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The Ultimate Focus of Concentration · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  The genius of the Rishis of ancient India was their ability
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  to focus on the essential core of knowledge, will and
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  existence. They reminded us that we can
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  obtain many forms and types of knowledge, but each of these is
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  but a fragment, an isolated fact or event.
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  If we have not identified that central knowledge which being
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  known, all is known. Similarly, when we focus our
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  will on an aim, it should be to reach that central status that
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  represents the core of our existence.
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  Young Brugu in the Tituria Upanishad asks his father and
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  preceptor to teach him the Eternal.
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  The reply is illustrative. Seek thou to know that from
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  which these creatures are born, whereby being born they live,
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  and to which they go hence and enter again, for that is the
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  eternal. The Cana Upanishad provides an
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  extensive exposition of this insight.
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  That which is unexpressed by the Word, that by which the word is
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  expressed. Know that to be the Brahman and
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  not this which men follow after here, that which thinks not by
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  the mind that by which the mind is thought.
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  Know that to be the Brahman and not this which men follow after
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  here. Sri Auro Bindo's translation
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  Concentration can be focused on any phenomenal result in the
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  world, but it finds its highest use in withdrawing focus from
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  the outer things and events and turning its attention to the
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  essential core reality. Sri Robindo observes quote.
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  It is by the thought that we dissipate ourselves in the
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  phenomenal. It is by the gathering back of
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  the thought into itself that we must draw ourselves back into
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  the real. Concentration has three powers
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  by which this aim can be affected.
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  By concentration on anything whatsoever, we are able to know
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  that thing, to make it deliver up its concealed secrets.
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  We must use this power to know not things, but the one thing in
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  itself. By concentration again, the
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  whole will can be gathered up for the acquisition of that
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  which is still ungrasped, still beyond us.
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  This power, if it is sufficiently trained,
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  sufficiently single minded, sufficiently sincere, sure of
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  itself, faithful to itself alone, absolute in faith, we can
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  use for the acquisition of any object whatsoever.
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  But we ought to use it not for the acquisition of the many
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  objects which the world offers to us, but to grasp spiritually
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  that one object worthy of pursuit which is also the one
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  subject worthy of knowledge. By concentration of our whole
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  being on one status of itself, we can become whatever we
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  choose. We can become, for instance,
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  even if we were to be for a mass of weaknesses and fears, a mass
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  instead of strength and courage, Or we can become all a great
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  purity, holiness, and peace, or a single universal soul of love.
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  But we ought, it is said, to use this power to become not even
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  these things, high as they may be, in comparison with what we
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  now are, but rather to become that which is above all things
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  and free from all action and attributes, the pure and
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  Absolute being all else, all other concentration can only be
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  valuable for preparation for previous steps, for a gradual
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  training of the dissolute and self dissipating thought, will,
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  and being towards their grand and unique object.
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  End Quote. Reference.
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  Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Powers Within, Chapter 4,
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  Concentration, pages 44 to 45.