Euphorbia
Millii Bojeri is a spectacular, sharply thorned shrub,
about 90 cms (3 ft) high and irregularly branched,
with a few oval leaves near the tops of the branches.
The flowers come in the leave axils in branching
cymes; they are long lasting and brilliant scarlet.
The plant is a native of Madagascar but also very
common throughout India. This small sprawling shrub
armed all over its stem with long sharp spines is
very striking with its combination of green leaves
and red bracts. There are also white and yellow
varieties.
In our garden the plants grow well in a rocky area
exposed to the sun. But it is said to thrive best in
a mixture of charcoal, leaf-mould and brick rubble.
It flowers practically all around the year but does
not set fruits in India. It contains a milky sap like
many euphorbias and can be propagated by cuttings.
Here are some excerpts from the writings of Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother on the importance and value
of Concentration..
"By concentration on anything whatsoever we are
able to know that thing, to make it deliver up its
concealed secrets…
By concentration again the whole will can be gathered
up for the acquisition of that which is still
ungrasped, still beyond us… By concentration of
our whole being on one status of itself we can become
whatever we choose…"
- Sri
Aurobindo
"Moreover,
whatever you may want to do in life, one thing is
absolutely indispensable and at the basis of
everything, the capacity of concentrating the
attention. If you are able to gather together the
rays of attention and consciousness on one point and
can maintain this concentration with a persistent
will, nothing can resist it – whatever it may be,
from the most material physical development to the
highest spiritual one. But this discipline must be
followed in a constant and, it may be said,
imperturbable way; not that you should always be
concentrated on the same thing – that's not what
I mean, I mean learning to concentrate.
And materially, for studies, sports, all physical or
mental development, it is absolutely indispensable.
And the value of an individual is proportionate to
the value of his attention.
And from the spiritual point of view it is still more
important. There is no spiritual obstacle which can
resist a penetrating power of concentration. For
instance, the discovery of the psychic being, union
with the inner Divine, opening to the higher spheres,
all can be obtained by an intense and obstinate power
of concentration – but one must learn how to do
it.
There is nothing in the human or even in the
superhuman field, to which the power of concentration
is not the key.
You can be the best athlete, you can be the best
student, you can be an artistic, literary or
scientific genius, you can be the greatest saint with
that faculty. And everyone has in himself a tiny
little beginning of it – it is given to
everybody, but people do not cultivate it."
*
"The more we concentrate on the goal, the more
it blossoms forth and becomes precise."
- The
Mother
