative. Only at the end of the experiment, when you have received
the entire one hundred items, and you are asked to state them, you will run
over your towns, Tokio, etc., and will easily bring out, " My garden looks
very pretty."
In other languages you will follow the same procedure.
If it is a language that you do not know, you will have to treat the words
as mere sounds, and find [Page
132] homophones — known words having similar sounds — for
all the five.
Let us suppose that the ninth man gives you a number,
of fifteen digits, divided into sets of three. His "places" will be the first
five Races: Tibetan, Indian, American, Russian, Liberian.
On the first round perhaps he says, "My fourth set
is 364." You might at once translate this into 'major,' and then connect: Russia — Red
army — major. On his second round Mr. 9 may say: "My second set is 589." Not
seeing immediately an English word to my liking to represent this, I think
of 'lavabo,' which is concerned with washing. I connect this with my memory
of the frequent bathing of the people of South India, which struck me very
forcibly on my first arrival there. And so on. At the end you will reel off
the fifteen numbers without difficulty.
Now I will suppose that one of the people sets you
the task of multiplying five figures by four, let us say 47352 X 9463. For
the act of multiplication time must be allowed afterwards, because during the
giving of the items you will receive only the figures, in five sets, 47, 3,
52, 94, and 63. The giver may say, for example, "The last two numbers of my
multiplier are 63," and so on. You will set down perhaps "gem" in his fifth
place.
How will you do the multiplication ? There are several
methods. I was taught that of the Hindi "Iluvati," as follows. First multiply
52 by 63 (52 X 60 = 3I20; add 52x3 = I56; total 3276). Remember and set aside
the 76 (coach, or cash, or cage), and remember 32 (moon) to carry forward.
Next multiply 3 by 63 and add the 32 (I89 + 32 = 22I). Remember and set aside
the I (tea) and remember 22 (onion) to carry forward. Thirdly, multiply 47
by 63 (47 x 60 = 2820; add 47 X 3 = I4I; total 296I) and add the 22, making
2983. So now you have 2983I76 — in words: [Page
133] nap, fume, tea and cash. Remember these four words, and
forget everything else.
Now you may proceed to the second part of your task.
47352 is to be multiplied by 94 in the same way (52 X 90 = 4680; add 52 X 4
= 208; total 4888). Set aside 88 (viva-waving flags, etc.), carry 48 (roof).
Secondly, multiply 3 by 94, and add "roof" (282 + 48 = 330). Set aside o (sea),
and carry 33 (mamma). Thirdly, multiply 47 by 94 (47 x 90 = 4230; 47 x 4 =
188; total 4418; plus 33 = 445I). In this second part you have 445I088—in
words: roar, foot, sea, viva. Remember the four words and forget the rest.
Now to add nap — fume — tea — cash
to roar, foot, sea, viva. But cash and roar lie outside, as the second multiplication
(94 x 47352) was in hundreds. So you add nap — fume — tea (2983I)
to foot — sea — viva (5I088) and obtain 809I9 — in words:
face — bee — tub. So your result is "roar — face — bee — tub — cash." At
the required moment you can translate this back into numbers, 44809I976. The
five words can be placed in the questioner's five 'places,' as you no longer
need his original numbers.
Some may prefer to follow the ordinary European mode
of multiplication. If so, they had better prepare a special "room" for this
task. I can explain it best by a diagram — as on page I34 — which
must have three places across and five down. I will assume that the fifteen
places are made of Occupations.
On looking through the five "places" of the man who
has given you a multiplication to do you will find, let us say, rock — home — lion — bear — gem.
This tells you that you have to multiply 47352 by 9463. The working then is
given in the table on page I34.
So the answer is: Furore — tubs — shy
cub, the words being read backwards in this case, because the working
is from right to left.
A third, method of multiplication suitable for those
who
Architect |
Butler
|
Carpenter
|
|
|
|
1 |
4 |
2 |
0 |
5 |
6 |
|
Narada
|
Jewels
|
|
Doctor |
Elephant-trainer |
Farmer |
|
|
2 |
8 |
4 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
|
noses
|
turf
|
scent
|
|
Goldsmith |
Harbour-master
|
ink-maker
|
|
1 |
8 |
9 |
4 |
0 |
8 |
|
|
foods |
syrup |
steel
safe |
|
Journalist |
Kitchen-maid
|
Laundress
|
4 |
2 |
6 |
1 |
6 |
8 |
|
|
|
joiner |
full
jet |
|
|
Minister |
Nurse
|
Ostler
|
4 |
4 |
8 |
0 |
9 |
1 |
9 |
7 |
6 |
furore |
tubs
|
shy cub
|
can readily visualize the original terms is shown
in the following diagram, which requires nine "places," which I will make by
number-words of games and sports for the purpose —
|
47352
X 9463
|
|
Tennis |
3x2
= 6 |
shirt |
Hunting |
3x5
=15 + 6 X 2 = 27 |
countryside |
Marbles |
3x3
+ 2= II + 6x5 = 41 + 4x2 = 49 |
bowler |
Racing |
3x7
+ 4- 25 + 6x3- 43 + 4x5 = 63 + 9X2 = 81 |
tipster |
Lacrosse |
3x4
+ 8 = 20 + 6X7 = 62 + 4x3 = 74 + 9X5 = 119 |
beat
(stick) |
Chess |
6x4
+ 17 = 36 + 4 X 7 = 63.+ 3 X 9 = 90 |
sitting |
Golf |
4x4
+ 9 = 25 + 9X7 = 88 |
fairway |
Football |
9x4
+ 8 = 44 |
rugby |
Billiards |
4 |
red
(ball) |
The answer is remembered in the words: red — rugby — fairway — sitting — beat — tipster — bowler — countryside — shirt,
representing 44809I976.
This mental
arithmetic is not difficult, but it requires practice. It is only the real
experts who include such multiplications in their round of ten or twenty
people.[Page
137]
CHAPTER
20
READING
AND STUDY
READING
can be made into an opportunity for the development of mental power. Its
effect is very often quite the reverse, for there is scarcely anything more
destructive of mind organization and the power of thought than the habit
of promiscuous reading without purpose and without afterthought or forethought.
If you
know any people who cannot read or seldom read, you may have observed that
the condition of their minds is often superior to that of reading
people. What they know they know well; their ideas are vivid, and available
when they want them — but we must offset against this advantage a great
lack of mental content.
There is
no reason, however, why we should not have perfect clearness and vigor of
mind along with ample knowledge ; and indeed this can be brought about by
reading in the right manner. We shall perhaps read a little less than we
did before, but we shall read well.
For this
purpose I recommend the advice of Emerson: " Read for correction, not for
information." In other words, think first and read afterwards. Some few people
read first and think afterwards, which is a good thing, though not the best;
but I am afraid that most people just read and do not think at all.
The rare
people who are really going to profit by their reading are those who think
first and read afterwards.
If you
have half an hour for reading, spend ten minutes in reviewing your own knowledge
and thought on the subject — even if you think you have none, you may
engage in wondering about it—and then read for twenty minutes. Or, [Page
136] if you have only a quarter of an hour to spare, think
for five minutes and read for ten.
This means
that when you pick up your book to read, let us say, a chapter on the habits
of elephants, you will not immediately open the book and plunge into the
subject. You will first sit with the book unopened on your knee or on the
table, and say to yourself: "Now, just what do I know about the habits of
elephants ? " It may be much, or little, or next to nothing, that you know,
but whatever it is you must make yourself review your own knowledge before
you start to add to it. Then you may open your book and begin to read, and
the result will be that you will understand more than usual; and you will
remember more than usual, indeed, nearly all, of what you read.
Your mind
has been awakened to the subject; its own knowledge has been rearranged in
an orderly form, and many questions, definite and indefinite, have come into
view. The expectancy engendered by thinking before reading provides the mind
with hooks to take up many points which otherwise would scarcely be noticed,
and the arrangement of your old knowledge offers a place into which each
piece of new knowledge will fit.
This practice
puts the mental house in order, opens up and tidies the most unused drawers
and boxes, and prepares the mind for light, as no other kind of reading can.
First of all you have ideas of your own — then you correct, enlarge
and increase them by reading. You gain not only knowledge and a well-ordered
mind, but also exercise that results in power of mind and will.
Even if
you are merely reading a story or a novel, why not sit for a while musing
on the situation that has arisen ? What would you do if you were in the position
indicated, what would you make the characters do if you were the author ?
This mode
of reading has also another great merit; it [Page
139] prepares one for a fruitful old age. Everyone who wants
to keep his mental powers unimpaired after the decline of the physical senses
should have a mental hobby, and give a little time to it from three to five
days each week — not every day, for that tends to fatigue.
It is best
always to have on hand a good book, on philosophy, or history, or travel,
or science or any other subject, to which one can turn several times a week
for mental recreation. There should be no thought of reaching the end of
the book; it is to be lived with, and the method of reading it should be
that in which one thinks first and reads afterwards.
I recommend
every young man or woman when leaving college or high school to keep up one
of his subjects of study as a mental hobby, or to take up some other subject
in which he is interested. It does not matter what the subject is — a
branch of mathematics, history, biology, geology, psychology, moral philosophy,
economics, political science, astronomy, chemistry, religion, art; any one
of these, or-any branch of one of them.
