The Power of Concentration

Abstract

There is one common thing that we notice in all walks of life. When two people engage in a similar activity they end up with different levels of success in their endeavours. We see this quite often among students. When two students spend nearly the same amount of time (say 5 hours a day) one scores above 90 and the other 60 marks. Similarly, the effectiveness of two people discharging the same activity vastly varies at times in an office or a factory. One housewife spends 3 hours to finish cooking while the other takes 5 hours and end up with less satisfaction even after spending longer time in the kitchen. It is not uncommon to attribute reasons for poor performance. The often quoted reason is that perhaps there is a vast difference in the competency levels of the people. Alternatively we may conclude that one has a better knowledge of what is to be done compared to the other. Many hide behind the luck factor and say that the other person is lucky and therefore could do better. If you analyze even more deeply people come up with certain other reasons. Prominent among them is that the one who does the job well has a better attitude compared to the other. While many of these are partially true, they still do not capture the core issue behind the observed differences in the level of performance and achievements of people of similar background and intellectual level. Lord Krishna diagnoses this problem and clarifies to us through certain thoughts he provides to Arjuna in Chapter 2 of Bhagavad Git?....................