Friday, October 30, 2015

The importance of attention

The most important quality that anyone can possess is the ability to give undivided attention to his/her surroundings. This means one pointed focus. When you shine your light of attention, the thoughts inside your mind automatically vanish. How many times in a day does your attention wander ? You must have noticed that very often it happens so. When you are not concentrating, the effect of the object wanes. You do not get it fully. You must work through the gap which is nothing but your awareness. You will have a heightened sense of experience, if you operate with your full attention. In fact, this is what love is. 100% attention in the present.You see things as they are. And you experience them real. If there is one thing we must do, it is to cultivate silence. Stop that mind chatter. And just listen. When a person speaks, do not interrupt him. Listen fully. Do not let your attention swing outside the focus of attention. There are so many distractions while you are trying to concentrate. Filter them out. Like noise cancelling headphones. You must have one for yourself.

Like sunlight when it passes through a magnifying glass (convex) can burn paper, so should be the heightened awareness of the mind. When we reach this stage, we will be able to experience the universe around us, in a deeper sense. Because finally who are you ? You are that awareness – pure potential. Your name, your possessions, your relations or your physical body is not going to endure forever. What is left is pure awareness or consciousness trying to experience what is around through you. You are the medium of expression. Know that this consciousness or awareness or potential or whatever you may call it, is indestructible. It survives even after death. You are moving towards purity or perfection. When your awareness is 100%, you become God like. All the good qualities like love, peace, joy, equanimity etc. will become your nature. In the Bible it’s said ‘You know God, when you know yourself’. The day that happens is your transformation.

When you realize that you are much more than a physical body covered by flesh and bones, you have started your quest. In order to answer your questions, you have to delve deep into yourself. Flush out the negatives that you have and attenuate your positive. Apply your innate talent to fields which you love. Do not spend time on things you dislike, although you may be a victim of circumstances. Please persevere while you wait for your dreams to come true. It’s easy to marry the person that you love, but to love a person after marriage requires effort. If your situation is not amenable to you, take steps to change it. Everyday, you may work on a snippet. But slowly and surely, things will change. You can also aim for a rapid transformation by becoming more aware or sensitive to everything around you. To love sometimes you have to be vulnerable. That’s a risk you have to take. But who is going to hurt whom, when we are all the same awareness that is tucked away somewhere in the cradle of the Universe.

Life is very much like a movie. There are three aspects of it : The observer, the observed and the process of observing it. When we are watching a movie we feel that it is real, like a dream. When we sit in a theatre watching a movie, our attention is on what is being projected on a screen. In life, similarly, the projection is on reality (screen) and the projector is our mind. The process of observing it, varies from person to person. Some people put all the attention to the screen. Some people sleep in cinemas. Some people simply think, while watching the movie. So why do we go to cinema’s ? The answer is, for the experience. Companies which make products with a great user experience will thrive. This applies to all aspects of our life. We are creatures of experience. Because deep down we are all observers or pure awareness. A majority of people are unaware of their awareness, and hence we need to bring a new world order. I’m reminded of John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’ and if it were to come true, the world would be a magical place to live. To change the world, you have to change yourself. And when you do it out of a deep sense of awareness, you will experience a world as the dreamers had dreamed of.

One world !

Guru30

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