The most
important fact in connection with this study is that the student will be
using his mind under the control of the will, that is to say, by determination
from within, not merely in response to the stimulus of everyday events and
needs, as is the case when we think about most of the affairs of life.
If a man
has been thinking only in response to external stimuli, it is almost certain
that when the physical powers of hearing, sight, etc., begin to decline and
external things do not make as strong claims on attention as they did before,
and curiosity begins to disappear, mental activity will also diminish.
But when
a man has used his mind from within, has accustomed it to work under the
impulse of his own will, there is no reason why his mental powers should
not continue to improve even into advanced old age of the body.[Page
140]
There are still other benefits resulting from the possession of a mental hobby.
You have sooner or later the satisfaction of feeling that you are the master
of some line of thought or subject of human knowledge. You know as much as
almost anyone does about it. This gives you confidence, and you feel also the
strength and the indescribable happiness of the inner sense of will.
For the purpose of these considerations I may divide
books and articles into three classes: (I) novels and stories, intended for
relaxation and for imaginative enjoyment, (2) books of travel, biography, history,
literature, politics, and human subjects generally, intended to instruct or
elevate, and (3) textbooks and technical works, intended to give full and exact
information in the minimum of words on the subjects treated in them.
The last class of books are not for reading, but
for study. In this case there seems to be a difference of opinion: should they
be read quickly, or slowly with meticulous attention to detail ? My answer
to this problem is: both. First read your current chapter quickly to get the
high lights, the main tendencies, the chief headings or topics. Then go over
the heading or topic again with close attention to the detail.
In our study of any complex subject, we have to deal
with such a vast mass of ideas that it is not practical to learn them seriatim.
The student who tries to give equal attention to each point as it comes up
will soon become a very dull student indeed. He will resemble a person who
in real life meeting with, let us say, a dog, will first look at its nose,
then eyes, ears, neck, shoulders, back, rump, and tail, and at last will declare
to himself with an imbecile kind of sagacity, "Ah, that is a dog." An intelligent
person will first see that it is a dog, and then study it in detail if he wants
to do so.
So our student should understand the subject and
nature of the chapter or topic he is studying, before studying it closely.
His study will then fall into groups, under definite headings. [Page
141]
When the main topics are clear let the student turn to detail.
Then very soon the apparent multiplicity of detail will disappear, as the
ideas connected with a main topic become consolidated in the mind. To a
chemist, for example, the properties and reactions of, let us say, sodium,
become one unit, just as we think of a book as a unit idea, not of the
paper, ink, cover, binding, etc., as a number of things to be individually
remembered.
At this stage the subject will seem easy; all is
simple to one who knows. I have seen students looking aghast at examination
papers such as they will have to meet in perhaps a year. With white face the
student mutters, "I shall never be able to answer." A year later, the same
student looks at the paper, and remarks loftily: "Very simple; nothing in it," and
when he becomes a teacher later on, he says: "I do not know what examination
papers are coming to in these days; in my time they used to set stingers,
but now it is all kindergarten stuff."
In practice, then, when you have sorted out your
groups or headings, or such of them as you immediately need, pick out the principal
fact in a group and make a thorough study of that, committing it to memory.
Incidentally, it would be well to review it in memory
every day for a week, for new knowledge is like young plants — they must
be watered regularly while young, until they are strong enough to stand the
slings and arrows of outrageous fortune without outside help.
As to the subsidiary facts in each block — a
mere careful reading of them with reference to the main fact will be sufficient
to impress them strongly on the mind, and if at any time you are called upon
for an account of these minor things, you will be able to recall all about
them by thinking first of the main fact which you thoroughly know, and mentally
inquiring their relation to it.
For example, in history, one would study thoroughly
the [Page 142] most
prominent monarch in each dynasty and the principal fact, event or personage
in each reign, and then link the reigns together in a series or plant them
in order in a "house"; or in chemistry one would study thoroughly chlorine
as one of the halogens, and sodium and calcium, and such typical elements,
thoroughly, and associate other members of their series with them by an after-reading
of a far less searching kind.
The secret of success in the study of complex subjects
is to take one thing at a time, get hold of it firmly, stow it away out of
sight, and pass on to the next. When the second idea is quite clear, bring
the first out again and add the two together. Never try to put more than two
together at one time, and never hurry.
Many a student fails because he will not take one
thing at a time and form a clear idea of that before passing on to the next.
I have known students to grab feverishly at a number of ideas at once, and
fail to grasp any of them clearly. Not feeling sure of one fact which they
are supposed to have learned, they try to keep an eye upon it, so to speak,
lest it should slip away while they are learning the next; and the result is
that the new idea is not properly understood or learned.
There is a little story of an Irish farm laborer
who was once sent by his master to count the pigs in the yard. After a time,
he came back scratching his head and looking sorely puzzled: "I counted ten
of them", he explained, "but there was one little fellow who ran about so fast
that I could not count him at all, at all".
It is a fact that unless we make our ideas stand
quietly, and look ever them singly, they run about so much that we cannot grasp
them clearly. It is necessary to get each new idea into a corner, from which
he cannot escape, and then examine him and watch him very carefully indeed.
If the student will not do this, he is like a person
trying [Page 143] to
run with a big armful of oranges; one falls over; he makes a desperate clutch
at it; another goes over on the other side; and soon all the oranges are rolling
on the ground.
It is best to make the new idea as simple as you
can at first, so that it may easily add itself to knowledge already existing
in your mind. In every case in which you are learning from a book it is a good
plan to simplify the sentence you are studying by taking away all the qualifying
words, making a mental picture of the essential idea, and then adding to this
image one by one all the various qualifying attributes. For example, you read
of the discovery of Lithium —
"In 1817, Arfvedson, working in Berzelius's laboratory
upon a petalite from Uto, Sweden, discovered an alkali which he found to differ
from those already known in the following particulars: (I) in the low fusing
points of the chloride and sulphate; (2) in the hygroscopic character of the
chloride, and (3) in the insolubility of the carbonate."
Simplify the idea: Arfvedson discovered an alkali.
Make a clear mental picture (not in words) of Arfvedson in the act of discovering
an alkali. Repeat the idea several times until it becomes familiar. Then add
to it the idea that the discovery took place in a laboratory. Picture the discovery
in the laboratory; add the idea that it was Berzelius's laboratory; next give
the whole idea the aspect of I8I7; the date may easily be remembered by noting
that I8 is followed by I7, which is one less. Get the whole idea clear that,
in I8I7, Arfvedson discovered an alkali in Berzelius's laboratory.
How did he make the discovery, and what exactly did
he discover ? He was working in Berzelius's laboratory in I8I7 upon a mineral
silicate named petalite from Uto, Sweden, when he discovered the alkali. Be
sure that your idea of an alkali is clear, and recall to mind familiar examples
of alkaline properties, such as those associated with sodium and potassium.
He found that it differed from the known alkalis- — study them together;
compare them carefully, noting the [Page
144] resemblances and differences. Finally repeat the whole idea
from memory, and thus slowly work through the textbook.
I have tried to show how each sentence must be worked
upon with thought, not simply read and repeated as a whole; how the
qualifying words, phrases, and sentences must first be removed and then added
again bit by bit. The aim is to transfer the form of words from the printed
page, not into a form of words in the mind, but into a living mental image
which its owner can express in any words or from any point of view he may choose.
The image may be an inner visualization, audition,
or other sense imagination of the object, or a simplified or symbolic picture.
Most students of history, I feel sure, will find it more difficult to remember: "The
period of Charles! was one of continual parliamentary, religious and martial
strife," than to make and keep a small mental picture of the handsome king,
with an excited parliamentary group on one hand and a body of Bible-carrying
Roundheads on the other.
When such picture-ideas have been made they should
be compared with each other, two at a time, in accordance with the four Roads
of Thought. Suppose, for example, that in English history we have studied the
reign of Charles I, and are familiar with it, and we now wish to study that
of James I. We may make another little picture of that authoritative monarch
sitting upon his throne surrounded by his favorites in succession, and then
go on adding details to each picture, inquiring in what respect, with reference
to the whole and to each detail, they resemble and differ from each other.
Let us take a simpler instance from elementary geography.
Suppose you are about to study the geography of India and you already know
quite well that of England. As you come to each point that is new to you, compare
it with a similar point in the geography of the country that you know well.
For example, the lower part of India is a triangle with the [Page
145] point to the south; England is also roughly a triangle,
but with the point to the north. India is bounded on the north by a long range
of mighty mountains, whereas England is bounded on the north by a very short
range of small mountains. The large rivers of both countries flow into seas
on the east and the west, but in England the rivers, like all the other natural
features, are comparatively small. On the west of India we have a projecting
nose (Kathiawar), just as Wales sticks out on the west of England.
In this manner you may proceed to compare the numbers,
sizes, shapes and positions of rivers and mountains with those you already
know; and go on to compare the political divisions of the countries, the natural
products, the general and local governments, etc., with those that are familiar
to you.
In all cases it is better not to try to compare two
unfamiliar things, but to compare the new unfamiliar fact with an old familiar
one. As I have before remarked, all learning consists in adding something that
you did not know to something that you do; nothing can suddenly heave into
your mind a new piece of knowledge which has no relation to anything that you
already know.
