In 2014, in a research done at the University of Virginia, USA, subjects were asked to sit in a room with blank walls for 15 minutes with nothing but their minds and an electric shock for entertainment.
The results?
Two-third of the men and a quarter of the women preferred the electric shock over simply sitting and doing nothing. One subject pushed the button 190 times. Imagine living with a mind that prefers getting an electric shock 190 times in 15 minutes. How hard must it be for him to be with himself?
You can’t blame them, can you? If you notice closely, our mind is not really a happy wanderer, and thus doing nothing is not an option for it, especially if you are not trained at doing nothing. It either gets bored or annoyed too easily, and thus seeks distraction. We’ve all been brought up in this “go out and do something” world that, for most people, sitting there and doing nothing feels like a waste of time. We always want to do something, and most times more than one thing at a time. We eat while looking at our mobile phones, we talk with our friend while messaging other on Whatsapp, we exercise while listening to music, we watch TV with one eye always on the mobile phone. It’s not a man’s world or a woman’s world anymore. It’s an ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) world. More than 10 million cases are diagnosed in India every year). It’s a world where every second has to be filled with a Whatsapp notification or small talk or tea or some other excuse.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar recently remarked that “Smartphones are my number 1 enemy.” Though Gurudev said it jokingly, there was a serious tone there too. A spiritual leader whose aim is world peace and whose methodology is focussed on individual development, has to be concerned with us spending so much time on our mobile phones. We always want a distraction that takes our mind away from our own mind, and that distraction has to be the best distraction ever. We make sure that we extract all we can from the outside world with all the resources we have in our hands that we lose interest in the subtle things. We want the best entertainment always.
“What’s Wrong with seeking entertainment all the time?”
William James, the “Father of American Psychology”, says - “Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things what sort of a universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.”
And that’s why cultivating a sharp faculty of voluntary attention is important. We become what we attend to. More often than not, we pay attention to our minor flaws more than the kind characteristics we have. By paying more and more attention to these flaws, we make them big and make them loom over us like a big grey cloud. We forget the great blue sky behind it. No wonder low self-confidence is the hallmark of our times. Why phrases like “I don’t deserve happiness” is the reality we live William adds: - “The faculty of bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgement, character and will.” Makes sense, right? If you have to choose between a mind that is dull, agitated, distracted and a mind that is relaxed, joyful and focussed, which one would you choose? Which mind would you want to be friends with? Which mind would you hire, or be in a relationship with? The answer is obvious in. We’ve been paying attention to a wave that comes and goes, rather than the ocean and its serene depth. Whatever we attend to is what manifests as real!
William further adds, “An education which should improve this faculty of sustained voluntary attention would be the education par excellence. The possession of such a steady faculty of attention is unquestionably a great boon”. There you have it from the ‘Father of American Psychology’ as well that an education that can refine our attention is ‘unquestionably a great boon’.
The education for the attention revolution
William was undoubtedly a brilliant man but he clearly never travelled to India, and the following will make it clear. He says, “There is no such thing as voluntary attention sustained for more than a few seconds at a time. I am inclined to think that no one, who is without it, can by any amount of drill or discipline attain it in a very high degree. Its amount is probably a fixed characteristic of the individual.”
William, an American, studied in Harvard, who travelled continents, spoke fluent German and French, never clearly travelled to India, because had he, he would have found not only there are ‘drills and disciplines’ to refine the faculty of attention, they’ve been there and perfected for over thousands of years. India, the birthplace of Samadhi, invented these tools and it spread to all over Asia, and now the world, much before William James was born. The word we are all thinking is ‘Meditation’ - the art of doing nothing; a skill to simply sit there with our minds relaxed and still and observing its activities. The skill to have fun sitting there while doing nothing than taking the electric shocks of the world.
Meditation is the buzzword these days and scientists from all around the globe are now actively studying its benefits. In a study, researchers found that when ADHD patients added a dose of meditation with their medications, they reported a significant improvement in their symptoms. This study focussed on subjects that were suffering from depression, and one of the key outcomes of that depression was their inability to focus on tasks at hand. Meditation’s positive effect on attention paying abilities also helped them in dealing with anxiety and depression. Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has been leading the revolution of attention for more than 40 years now. The techniques taught by The Art of Living like the Sudarshan Kriya in the Happiness program and the Sahaj Samadhi Meditation are excellent tools to refine our faculty of attention, and have been scientifically proven to yield great results.
Meditation is a great discipline to help us refine our attention and in supporting us to stop conducting this cruel experiment of multitasking and distraction. Our minds are getting exhausted from all the constant wandering the flashy visuals and incessant commentary. We need to take a break, relax and slow down. Let’s un-clutter and simplify our life. We need to walk, smile, go out in the physical world and talk to people. We need to breathe; breathe, while observing the ins and outs of the breath. We need to pay attention.
Based on inputs from Dr. Prema Seshadri, Faculty, The Art of Living
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