William Segal: The Force of Attention
The painter and writer William Segal shares more in this thought-provoking excerpt.
The Force of Attention
The role of a conscious human being is to
provide the phenomenal earth world with energies which otherwise would not be
effectively transmitted to the creations and units which make up our world.
Just as right balance and interaction of energies bring unity, Being appears
when harmony and equilibrium replace chaotic imbalance. Being is the universe
under God’s eye.
Attention is the quintessential medium to reveal
man’s dormant energies to himself. Whenever one witnesses the state of the
body, the interplay of thought and feeling, there is an intimation, however
slight, of another current of energy. Through the simple act of attending, one
initiates a new alignment of forces.
Maintenance of a conscious
attention is not easy. The movement, the obligations of day-to-day existence
constantly distract. With no base of operations, no home in one’s organism,
the attention serves random thoughts, feelings, and appetites which conflict
and tyrannize each other.
Sensation of parts or the whole of the
body can anchor the attention; provide it with a kind of habitat. The
structure, becoming more sensitive, helps to unify attention, so it is less
liable to veer into mental channels that consume its power. In turn,
perceptions and sensations are quickened, insights are multiplied.
Opening
to the force of attention evokes a sense of wholeness and equilibrium. One can
glimpse a possibility of a state of awareness immeasurably superior to that of
the reactive mechanism, an awareness which transcends one’s automatic
subject/object mode of response. Freely flowing, the concentrative,
transforming effect of conscious attention brings the disparate tempos of the
centers to a relatively balanced relationship. Thought, feeling, and sensing
are equilibrated under this vibrant, harmonizing influence.
Attention
is an independent force which will not be manipulated by one’s parts. Cleared
of all internal noise, conscious attention is an instrument which vibrates
like a crystal at its own frequency. It is free to receive the signals
broadcast at each moment from a creative universe in communication with all
creatures. However, the attention is not “mine.” In a moment of its presence,
one knows that it does not originate entirely with oneself. Its source
surrounded by mystery, attention communicates energies of a quality the mind
cannot represent. One needs to be at the service of conscious attention; one
prepares for its advent through active stillness.
IN QUIET, tension
free moments, man’s structure is open to energy flows which are ordinarily
blocked. In turn, these energies blend with previously received materials, to
serve the higher in a wordless, nameless exchange. Attention is not only
mediating; it is transmitting. Giving and receiving, God speaks to man.
Receiving
and giving, man speaks to God. Just as man’s structure needs to be vivified by
the infusion of finer vibrations, those very same vibrations require the
mixing of coarse material for their maintenance. Without the upward
transmission of energies through the intermediary of conscious attention, the
universe would give in to entropy. In man, the smallest deformation of a
balanced attention closes down this two way communication.
Alone,
the mind cannot maintain it. A relaxed body, too, is needed. Midway between
micro and macrocosmos, man has his part to play. Returning to the body is a
gesture of opening to the attention which, beckoned, is ready to serve its
cosmological function.