Merely as an exercise, one might compare a number
of large complexes in pairs, such as a forest and a park; a park and a mountain
range; mountains and the sea; the sea and the sky; a house and a factory; an
elephant and a whale; a law book and a textbook of science; a poem by Tennyson
and one by Wordsworth.
No doubt it will seem easier and quicker to many
students merely to read over and over again the portions of their textbooks
that they require, in the hope that some of the ideas they thus gain will stick
in the mind. There is some excuse for the student, who in these days is terribly
harried by a vast and varied host of teachers — each with his own coagulation
of indigestible mental bread — if he finds himself too tired to think.
Yet the fact remains that the only [Page
146] knowledge that is really retained for long is that which
has been acquired with some effort — a sudden and incisive effort of
perception, or a long, slow and deliberate pondering, of the facts or ideas.
Before closing these hints on study, I must impress
again upon the student the great importance of concentration, especially in
preparing for examinations, for just as an artist surrounds his picture with
a frame or stands his statue on a pedestal so that its beauty may be isolated
and thus more perfectly seen, so must the thinker concentrate upon his idea
to see it clearly. As that idea is a mental thing it cannot be surrounded by
a frame. There is this distinction between outside objects and things of the
mind, that the former are defined by their boundaries or outlines and the latter
by their centers. Let the student stick to his centers.
Let us suppose that a student is going to read several
pages of a textbook by himself. There are perhaps five ideas which he must
understand and make perfectly clear to himself. He begins on the first page
with idea number I, gives to it the full power of his attention, and obtains
a clear impression of it. Then he goes on to the next page, to study his second
idea. But he is a little anxious about idea number I. He feels that he must
keep half an eye upon it lest it escape from his mind and be lost. He is not
quite sure that he possesses that idea unless he can see it or feel it. The
consequence is that he cannot give full attention to idea number 2. Therefore
he does not grasp it as well as he did the first idea. It is less definite
to him, and his anxiety is therefore greater than before when he has to turn
to idea number 3. Still less power of attention can he give to idea number
4, since he is anxious about number I, very anxious about number 2, and very,
very anxious about number 3. His knowledge of idea number 5 is likely to be
vague in the extreme.
When he has finished his whole course of study his
Knowledge of the entire subject will prove to be very unequal [Page
147] and mottled. Some few things are clear to him, others are
hazy, others are invisible, and his success in the examination depends upon
his luck with the questions. Further, his knowledge is not going to be of great
use to him for deeper or more advanced studies, when in its elementary parts
it is so unequal.
This unfortunate student reminds me of another story
of an Irishman who was working on a farm, and (like him whom I have already
mentioned) was one day sent out into a yard — to catch some little pigs.
He ran after them and caught one by the tail. Holding on to that with his left
hand, he ran after another and caught it. Now holding on to two of them, he
ran after a third. It is not recorded how he finished the task. He ought, of
course, to have caught one and locked it up, then another, and so on.
That is what the student ought to do with his ideas.
Let him fully understand idea number I, and then lock it up by an act of concentration.
When he has made the idea clear to himself, let him lean back and look at it
calmly and steadily for a quarter of a minute. He can now drop the subject
while he turns to idea number 2, confident that number I will come up in his
mind when he wants it. Thus he will be able to give the same full attention
to number 2 that he first gave to number I, and so on to number 5.
Using this method of concentration, his knowledge
will be equal, and he will not forget. There is nothing like anxiety to produce
both forgetfulness and feeble-mindedness; but the experience of the value of
concentration in study soon produces confidence in its power, and grants a
new lease of life to the fatigued and worried student.
It is also a great merit of concentration that it
enables a student not only to take up and retain a new idea, but also to drop
one thing and turn to another. This ability to forget, to leave things alone
mentally when it is not the proper time to think about them, is of great value. [Page
148]
CHAPTER
21
WRITING
AND SPEECH-MAKING
I PRESUME that no one will venture to write an article
or deliver a lecture who has not studied the subject of which he intends to
treat. It is, however, well known that even when that has been done, a writer
or speaker often forgets, at the moment when he needs them, several points
and illustrations which he had intended to present in connection with his subject.
This can be avoided by the following means.
Supposing that a speaker has considered the occasion
of his article or speech, and the matter at his command, he will have selected
four or five main branches of his subject to be expounded in a predetermined
order. These branches he can summarize each in a word or two, and then "place" the
symbols of his ideas in the parts of the hall in which he intends to speak.
If he does not know the hall, he may place his headings in a familiar "house" such
as I have already described in Chapter 18I.
The next thing for him to do is to consider those
main headings or items one by one and extract from each idea all the detail
that he can, by the process of expansion of ideas given in Chapter 15. This
will prevent possible oversight of important details and also provide suggestions
for illustrations and similes of all kinds.
When this is done, two or three selected sub-headings
and illustrations may be placed under each head, each summed up in a word or
picture or symbol and these associated with the places in the "house".
In memorizing the points of a speech it is far better
to use the ancient system of "places" or "houses", than to form the sub-headings
into a list or series connected by the Roads [Page
149] of Thought. The Roads of Thought, however, should be used
jointly with the imagination for fixing the required points in their respective
places, so that when the speaker is approaching the end of one of his topics,
he has only to turn his attention for a moment to the next "place", and all
that he wished to recall will spring up before his mind.
In the course of a debate one may desire to remember
the points of an opponent's speech, with a view to referring to them, perhaps
in order, when one's own turn to speak arrives. One method is to write these
on a piece of paper and then turn to the notes one by one; but this generally
has rather an enfeebling effect. Merely to memorize them is not very satisfactory
either, for it nearly always involves a certain amount of mental preparation
of the second point while one is still speaking about the first.
A good plan is to fix your points as they occur,
in your "house", or, if you like, upon the different parts of the person with
whom you are debating. Each point can thus be fixed and left to take care of
itself, while the mind is kept free to consider other matters as they come
up. It also gives one the advantage of being able to keep one's eyes on one's
opponent throughout the whole of the debate.
What I have written with regard to speeches applies
also to a large extent to writing articles. I consider it a very good plan
to ruminate before making any notes for a forthcoming article. Sit quietly;
turn your attention to the subject; expand it with the aid of the Roads of
Thought. While you are expanding it certain items will impress you as of special
interest. Remember those. Next consider your readers — what they already
know, their point of view and their interests. You should now be ready to decide
in what order to discuss the various points of your subject. Write these down
if you like, or better, keep them in a "house" until you are ready to settle
down and write the article.
I would strongly recommend speakers and writers to
go [Page 150] over
the subject mentally several times on a number of successive days, before proceeding
to speak or write. In such rumination the mind often finds ideas, points of
view, and similes which may otherwise remain for ever unknown.
Before closing this chapter I may say a few words
about learning poetry. When you take up a verse, first understand it. Then,
in order to remember the words, it is a good plan to impress upon your mind
the first word, the principal word, and the last word of each line in turn.
Learn the first line. Repeat it to yourself. Forget it. Learn the second line.
Repeat it. Recall the first line and repeat both together. And so on.
While learning, ask questions, and answer the questions
in the words of the poem. As an example, I will take from Shakespeare's "Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark" a portion of the advice of Polonius to his son Laertes,
at the moment of his departure to a foreign country —
Neither
a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Let us
consider the last line. The principal word is "false." The subject is falsity.
To get the feel of the line, notice that the first word is "them", the last "man".
Now to
questions. Whose falsity is referred to ? Thou canst not then be false. Is
it a matter of choice ? No. Thou canst not then be false. When ? As
mentioned before, when following the advice, "To thine own self be true".
False in what way ? False to any man. Not to a particular man ? No.
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
But do
not be content with mere learning of the words. Poetry, by reason of its
beauty, tells more than its words; it calls up new life in us, to witness
truth felt as well as known.[Page
151]
CHAPTER
22
MORE
CONCENTRATION
IN view
of the great value of concentration of mind, I will now give some exercises — not
by any means to be imposed on the student, but useful perhaps as playthings
for him at odd times.
I. Sit
down in your room and look round carefully, noting all the little things
which it contains. Now close your eyes and make all those things go before
your mind in imagination, until the entire procession has passed by. If you
know an alphabet of foreign forms, such as the Devanagari, the Arabic, or
the Russian, make the letters pass one by one in procession before your imagination
until the whole series is complete. If a break occurs in the series, begin
again.
2. Take
a walk in imagination, along a familiar road or street, noticing all the
details that you can remember as you slowly pass them by; return by the same
route. If the attention wanders from the path that you have chosen for your
walk, make it come back and begin the walk over again from the beginning.
3. Pass
in imagination through some previous experience of your own. Suppose, for
example, you have risen in the morning, taken breakfast, gone to college,
listened to a lecture, worked in the library, returned to lunch, and so forth,
through all the general incidents of the daily round.
4. Select
some particular sight or sound that is present, say the ticking of the clock.
Ask yourself what is the cause of that. It is due to the swinging of the
pendulum and the movements of the spring and wheels. But what causes all
these ? Try to run back along a series of images, following the clock back
in its wanderings; see how it was placed in position, how it traveled to
where it is, where it came from, [Page
152] how its parts were put together and made, where and by
whom, how its materials were procured. Imagine all that has contributed to
make it what it is. It does not matter very much whether your imaginings
in this practice are right or wrong; the exercise will train the mind to
run through a series of coherent imaginings without missing the point.
