On attention!

 D H Lawrence 

Maria Popova Blog

If you live by the cosmos

You look into the cosmos for a clue

If you live by a personal god

You pray to Him

If you are rational, you think about things over

But it all amounts to the same thing in the end

Prayer or thought or watching the flight of birds

It is all the same process, ultimately of divination

All it depends on is the amount of true , sincere religious concentration 

You can bring to bear on your object

An act of pure attention,  if you are capable of it

Will bring it's own answer. 

And you choose that object to concentrate upon 

Which will best focus your consciousness. 

Every real discovery made   every serious and significant decision ever reached, 

Was reached and made by divination 

The soul stirs   and makes an act of pure attention, 

And that is a discovery 

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It is the same with the study of the stars

Or the sky of the stars

Whatever object will bring consciousness into a state of pure attention 

In a time of perplexity ,

Will also give back an answer to  the perplexity!!!