Focus sharpens the mind and relaxation expands the mind. Just an expanded mind without sharpness cannot bring the holistic development. At the same time, just the sharp mind without expansion causes tension, anger and frustration The balance between the focussed mind and expanded consciousness brings perfection.
Both Sudarshan Kriya and the Advanced Course techniques with meditations are aimed at developing a balanced consciousness that will help you achieve better results
Meditation
If you are running a race. You only look at your track and you do your best. You don’t look left and right. If you keep looking left and right, who is going where, you will lose your race. Pulling down others is not going to make you run faster. Your success depends on you, and you only. For this, you need enough energy, you need to have a stress-free mind, intuitive ability, and a clear vision of where you want to go, and what you want to do. To accomplish all this, meditation will be the biggest aid for you. By meditating regularly twice a day your intuitive ability and innovative spirit will become better.
Understanding Mind Mechanism to increase focus
You cannot directly control the mind. It’s not possible. Mind gets focused when you like something. Then the mind is there fully, right? If you love something, you don’t need to focus. Focus is already there.
- Love brings focus along with it. Once you fall in love with something or are passionate about it, focus comes all by itself. There is nothing to do! And the decision to like something is totally yours.
- Greed may help you focus when you don’t love something.
- Fear will automatically take focus along with it
- Dispassion if none of these three work, the fourth one I would say is dispassion. Dispassion can bring focus. Pranayama breathing is the fifth one. Suppose you don’t like something still you had to focus. Then take the help of the breath. Breath can help mind focus.
Being in Knowledge
The nature of the mind is to waver, similar to how the nature of water is to flow. Now how do you reduce this wavering nature of the mind? It is through practice (abhyaasa) and dispassion (vairagya). Dispassion is when you say with awareness, ‘I don’t want anything. I have enough (contentment)! Everything in the world changes; nothing is permanent. I don’t mind if I have or don’t have something.’
Awareness depends upon your ability to shut your windows. When there is a storm you need to shut your windows, otherwise you will get wet. When it is hot and suffocating inside, you need to open your windows. Your senses are like the windows. When you have the ability to open and shut your windows at your will then you are free and you are awake. When your windows cannot be shut or opened, you are bound. Attending to that is sadhana or practice (abhyaasa).
Being Grateful
You cannot be grateful and feel the lack. The two cannot exist at the same time. When you feel grateful, you feel full. When you feel lack, grumbling begins from some corner. If you feel grateful, gratitude will increase in you and you will be given more. If you keep on grumbling, the negativity in you will increase. Jesus said, “For those who have not, what little they have will be taken from them. And to those who have, more will be given. And more. And more.” This is the law of the nature. For those who do not have this knowledge, there is no way to get out of their grumbling. It becomes a habit. This applies to relationships too.
In gratefulness, everything that supports life grows. When people grumble all through life, their minds don’t focus properly. Naturally, they tend to lose out. Even on the material plane, when consciousness is flooded with lack, lack grows. But if you feel you have plenty, plentifulness grows. Being grateful is the key to understanding consciousness which is power ,energy, beauty and wealth which permeates all creations and it leads to a focussed mind.
Enhancing focus and concentration in case of students
Students face the biggest challenge in concentrating in studies and should watch for the following
- Diet- Watch what you are eating. Diet makes a big difference. Eat proper food, sometime it is the type of food you eat that matters.. Junk food can also block your mind.
- Do you do any physical exercises? If you just keep sitting on a couch watching TV, or keep sitting in front of a computer with internet etc. then the circulation is less in your body. Then you tend to become lazy and will not feel like studying. So, it is necessary to do a little bit of physical exercise, yoga.
- Do Pranayama and meditation and also participate a little in singing etc. Doing all these, whatever is the need for your system will be furnished, and then you can grasp more in studies. Meditation sharpens the mind through focus, and expands the mind through relaxation . Your learning and retaining capacity will increase, and you will be able to study as well as gain much more in shorter time.
- In-between studies take some time to relax, listen to music. Have confidence that everything will be okay
- This is most important followed by Prayerfulness – the feeling that only the best will happen to me and then proper food and rest, pranayam and yoga – all this will help
Please find link below for our workshops on learning Sudarshan Kriya and Advance Meditation Program