5. Go out
for a walk in imagination, as you did before, along some familiar way, but
on coming to a selected building or scene, stop and examine it. Try to picture
it in detail. If you find that the mind begins to tug in its efforts to get
away, move about into different positions every few moments and try to picture
the scene from these different points of view. You will probably find that
you know very little of the details of the buildings or the scenes with which
you thought yourself quite familiar.
In this
exercise dwell with perfect gentleness upon the scene you are trying to recall,
as though you were trying to remember a fading dream. It is not success in
recalling that is the important thing in these exercises, but the development
of mind that comes from trying. Stop when you are tired.
6. Look
carefully at the wall of the room in which you sit; notice everything about
it, the objects that are fixed upon it or are standing against it, the form,
size and proportions of everything connected with it. Now shut your eyes
and try to picture the whole at once. You will find the image hazy and indefinite.
Imagine then various small parts of it in turn, and you will see how much
clearer these are.
Again,
picture to yourself the figure of a man. You will probably find it indefinite,
but when you look at one small portion of the image that part will become
clear while the rest will tend to disappear. If you make a hand or foot clear,
the head will vanish; if you make the head clear the lower part of the body
will have gone. Whatever may be the image that you examine in this manner,
some part of it will elude you, and when you look at one portion the [Page
153] others will grow faint or even disappear. Practice, therefore,
the following method of mind-painting.
Take a
picture of a human face. Place it before you and examine a small portion
of it, say an eye. Close your eyes and think of that portion. Repeat this
several times, until you can form it clearly. Now take another part near
to the first — say the other eye — and concentrate upon it in
the same manner. Next recall the first eye and make an image of the two together.
Now deal with the nose in the same way, separately, and then picture together
the two eyes and the nose.
Compare
your image with the original every time, and go on adding part after part
until you can imagine the whole face without great effort. In one sitting
you may succeed in reproducing only one or two features; it will take time
to complete the portrait. If you thus do even one picture perfectly, you
will find a great increase in grasp of imagination.
You will
find it a great help in making such a mental picture, to see that all the
details within it are congruous with one another. For example, you might
picture a cart drawn by two horses, but if you attempt to imagine it as being
drawn by two kangaroos you will find the matter much more difficult. It is
not possible to hold two disconnected images or ideas before the mind at
the same time, but it is possible to grasp them at onpe if the main idea
includes both at the same time, or something common to both.
I can picture
a kangaroo and a horse together by centring my attention on their common
characteristics and thinking of both as animals. I can picture a horse and
cart together because they occur together in common experience as a unit
having a single purpose. But it would be comparatively difficult to hold
together the ideas of a kangaroo and a cart. The mind would tend to run from
one to the other, losing sight of each alternately. If, however, some common
relationship were discovered and made the centre of attention [Page
154] the two ideas would readily cling together, instead of
repelling each other by their incongruity. It is useful therefore to find
the idea which makes the group really a unit, and make that the center of
your attention.
7. Select
a picture of any pleasant scene. For example, a Hindu might choose the well-known
picture of Shri Krishna in the form of a boy seated on a rock, playing a
flute, while in the background happy cows graze on the bank of a peaceful
river, beyond which a range of tree-clad hills protectively encloses the
gentle scene.
Take such
a picture; examine it carefully; close your eyes and reproduce it in imagination.
Now begin to narrow down the view, and observe how much clearer the scene
becomes as you diminish its extent. First drop the clouds and the mountains
in the background, then the trees and the river and the cows which are grazing
by it, and so on little by little until you have nothing left but the form
of the boy. Go on slowly in the same way, making the image clearer and clearer
as it grows smaller, until you have lost the rock and have only left the
upper part of the body, the head and the face.
Hold that
image for a moment, and then begin to expand it again, trying to keep the
whole as clear as the small piece to which you had contracted it, and as
you build up the entire picture again, point by point, make every effort
to retain for the complex unit the clearness which you were able to secure
in one small portion of it.
8. Place
some pleasant and familiar object, such as a small statue in front of you,
at a little distance, preferably in the middle of the room. After examining
it, close your eyes and imagine it clearly from the position where you are,
as you would look at it.
Next imagine
it from the back, not by turning it round in your imagination, but by transferring
your idea of yourself to a point on the opposite wall. Imagine yourself not
to be [Page
155] sitting where you are, but against the opposite wall,
looking at the object from the opposite side.
When you
have both images well made — from the front and the back — try
to imagine them both at once, as though you were looking at the object from
both sides at once. To do this effectively you will need to get rid of the
idea that you are facing the object from one point of view, and imagine yourself
as on both sides of it, regarding it from both directions at once.
This exercise
can be extended to the above and the below, if desired. It teaches us at
least to remember that usually we have a very limited point of view. Even
an artist — a good observer — rarely thinks of the roots of a
tree or the shape of its top, as seen from above.
9. Take
up now a simple object, such as a flower or a box of matches. Examine it;
look into the interior. Close your eyes and imagine it. Imagine that your
consciousness is at the center of the article and that you are looking at
it from within. Next, expand your consciousness gradually until you are no
longer a point in the middle of the object, but have become a large ball
with the object in the middle of yourself.
10. Select
an object which you have already used in your exercises in concentration.
This time, instead of building the picture up little by little, call it up
complete. Command it to appear. If you have used the picture of Shri Krishna,
now, with your eyes closed, look into empty space and mentally call out the
name of Shri Krishna, trying to discern the form. Suddenly the complete picture
will spring up before your mental vision, in idea or in form.
11. Make
an effort to think in images, without the use of words. Very often we feel
that we do not know a thing until we have succeeded in recalling its name
or verbal description, though its appearance and qualities may be quite familiar.
Thinking in words is thinking in symbols, and in that [Page
156] there is much danger of missing the truth, for it is easily
possible to manipulate and rearrange the symbols in a manner to which the
facts would not conform.
As an exercise
one might let the following ideas form a succession of thought forms, without
words: horse, cow, milk, moonlight, moon, sun. Picture a horse, trying not
to think of the name of it. If you now drop the picture and then call up
the image of a cow, you will ordinarily have to think the word "cow" between
the two. This is the usual process in the chain of thought: name (horse),
form (horse), name (horse), name (cow), form (cow), name (cow), name (milk),
form (milk), name (milk), and so on. In this practice however, try to leave
out the names, and let the picture undergo a continuous gradual change.
Having
pictured the horse clearly, begin to modify it. Let the contour of the back,
the slope of the neck, the shape of the body, the form of the legs and hoofs,
the tail, the setting of the head, and other details gradually change from
those of a horse to those of a cow, until the transition is complete. Then
proceed to concentrate the attention on the milk which comes from the cow,
and gradually lose sight of the parts of the cow until only the stream of
milk is seen. Make this undergo a gradual change. Thin out the liquid stream,
letting it lose its definite outline and opacity, but retaining the colour
though making it paler, and to this nebulous stream add outline and surroundings
until you have a stream of moonlight. Next trace the moonlight to the moon
in the dark sky, adding this to the picture. Pass away from the moonlight
and let your attention centre on the moon itself. Gradually change this form.
Let its outline remain but expand, and its colour change, until you have
the great golden-red ball of the rising or the setting sun.
Many may
think that these practices of concentration involve great effort, but little
result. It is not really so. Think of the efforts that you made as a child
when learning [Page
157] to write, how long it took you to gain control of your
hand and pen. That was a greater effort than this, for, however much the
mind may seem to plunge about, it is made of far more yielding and plastic
stuff than is your arm or hand, and is therefore easier to control. Indeed
it is easier to learn to control the mind than it is to learn to write. Think,
again, of the vast number of exercises a violinist will practice to render
his fingers supple, obedient, and expert. Give the same, or far less, effort
to mental training, and you will surely be delighted with the result. But
there should be no physical strain in all this — that is imperative. [Page
158]
CHAPTER
23
MEDITATION
ALTHOUGH
it does not come within the purview of the average student, it will not be
out of place for me to describe here the process of meditation, and explain
how it can be done.
The best
preliminary exercise is what has been called the daily life ledger. Spare
a little time in the morning or evening to review the experiences and doings
of the day and think about them in a gentle manner. Quite apart from the
mental exercise which it gives, this greatly rests the mind and emotions,
as it combs out the tangled threads of daily life. It also ploughs and harrows
the field, so to speak, in preparation for experience to come.
It is well
to form a habit of voluntary reflection also with reference to any matter
of current interest to you. For want of this habit the rich variety of our
modern life leaves little or no knowledge behind it in the mind, and fails
to awaken thought. Very often when subjects such as chemistry, history, and
economics are being studied, or when languages are being learnt, the student
makes very little progress. An hour's work makes little impression upon the
mind, if twenty-three hours are allowed to elapse before the subject is revised.
But in a school or college where the jargon of the students contains frequent
reference to the salient points of their studies, a kind of familiarity results,
which gives the subject a footing in the mind. The same principle applies
in the case of young people who desire to model themselves upon someone whom
they admire. Girls attend the moving pictures and sometimes fix upon one
of, the Stars as their ideal. They are full of enthusiasm while the picture
lasts and for an hour or two afterwards, but they lose the point and fail
to stamp it on their lives for want of reflection, [Page
159] Voluntary reflection not only impresses the mind in this
way, it starts the process of thought. The collection and review of ideas
or mental pictures is one thing. Thinking is another. But after a little
time thoughts will begin to come. Then the beginner may do well to cherish
them and note them down for future reflection, since they easily evade the
memory.
