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Concentration, for our Yoga, means when the consciousness is fixed in a particular state (e.g. peace) or movement (e.g. aspiration, will, coming into contact with the Mother, taking the Mother’s name); meditation is when the inner mind is looking at things to get the right knowledge. <ref>Sri Aurobindo. (2015). The Synthetic Method of the Integral Yoga. In Letters on yoga II.</ref>
Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g. the Divine—there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point.
<ref>Sri Aurobindo. (2015). The Synthetic Method of the Integral Yoga. In Letters on yoga II. Retrieved from http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/concentration-and-meditation</ref>
By concentration, I mean that all the energy, all the will, all the aspiration must be turned only towards the Divine and His integral realisation in our consciousness. <ref>The Mother. (1979). Letters to a Young Sadhak VI (1933-1949). In Collected works of the Mother Volume 16. Retrieved from http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/letters-to-a-young-sadhak-vi </ref>
But in the path of knowledge as it is practised in India concentration is used in a special and more limited sense. It means that removal of the thought from all distracting activities of the mind and that concentration of it on the idea of the One by which the soul rises out of the phenomenal into the one Reality. It is by the thought that we dissipate ourselves in the phenomenal; it is by the gathering back of the thought into itself that we must draw ourselves back into the real.
<ref>Sri Aurobindo. sabcl/20/concentration</ref>
In concentration proper there is not a series of thoughts, but the mind is silently fixed on one object, name, idea, place etc.
There are other kinds of concentration, e.g. concentrating the whole consciousness in one place, as between the eyebrows, in the heart, etc. One can also concentrate to get rid of thought altogether and remain in a complete silence.
<ref>Sri Aurobindo. (2015). The Synthetic Method of the Integral Yoga. In Letters on yoga II. Retrieved from http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/concentration-and-meditation</ref>
===Three powers of concentration===