Pay Attention
Spirituality happens only because you paid attention to your life and you saw that you don’t know where it begins and ends.
The only reason why someone is a mystic, or not, is lack of attention. Someone is an artist, someone is not. Someone can shoot straight and someone cannot. Why? Lack of attention.
Whatever attention level you have right now, there is more. But it is still in an unmanifest state where you do not have access to it. So, at least you must pay all of what you have. But even with your mental attention, you are at different levels of attention at different times of your life and at different times of the day. If you are doing 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 that you like, you are in a different level of attention.Your levels of attention are different at different times, and whatever peak attention you have had in your life at any time, that is still not all of it. You are capable of much more.
A few years ago, I took a small group of people on a trek, on a railway track between Subramanya and Mangalore. This stretch has over 300 bridges and 100 tunnels. You are either on a bridge or in a tunnel most of the time. Some of the tunnels are over a kilometer long. Even in the day it is pitch dark. You cannot see your own hand in front of you. Even starlight gives you some sense of vision. But in those tunnels, after some time, you do not know whether your eyes are open or closed, it is that dark.
I made them walk in those tunnels without any torches. Initially, people were terrified but slowly, they started walking and enjoying the whole experience. In a place like that, your attention becomes really heightened. If you can keep your attention like this every moment of your life, then you will glow. You will really glow.
At the ashram, I am constantly pushing people to notice even little things—not just about the cleanliness or aesthetics of the place, but to be absolutely attentive to every little thing. If a pebble has turned over, you must notice it. It is not the pebble, it is that you are attentive. If you bring this attention to a peak, and learn to have a heightened sense of attention, then we can teach you what you must and what you should not attend to within yourself.
Right now, we are still working on people to get them to a certain level of attention. If you become very attentive, we can look at how to make use of that attentiveness.
Spirituality happens only because you paid attention to your life and you saw that you don’t know where it begins and 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 “This is not it.”
So, 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, if you heighten your ability to be attentive, that could be used in miraculous ways.
| Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, and visionary, and a prominent spiritual leader. An author, poet, and internationally renowned speaker, Sadhguru is the founder of Isha Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to human wellbeing. (www.isha.sadhguru.org) |
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