Further,
this meditation or voluntary reflection will prepare the way for intuition.
It need not be frequent and should not be strenuous. When others snatch up
a novel or a newspaper or seek a conversation with some one else to fill
an odd quarter of an hour, you may quietly reflect.
I do not
think systematic meditation can be well done unless it is first understood.
One must therefore consider the theory of meditation.
Meditation
begins where concentration ends. The purpose of concentration is to focus
the attention upon a small field of mental vision, so that the light of consciousness
may be as brilliant as possible; it is analogous to the fixing of a reflector
round a light, as, for example, in a searchlight. During such concentration
our awareness is at its best.
Concentration
involves contraction of the field of mental vision, but meditation involves
its expansion. In concentration you gain clear vision; in meditation you
try to keep that clear vision but extend it over a larger field and into
depths and heights of thought which you have not been able to reach clearly
before.
Even a
small mind can often do one thing well; even the animal mind can bring one
narrow virtue to a high degree of perfection, as in the case of the faithfulness
of the dog. What we require to develop is a large mind which can grasp a
great deal at once and still deal decisively with the whole.
Yet concentration
must precede expansion, lest there be diffusion and indefiniteness, instead
of increase of mental [Page
160] power. Consider this by the simile of a camera. If you
take a square box, take out the bottom and replace it with ground glass,
or unglazed paper, and make a very small hole in the lid, then stand it on
its side and look at the paper, you will see upon it an image of the object
that lies before the camera. That is because the same picture always appears
at both ends of a ray of light. Have you noticed in summer the sun shining
upon the ground through the many shaped but small interstices of thick foliage?
The spots are elliptical or round, because they are each an image of the
sun.
If you
made the hole bigger and bigger, gradually your picture would become blurred
and then disappear, because from every point of the object rays of light
go in every direction, and when you make the hole larger the spots of light
overlap and so obscure one another.
The body
of man is like the camera box, and the senses are like pin-holes or lenses
which let into his mind pictures of the objects around him. There is one
great difference, however, between the plate of the camera and the mind of
man — man has memory, by which he continues the images, and reflection,
by which he considers them in relation to one another, and forms his own
plans.
This limitation
of the senses is not an injury to man, but a benefit, for senses and mind
are adapted to each other. If we could suddenly increase the input of the
senses a hundredfold, men would become gibbering idiots, unable to cope with
such a volume of fact. As it is, the limitation of material that the senses
provide is beneficial, as conducive to clarity of impression in the mind,
just as the smallness of the hole in the camera provides a clear picture
on the plate.
All the
same, clear impressions clearly observed by the concentrated mind can become
the material for that mind to work upon by meditation, which involves expansion,
and increases the power of the mind to grasp clearly more things at once [Page
161]
Success
in meditation therefore implies success in concentration, and in those things
which are necessary to that, namely, relaxation of the body, indifference
for the time being to what is happening near at hand or far away, emotional
calm, and gentleness of vision.
A man concentrating
is almost asleep bodily, but his consciousness in the brain is more than
ever wide awake. In meditation that wide awake consciousness applies itself
to the subject of thought. Meditation is the very opposite of going to sleep.
It is a regular flow of thought about an object with regard to which one
has no difficulty in concentration. It is not like mind-wandering, in which
the chain of thought leads over the hills and far away, and it is not like
worry, in which one arrives again and again at the same point, having traveled
in a circle.
Meditation
is a great act of self-creation. The vivid consciousness obtained in concentration,
carried by meditation into the yet unirrigated and finer fields of the mind,
is like an open channel for more life. No man has life as full as that which
could be his. All men have a hunger for more sense of life. Sometimes ignorant
people seek its satisfaction in outward excitement, not realizing that to
be a surrender of real life, and an acknowledgment of dependence upon outside
things — not upon what is inside the mind itself — for real happiness
and life.
In meditation
a man may reach conceptions of beauty, or duty, or truth or the grandeur
of noble character, loftier than any he has obtained before. As he dwells
upon them, they work into him in a creative way, so that afterwards he will
be able to reach and hold the higher level with comparative ease.
The object
of meditation is not to bring something down, as it were, for the satisfaction
of our old personality. It is to take something up, to reach in our thought
or feeling something that we have not touched before, and yet to carry up [Page
162] there the clearness of vision that was ours at the lower
levels.
We must
take ourselves up. The self that seeks only consolation for the troubles
in life, or a pleasant emotional sensation of confidence in something higher
than itself, may possess and enjoy its own meagre delights in an inferior
sort of meditation that is hardly worthy of the name.
Grateful
and comfortable, he of this meditation is like a cat purring in a person's
arms, enjoying the luxury of attention from a superior being. But meditation
proper is for him who would humanize himself to a higher degree, expand his
heart and intelligence, and increase his practical capacity — things
which contain the happiness of true life, positive and active, far above
the comforts and consolations and hoping’s which are the resort of
many who seek in the mind what they have failed to secure in life.
I hope
that my exposition of the theory of meditation has shown that it is not different
from thinking, when that is properly done. Suppose that a student has before
him a theorem in geometry. To prove it he must think. First — if he
knows how to think, or meditate — he will dwell for a while on his
data. This is the preliminary concentration — to review the material
provided for his thinking. He must be in a position to remember the properties
of the lines, angles, triangles, and circles, or whatever they may be. Then,
and only then, should he begin the expansion process of considering their
relation to one another under the given conditions. I have known many students
much troubled by geometry, and I have noticed that in most cases it is because
they do not know how to think, and so do not first review the data and only
afterwards try to solve the problem or prove the theorem.
At the
end of a process of thinking, the conclusion ought to be as clear and certain
as the terms from which it is derived. Later that conclusion should be available
as simple and self-evident material for further and deeper study. All [Page
163] the time the thinker or the student is really engaged
in making platforms for himself, and then climbing on to them and using them
for the building of still higher platforms.
In thinking,
we often proceed from the concrete to the abstract. To know beauty we must
dwell on objects of beauty.
This principle
is very evident in the use of meditation for the development of character.
There would be little use in sitting down, closing the eyes and saying over
and over again: "Courage, courage, courage" or "Kindness, kindness, kindness".
If people do not know what the dials of their watches look like, still less
do they know what ideals or virtues really are. They must begin the meditation
with concrete examples.
Having
chosen the virtue that you want to build into your character, first of all
make mental pictures of the virtue in action. If it is courage, make several
pictures representing that quality — perhaps a soldier rescuing a wounded
comrade under fire; an invalid in pain and wretchedness, but making little
of his or her misery, so as not to convey it to others; a person bound to
some duty that is drudgery, but carrying it through cheerfully; an artist
or a poet who will not give up his love, regardless of the unkind face of
fortune; a reformer, whose talents might make him a shining light in politics
were he to compromise, but he will not.
With the
aid of these concrete examples, improve your conception of the abstract virtue.
In the process, make your pictures clear and living, concrete and detailed,
solid as a drama on a stage, not flat like a picture on a wall.
Next build
the quality into your own character by stepping up on to the stage, as it
were, entering the body of the hero, acting and feeling and realizing the
scene as a living incident in your own life, and resolving to be that character
henceforth.
There is
a more passive kind of meditation in which one [Page
164] does not think directly of the building of character,
but simply dwells in thought — expanding it to the full — upon
some person looked upon as ideal, or upon some symbolic form. This method
is carried to great perfection among the Hindus, who meditate upon the 1008
names — really qualities — of Shiva or of Vishnu, or upon images
with many symbols — numerous heads and arms bearing weapons and other
objects and making significant gestures, all symbolical of powers and virtues
and benevolent intentions.
The idea
is that one becomes like that upon which the mind dwells, and so absorbs
into one's own character the good qualities represented by the symbols or
words.
This method
is suitable for consolidating in character qualities already known, not for
advancing to new heights. The image is really a mnemonic device, a "house" or
set of pegs for remembering a collection of powers and virtues. It cannot
show anything new, for the imagination cannot portray what is not known.
It is quite possible to picture a gesture as indicating benevolence, but
the idea of benevolence may remain very imperfect unless one considers it
practically in actual expression in varying circumstances in human life.
To have virtue we need to keep very near to our fellow-men, with all their
faults.
Sometimes
there is meditation upon superior beings, supposed real — heroes, angels,
saints, masters, and divine incarnations. In this case there are several
dangers to be carefully avoided. In great admiration for the qualities of
these, pictured as exceptional beings, there is often the feeling that such
perfection can hardly be expected in us ordinary people. This reduces the
character-building effect, and also tends to a harsh judgment of our fellow-men,
since they, too, are ordinary people, and to them therefore we do not easily
attribute the virtues predicated of our beloved ideal.
There is
also a tendency to slacken effort and be content [Page
165] with relatively negative virtues in ourselves — a
feeling that since the object of devotion has the virtues and the power we
may be content with a lower grade.
There may
also be something of the attitude of the football or cricket enthusiasts
who go by the hundreds of thousands to see the matches and admire the players,
without any serious intention to become such players themselves.
It is,
however, in ordinary life that we develop our qualities, and our meditation
as a science is best kept very close to that.
Let us
now pass on to the art of contemplation.
