Once a Sanyasi went to visit a rich man. The Sanyasi was told that the rich man was busy performing his daily rituals, worshipping various Gods. The Sanyasi was asked to wait outside.
The Sanyasi had to pass time. So, what he did was to dig a hole in the garden. Every time the rich man concluded worshipping one God and moved on to another God, the Sanyasi also started digging another new hole.
So, by the time the rich man completed his worship to all the Gods, the Sanyasi too had dug several holes all over the garden.
Finally, the rich man came out. He looked at what the Sanyasi had done. So many holes!. He exclaimed to the Sanyasi – “if only you had dug a single hole instead of so many, by now you could have found underground water and that would have made a nice well”! Basically, the rich man was pointing out at the futility of digging so many holes instead of a single hole which would have been more useful.
The Sanyasi merely looked at the rich man and calmly said, “Yes, if only you had worshipped a single God instead of so many, the God would have appeared before you”!
Many times, we dilute our energies by focusing on many things simultaneously. We lack clarity and keep hopping between things. That is one of the main reasons why our efforts often don’t bear fruits.
But look at any successful man. He focusses completely on a single goal and he achieves that. Single pointed devotion to whatever we do is the key to our success.
But most of us are unable to do that. Our minds are restless and often jump around like monkeys. Our mind can’t focus on one thing. It keeps hopping around.
Developing a sharp focus, no matter what you do, needs some training. If you develop such a focused mind, then you can efficiently utilize your time and effort on that goal and achieve success.
A focused mind also helps in thwarting unwanted thoughts. As we discussed few episodes ago, the main cause of our stress and hence our health problems is the restlessness of our mind. We are often unable to focus on thoughts that help us, and we tend to get lost in an avalanche of thoughts that take us nowhere. That causes stress.
But if you develop a focused mind, then you can guide the thoughts in a more useful way. You can weed out all negative thoughts that hamper our progress and make our lives miserable.
A well-trained thalamus can focus on only those thoughts that are beneficial to us and the rest of the nagging thoughts would just die down eventually. No attention paid means those thoughts cannot hog the brain resources the way they want.
Even when we get into advanced stages of Yoga, we need to further cut down on thoughts. Not just the negative thoughts, but all thoughts in general. Afterall, Yoga is a way of achieving a completely tranquil mind – neither negative thoughts nor positive thoughts. Almost no thoughts.
That needs a further sharply focused mind. Better ability of the thalamus to be selective in what it attends to.
So, whether your goal is worldly achievements, or success in life, or a healthy stress-free life, or the final ultimate realization, all need a focused mind. Digging too many holes cannot fetch you water. But you only end up losing it by merely sweating out 😉
Yoga has many ways for developing mental focus. While talking about these ways, I will relax my definition of Yoga and look for ways wherever they are available and convenient.
We will discuss those ways in the succeeding episodes.
A series revolving around Mind – Science of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Notions of reality, Mind modulation, Domains beyond Mind, and so on. © Dr. King 2019-2020
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