The Power of paying attention

Enhanced focus can transform ordinary tasks into mindfulness

• Eastern Eye
• 13 July, 2024

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By: Eastern Eye

A FEW years ago, I took a small group of people on a trek on a railway track between Subramanya and Mangalore in Karnataka, south India.

 This stretch has more than 300 bridges and 100 tunnels. You are practically either on a bridge or in a tunnel most of the time, and it is an absolutely wonderful mountain. 

 Some tunnels are more than a kilometre long. It is pitch dark inside, even during the day – you cannot see your own hand in front of you and after a while, you do not know whether your eyes are open or closed. 

 Most people have perhaps never been in a place like that – even starlight gives you some sense of vision. In the tunnels, there is absolutely no vision; it is pitch black. 

 I made the group walk in those tunnels without any torches. There could be a ditch, there could be an opening, there could be anything. And bats are flying all over – they do not see anything either, but they are damn sure about where they are going. They are flying really close to you all over the place.  

Initially, people were scared, but after a while, slowly, they started walking and enjoying the whole experience.  

If you are in a place like that, your attention becomes heightened. If you can keep your attention like this every moment of your life, then you will glow. 

 The very first step of even thinking spiritual came to you only because of a certain level of attention. If you pay much more attention to everything, above all, if you heighten your ability to be attentive that could be used in miraculous ways.  

For this to happen, you have to pay a lot of attention. But you cannot pay a lot of attention to anything because you can only pay what you have. But in what you have also you save – that’s not okay. Whatever attention level you have right now is not all that is possible. There is more, but that is still in an un-manifest state where you do not have access to it. 

 But at least you must pay what you have. Even with your mental attention, all of it is not there right now. You are at different levels of attention at different times of your life.  

If you are doing your work, you are in one level of attention; if you are in meditation you are in a different level of attention; if you are eating something you like very much, you are in a different level of attention; if you are watching a video or something you like, you are in a different level of attention. 

 Your levels of attention are different at different times, and whatever the peak attention you had in your life at any time, that is still not all of it. That is just a small part of it. You are capable of much more attention. Suppose I leave you without a torch in the middle of the forest at night, when it is pitch dark, you will see that your level of attention will be different. When you face danger and hear wild animals, but you cannot see anything, you will be in a different level of attention. If it is a question of life and death, you will become attentive in a completely different way. 

 It is only when you truly pay attention to your life you see that you don’t know where it begins and where it ends. You are going about as if whatever you are doing is the be all and end all of life. The moment you pay a little attention, you understand that “this is not it.” If you bring this attention to a peak, if you learn to have a heightened sense of attention, then we can teach you methods as to what you must and what you should not attend to within yourself. If you become very attentive, we can look at how to make use of that attentiveness. 

 Ranked among the 50 most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author. He was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan, India’s highest civilian award, in 2017, for exceptional and distinguished service.