The fulfilment
of meditation is contemplation. As concentration leads on to meditation,
so does meditation lead on to contemplation, which may be defined as concentration
at the top end of one's line of thought.
Just as
it is not well to begin meditation suddenly, but it is best to sit down and
quietly bring the attention to the chosen subject — first of all thinking
of a large scene and then narrowing down gradually to the special object,
and then meditating upon it — so it is not well to end a meditation
abruptly.
At a certain
point one must stop the flow of thought and dwell for a short time with clear-sighted
and calm vision upon the best thing that one has been able to reach. It may
be that you have reached a height or depth of thought beyond which you cannot
go on to any advantage. At this point your attention begins to waver, your
mind begins to lose its hold. Do not then try to go further; do not desperately
try to clutch or grasp that splendid conception or vision that is flickering
just beyond your reach. Stop where you are and gaze contentedly at the highest
you have been able clearly to attain. That is contemplation.
It will
often happen that this highest conception has not been the consecutive outcome
of your meditative process, but while you were going on with that a new idea
burst upon [Page
166] you in a flash of inspiration. Then you may stop the meditation
and give your whole attention to the contemplation of that greatest thing.
Such contemplation creates new platforms on which consciousness can stand,
so that when you come round again to deal with that deepest thought you will
find that it is easier to hold, and that your meditation can be carried further
still.
It often
happens in daily life that those who are given to meditation catch sudden
glimpses of great truths, or splendid ideas, which carry with them some inexplicable
evidence of their own accuracy, and one thinks them wonderfully simple, and
says to oneself: "Now why on earth did I never think of that or hear about
it before ? " But beware; if you do not keep your attention on that idea,
simple as it is, it will be gone from you very soon and you will be unable
to recover its message. It is, alas, true that you must imprison it in a
form of words. A great truth put into words is like a bird kept in a cage;
some like its song, but it has not quite the note of liberty, the quality
of life. Still, write it down, and make it the subject of future meditation.
Even in
dealing with scientific subjects, which have not a quality of appeal to high
emotion, the same operation appears. Many of the greatest discoveries in
science have come in moments of inspiration, when their authors have thought
long and deeply on the subject and then given up the effort as a failure,
at least for the time being.
In any
systematic attempt at contemplation three stages should be followed —
(I) the
attention must be centered on the object;
(2) thought must be active with reference to that object alone;
(3) the mind must remain actively centred on the object while its ordinary
activities cease.
In the
last stage we stop all comparing and reasoning and remain with the attention
fixed actively upon the object, [Page
167] trying to penetrate the indefiniteness which for us then
appears to surround it.
It will
be seen that in contemplation there is nothing in the nature of sleep or
mental inactivity, but an intense search; you make an effort to see in the
indefiniteness something definite, and refuse for the time being to descend
to the ordinary regions of conscious activity in which your sight is normally
clear and precise. You concentrate again, but this time at the top end of
your line of thought. [Page
171]
CHAPTER
24
USES
OF THE WILL
Voluntary Decision.
It is a common thing among human beings to wait for the guidance of events.
To some extent this is inevitable. It would be folly for a sailing-ship to
set out from harbor in the midst of a terrible storm, or for a motor car to
undertake a long journey on roads deep in snow. But often it must be confessed
that we are not resourceful, so that, one thing being barred by circumstances,
we do not make use of the conditions that exist.
One effect of this weakness of waiting on events
is that when a choice does offer, decision is difficult. Suppose that we need
a month's change of air in the summer, and we have the money to pay for it.
The question arises: shall we go to the mountains or to the seaside ? Sometimes
people wear themselves out in deciding such a small matter. I knew a lady who
used frequently to tire herself by trying to decide what dress she would wear,
and sometimes she would array herself for going out, and then suddenly at the
last moment rush back and change her stockings or even her entire dress. Once,
when she was going on a voyage of several weeks, a friend advised her to make
a time-table of dresses, and they sat together and made an engagement book
of her wearing apparel; the dates were written down, with morning, afternoon
and evening in the horizontal columns, and in the vertical columns dress, shoes,
stockings, and even underclothing, were set forth. The lady kept to her program,
and afterwards declared that she had never before felt so free and happy; she
seemed to have four times the nervous energy which had been hers before.
There are few things more fatiguing and devitalizing
than the habit of indecision in small things. Truly, students [Page
172] generally have their plan of life laid out for them very
fully by others, but even so they sometimes find it difficult to get to grips
with their program. It is so tempting to take up the easy or favorite subject
first, and neglect that which is troublesome or dull. But the student who wants
to develop the powers of his mind will act by voluntary decision as to what
is best.
Sometimes a person will say: " I really cannot decide
what to do; I cannot see what is best". Assuming then, that you have fully
considered the pros and cons, and cannot decide because they are evenly balanced,
or because they do not present sufficient data on which to base a definite
judgment, and yet some action is desirable, toss a coin and have done with
the matter. The idea is not that the coin will tell you what is best, but that
it will put an end to your worry. Be sufficiently decisive, however, not to
wish that the coin had fallen on the other side, or to wonder whether to toss
it again to decide whether you will obey the previous toss or not!
Voluntary decision is a great help to practical success,
as well as to strength and clearness of mind. I remember an account, written
by a distinguished man, of the causes to which he attributed his phenomenal
success in life. Among these was one which he seemed to prize above all the
rest — the habit of making a list early each morning of the things which
he had to do during the day. He said that with the aid of this practice he
was able to do ten times as much as he could before he adopted it; not because
he really worked very much harder, but because he had ceased to waste time
in idle and irritating speculations as to what he should do next, and whether
he should do it now or leave it until after lunch or until to-morrow. He discovered
that these troublesome questions, utterly unimportant as they were, had the
power to sap his strength and resolution, so as to leave him unfit to enjoy
his work. Their effect was such that he found himself constantly turning aside
to some trifling dissipation that [Page
173] would for the moment divert his mind, such as that of picking
up a casual magazine to fill in an odd half hour.
Elements of Success.
If you would have success in your life, take each thing that comes and decide
how you will use it. No man can do everything, so choose some definite form
of activity. Do not be one of those people who follow no definite road, and
drift hither and thither towards an old age filled chiefly with disappointments
and regrets. Dwell frequently upon the idea of your chosen purpose, so that
it becomes a permanent mood. When that is established, many things will serve
you which would otherwise be passed by without notice or use. If an architect
travels, does he not notice the forms of the buildings in various places, as
his fellow-travelers do not ? And do not those things then help him in his
chosen profession ?
Some definiteness of personality and character is
necessary for healthy physical existence in the fullest sense of the term.
Full health is not merely harmony in our own bodily functions, but harmony
also in relation to other people. We must fit into the larger body.
What is usually called greatness is not sufficient
for real success in life, unless there is also goodwill for humanity, and real
love for some few people. Without love, no happiness, so do not sacrifice people
to greatness. For real success, body, emotions and mind must all be well occupied,
and in agreement.
If body, emotions and mind are well occupied, character
will follow. Character is inward success. Its possessor can make a mark on
the world, but he will allow the world to make a mark on him only as he chooses.
He will not drift. Nor will he be dependent upon circumstances for his happiness
or strength. He will be like the Stoic of old times, who did not bother his
head about things outside his power, but took good care to occupy himself with
the things within his power So, before you let anything worry you, ask yourself [Page
174] if the thing is in your power, and if it is not, turn your
attention to something else.
I once knew a family of five brothers who well illustrated
the fact that there can be no real outward success without inward success.
While comparatively young two of those brothers became successful in business.
But unfortunately they had not the inward strength to profit by their outward
prosperity and their success proved a curse instead of a blessing. They ate
and drank more than was desirable; they did not take any exercise. They indulged
their bodies, knowing quite well the danger of it all. At the-age of about
thirty-five they were both fat and ailing; at forty they were permanently in
the doctor's hands; at about forty-five they were both dead, after ten years
of utterly miserable life. The other three brothers remained hale and hearty,
surrounded by happy families at an advanced old age.
Yet strange to say the friends of the family still
allude to the two who died as the successful brothers, and say sadly what a
pity it is that the best die young. But really, outward success without inward
success leads to failure; and inward success ultimately leads to outward success
as well.
Give your body a square deal. Let it have rest, recreation,
variety — a reasonable amount of enjoyment of the senses. But exact obedience.
When you know what is best insist upon it, in eating and drinking, in sleeping
and rising, in working and playing. The body is almost like an animal, and
you will find that it is happy when well treated without over-indulgence, which
it may at times desire.
Avoid fear. Reason it out of your life. How can it
help you ? Do what you can, and be content with that. Avoid anger. If others
wrongly obstruct you, defeat their plans if you can; if not, do what you can,
and be content with that. But thank your enemies at least a little for drawing
out your faculties and strength. Avoid pride; it will blind you to excellence
which otherwise you might attain. Try to do well [Page
175] what you want or have to do, and be content with that. Do
it well, if it is only putting your foot to the ground. If you must swear,
swear well, and even that will become admirable. "How much must I do?" asked
a student, of his teacher. "Oh," replied the professor drily, "Just a little
more than you can".
Wishing and Willing. Don't
wish. For you cannot both wish and will. Wishing and willing are incompatible.
This can be shown by a very simple argument. Suppose
I consider whether I will or will not pick up my pen. I cannot wish in
this matter. I must decide either to pick it up or to leave it where it is.
