Staying Spiritually Focused

 

Photo Credit: Fearless Soul

Staying Spiritually Focused

Today’s world is full of distractions – never before have there been so many mediums though which we get bombarded with news, jokes, videos, memes and so on. The world has literally shrunk into the palm of our hand! In fact, research shows that phone users check their phones on an average 80 times per day. In addition, people check their phones 7-8 times per hour – that is at least once every 8 – 10 minutes! Majority of the people in the study check their phones the moment they wake up – the objective of this analysis is to highlight the destructive effect of cell phones on our life. No doubt there are hundreds of positives – but the positives remain positives only if we control the gadget – but unfortunately, today, it appears that the gadget has got complete control over our behaviour!

With this level of distraction in our lives just from one gadget – imagine how unfocused we become when we add other media to it, TV, print and plain old gossip. Most of our waking time just goes in checking posts either on the laptop or on the handphone!

Even when we find a quiet moment, we feel the urge to check the phone rather than enjoy that peaceful moment. A simple definition of distraction is, “something that turns our attention away from something we want to concentrate on.”

The question is how do we bring back focus so that we can attain our spiritual goal in spite of the myriad distractions that come our way. We basically need to learn how to use the gadgets for our progress – both in the material world as well as the spiritual world. There is no point in becoming prisoners of our gadgets. I have seen people getting stressed out even when the battery on their gadget still has 60% life. ‘What if’ questions arise in their minds and they end up looking for charging points to charge their gadgets.

A simple way to focus is to start loving whatever we are doing in the moment – if we are studying, then switch off the gadgets and study. If we are in office, use the gadgets for your professional assignments rather than checking WhatsApp and other social media apps for jokes, memes, entertainment! Get totally involved in whatever you are doing in a manner that keeps your interest in the task. If you get bored and start losing focus, try another way, try to make it interesting so that the focus returns.

The same goes for meditation – just remain still, watch your thoughts and focus on the crown chakra, slowly the gap between two thoughts reduces, you find a few seconds of silence. Slowly, with practice this gap increases, as there are more periods of silence – suddenly you go into deep meditation, a different dimension where there is only silence and indescribable love, peace, bliss and joy.