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It is well known that the value of a man is in proportion to his capacity of concentrated attention, the greater the concentration the more exceptional is the result, to the extent that a perfect and unfailing concentrated attention sets the stamp of genius on what is produced. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/concentration-and-dispersion#p2</ref><center>~</center>

"''Q. Sweet Mother, you have said: “Each meditation ought to be a new revelation, for in each meditation something new happens.” After the meditation, is one conscious of what has happened?"''"''A." '' If one is very attentive, one becomes conscious. One must be very concentrated and very attentive, then one becomes conscious. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/9-december-1953#p28</ref>

"''Q. How can one learn to listen in silence?'' ''A." '' It is a matter of attention. If you concentrate your attention on what is being said, with the will to understand it correctly, the silence is created spontaneously—it is attention that creates the silence. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/12-march-1951?search=attention#p11,p12</ref>

In order to obtain this concentration, it is generally recommended to reduce one's activities, to make a choice and confine oneself to this choice alone, so as not to disperse one's energy and attention. For the normal man, this method is good, sometimes even indispensable. But one can imagine something better. <refhttpsref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/concentration#p14</ref>

"''Q. Mother, at times unpleasant thoughts come and disturb us. How can we get rid of them?"''

"''A." '' There are several methods. Generally—but it depends on people—generally, the easiest way is to think of something else. That is, to concentrate one’s attention upon something that has nothing to do with that thought has no connection with that thought, like reading or some work—generally something creative, some creative work. For instance, those who write, while they are writing (let us take simply a novelist), while he is writing, all other thoughts are gone, for he is concentrated on what he is doing. When he finishes writing, if he has no control, the other thoughts will return. But precisely when one is attacked by a thought, one can try to do some creative work; for example, the scientist could do some research work, a special study to discover something, something that is very absorbing; that is the easiest way. Naturally, those who have begun to control their thought can make a movement of rejection; push aside the thought as one would a physical object. But that is more difficult and asks for a much greater mastery. If one can manage it, it is more active, in the sense that if you reject that movement, that thought, if you chase it off effectively and constantly or almost repeatedly, finally it does not come any more. But in the other case, it can always return. That makes two methods.

"''Q. Sweet Mother, how can one enter into the feelings of a piece of music played by someone else?"''

"''A." '' In the same way as one can share the emotions of another person by sympathy, spontaneously, by an affinity more or less deep, or else by an effort of concentration which ends in identification. It is this last process that one adopts when one listens to music with an intense and concentrated attention, to the point of checking all other noise in the head and obtaining a complete silence, into which fall, by drop, the notes of the music whose sound alone remains; and with the sound all the feelings, all the movements of emotion can be perceived, experienced, felt as if they were produced in ourselves. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/arts#p83,p84</ref>