I know quite well that it weighs only an ounce or two and that I am free and
strong enough to pick it up. Therefore I may say; "I will pick it up", or "I
will not pick it up". But if I knew or thought that the pen weighed half a
ton I might find myself saying: "Oh, I do wish that I could pick up that pen!"
Wishing is an acknowledgment of inability. It is
a declaration of dependence upon external events. It is waiting, not working,
and wasting time and energy while you wait, and opening the door to every sort
of weakness that will spoil you for your opportunities when they come. Wise
men do not wish for opportunity, but they wish to be prepared for it.
Willing is the use of your own power; the man of
will has no use for wishes, which would waste his time and sap his moral strength.
Therefore he does not complain against his environment, does not grumble about
the things fortune brings to him through no apparent actions of his own. He
is content to make the fullest possible use of what so comes.
It is worth while to meditate upon this matter of
not wishing, but willing, until you have made the mood, until you instinctively
say, every time that you find yourself wishing: "Stop that; I will not have
it!" Dwell a little in thought upon what this change of policy would mean in
your life. What would it mean to you when you rise in the morning, [Page
176] when you eat, when you lie down to sleep ? What when you
meet your companions, your friends, your so-called enemies ? What when you
lose your appointment or money, or meet with an accident or fall ill, and your
family suffers. Sit down and think over all the disagreeable things that may
happen within the next week, and see in each case, what it would mean to you.
You would not wish them to be otherwise. You would
say to each of them: "What are you for; what use can I make of you?" You would
not sink down and say "I am sorry ------", or "I wish ------" .You would get
up and say: "I will--" or "I will not- ".
While I am on this subject, let me give a warning
against idle thought, which is akin to wishing. It is a great weakness of some
to dally in imagination with things which they would hesitate to express in
act if opportunity came. Avoid the habit of lying awake in bed and thinking
things over before going to sleep, and of lying in a semi-dream state on awakening.
Thinking should be done in a positive position and with intention, not in a
semi-sleep.
Do not dwell again and again on the same thought
or argument. If anything requires to be thought over, bring forward and consider
all the facts bearing upon it, arrive at a conclusion, and then dismiss the
matter from your mind; and never consider it again unless you can bring some
new facts to bear upon it.
If a difficulty arises, do not procrastinate; deal
with it completely there and then, and dismiss its further consideration, or
appoint a special time for settling it. Do not let anxiety, fear and distress
ramble about the mind, poisoning and enfeebling it.
Do not think about what others say about you, except
to extract from it the element of truth which is often there. On no account
make the imperfections of others a subject of your meditations. You need your
energy and time for your [Page
177] own work, and besides, dwelling on others' defects tends
to develop the same weaknesses in ourselves.
If the brain is torpid do not eat after dark or sleep
after dawn, and take mild exercise and fresh air.
Work and Play.
The strong attitude towards life which I have advocated may seem somewhat hard,
as filling the day too much with work. But I would say, "Unify work and play." Work
need not be toil and drudgery; in fact, its true character is play. Drudgery
is merely action; it does not create the man who does it. But the least bit
of work done well, done heartily, done better than ever before, feels good,
is good, and leads to good. If, in writing a letter, one is at pains to do
it neatly, even beautifully, and to express oneself briefly, clearly and gracefully,
one has developed hand, eye and brain, thought-power, love-power, and will-power,
and that means more life for the future. But if you do it with your eye on
the future and not because you like it in the doing, you will lose much of
the savour and the benefit.
Also, if you can help it, do not work too much. There
is no sense in overwork. The man who does it achieves less than he who knows
how to measure his strength. All our work ought to create new strength in us
so that to-morrow will be better than to-day. Work that is so hard or prolonged
that it leaves us weaker to-morrow is no true work at all, but waste.
In the ideal, all work would be play. "Consider the
lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin."
Some people go to the extreme and convert play into
work. If you practice, let the practice also be play, or the thought of the
future may spoil the present, and that in turn spoil the hoped-for future,
causing you to fall short of full success. It is related of Paderewski that
when he had already made some appearances in public at the piano, an expert
approached him and said: " If you will obey me for two years I will make you
the greatest of pianists." He obeyed and practiced [Page
178] exercises constantly without giving himself the pleasure
of appearing in public for two years. But I think that during that time he
must have delighted in the feeling of growing strength and suppleness in his
fingers, and not fixed his gaze too closely on the end of the two years.
No doubt we have to whip ourselves up a bit sometimes,
but that is only at the beginning of the journey, when the engine is cold.
I knew a lady who used to get out of bed at two in the morning to feed young
pups. It was a pull, no doubt, but I believe a bright spot in her life, though
probably she never analyzed it as such.
There are many occasions of pleasure as well as profit
lost to the man who keeps his eye glued too closely on the future. To him a
long journey, for example, may be a misery, as he is thinking only of what
he will do or receive at the end of it. Another finds a thousand things of
interest on the way — the scenery, the people, the train itself; for
him the journey is a happy holiday. And in the end he has accomplished much
more than the other man.
I have long admired the Hindus for their capacity
to enjoy the journey of life. The Hindu villager lives very near to nature,
and shows us a sample of man growing as the flower grows. A man will set out
from his village to collect the mail from the post office or to dispatch some
letters there, perhaps many miles away. He does not tramp along stolidly and
painfully, jarring his nerves with the graceless movements that spring from
a discontented or impatient mind. The vision of his mail is not a mania that
shuts out all other interests, and makes him curse the length of the track.
No, there are insects, birds, flowers, trees, streams, clouds in the sky, fields,
houses, animals and people, and lastly the blessed earth itself, to lie on
which for a while is to be in paradise.
On the other hand, do not be always seeking novelty
as such. People seek novelty because their own shallow powers [Page
179] of thought soon exhaust the surface possibilities of familiar
things. It is a step beyond that to have a prevailing purpose and mood. It
is a step farther still to be full of a purpose and yet awake to the value
of all things by the way.
In conclusion, remember the Hindu proverbs — If
you want a light, what is the good of merely talking about a lamp ?
If you are sick, can you cure your disease simply
by calling out the names of medicines ?
Hidden
treasure does not reveal itself by your simply commanding: "Come out!" You
must find the place, remove the stones, and dig. [Page
180]
CHAPTER
25
BODILY
AIDS
THERE are
many very excellent exercises for the purpose of keeping the body fit. Some
of them are positively necessary for the student who is inclined to be sedentary.
The effect of the mind on the bodily functions cannot safely be ignored by
anyone who takes up mental training. In concentration of mind, for example,
there is a tendency to halt the breath outside the body; I know one student
who was occasionally recalled to the fact that he had forgotten to breathe
in by suddenly choking. So a few suitable breathing exercises will not be
out of place in this book.
On the
other hand, the restlessness of the body sometimes spoils our mental work.
So for the successful practice of concentration it is desirable to train
the body to remain quiet.
People
who are mentally disposed are often inclined to be somewhat nervous. Therefore
a little attention in this connection may also be in place here. And finally,
control of the senses, so that you can curb their restlessness and turn your
attention away from their messages at will, is also a useful accomplishment.
I will
therefore offer the student a few exercises along these lines.
Stillness.
Perhaps you have never sat for a few minutes without moving. Try it now.
Try to sit quite still for five or ten minutes, without supporting the back
above the waist, with the eyes closed, without feeling either restless or
sleepy.
You will
probably be surprised to find in what a variety of ways your body will rebel,
and in how many parts of it there will be strange creeping and twitching
feelings. As [Page
181] a remedy for this I recommend the following standing exercise:
Go into
a room where you will not be disturbed, and stand erect, preferably before
a long mirror, with a clock or watch in sight. Stand perfectly still for
five minutes. The eyes may blink; no attention need be paid to them. The
body must not be allowed to sway, nor the fingers to twitch; and no notice
must be taken of any slight sensations. The mind may occupy itself in thinking
in turn of the different parts of the body, and seeing that they are still.
Probably the little fingers, or the shoulders, or some other part of the
body will ache, but no attention need be paid to them. Practice this for
about five minutes daily.
Relaxation.
That exercise should be supplemented by the practice of relaxation, intended
to relieve tension in the body. To get the feeling of relaxation try the
following experiment:
With the
right hand hold a book firmly in front of the chest. Raise the left elbow
almost as high as the shoulder, and let the left hand and wrist rest on the
book, so that the left forearm is about horizontal. By imagination or thought
slowly withdraw the energy of the left arm till you feel that there is no
life in it, that it is quite relaxed. Then suddenly drop the book. If the
left arm falls as though lifeless, you have succeeded in relaxing.
This experiment will be better done if someone else holds the book for you,
and removes it without warning.
Another
way of performing this experiment is to stand close to a chest of drawers
or other similar object on which you can comfortably rest your arm and hand,
from elbow to finger tips. Relax the arm and then step back smartly. If you
have relaxed properly the arm will fall inert, by its own weight.
Having
thus learned what relaxation feels like, you need not repeat the experiment,
but proceed as follows: Lie down flat on your back on the floor or on a board
(not on a bed or couch) and try to sink into it, as if it were soft. This
will give [Page
182] you a luxurious feeling of relaxation of the whole body.
It is a good plan to stretch the body, then the neck, then let it go loose
and relax the body part by part, beginning at the feet and going up to the
head. To relax the eyes — an important matter — imagine black.
