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been reading, the people you have been living with, the vibe that you have created in yourself It will depend on a thousand and one things, on how much you can take -- but it comes sure and certain. All that is needed is patience, silent work, patient work and concentration happens, and maturity arrives. In fact, a mature person and a concentrated person are only two aspects of the same phenomenon. That's why children cannot be in concentration: they are constantly moving, they cannot be at one point, fixed. Everything attracts them -- a car has passed by, a bird calls, somebody starts laughing, the neighbor has put the radio on, a butterfly moves -- everything, the whole world is attractive. They simply jump from one thing to another thing. They cannot concentrate, they cannot live with one thing so utterly and so totally that all else disappears, becomes non-existential.
With maturity, concentration arises. Maturity and concentration are two names for the same thing. But the first thing to remember is that it comes gradually; don't compare, don't be in a hurry.
BUT BEFORE YOU SIT LIKE A WITHERED TREE BEFORE A CLIFF, THERE ARE MANY POSSIBILITIES OF ERROR, WHICH I WOULD LIKE TO BRING TO YOUR SPECIAL ATTENTION.
Master Lu-tsu says: Before the condition arises in you in which you sit like a withered tree before a cliff... This is a Taoist expression, of tremendous beauty and significance. It means alive and yet dead, dead and yet UTTERLY alive. It means living in the world with great joy and celebration, but not being part of the world; being in the world but not allowing the world to be in you -- "like a withered tree before a cliff." Living like a dead man...
Alexander wanted to take a sannyasin from India to his own country because his master, the great philosopher, Aristotle, had asked him, "When you come back from India, bring a sannyasin" -- because India's greatest contribution to the world is the way, the lifestyle of a sannyasin. Aristotle was very interested. He wanted to see what kind of a man a sannyasin was, because it had happened only in India. This is its special contribution to world culture and humanity, a totally different
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