It is good to relax in this manner at night, before going to sleep.
As an extreme
measure, if necessary, one may learn relaxation by sleeping for a few nights
on a table, with only a sheet between the body and the board, that is, with
nothing to soften the surface. It is possible to go to sleep in a soft bed
without being relaxed, but it is not so easy to do so on a board. On the
hard surface you must relax in order to be comfortable. Then, when
you know what the mood of relaxation is like, and you can do it at will,
it will be permissible to revert to the soft bed.
Stretching
and Bending Exercises. To the standing and relaxing exercises the
following stretching and bending exercises may be added, for general health —
Stand with
the heels together; raise the hands above the head; bend forward to touch
the toes without bending the knees; return to the upright position, reaching
as high as possible, standing on the toes.
Stand with
the hands at the sides, palms inwards; lean over slowly to one side until
the hand sinks below the knee, while the other hand is curled up under the
armpit; slowly swing back to the opposite side, stretching the body all the
time.
Perform
these exercises with an even movement and concentrated thought, for about
one minute each. Finally stand, raise one foot from the floor by bending
the knee; now raise the other and lower the first, and thus run for one minute,
without moving along.
Nerve
Exercises. Let us now turn to the nerve exercises. These are done
either by holding a part of the body still and preventing it from trembling
or by moving it very slowly and [Page
183] evenly. Hold out the hand with the fingers a little
apart and watch them intently. They move a little, and you begin to feel
a kind of creaking inside the joints. Try to keep them perfectly still
by an effort of the will. After a few minutes they begin to tingle, and
you may feel a leakage at the ends, as though something were going off.
Send this back up the arm and into the body by the will.
Next, stand
before a large mirror, and move the arm by imperceptible degrees from the
side into a horizontal position in front. It should move without any jerking
and so slowly that you can scarcely see it moving.
Again,
sit with your back to the light, facing a large object, such as a bookcase.
Without moving your head, start at one corner of the object and let your
eyes move, without jumping, very slowly round the outline of it and along
its prominent lines, back to the original point. These three exercises may
take about five minutes each, and should be done on successive days.
Breathing
Exercises. I do not recommend elaborate breathing exercises, such
as that of breathing in at one nostril and out at the other. Our object
is only to learn regular breathing with the full use of the lungs, so that
there may be a good habit during study or concentration. So I suggest only
the following simple practices:
Draw the
breath in slowly and evenly, through both nostrils, while mentally counting
eight, or for five seconds; hold it in while counting eight; and breathe
out slowly and evenly while counting eight. Repeat this eight times.
While the
breath is in the body it should not be held with the throat muscles, but
by holding the chest muscles out and the diaphragm down by an act of will.
To cork the breath in at the throat is injurious. The whole process should
be easy, pleasant and natural.
Gently
draw the lungs full of air, and then, holding the breath as before, press
the breath down as low as possible [Page
184] in the body by sinking the diaphragm. Then press the air
up into the chest (without raising or moving the shoulders) so that the abdomen
goes in. Thus press the air up and down, slowly and deliberately, five or
six times, and then slowly and gently breathe out.
Inhale
the breath as before, press it down as low as possible, and draw in more
air, so that both the lower and the upper parts of the lungs are filled tight.
Then suck in and swallow more air through the mouth until you feel slight
muscular discomfort. Release the air slowly, from the chest first.
These breathing
exercises help to make the body bright and cheerful, and to counteract the
natural suspension of breath outside the body which often occurs during strong
concentration of mind, as distinguished from the suspension of breath inside
the body which accompanies physical effort.
If carried
on for too long at one time they tend to inhibit its sensibility.
Pratyahara.
I will conclude these exercises by mention of the practice of inattention,
known among Indian yogis as pratyahara. It is well known that often
when we are reading a book, or listening to music, or looking at a beautiful
object, we become inattentive to all but that in which we are interested.
In all such cases many things are battering on the senses, a person may enter
the room and go out again, a tram-car may go howling and screeching and thundering
past, but you have not seen or heard. Vibrations from these things entered
the eye and ear, and the messages traveled along the nerves to the appropriate
centers in the brain, but you did not see or hear because your attention
was turned away.
How vibrations
of matter in the brain are converted into sense-perceptions in consciousness
has always been a mystery to the psychologist, but the theory of knowledge
does not concern us at present.
The practical
point is that the translation of vibrations [Page
185] into perceptions is within the power of our will. We can
practice deliberate inattention to objects before our eyes. I am writing
these words on a bit of paper on a blue writing pad. I find it quite possible
to lose sight of the pad as well as my pen, by particular attention to what
I am thinking, without turning my eyes away. Similarly it is possible to
listen to the ticking of a clock or the sound of the wind in the trees, and
then forget them while concentrating on some idea.
I knew
a man who used frequently to lecture on platforms on which he was preceded
by musical items. If, while waiting for his turn, he wished to reflect upon
some point of his lecture, he could turn his attention to it while the music
was going on, and deliberately turn it away from the music. The result was
that after a moment or two he heard the sounds no more, and was able to examine
his ideas as though he had been alone in his room or in the depths of a forest.
And now, reader or student, permit
me to wish you full success in the use of this art of mind and memory, and all
the good that may follow therefrom.
INDEX
Aimé Paris,
112
Alphabets, foreigh, method of learning, 39
Ashtavadhanis, the memory feats of, 128
Association, 60
Association, ill, 88
Attention, 18, 90, 92, 93, 96, 166
Beniowski, Major, 29
Bodily aids, 180-185
Botany, 48
Causality, 74
Character, 173
Chemistry, 63
Chess, 4, 17 128
Class, law of, 7, 76
Co-existence and succession, 80
Comparison, 9, 75
Comparison, modes of, 73 -80
Complex abstract ideas, 24
Complex concrete ideas, 24
Concentration, 6, 11-20, 90, 146. 151-157, 159, 180
Confidence, 18
Contemplation, 165
Contiguity, 75, 80
Cotrast, 8
Control of the mind, 92
Dickens, Charles 57
Emerson and reading, 137
Exercises, 25, 98, 100, 115, 151-157
Exercises, breathing, 183
Exercises, nerves, 182
Exercises, relaxation, 181
Exercises, stillness, 180
Exercises, stretching and bending, 182
Expectancy, sbuconscious, 63
Familiarization, method of, 29-38
Familiarization of forms, 39-49
Familiarization of words, 50-56
Fera, 174
Feinaigle, Gregor von, 68, 111, 122
Forget, ability to, 85
French words, learning, 50, 84
Foreighn alphabets, 39
Foreigh words, 50-56
Genders, remembering, 5
German words, learning, 50
Gouraud, FRancis Fauvel, 112, 117, 118, 123
Greek, 41
Grey, Dr.Richard, 111
Hebrew
Alphabet, 39
Hindu probers, 179
History of Mnemonics, 120
Hobbies, mental, 139
Ideas, 24, 91
Ideas, associating, 61
Ideas, dissociated, 87
Ideas, expansion of, 100-102
Ideas, linking, 82
Ideas, quantity and position of, 66
Ideas, radiation of, 62
Ideas, sequences of, 87
Ideas, succession of, 96
Ill-associations, 88
Images, 63
Imagination, 23-28
Impressions, reviving, 60
Indecision in small things, 161
India, memory-mem of, 128-134
Intermediaries, 59
Leibnitz, G.W., 111
Lithium, discovery of, 143
Meditation,
90, 158-167
Memoria Technica, 111
Memory, 141
Memory, feats of the Ashiavadhanis, 128
Memory, placing the, 120-127
Memory, projection of, 57-64
Mind control, 92
Mind-wandering, 6, 90
Mink, Stanislaus, 111
Mood, 94-99
Mood, establishing a permanent, 98
Mood, reviving a, 60
New Art of Memory, 68
Nicholas Nickleby, 57
Notebooks, 59
Number arguments, 105-110
Number diagrams, 107-110
Number, words, 111-119
Numbers, remembering, 105
Observation,
14
Olcott, Colonel H.S., 128
Padereski, 177
Parts, law of, 7, 77
Phreno-Mnemotecny, 117
Pick, Dr., 55, 112, 120
Pitman's shorthand, 41
Poetry, the learning of, 150
Pratyahara, 184
Proximity, law of, 8, 80
Quality, law of, 8, 79
Quintillian, 121
Reading
and study, 137-47
Reason, 73
Reflection, voluntary, 158
Roads of Thought, the 7, 9, 53, 76, 100, 149
Roman alphabet, 42
Sanskrit, 91, 112, 128
Sanskrit alphabet, 41, 113
Schencke Lambert, 126
Simple abstract ideas, 24
Simple concrete ideas, 24
Simplification and symbolization, 65-69
Simonides, 65. 120
Sommer, 126
Speech-making and writing, 148-150
Stillness exercises, 180
Study and reading, 137-147
Success, elements of, 173
Thinking, 23, 90, 162
Thought and walking, 89
Thought, process of, 90, 94
Thought, Roads of, the four, 7, 9, 53, 76, 100, 149
Thoughts, chain of, 94
Voluntary
decision, 171
Voluntary reflection, 158
Will, the, 90
Will, uses of, 171-179
Willing and wishing, 175
Willis, John, 65
Wishing and willing, 175
Work and play, 177
Writing and speech-making, 148-150
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